An Occasional (as opposed to a Periodical) font of infalliable wisdom concerning, well, mostly boardgames, books, and life as a navel-gazing pseudointellecutal thirty-year-old hip-deep in grad school.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Hold the Line

I'm stuck on a sentence, so why not write a bit here...

I've been casting around for a game to have set up where I can pick up a turn here and there as events warrant. The most recent game I've cleared space for is Worthington's Hold the Line, a reimplementation of Clash for a Continent, which is one of my favorites.

I'm of two minds about the upgraded look. Between C4aC and HTL, Worthington has moved up a weight class in terms of graphical presentation. The counters are linen-finished, and the art on them is done by one of the "historical art print" artists, Gary Zaboly. I do like the new board and terrain hexes, even though I found the originals to be serviceable enough. The counters I'm more dubious about; I liked the old wood ones, and with them it was easier to put an infantry unit and a leader/artillery unit in the same hex. That said, from a purely graphic-art perspective they're quite nice.

I've set up the War of Independence scenario for Harlem Heights. I chose it because I didn't know too much about it, and it looked interesting on the board. Washington has cut off part of the English army--some of the best bits of it--and has to outflank it before the reinforcements arrive, which is soon.

When I get a chance to play it, I'll try to post some pictures. When that'll be...