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Dominant Species: Marine Now on Tabletop Simulator

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Get Your Game On!

You bought a copy of Dominant Species: Marine, it finally arrived and now you can’t play it with your friends because of COVID. What’s a gamer to do?

Round up one to three friends and head to TableTop Simulator, of course.

Thanks to the efforts of Andrew Clifton, enabled by an assist with graphic files from Simon Dorfman, you can now play DS: Marine on TTS (via Steam). Some of the features include: automated setup, functional Reseed, and variant setups for “The Long and the Short of It” options. In addition, the alternate animal displays are available and the Random Earth set-up is also possible now.

As there are a lot of animals swimming around to keep track of, HappyHexagon on BGG passed on this tip for players new to TTS: If you highlight and left-click to grab several items while keeping the left mouse button down, press a number on your keyboard. It will organize the items into rows equal to the number you pressed. This should make organizing and counting cubes on hexes easier.

If you would like to play Dominant Species: Marine on TableTop Simulator (via Steam), follow the link here.

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Congress of Vienna’s Spring Campaign of 1813 AAR from the Transatlantic Team — Introductory/“Short” Scenario

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Introduction by CoV Assistant Designer & Editor, Fred Schachter: Designer Frank Esparrago, Developer Dick Sauer, and I are grateful for the Transatlantic Team’s Congress of Vienna play test contributions. They’re quite the group of sharp, excellent, veteran grognard play testers! What a grand, fun, game the below-described AAR was for the three turn Spring Campaign of 1813 – Introductory /”Short” Scenario with Wargame Flavor Rules: a true “nail biter” to the end, eh? Thanks guys!

To best appreciate this After-Action-Report, a composite of AAR emails I issued the team after each session of play; a background concerning the Congress of Vienna game’s mechanics is helpful (and if this is the first article you’ve ever read regarding this pending GMT P-500 game; it is strongly urged you consult this repository since this article presumes knowledge of what CoV is about). This can be obtained through material found within GMT’s site for the game: GMT Games – Congress of Vienna .

Hopefully, the below AAR provides readers an idea, not only of Congress of Vienna‘s game system, but how players seek applying those mechanics towards achieving victory in their play of this wonderful game by designer Frank Esparrago. Enjoy!

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Time of Crisis – Playing Remotely During a Pandemic

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Below is another great article from The Boardgames Chronicle, this time showing his remote game of Time of Crisis using Tabletop Simulator and VASSAL. If you would like to read this article on his blog, you can find that here. Enjoy! -Rachel

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“Poland is Not Yet Lost”: Playing Next War: Poland (Part 1)

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Ian M. Sullivan is the Special Advisor for Analysis and ISR at the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, US Army Training and Doctrine Command.

Disclaimer: All views expressed in this post are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Army, or Army Training and Doctrine Command

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In The Shadows: Playing the Occupation

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I. Within the occupied territories, the adequate punishment for offences committed against the German State or the occupying power which endanger their security or a state of readiness is on principle the death penalty.”

the first directive of Hitler’s Nacht und Nebel decree
(Courtesy of Bundesarchiv/Wikimedia, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 Germany)

While 100,000 German troops were garrisoning Occupied France during World War Two, most were dealing with the Atlantic Wall, resting combat units, and general occupation duties. So special German units were used for policing actions against the resistance forces while they relied on the French milice irregular units to uncover resistance for Maquis forces.

While designing the actions for the Occupation player, we wanted to show the difference between the two factions. The Germans could use overwhelming force when needed, but they couldn’t be everywhere at once. The French collaborator milice forces were only supplied with light weapons. But as Frenchmen, they had a much easier time mixing with civilians and uncovering resistance forces.

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Congress of Vienna Feb. 2021 Gameboard Update

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The changes made to the Feb. 2021 Congress of Vienna (CoV) Production Gameboard, which replaces the Nov. 2020 edition previously posted on GMT’s site for the game, are based on Vassal play tests conducted by gamers (both veteran grognards and Eurogamers) located in both Europe and the United States. Their diligent contributions while enjoying play of fun and exciting CoV games are most appreciated!

For images of the CoV Vassal gameboard, as well as a wide range of game-related material, including how to play videos and After Action Reports by one of our play test teams (what a game that was!), see GMT’s site: GMT Games – Congress of Vienna .

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Factions in Red Dust Rebellion: Church of the Reclaimer

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We look to Earth and see the climate catastrophe unfolding. The droughts and storms, fires and floods that plague that world are the result of one thing and one thing only.

The base human drive to take more than we need. 

We could have solved this problem centuries ago, but it was too hard. Too hard not to eat our fill and ask for more. Too hard not to burn oil for easy power. Too hard not to package every single confection in its own brightly colored wrapping paper. Too hard not to be self-indulgent, lazy, and weak.

And now the gaze of avarice turns to Mars. A new world to exploit. A new opportunity for more misery, and suffering. A new world to be consumed.

We must fundamentally change our ways as a species. We can no longer afford to live in an adversarial relationship with the world that gave birth to us. We must find a new balance, an equilibrium where we are part of a planet’s ecosystem, not the ravagers of it.

If we are to reclaim our future as a species, we must adapt to the worlds we live on. Not bend them to our will. They are planets, not products. And we are people, not consumers.

If Mars is to become a new home for humanity, then humanity must adapt to Mars. Or we are doomed as a species to repeat the same mistakes, over and over again, until both worlds finally destroy us.

The Ma’Adim, Reclaimer prophet
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Learning A Time for Trumpets One Korps at a Time!

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Written by Kevin Shewfelt

Edited by Bruno Sinigaglio

A Time for Trumpets is a very big game.  It’s a tour de force from the designer and certainly wins the award for diligence of research and accuracy.  You get a lot of bang for your buck when you see how much is packed into this 3” thick box.  The Order of Battle is state of the art; taking what we knew before to new levels of detail on what the Germans had when, and what the US Army could counter with.  The game is rightly considered a MONSTER (at over 2000 counters and 5 full size maps) and as such runs the risk of all other monster games of presenting so much to you, the gamer, all at once that it can get overwhelming if you’re not careful.  The following pages are meant to take some of the sting out of the sheer size of this game (and will go so far to call it a simulation) by focusing on the first few turns in one sector to demonstrate the basic flow of play.  This is done mainly for the benefit of those wanting to see what the game is all about and how the basics work.  Many of the rule sections will not be applicable for this situation, so it is a chance to get to terms with the core mechanics which will be used on every turn, in nearly every Corps.  And once you understand the basics of running a Corps, you can see that running an Army is just a series of Corps operations one after the other.  I hope the following pages are useful if you’ve considered the game and wanted to know a bit more.  I am indebted to John Rainey and Steve Bradford who made the Vassal Module for the game which I used for all the screenshots of this article.  I am also indebted greatly to the designer himself, Bruno Sinigaglio, for taking the time to check my execution of the game was correct per the rules. 

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Why Cards? Resolving Outcomes for In the Shadows

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Early in the design process for In the Shadows, we (Chris, Joe and I) had used dice to determine success or failure for most of the player actions. This allowed us to tailor probability and test quickly within the time constraints of the Consim Game Jam. Our contest entry offered tight play, albeit with a lot of die rolling. Rolling dice can be satisfying, but if done too much during a player turn it can also become tedious and add to the overall length of a game. However, the fewer rolls a design incorporates in a game, the more weight individual outcomes will carry.