A realistic portrayal of the Norwegian campaign includes a number of facets that were not needed in the original PQ-17 design. The German invasion and the Allied landings in response are obvious instances, and there are a number of others worth mentioning. In this installment I’ll describe major additions and changes that apply in the Operational scenarios, leaving description of the Campaign scenario and its unique rules for another time.
Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea (ACIS) received an overall warm welcome from the gaming public. For many of our fellow hobbyists the game hits a sweet spot with its epic theme served in the frame of quick and simple gameplay. A second game in the series, Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East, was recently announced on GMT‘s P500 list: https://www.gmtgames.com/p-836-ancient-civilizations-of-the-middle-east.aspx .
During the game’s development, I had the pleasure of assisting designers Mark and Chris, as well as developer Fred, by crafting a functional VASSAL Module for internal team use during playtesting. After the game’s publication, the opportunity arose to polish the Module for a public release. That release was accomplished 9/21/19.
Any series of articles about the people involved with the introduction of Christianity to Ireland must, of course, start with Palladius. Wait, what? Not Patrick? No, the first bishop of the Christians of Ireland was Palladius, the scion of a prominent family in Gaul. His father held the office of praefectus praetorio Galliarum (“Praetorian prefect of the Gallic provinces”) but he pursued a life in the church, and was ordained as a priest around AD 415.
Below is another fantastic article from The Boardgames Chronicle, this time discussing the use of bots in Time of Crisis. You can check out his previous series discussing the major and minor similarities/differences between Commands & Colors: Ancients and Commands & Colors: Medieval here. Enjoy! -Rachel
When Jim Krohn and his team included Unique Ships in the Space Empires: Close Encounters expansion, they opened the door to a cardboard shipwright’s dream workshop. You can build these unique ships pretty much any way you want within certain boundaries. There are a ton of possible configurations to keep you busy: you can build a C5-3 x 3 ship with a shield projector and heavy warheads, and you will do so because it’s just plain cool. That is, if you aren’t bothered by the 26 CP price tag and the fact that you need Ship Tech 7 in order to build it.
Below you will find another fantastic article from Clio’s Board Games, this time discussing Willy Brandt and détente through the lens of GMT’s Twlight Struggle. You can also find this article on Clio’s blog. If you are interested in Clio’s Board Games’ previous article on InsideGMT discussing World War II through the lens of GMT’s Unconditional Surrender!, you can read that here. Enjoy! -Rachel
Designer Frank Chadwick and I have crossed paths a few times in our decades as wargamers. In 1986, I wrapped the Fire & Movement Beginner’s Guide to Strategy Gaming around Frank’s new Battle for Moscow game design. Years later, I would republish Battle for Moscow as a stand-along game with a Winter Counteroffensive expansion kit courtesy of developer Lance McMillan.
Out of the blue, Frank asked if I was interested in publishing a new board wargame, the first from him (I think) since closing Game Designer’s Workshop. Called The Arduous Beginning (inspired by a book of the same name and subject), it used the venerable Battle for Moscow game engine to show the first bounds into Russia of Army Group Center during Operation Barbarossa.
“Am I interested? Frank Chadwick’s return to board wargaming? Huh. Yeah, let me get back to you on that…”
One of the major design objectives for The Last Hundred Yards was to give players the feeling or sensation that actions are occurring simultaneously. One of the ways to achieve this was to break up the distance a unit can maneuver into smaller increments, a maximum of 2-3 hexes. So, for every 2-3 hexes a unit maneuvers, it will suffer at least one fire attack and possibly more depending on the initiative. In general, I deliberately chose to abstract as much as possible (including opportunity fire), allowing players to focus on fire and maneuver and tactics without getting bogged down in the details.
Opportunity fire at long ranges was rare. The engagement range during WW2 for the vast majority of the small arms fire occurred within 100 yards or less. Soldiers, for self-preservation, were loath to fire too soon for fear of divulging their position prematurely and drawing enemy fire or even worse mortar or artillery fire. Assuming the enemy unit was even seen, firing at ranges greater than 100 yards would at best only suppress an enemy unit. Allowing the enemy to get close before firing was significantly more effective, increasing the possibility of an ambush and pinning the enemy in the “kill zone”.
One must also consider real life LOS conditions. Typically, the posture of most defending units at ground level was either they were dug-in, prone, or kneeling behind a wall or window of a building. From this lower perspective, a unit’s LOS would be no more than 2 to 3 feet off the ground and when firing at advancing enemy units at ranges greater than 50 to 75 yards could be problematic, even across open ground. In addition, in the LHY it is assumed as in real life that even open ground has some undulation and vegetation unless it’s a beach, parking lot, airfield, etc.
From a game mechanics perspective, I wanted to avoid the typical opportunity fire situation when maneuvering where a unit must stop in every hex to allow the opposing player the option to fire, (i.e., “do you want to shoot”) and then wait for him to decide if he wanted to do so. Furthermore, you see the results immediately and then can base your next move accordingly. Not only is this disruptive in the flow of the game but with the increase in the number of die rolls it slows play. Most importantly it voids the simultaneous aspect of the game that I am seeking to achieve.
From a behavioral perspective and the reasons stated above, I decided that opportunity fire from small arms would not be considered at ranges greater than 100 yards. For 100 yards and in, the +1 DRM against a unit that maneuvered within two hexes was the simplest and best option for opportunity fire.
Below is another fantastic article from The Boardgames Chronicle, this time discussing the minor similarities/differences between Commands & Colors: Ancients and Commands & Colors: Medieval. Part 1 discussing major changes between the two games can be found here. Enjoy! -Rachel
Below you will find another fantastic article from Clio’s Board Games, this time discussing World War II through the lens of GMT’s Unconditional Surrender!. You can also find this article on Clio’s blog. If you are interested in Clio’s Board Games’ previous series on InsideGMT discussing the fall of Communism through the lens of GMT’s 1989, you can read that here. Enjoy! -Rachel
