Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game

Rating: 7

The widespread criticisms of the Warhammer Quest Adventure Card Game rule book are justified--few games that I've played are made harder to learn by the included guide than is this one. Primarily, the table layout and flow of the game (especially engagement and combat) should have been detailed with examples that last full turns of a full game: Without online excursions, I would be playing this game incorrectly. I learned much heavier games like Mage Knight, D-Day at Omaha Beach, Conflict of Heroes, Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit 1 & 2, Thunderbolt Apache Leader, and many others from the rule book alone, which is my preferred method.

In any case, this irritating obstacle is a hindrance to what eventually turns out to be a very fun dungeon crawler that has nice artwork, a wry sense of humor, atmosphere, and excitement. The creatures are distinct, and their programming with counterattacks as well as multifaceted activations (wherein foes advance, retreat into the shadows, hurt heroes, hurt their own peers, exhaust heroes, etc.) give them a whole bunch of personality, which only enriches the game world. The customized dice are also clever, and like many, I relish the opportunity that exploding dice may bring. At times, a critical hit is the lone hope of an overwhelmed hero.

Other than the rulebook, I don't have many criticisms, though I'd rather my character simply dies when defeated, rather than continue forward...with impediments to another quest. It took more effort than it should have to internalize this fairly straight forward game, but ultimately, the detailed environments, the strategic dilemmas, the rich art, the sturdy components, and the well-programed villains make the effort worthwhile.

Advanced Squad Leader

Rating: 8.25

Despite concerns about the well-known complexity of any version of Advanced Squad Leader, I convinced a friend of mine to dive into Starter Kit #1 with me. I spent about 5 hours with the 12 page rule book, which is incredibly dense and loaded with cryptic acronyms and abbreviations, though most of what it represents is logical, if not easy to recall in the heat of battle.

The first thing that hit me was how much of this game is based on morale. A LOT of this very complicated system revolves around the motivations and mental state of your soldiers, both broken or unbroken. As an author and screenwriter who always thinks about motivations for characters, this continual focus on the mental well being of the soldiers immediately distinguished this system from some of the others I’ve played.

Also compelling is how risky offensive gambles can turn disastrously wrong—defenders are not limited to a single action if the attacker is aggressive enough, so the system almost never settles down and becomes “safe” for an opponent the way that it does in something like Conflict of Heroes nor is it locked by activation cards as it is in something like Battle Cry. Even better is how unclear the Line of Sight can be to the player---a shot can be blocked by less than millimeter and you won’t know it until you’ve stretched thread across the board and sent the lead to no avail.

A few bits of chrome stand out as a little clunky to me at this stage. In particular, it seems like most of the time soldiers will not move via Assault Movement, so instead of very, very, very regularly applying a -1 for First Fire Non Assault Movement, it would be simpler to rebalance the statistic and just add a +1 for the few times that AM is used. Maybe the experienced grognard uses Assault Movement all the time, but it wasn’t so in my limited experience thus far.

Other than FFNAM and a couple of other things, this incredibly sophisticated system details the tactics and mindset of squad level combat and is a more “ground level experience” than most of the other war games that I’ve enjoyed because of its complexity. The fluid and shifting interplay of the combat in this system, the casualty reduction of the units, cowering, residual fire, low crawling, and especially the leader promotion system are great details that put you down in the dirt.

This Starter Kit is worth the effort, but requires a lot of time to absorb—not because it is unclear, but because there are exceptions piled on top of exceptions that exist within exceptions and such a sophisticated interplay in things like Defensive First Fire phase. Oxymoronic terms like Subsequent First Fire don't make things any easier.

I expect to play this iteration for a while, but have already ordered Starter Kit #2, downloaded a guide on transitioning from ASLSK to full ASL, and purchased the full rules for when I want to add more to a game that is already complex, vivid, and engrossing in its simplest incarnation.

Field Commander: Napoleon

Rating: 7

Unlike the elegantly explained and terrific solitaire gem that is Thunderbolt Apache Leader, the rulebook of Field Commander: Napoleon is loaded with typos and lacking a LOT of important information, even though both are from the same talented (and prolific) designer, Dan Verssen. After I did a number of online reconnaissance missions to fill in the clerical blanks, I determined that FC:N was indeed a pretty good game.

I very much like the two differently scaled maps (though I did not love that the combat map looked like a football field). The way the campaigns have both a macro (geographic map) and micro (battle map) focus is really nice. Although interesting conceptually, the Battle Plan assignment phase seems to complicate and slow down things more than I’d like, especially with all of the unclear abbreviations and forced non-assignments that may occur.

I played Field Commander: Napoleon in full three times, and I had an ‘Inferior Victory’ the third time, but the lack of fluidity with the combat sections (even after many hours of play) and the quantity of modifiers that are scattered throughout the rule book, but listed nowhere else made it too clunky and procedural to flow.

So it’s a pretty good game that underperforms when compared to complete DVG successes like Thunderbolt Apache Leader (which gets my highest recommendation as both a war game and a solitaire game) and Warfighter WWII, which I am currently playing for a fourth time and relishing.

Clank!: A Deck Building Adventure

Rating: 7.75

Ranking at the top of current board games that I play with my lovely girlfriend is Clank! For much of its (usual) 60—75 minute duration, this game is a point salad free for all, but this 360 degree scramble is given some direction in that the board is a dungeon delver and there are a limited number of gettable items. Add to this a simple deck building mechanism that multiplies possibilities and creates a puzzle, and the resultant game is a unique and fun conflation. And then there’s that very fun (and ominous) press-your-luck titular mechanic with the dragon bag, from which cubes (wounds) are drawn.

Overall, Clank! is easy to learn and a lot of lighthearted fun....but once somebody exits the dungeon, the countdown to death begins, and the pressure and intensity increase immediately. Kind of like Mage Knight (simplified) meets Super Mario Brothers in a subterranean Candyland.

Silent Victory: U.S. Submarines in the Pacific, 1941-1945

Rating: 5

The comparisons of Silent Victory to B-17: Queen of the Skies are apt, but I'm not enamored with either. Although SV has far more details in terms of weaponry, historical dates, machinery, and awards than does B-17, it requires even more rolls and more steps with only a little bit more decision making per turn.

The chances of your sub hitting the target are about average; the chances of the torpedo being a dud are about average; the chances of the escort that is accompanying the target(s) discovering you are about average. So Silent Victory is built with a lot of 50/50% chances--coin tosses essentially--that can be affected marginally by a player's actions (many modifiers are +1 or -1), and the end result is an average "game" in which the player basically connects various charts and presses his or her luck by flipping a (metaphoric) coin. Partway through my first game, I was tired of the multiple step bookkeeping used to determine the approximate boat size, the exact boat size, and the boat weight for each encounter...and writing statistics down for a board game in tiny boxes is never fun.

I like the idea of measuring submarine success by the tonnage of ships sunk, and there are some nice details (eg. the damage repair system), but I felt that B-17 better used the three boards--those all have thematic visuals that illustrate the battles and game world. The SV boards are two charts with chit boxes and a map that has no play value (but should have).

I understand (but do not share) the nostalgic B-17 fascination, and that game has some very compelling components and innovations working synergistically, but Silent Victory is a new solitaire "game" and doesn't have that quaint yellow musk. Compared to contemporary solitaire gems like Thunderbolt Apache Leader, D-Day at Omaha Beach, and Zulus on the Ramparts! and also the classic solo adventure, Ambush!, Silent Victory is a dry, chart-oriented simulation centered on an endless series of press your luck dice rolls.