GAMING NEWS: The Tuesday and Wednesday Night Wrap-Ups!

Hi Guys,

Busy week! My old friend Eric Royer, known to many as Chern, is back in action. We met on Tuesday night at A-1 and got to exchange goodies and get a game in. He lent me "Babylon-5: Crusades" and I lent him the two "Star Wars: Clone War" disks and the second season of "Battlestar Galactica."

I was surprised to see so many guys at A-1 on Tuesday night, Apparently Tuesday night is the RPG night with at least four different games going. I was happy to see both Aaron McKinley and Aaron Morneau there among others. Fortunately for me, Eric was going to play the new boardgame "Descent" with Brecht, but Brecht flaked so Eric and I played my copy of "Ticket to Ride: Europe. " It was fun and Eric won handily.

A link to "Ticket to Ride: Europe":

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/14996

Yesterday on Wednesday is my regular night and I met Kimbo, Dick, Mark, Kurt and Mike O'Brien. Mark and Kurt already had a game of "Bloodbowl" (Fantasy Football featuring Dark Elves versus Lizardmen) going so Mike and I played a game of "Ticket to Ride: Europe" and I won this time around. Mike is not the sort that ordinarily goes for train games, but he enjoyed "TtR:Europe." Kurt pulled off a victory in the Bloodbowl game. Apparently Lizardmen win by pummeling the other team and Dark Elves win by being sneaky gits.

A link to "Bloodbowl":

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/712

About that time, Kimbo and Dick showed up to fill out the gaming mini-party. Kimbo and Mike broke off to play "Twilight Struggle," which despite its somewhat boring sounding theme, The Cold War, is a great game. Mike played "The Evil Empire" (The former USSR) and Kimbo played "The Capitalist Cowboys" (The USA) and I observed the first five turns or so of the ten turn game. The game is card-driven and the cards really make the game, covered with period photographs and amusing captions with related events. They ended the game early of the ten-turn ending Mark with the Soviets ahead on the zero-sum scoring meter and called it a draw. The basic goal of the game is to lay down "influence points" to influence, dominate or control individual countries and entire regions. It was fun to watch Mike's "Commies" move on Asia rather than the Middle East and to see Kimbo's "Cowboys" concentrate on the Middle East. There were ony two Arab-Israeli wars in this "alternate universe" and the Israelis pushed Sadat to make peace after only two. It's almost like a world blessed witht he absence of the toothless and ineffectual United Nations. Iran and Iraq also had happier stories than exist in our "real" world. Very interesting game...

A link to "Twilight Struggle":

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/12333

Dick brought "Command and Colors: Ancients" and had devised a clever system to combine DBA with "C&C:A," which worked out very well. He and Mark played one or two games with Dick's new system and it worked out very well indeed. Dick has a point system worked out for "C&C:A" as well as a straight swap between "C&C:A" pieces and DBA army lists. Both Mark and Dick had a good time so I'm guessing it worked out well.

Mark graciously agreed to let me replay the Battle of Cannae as Varro and the Romans while he reprised his role as Cannibal's Carthaginians. This battle went very differently and I led the Romans toa very solid and possibly decisive victory over the Carthaginians in this game. In the real battle of Cannae, Hannibal let the Roman center advance and then swarmed them with his more numerous light infantry, which led to the Romans being overwhelmed. This is more or less what happended the first time I played the Battle of Cannae only I made a better showing with the Romans before losing to mighty Hannibal "Mark."

This time, I was determined to make a better showing and I did. I very carefully advanced the Roman center yesterday and wasn't averse to retreating if my position didn't look viable. Several of my front-line center auxilia took a real beating and I just barely had it retreat behind my second-line medium infantry. At that point, Hannibal "Mark" was clearly ahead, but the Romans had better position; both of their wings were even with the Roman center and the Roman center was in good position to regroup. At that point, Mark tried to bring in his wings to pincer me, but the Roman center regrouped with powerful medium and heavy infantry units and decisively broke the Carthaginian center. There were Roman heavy infantry units almost to the Carthaginian edge of the map when I won. However, it could easily have turned around had I not won when I did. The Carthaginians were pressing down hard on the Roman right and defeated Varro's cavalry before retreating under pressure by Roman auxilia. Hannibal "Mark" could easily have won if I had rolled a little poorer. It was a good game and I'm very impressed with the way "C&C:A" handles these well-known historical battles.

And the biggest news on the personal front for me is that my roommate and I have been approved for a new apartment and they're ready for us to move in this weekend so they'll be little to no gaming for me this upcoming weekend!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.