The NEW New Boardgames Thread

[Ed Anger]

And it was 'Killer Angels'. My memory: shot.  Just like Dan Sickles.

[CountDeMoney]

My memory: shot.  Just like Dan Sickles.

Same limp, too.   

[Ed Anger]

Ow. 

And you fuckers are going to get me spending again.

[CountDeMoney]

I just noticed the avatar. I laffed.

It's Couples Skate now.  Outta the rink, kid.

[PDH]

And it was 'Killer Angels'. My memory: shot.  Just like Dan Sickles.

Bingo!

[dps]

And it was 'Killer Angels'. My memory: shot.  Just like Dan Sickles.

Yeah, I think I still have my copy of that one.

[PDH]

I do too - it is in the box, in another box, under some more boxes.

[Kleves]

The Chinese have taken down GMT games:

We received some stunning news this morning when we finally heard from our ISP, and they made it clear to us that WE were the lone target of a massive DOS attack, large enough to bring all their servers down. The good news is that it was only a DOS, not something where they got into customer data. So thankfully we have no worries about the security of your data.

The bad news is that we have to find a new ISP and that the GMT site is going to be down for awhile. I spent part of my morning talking with the FBI, so please understand that we can't talk in detail about every aspect that we know while there is an ongoing investigation. The only really important news here is a) your data is fine, and b) the GMT website and e-mail servers are down for the near future.

Some details for you customers:

Contacts and E-Mail. First off, the online chat from the website is down until we have the site up again.

Lost e-mail: If you sent us e-mail since about 3 PM Friday afternoon, it is lost, probably forever. So please resend or call the office ladies.

We have set up a temporary e-mail address for the office ladies that you guys can use to contact them while our gmt mailserver is down. That address is [email protected]. Please use this address for contacts with them until further notice. Thanks!

Orders. Obviously, web-ordering is down until the site is back up. Our office ladies are still ready to take your orders, though, as always! Just call 800-523-6111 or e-mail to [email protected] and they'll fix you up.

E-Mail Updates: I use an off-site service for the mass customer e-mail updates, so I'll use that venue as well as CSW and Facebook to give you guys detailed updates as we move forward. Hopefully, we can get this fixed before too long.

Thanks for your patience with us as we work to get everything back up and functioning normally. If you have any suggestions - especially you guys who work in the realm of internet security, feel free to drop me a line at [email protected].

Enjoy the games!

Gene

[Solmyr]

What, did some GMT game portray 1930s China as disunited?

[CountDeMoney]

What, did some GMT game portray 1930s China as disunited?

Little yellow bastards probably just think their OOB is underpowered in Next War: Korea.

[dps]

What, did some GMT game portray 1930s China as disunited?

Wonder what the PRC's response would be to War of Resistance, with it's 15 different Chinese factions (not counting the various Japanese puppets)? 

[CountDeMoney]

Like everybody else's opinion of HMS/GRD, they wouldn't care.

[CountDeMoney]

Hey Hab or anybody else;  anyone have GMT's Pax Baltica?  I'm sure a few Euros must have it considering the topic.  Interested in thoughts on it.

[Habbaku]

I thought it was a neat idea and the game itself isn't bad, per se (no major errata, the rules are well put together and so on), but...it's lacking in anything of what I would call real fun or significant choices, at least based upon my play of it.

John Buse's thoughts are very similar to my own :

The most troubling part was the lack of any attritional pressure on the Swedes. There is an elaborate Swedish attrition track system, which is triggered when Swedish army blocks are destroyed. But with reasonably careful play, it is very difficult, bordering on impossible, for Swedish army blocks to be destroyed! The combat system is basically Hammer of the Scots, and the Swedish army blocks are mostly, if not entirely, A rated. No Coalition blocks are A rated, so even if weakened, the Swedes should be able to withdraw before combat if they are attacked. They won't lose an army unless there is no retreat path. While retreat is tricky - you can't retreat to the area you attacked from unless you control it - the Swedes can ensure that this generally doesn't happen.

The A rating of many Swedish blocks does provide an incentive to be historically aggressive, but a prudent Swedish player will be cautiously aggressive - somewhat oxymoronic, perhaps, but you'll see how it works in the game. In contrast, the historical Karl XII was crazy-aggressive (the battles are marked on the map, so you can see where Poltava is - but no sane Swedish player will fight a battle there).

Meanwhile, the attritional pressure on the Russians is much more acute, which seems somewhat backwards. With the inevitable loss of territory and the need to modernize its armies, Russia will frequently be on the losing end of the attritional curve, while in our game the Swedes always were able to build to full strength.

This is all based on a single play of the campaign game, so we may be wrong, but I've seen others report similar experiences. I love the period, like the system, and enjoyed playing, but it didn't seem quite right.

[CountDeMoney]

Bummer.  Love the period and the concept, but if it's broken at such a fundamental level, it's broken.