Below you will find another fantastic article from Clio’s Board Games. This is the first in an American Revolution article series from Clio that you will find here on InsideGMT and on Clio’s blog. Enjoy! -Rachel
In Napoleon in Egypt, whether in The Conquest scenario or in the Campaign game, the French Player must seize Cairo in order to open up routes to southern and eastern Egypt. Of course, the Mamluks will be there to protect the city from the French troops. Historically, this battle took place on July 21, 1798. At the gates of Cairo, the ferocious Mamluk cavalry was overwhelmed by the infantry of the French Expeditionary Corps. In this article, we will take a more detailed look at the battle of the Pyramids, the most prestigious French victory of Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt.
by Ed Ostermeyer (Master Engineer – Grade 2)
My young friend, it is good to see you.
How can I be of service to you this fine day?
You’ve doubts about the usefulness of what you are doing?
Yes, I’ve heard of the project Simeon Bourgeois has undertaken.
The French Navy is not as close-mouthed as they would like to think that they are.
The second edition of Illusions of Glory: The Great War on the Eastern Front (“IoG”) is currently on the P-500 list.
Links to prototype unit counters, player aid cards, mapboard, and playbook can be found on the IoG webpage.
Pete Chadwick posted in BGG that he’s planning to buy “Illusions of Glory, 2nd Edition” but had issues with a number of place names on the mapboard. I used The West Point Atlas of World War I to name those spaces (see below).
While a Confederate privateer can use his Letter of Marque to, so to speak, “play pirate,” the United States Navy takes a dim view of civilians captaining an armed vessel during war time, or any time for that matter.
In the game “Infernal Machine: Dawn of Submarine Warfare,” the “Navy Way” begins with the vessel’s captain being recognized as an individual with sufficient knowledge, training and honor.
The “Navy Way” is accomplished by “being Commissioned” into the United States Navy.
This series of articles will discuss different gameplay aspects of Echo from the Dark, including an introduction to how they work and what makes them unique from previous COIN/ICS games. Each article will also include a short scenario illustrating the concept.
Over on BoardGameGeek, @Konstantin asked a great question:
Usually, in space empire building games planets/provinces/spaces, etc. simply provide a certain fixed number of money/population/resources etc. what you can spend and that’s it. […] Therefore my question: is it different in “Echo from the Dark”? Particularly, do changes in society take place here and if so, how do they contribute to the (in)stability, rise and fall of your empire?”
Sectors in Echo have a “terrain” type that I’ll talk about more later, but in this first article I’ll focus on how I represent the population.
by Ed Ostermeyer (Master Engineer – Grade 2)
Oh, there you are, my young Inventor friend.
What brings you to this tavern, at this hour of the evening?
You are wondering if your fishboat idea will ultimately be successful.
You are also wondering if what you are building will perhaps “change the rules” of naval warfare, be the start of a new era in warship design and usher in a new era of “terrible-ness?”
You are also concerned about what the future will hold for you personally; correct?
Good questions.
As discussed in the first part of this series, the framing for play in Solitaire TacOps: Ortona, both for standard scenarios and the open campaign, revolves around expanding allied control to clear the individual maps. In the last part of the series we saw this play out through an example using elements of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment to gain control of the first block on the Edge of Town map. While the playthrough visually showed and narratively told how this happened, some of the key mechanics involved were glossed over, specifically as it relates to the German opposition. In this article we will look at the game’s Contact markers, and how they dictate the behavior of the German forces to contest player control (see this article if you are interested in how the player actions work).
A quick note about the playtest art that I use for these articles. As designs move into the prototype and playtesting phase I tend to do the art myself with some level of detail that may seem complete. I do this to clarify the concepts that need to be captured by the art. This is so that I can visually communicate these concepts in a shorthand which is not reflective of what the final art will look like. Once we start moving toward final art we have lined up some wonderful historical consultants to ensure we get all of the details correct.
by Ed Ostermeyer (Master Engineer – Grade 2)
Hello, my young friend, it is good to see you once again.
I note that you have a bandage on your left arm. Is something amiss at your machine shop?
I see, so your associate purchased a lower grade of bituminous coal for your forge.
And some of it, what is the word, “popped” onto you?
The bitumen in that kind of coal will do that if you are not careful.
Your associate was looking to cut costs, was he?
You’ve taken the necessary action?
Good. We’ll not talk of it further.
In the previous installment of this series we talked about some of the influences that went into the framing of the Solitaire TacOps campaign system. This connects operational planning with tactical decision making. The impacts at both scales directly affect the player’s ability to win or lose the campaign. This article will use an actual play session to show how this plays out on a single map of the campaign.
Historically the first urban map was reached on the evening of December 20, 1943, 14 days into the campaign. Solitaire TacOps as a system is less about recreating that history, and more about giving players the historical conditions to make their own decisions. As such, in the open campaign a player can arrive at the edge of Ortona earlier or later depending upon their performance through the regional maps. Those prior decisions and the results from them will determine which formation will be the first to arrive, which itself can have a huge impact on the outcome.
