I wrote this awhile ago, prior to the storm in tea cup over Tom Vasels snippy anti wargamer comments. All that aside these guys do a good job with the videos. Just stay off the Morals of wargames ok fellas. đ
TOP 5 War Games, Dice Tower-Greg Schmittgens /Judd Vance /”Chief” I only know who Judd is and I’m not super familiar with Tom Vasel’s site but the selection interested me. The #5 scared me…
#5
Napoleonic War
CDG interesting choice…no, see that is me being polite. I respect Gregs choice here, it is HIS choice but coming from a Grognard that just does not gel. IT also is definitively NOT the first ‘real multi player wargame’
Atlantic Storm
– trick taking.? Please, this a wargame in a very abstract sense.
Hold the Line
Introductory war game good choice. Not sure if this is in print or not, as it came out in 2008. Â focussed on the American Revolution.
The game provides some good choices for new players to come to grips with war gaming, you could easily swap in Command and Color Ancients, or VPG’s Napoleon 20 series here.
#4
Much better!
Conflict of Heroes, great tactical level combat at the squad level.
Paths of Glory, I probably should play this one day, but WWI does nothing for me.
Campaign Commander Coral Sea, I know nothing about this game or series, but it sound fascinating. This is published by Bellica Third Generation out of Europe.
[Update, I played a few turns. I like it, however it has some issues with physical components that are frustrating, the rules are a hot stinking mess and Judds re write goes a long way to helping but I’m switching my play to the VASSAL screen where Judds work there is OUTSTANDING.]
#3
The war gamers non war game is in here……but first
Band of Brothers
Twilight Struggle
I think we all know this little hottie. “Smokin'”
Battle Hymn!! Â A surprise choice! In fact 3 solo titles make it into the mix.
#2
Washingtons War
My sense of this game and my limited play is it feels very similar in style to Wellingtons War, swap era, and add thematic cards, same game play. I just did not enjoy it much.
b-17
The guys raise a great point here, this game is meaty in the rule book, however once you play, its all charts and dice. This means if you do want to just ‘play a turn’ either on VASSAL or on your board you can very easily. A very convenient game to play. But I feel you are playing the system…or rather it plays you vis a vie The Hunters
Empire of the Sun
A serious war game. Meaty, deep, robust and full of goodness. I slaver at the prospect of playing this soon! – BUT… a CDG! I have not played yet but I hope to.
#1
Ambush
Washingtons war
Greg chose ASL, as a long time player no doubt ASL would be a love of his. What surprised me was that he had no OCS titles. I think he is a regular player of the series. In fact this was the only MMP title to make the scene. Every other game in print was a GMT title bar CoH I think.
Interesting.
I think if you watch that vid, I have a funny look when he says “first multi-player wargame.” That look was the wheels that were turning. Then I thought, “Kingmaker?” but didn’t think the vid was an open debate and figured the comments would shake that out. You see it in another vid when he says that Waterloo was the first block game. Again, I KNEW that wasn’t right (Quebec pre-dates it).
I think, but am not sure, that he’s a bigger SCS fan than OCS. I never hear him talk about OCS, but he’s put a few SCS games on lists.
Have you played Band of Bros? That game totally “gets it.” So much so, that every time I try a new tactical system, I just shake my head because I can see all of the gamey moves that I can exploit with a simple reading of the rules.
Interesting you mention Bros. We were talking about it this weekend. I think the fresh approach to combat s good. I am not sure I enjoy it as much however as some other tac level games. ‘gameyness’ aside. I’m no fan of the ASL worlds rules burden for the sake of narrative generation and ‘realism’, but somewhere between the two the whole tactical thing could use a reboot.
As a player of ASL, a system I played for ten years plus, I can’t pass this up. Heck I enjoyed ASL, but I always had deep doubts about some of its key mechanics, especially around the breaking of squads, and the rallying by leaders, as if it was mimicking ancient/medieval conflict. And the WWII combat accounts I read just confirmed ASL had got that so wrong.
For me, Band of Brothers gets these and other mechanics right. And you find yourself playing and thinking tactically with fire and manoeuvre with BoB, like no other squad level game. Better, deeper and more challenging BoB scenarios are coming.
BoB is growing. It is so much better that I can’t play ASL anymore.