The NEW New Boardgames Thread

[Maladict]

Thinking of picking up a copy of Bomb Alley.
Is it any good? And does it allow solitaire play?

[CountDeMoney]

I suppose it's solitaire capable...as much as hidden movement of naval and aircraft can be.

But it's my favorite of all the AP WW2 titles.  Brits and Italians.  It's like a Division 1AA match-up.

[Tamas]

Took out Fields of Fire again, and once again I am taken away what a fun and authentic-feeling experience it can be once you tackled the rules (which are, funnily enough, extremely easy once you get a grip. Prepare for furious rulebook-searching until then, though).

You are, in effect, the captain of an infantry company, and you need to worry about terrain, maintaining communication with your platoons during advance, striking a balance between locating and defeating the enemy in due time without running blind into an ambush - fun fun fun

eg:
I started the Normandy campaign again. Right in the first mission the map was very bad: it was small, and the top right section of it was like a huge hill, overseeing most of the rest of the map. Instead of trying to tackle the big hill-section head-on, I designated the left top edge of the map as the objective, trying to use LOS rules to my advantage. Only problem was that one of the two columns of terrain cards leading there had a clear line of sight through most of it, and sure enough, a scouting squad made contact with a German bunker - heavy MG combo, which promptly pinned the squad and its whole platoon behind it for most of the scenario.
I got extremely lucky with the rest of the contact draws though, so all I had to do is flank the bunker and get rid of ze Germans.

Fast forward to the 2nd mission (9th Infantry's first contact with the Falschirmjagers rushing to the defense), and the map is even worse. It is bigger than the first, it only has a single-space hill, but again at the top end of the map. Worst of all, it has some pretty limited safe lines of possible advance, with a lot of open fields and terrains barely giving any cover. The top end of the map, where I had to designate my two objectives, ended up with some boccages on the left end, a couple of village spaces and a church at the right edge. Boccage blocked view to them.

This meant a few things: first of all, I could except to need some considerable firepower to dislodge any enemy held up in the village-with-church section. With time limited, it meant I had to push forward agressively. But, with most lines of advance being abysmal cover-wise, there was a real challenge of bottlenecking myself to oblivion, if the safe routes come under enemy fire.
Only advantage of the clear terrain was that I had some considerable artillery support at my disposal, so spotters could shine in removing initial resistance, or smoke-cover the advance.

Because of this, I decided to move all 3 platoons forward at the same time beside each other, on the right end of the map. Idea being that if any close-range resistance comes up I will be able to quickly lay crossfire on it, and I would use the safest route of the 3 being opened to move up support equipment like my machine gun sections and the bazooka teams.

My luck with the contact draws ended quickly though. While the initial contact with a light machine gun team ended in quickly forcing it to fall back via crossfire, a sniper pinned down one of my platoons, while a squad moving into an open field got teared to pieces by an incoming mortar strike.
But I was about to deal with the sniper and the mortar spotter, when an enemy HQ event (these are pretty rare), triggered a counter-attack. Again, a nasty draw saw my freshly promoted veteran platoon be just about swept away by being hit by an artillery strike while being exposed, an other platoon got less decimated by an other artillery strike due to being already in cover in village houses along the way, and a couple of new machine gun nests opened fire.

So this where I am now. I have lost two platoon commanders, my workhorse platoon of veterans lay dead and injured in a god damn marsh. I will need to move the XO and the 1st Sergeant forward to take charge of the situation, because almost half of the scenario is over and I am yet to encounter the worst resistance.
I will also need to check rules on telephone wires on destroyed units, because those two platoon HQs carried like 2/3rd of my wire stockpile and there is a shitload of terrain to advance, and judged by happenings so far, I don't feel like moving my company HQ forward too much.

Can't wait to get home and continue

[Habbaku]

http://www.nutspublishing.com/To-the-last-man!

Comes out soonish--the pre-order numbers have been met and it's off to the printers for finalizing.  Considering it's based on a tried system, I have high hopes for it.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/128780/pax-porfiriana

A kind of distilled version of Lords of the Sierra Madre that I bought recently and played a few times at the recent Niagara convention.  Players take on the roles of various hacendados of northwest Mexico and the southwest USA and attempt to either succeed in overthrowing Presidente Porfirio Diaz or keeping him propped up (he's good for business!).  Players buy enterprises (mines, ranches, plantations--slaves included--and banks), recruit business partners, exploit the locals and engage in troop movements either to protect their own businesses or to extort other players' enterprises.  Four stages of governance (Anarchy, US Intervention, Martial Law and Pax Porfiriana) determine how much each business produces while the players constantly try to manipulate the stage of governance to their own advantage.

Even with my playing it three times already, there's still plenty that I haven't seen.  The game has a deck of 200 cards and only ~40-60 of them will see play each game based on the number of players.  Some games will be relatively poor in the number of enterprises, making money extremely scarce where others will see the players flush with gold and outbidding one-another on things to spend it on.  A neat, little system all around.

[Tamas]

Didn't I mention Pax Porfiriana here already? It's really cool and was well liked by my boardgaming crowd, despite them being quite far from history nerdness on the Languish scale.

What you need to do, Habs, is a Vassal module for it, so we can have a Languish game of it, as that would be total hillarity

[Habbaku]

Didn't I mention Pax Porfiriana here already?

If you did, my scroll wheel ate it. 

It's really cool and was well liked by my boardgaming crowd, despite them being quite far from history nerdness on the Languish scale.

What you need to do, Habs, is a Vassal module for it, so we can have a Languish game of it, as that would be total hillarity

Buy me a scanner and I'll think about it.

[Habbaku]

Look what I found!

http://www.vassalengine.org/wiki/Pax_Porfiriana

[Tamas]

Even with my playing it three times already, there's still plenty that I haven't seen.  The game has a deck of 200 cards and only ~40-60 of them will see play each game based on the number of players.  Some games will be relatively poor in the number of enterprises, making money extremely scarce where others will see the players flush with gold and outbidding one-another on things to spend it on.  A neat, little system all around.

I only played two games of this, the first had an abundance of enterprises, so was like a relatively peaceful tableau-building game, with gradually escalating "PvP" actions as the economical empires built up.

The second was much more scarce on businesses, so there was some fierce give and take of hurtful cards and troops, which of course made the existing Mexican businesses even more risky, and everyone tried to take some US enterprises for a more stable income.

But despite these two greatly different plays, in both instances, the player who took a measured long-term stance to building up his empire won, which I found particularly impressive about the system: despite the high randomness, crazy high-risk play seemed to not work.

VASSAL module looks great, too bad there's only 4 players.

[CountDeMoney]

GMT's first shipping and production update for the year, for those of you not on their email list:

Charging and Shipping Schedule

Shipping: We will begin shipping our newest game, Commands & Colors Napoleonics Expansion: The Russian Army, late this week.

Charging: As we announced last week, we will charge for Commands & Colors Napoleonics Expansion: The Russian Army tomorrow, February 5th. If you use the "pay by check" option for your P500 orders, please send your check right away, as we will begin shipping late this week. We won't have any more charges for a couple weeks, until we get closer to having the March releases in the warehouse.

Tentative Production Schedule

Tony and Mark have laid out a Master Production Schedule for most of 2013. As always, this is a TENTATIVE schedule - things could change based on final development issues, production snags, etc - and new games could pop onto the list as you guys order your favorites. You can figure, though, that the 1st and 2nd Quarter information is pretty firm, with things getting a bit hazier for 3rd and (especially) 4th quarter. So, that said, here's what the current tentative game release schedule looks like:

Late this Week:
C & C Napoleonics: The Russian Army

March, 2013:
Iron & Oak
Newtown/Oriskany
Rebel Raiders on the High Seas

April, 2013:
Battle for Normandy Expansion Pack
Roads to Moscow

May, 2013:
Combat Commander BP #5: Fall of the West
No Retreat: The North African Front

June, 2013
C & C Napoleonics: The Austrians
Navajo Wars
The Supreme Commander
The Hunters (for ConSim Press)

July, 2013:
Sichelschnitt, 1940 (Name Change Coming Soon)
Operation Dauntless
C&C Ancients Reprints of Expansions 1,2,3

For WBC, 2013:
A Distant Plain
Cuba Libre
A World at War (Reprint)
Sekigahara (Reprint)

Mid-Late 3rd Quarter, 2013
1914: Offensive a Outrance
C&C Napoleonics: The Prussian Army
Churchill
The Dark Valley
Thunder Alley
Won by the Sword

4th Quarter, 2013 (VERY tentative):
Blood & Roses
Combat Commander BP 6: Sea Lion
Panzer Expansion #3: Drive to the Rhine
Unconditional Surrender
Wild Blue Yonder

[Habbaku]

Rebel Raiders and Won By the Sword are the only things I want.  I used to order a lot more from GMT.   

[CountDeMoney]

I used to order a lot more from GMT.   

I don't know if it's a lack of imagination, or the fact that anything that could conceivably be covered has been covered.

[Habbaku]

Lack of imagination and a lot of rehashes, mainly.  I have plenty of MMP and Clash of Arms stuff on pre-order and most of the stuff that Battles/Nuts Publishing has been putting out has been worthwhile.

[Habbaku]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1280624810/the-guns-of-gettysburg

Guns of Gettysburg (the "sequel" to Bowen Simmons' Napoleon's Triumph and Bonaparte at Marengo) is up on KS.  Some of the locals and I have done the 4-copy option.  Judging from all the developer diaries that have been published through the years and based on the fun of NT, I'm hoping for good things out of this.

[Berkut]

But NT sucked.

[11B4V]

What is the hook of this game as opposed to every other Gettysburg game out there?