Below is another great article from The Boardgames Chronicle, this time discussing his experience playing Sekigahara and playing face to face again with a friend for the first time in months. If you would like to read this article on his blog, you can find that here. Enjoy! -Rachel
For those interested, here is a cross-post from Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea and Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East Co-Designer Mark McLaughlin’s blog where he shares an audio recording of the account from Pharoh Rameses III describing his victory over the Sea Peoples. In this article, Mark also discusses the Sea Peoples as they appear in both of his ancient world games. You can also read this article on his blog here. Enjoy!
Below is an article featuring Pendragon insights and first impressions from first time player and InsideGMT contributor David Wiley of Swords and Chit and Cardboard Clash. You can also find this article on David’s blog. Enjoy! -Rachel
In previous installments, I have described the “main characters” in Banish the Snakes: the historic people that players represent in their attempts to convert Ireland. But now I’m moving on to the “supporting cast” of historic characters, people who were notable in the history of the time and show up in the game on Event cards. First up is the most famous High King of Ireland, Niall Noígíallach- translated into English as Neil of the Nine Hostages.
Introduction by Congress of Vienna (CoV)’s Editor, Fred Schachter – To familiarize the InsideGMT audience of what designer Frank Esparrago accomplished with his fun and exciting Congress of Vienna game, now a GMT P-500 offering which has “Made the Cut” (thank you patrons, thank you so very much!) please reference previous InsideGMT articles covering a wide range of CoV topics. These contain background which will help you better appreciate this article. Use the following link to access this material: https://www.gmtgames.com/p-850-congress-of-vienna.aspx.
The CoV play test team, now mostly using VASSAL due to being geographically disparate, have enjoyed many exciting Congress of Vienna games. The team has held many an interesting debate considering how to best play France in Congress of Vienna. This article reflects their most recent musings as described by game designer Frank Esparrago.
The game rules this article alludes to will unfortunately need to remain implicit: a restriction an article format such as this compels which readers shall hopefully understand. That said, take it away Frank!
Note: If you would like to view any of the below images in a larger size, you can click on the image and it will point you to the full image file.
This is part three of a three-part series of articles examining all the influence cards in The Barracks Emperors, one suit at a time. If you would like to read the previous two parts of this series, they can be found here and here. In this final article, we look at the features of the cards in the Yellow suit. Just as in Time of Crisis, Yellow represents power and influence with the people of Rome. The special abilities provided by the Populace cards vary a little more among themselves than the Senate and Military cards do, but there is some emphasis on affecting how Emperor tricks are resolved and on affecting other Yellow cards.
(Note: All art shown in this article is playtest art only. It is not final.)
If I were to ask you what nation in Seas of Thunder had the most challenging setup in the game, you might be hard pressed to come up with the correct answer (unless you read the title, then have a cookie). Yes, it’s Russia. In fact, the only nation even close to having as unforgiving a start is Italy, who must only decide which ships start in the Mediterranean and which start outside those waters. For the Communists, that would be child’s play. The Soviet Union must fight four separate battles that for the most part cannot be reinforced. Failure in any of these arenas can be crushing to the Allies.
Compiled below you will find the tenth through twelfth installments of an ongoing design diaries series from Border Reivers designer Ed Beach. (The previous installments can be found here.) He regularly publishes new design diaries and other updates on the “Reivers and Reformers” Facebook group, so if you would like to read those as they are released you can do so here. Enjoy! -Rachel
Below you will find an After Action Report from Neil Stevens covering the Battle of Cape Santa Maria scenario from Serpents of the Seas, part of the Flying Colors system. Enjoy!
This is part two in a series of articles examining all the influence cards in The Barracks Emperors, one suit at a time. Part one, which can be found here, discussed Military cards. In this article, we look some of the uses and subtleties of the cards in the Blue suit. Just as in Time of Crisis, Blue represents power and influence with the Senate of Rome. All the special abilities tied to these cards represent things the Senate or the Emperor might rule on, including “peaceful” ways to deal with barbarians and different ways to draw cards, with one notable exception. Read on!
(Note: All art shown in this article is playtest art only. It is not final.)
