Category Archives: Examples of Play

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Fire in the Lake Tru’ng Bot Example of Play: NVA March

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The single most important goal of the new COIN bot designs is usability. There are many places where small changes have been made to enhance usability, but the primary change (and a large one!) is the division of the operation selection and space selection priorities into different charts. Trưng divides these using the same principles as the Arjuna bot in Gandhi: operation selection is now handled by a deck of cards, while space selection is handled by the priorities charts that were previewed in the last article.

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Imperial Struggle: Extended Example of Play

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The Extended Example of Play for Imperial Struggle is up! You can read it here. The example consists of the first Peace Turn and the War of the Spanish Succession; when it ends, the players would move on to the final turn of the Succession Era.

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Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East (ACME) Example of Play Part 3 of 3: Reckoning Phase with Additional Examples of Competition

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Introduction: Part 1 of this article took readers through an Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East (ACME) game’s set-up through its Growth Phase; which includes deployment of each civilization’s disks upon the map. Article Part 2 continued the narrative to include the Card through Competition Phases.

Those familiar with ACME’s predecessor, Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea’s (ACIS) Playbook example of play may observe similarities between that piece and this exposition. However, although both games share the same basic system, there are differences. For details, and links to material which explain game term references (for this article’s limitations can only allude to rulebook details); see an associated InsideGMT article: Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East Design Background and Differences from Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea.

This final installment of an ACME example of play takes this two-player game’s action (Sue as the Egyptians and Bob as the Hittites) into its Reckoning Phase through the turn’s conclusion. Since the last article installment was not that “meaty” insofar as a Competition resolution example was concerned; this piece makes amends by including a real doozy; one which readers shall hopefully find of entertaining interest. Now, let’s return to this Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East’s Epoch One / Turn One action…

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Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East (ACME) Example of Play Part 2 of 3: Card Phase through Competition Phase

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Introduction: Part 1 of this article took readers through an Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East (ACME) game’s setup through its Growth Phase; which includes deployment of each civilization’s disks upon the map.

Those familiar with ACME’s predecessor, Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea’s (ACIS) Playbook example of play may observe similarities between that piece and this exposition. However, although both games share the same basic system, there are differences. For details, and links to material which explain game term references (for this article’s limitations can only allude to rulebook details); see an associated InsideGMT article: Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East Design Background and Differences from Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea.

This ACME Example of Play Article Part 2 shows the tension and uncertainty of one of this game’s key system engines, its Card Phase, as well as the game’s dice-less Competition Phase (used to resolve conflict between civilizations when they vie for the same map area).

So let’s rejoin our protagonists: the Hittite and Egyptian civilizations of a two player game, as they experience ACME’s excitement and uncertain arena of chaos while competing against one another for advantage towards earning an Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East triumph.

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Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East (ACME) Example of Play Part 1 of 3: Game Set-Up through Growth Phase

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Introduction: Those familiar with Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea’s (ACIS) Playbook example of a turn may observe similarities between that piece and this exposition. However, although both games share the same basic system, there are differences. For details, and links to material which explain game term references (for this article’s limitations can only allude to rulebook details); see an associated InsideGMT article: Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East Design Background and Differences from Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea.

Let’s again join Sue and Bob of the ACIS Playbook as they enjoy ACME’s excitement and uncertain arena of chaos while competing against one another for advantage towards earning an Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East triumph.

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Wild Blue Yonder Campaign Tutorial (Part 3 of 3): Mission 2

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A few of the bombers found in Wild Blue Yonder.

To start the second mission of this campaign, you’ll probably want to reshuffle the action decks before going back to 24.3.C.1 to generate a new mission. I’ll go through this part quickly, since we already covered mission selection in the first article. The Axis player draws an IN MY SIGHTS (1B) card and cross references it to the Mission table under Stage I to get the number 1. Looking this up on the Mission Target Matrix, we see that the target will be Ground Forces on the 3A Target Card. The strike aircraft will be German JU87B light bombers (the “GE” is telling you to use the German ones, not the Italian planes).

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Wild Blue Yonder Campaign Tutorial (Part 2 of 3): Mission 1

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In our last article, we set up the first mission. In this article, we will look at some examples of play. The first two turns of the first mission and most of the third will play out like a regular dogfight, and have been skipped over in this play-through. Let’s say that the turn order is one element of Hurricanes, then the German planes, then the other Hurricane element. You will be using the campaign sequence of play shown on the back of the campaign book, but you’ll notice that most of the steps that have been added to the basic dogfight sequence can be skipped in this mission. The only other thing to note is that the Allied player needs to have his planes at Low or Very Low altitude by the start of the Over Target turn in order to strafe [21.7].

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Wild Blue Yonder Campaign Tutorial (Part 1 of 3): Setup

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Introduction and Overview

If you are new to Wild Blue Yonder, it might be hard for you to break past the wall of rules to get into the campaigns. This short series of articles will help you dive straight into the easiest campaign (Rommel Attacks), and you can read the pertinent rules as you go. You will need at least a basic familiarity with the dogfighting rules, as I won’t cover those. At some point you will still want to read the campaign rules, as I won’t be able to cover every nuance, but by the end of this article series you should have a solid start on the important parts.

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The Barracks Emperors Preview

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For those of you interested in learning more about one of our newer P500 offerings, The Barracks Emperors, here are a some notes from Brad and Wray as well as a few videos for you to enjoy. -Rachel

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Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea: An Example of Competition Resolution

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Introduction

When I was first introduced to Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea by its Designers (Chris Vorderbruegge and Mark McLaughlin) one of its facets which held immediate appeal was that conflict/battles in this game, called “Competitions”, DID NOT INVOLVE ANY DICE ROLLNG!! 

I’ve been a gamer for decades, since playing my first wargame, Avalon Hill’s D-Day 1961, and for all that time have been plagued by strange dice-rolling.  One of my Rockland Guys gaming buddies, Stephen, had a great tee shirt for when we attended conventions: it had in big letters the saying “I win on anything but a one… ARGHHH!” Yup, that’s a gaming garment I’m in great sympathy with.

When Mark and I were play-testing Kutuzov; one of the games in The Napoleonic Wars series, there was a memorable game when my French invaders took eighty-five (85!) dice rolls to take out a two value Russian border fortress. Those of you familiar with the Nappy game series should appreciate what a game-losing feat that was!

So, although there’s still “luck with cards” in Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea… at least there’s no dice rolling to contend with! 

There is a wealth of information concerning this game within InsideGMT.  There are After-Action-Reports with explanations of the game’s cards and Civilizations (each with its special attributes) as well as a rendition of its “near final” map.  But until this article, discussion of the actual mechanics of resolving a Competition was lacking.

This is hopefully now remedied and those gamers, like me, who dread taking dice in hand, can take heart instead.