First club games of the year

Had our first club games of the year. I meant to take photos, but my shaky hand meant the photos were a bit fuzzy. So just written comments for now.

First was ADG.  There were 3 club tourney games going on in the one night.  I was involved with a Wars of Roses civil war with Yorkist armies on both sides. It was touch and go for much of the evening, but my billmen managed to get amonst the enemy bow and eventually I won through. It was close though; I lost 2/3 of my army in disordered and routed units. 

The other games saw the Arabs defeat the Normans, though again at a cost. And the third game involved the Scots Irish defeating the Spanish / Granadines though at a cost of 21 disordered and routed units out of 23 in the army.

But all good games, and I think we're all starting to move beyond game mechanisms into tactics.  

Last week I was playing a new boardgame, Waterloo, Quelle affair! which a friend got though a kickstarter. He and another chap had played a couple of games. It was a hex game with division unit counters and driven by playing cards.  There were cards for each corps commander and some strategy cards, and you moved the units of a corps when you drew the appropriate commander card. There was another card which you could flip at any point in the turn to initiate combat, though once you had done your combat, that was you for the turn, even if your opponent still had several moves and his combat card still to play. Combat is a kind of buckets-of-dice approach, with one dice rolled for each strength point in an attack against one hex, and looking for 5's or 6's to hit.   

It was OK and an reasonably interesting game, but for me, it suffered in being a bit too close in style to Commands and Colors Napoleonics, though without CnCs tension and drama. I may play it again if offered, though it's so far down my list of things to play that I'll probably never play it.  Now, Commands and Colors Napoleonic is definitely on my list, specially after getting the recent Generals, Marshals and Tacticians expansion.  

Also at the club last week was an ADG game between the Arabs and the Spanish / Granadines / something (I really must find out!).  And four chaps had a Flames of War bash on the go; all mid-war armour.  I can't remember what else was on - some sci-fi game I think.

Next week is more ADG for some, but I'll be playing a Russian Front boardgame.  Still to decide which one, but it may well be my double sized version of Turning Point: Stalingrad.  I'll try to remember a camera and a stand so I can take photos.