I managed to contrive a way to play games two days in a row this week, which is something of a new experience. Even stranger, I played the same game each day.
Friday night, my friend Tim and I eschewed a departmental bowling night (Team building + Beer = Damn near Charles Bukowski) and met for some gaming and conversation. We were hoping for a third, but he failed to materialize. I pulled out a two-player I had tried to get onto the table for some time--GMT's Manouvre.
Many/most/all of you have likely heard of this game by now. It's played on a chessboard with terrain (towns, hills, forests, etc), and each player gets eight pieces representing one or another Napoleonic-era military unit. Each nation gets a different mix of units, and a different mix of cards with which one has those units attack, defend, bombard, get healed, go on forced marches, and on and on. There are also a few leaders in the deck, which give yet more combat bonuses and allow for coordinated attacks.
I took the Turks, Tim took the Prussians. The key to the game was a little clump of hills right in the middle of the board. I managed to plant my Janissaries (by far my best unit) up top, where they became almost unstoppable. Both Tim and I fought like demons, and I won a narrow attrition victory--piling a few cards up to make the attack almost unstoppable. We both agreed we liked the game very much, and would definitely try again.
On Saturday, I went over to Castle Cranky for a trio of games, another of which was Manoeuvre. I took the Austrians; Josh had the French. Each of the various nations has a particular "personality;" the French personality is "being awesome" and the Austrian personality is "being terrible." Still, Josh (weakened by, as he put it, bad card draws) failed to kill a single one of my troops, and I couldn't maintain any kind of bridgehead into his territory. (My Austrians also, naturally, failed to kill any of the French.) Josh won a controlling-the-field victory in style.
And then essentially declared he never wanted to play again. I think, among other things, this points up a major difference between a Eurogame mentality and a Wargame mentality. (Not that one cannot have both; I like to think I do.) The luck of the draw can be maddening to Eurogamers, who demand relatively little luck compared to wargamers, who are obliged to accept that life is not always fair in these games. Managing this gap is one of the key problems for Euro/Wargame crossovers. (The other, of course, being the appropriate level of detail.)
Luckily for Josh, there are other games to play as well. We actually began the day with Gulf, Mobile & Ohio, one of Winsome's Essen 2008 offerings. It involves railroads, and auctions where the money you spend goes towards capitalizing said railroads. It reminded me a great deal of Age of Scheme, but with a few twists. I did like the ending mechanism: There are six colors of cubes, one with about ten cubes, on up to thirty cubes. When a railroad starts, it takes the color of whatever has the most cubes left. Once each color has been used once, the game ends. It's an ending mechanism that really affects how the game plays out. It's good, but I have a lot of good games. I'll try it again, and see what I think.
Finally came Vikings. I bumbled through the game, not entirely certain what was going on, or what all the rules were. I bought stuff that it seemed like I could use, never having much money laying around, and generally wandered around, trying to figure out which of Josh and Jean--both experienced veterans of the game--would win. They had so many vikings! And were creating oodles of gold, lots of nobles for VPs...it was impressive to watch.
Needless to say I won, and by a decent margin. Is this really a game where you can win by making obvious moves? More likely, I think, is that Josh and Jean were too engrossed with their own battle to pay much attention to me. This has worked to my advantage before. My first gmae of Stephenson's Rocket pitted me against two wily veterans, and I clearly looked harmless the whole game. By the end of it, I had more money (VPs) than the bank had left, and more than the other two put together.
Of the three games, I thing I like Manoeuvre the best for the time being; Vikings has some interesting mechanics; I'd like to try again. GM&O didn't grab me, but I'm willing to try again. What's best, though, is that I've managed to play three games from my unplayed list. As a devotee of the Cult of the New, that's a real accomplishment!
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