So in what little free time I have this week I have been playing Hannibal which is just a fantastic game. Spending so much time looking at the board got me thinking how I wish I had a version of the map framed as a poster. Which in turn got me to thinking what a fabulous idea for decorating my bare gaming room walls.

I figure I could fit 4 or 5 framed pieces of art down there so what would they be. I'm open to suggestions, of course trying to get some of these framed is going to be next to impossible but don't let that limit your top 5 list.

Whats mine? Well I haven't thought of the top 5 yet, but I know two of them.

1. The Hannibal Map
2. Tide of Iron Box cover

Neither of those are great shots but they get the point across, now the question is what to use for the other 3.

Well I was feeling run down all week never really 100% from last weekends bout with the flu. Last week was a rough one at work and I didn't get a lot of sleep. I woke up Friday morning about 2 am and proceeded to get sick all over the bed after a few hours of that I passed out. Yesterday I was running close to a 103 fever all day, I got out of bed twice the whole day thats how wrecked I felt. Today I'm running on about 60% engine power, it's amazing when I lived on the east coast I never got sick but since moving to Illinois I've been prone to more illness, maybe it's a sign we should get out of here.

Anyway while I was down for the count the Descent:RTL rules were posted, haven't had a chance to read them myself yet but I put this in with a big order I placed on Tuesday this past week so I'll be getting it for sure.

Pandemic hit the table at game night this week and we lost again, everyone at the club is complaining the game is un-winnable, yet every time I turn around someone is asking to borrow my copy. The same people walking away complaining are the ones playing it all the time. Personally I like how hard it is and it's ok to lose, that makes winning so much sweeter but thats just me I guess.

Finally got to play Britannia this past week, we only played half a game since the playing time is so long and 3 of us were playing for the first time. I really enjoyed the mechanics of this game and I hope to get a shot at playing a full game come convention time.

Well thats it for me today, I'm going to take it easy this weekend but i will be back with the Battlelore contest rules on Monday.

Upon hearing the news yesterday of Gary Gygax’s passing I was a bit surprised at my reaction. While I always take a second to pause when I hear someone has lost their life it is usually just that, a second. However the news of Mr. Gygax’s passing stopped me dead in my tracks, it was possibly the busiest day of the week for me at my day job and I just sat there for several minutes motionless.

It wasn’t shock that stopped me in my tracks as I didn’t know him personally. It wasn’t grief, while I admit I was saddened by the news, he was not a family member. What it did for me was jar memories, lot of memories, lots of good memories.

Back in 1980 I was a freshman in high school, I played 3 sports and was pretty good at two of them and I had been playing D&D for several years. I started by playing Chain Mail, then went to boxed sets of D&D. From there I moved up to AD&D, then version 2 of the rules. I had a very active imagination and Dungeons & Dragons allowed me to express that part of me. I can credit D&D for starting me down the path of gaming, a path that led me to Top Secret, Star Frontiers, Traveler, Diplomacy, Paranoia, Advance Squad Leader and tons of other games that still liter my closet and basement to my wife’s dismay.

I can remember a lot from high school, big games I had on the baseball field, proms, girlfriends and special moments like graduation. None of these are as vivid in my mind as the ones I have from gaming sessions. We had a core group that gamed together weekly pretty much from the early 80’s until the time I move to Chicago in 1990. That’s almost 10 years of gaming, people came and went in our group but there was a good core of 5 of us who were there from beginning to end. I can’t speak for them but it is something I have been unable to capture again in my life time.

I can recall one time in the early days just playing with my friend Dave, he was controlling one guy and I decided to run him through a little module I just bought. That module was the Tomb of Horrors, imagine that two guys playing that module. He was controlling one PC and I was the DM, anyone with a slight knowledge of that module knows that it is impossible to play that module with one guy. There lies the beauty of D&D, while there are rules and there are certainly rule whores as we liked to call them, the game was about so much more then rolling dice and checking stats. The game when played the way it was meant to be played, at least in my mind, was about letting go, being free and having a good laugh with your friends.

Should Dave of gotten through that module, not a chance in hell. But my choice was guide him through it, adjust encounters and have a good time or kill him in about 5 minutes and then figure out what the hell to do next. So I guided Dave through that module and we had a blast and when he met mean Mr. Lich at the end and there was no way for him to win, he was battered down to 1 hit point and I said “Dave the only way you can win this is if you roll two 20’s in a row, if that happens we’ll say you severed his head”

You can guess what happened next, he rolled two twenties, we laughed, he gave a yell it was a blast. I’m 41 and if I called Dave today and just started talking about D&D the first words out of his mouth would be “Two twenties baby!”

You can’t replace these kind of memories and you can diminish the effect a game like this had on people’s lives, D&D allowed you to be yourself and in high school that is a hard thing to be. If you think I was the most popular kid on the baseball or football team because I didn’t hide the fact that I enjoyed D&D or a good game of Axis & Allies you would be kidding yourself. The truth of the matter is I didn’t care what people thought of me, I only cared what my friends and family thought. That’s another lesson that I chalk up to Mr. Gygax and his wonderful game, be yourself and never hide that fact for anyone.

I think the best tribute I can pay to My Gygax and the game of Dungeons and Dragons is this. Today I received an email, from one of the old group’s members. We seldom get the chance to talk to each other anymore, it’s just a fact of life the older you get the busier you are. His email simply stated that the gaming world had lost a great innovator and it was copied to every core member of the old adventure gaming club. The first reply was from a particular friend I haven’t heard from since my wedding which was 10 years ago. He was in Paris on business and like the rest of us was saddened by the loss, but informed us that Mr. Gygax’s death was news in Paris as well. I think it’s the first time the 5 of us have all been involved in a single discussion since 1997, and we may even meet up at Gen Con this year.

So Mr. Gygax I want to thank you. Thank you for playing a small part in who I am today, thank you for some of the longest lasting memories in my life and thank you for inspiring me. You had no idea you had done it but that’s what great people do, they inspire without knowing.

To my old group I leave you with these names and quotes, let us not ever forget them.

Quill Nightshade, a ranger should never be that nice.

C the incredible thief who is still probably polishing his life sized gold statue

Tamchuck the grump dwarf who will always remember this line, “DON’T CUT THE STRING!”

Rob whose characters names escape me, mostly because they died once a session.

Ken whose guys was always away on a secret mission

Finally John, my friend who I heard from today after 10 long years, I have one word for you my friend:

“BEHOLD!” (with the double finger point of course)

Well as previously stated I had a hard time picking a winner, I got it down to 3 submissions and then down to 2. I just couldn't decided because I liked both so I let my wife mull it over for a night and she has ended the dead lock for me. Since I never asked permission to put the contestants names up here I will not be using a last name. The winner has already been notified by email.

The winner is Matt T. and his banner will be going up in the next day. So congrats Matt and enjoy Sins.

My review of Commanders: Attack of the Genos is up over at GameShark who I do an occasional review for. I liked this game but it's certainly not what I would call a hard core strategy game.

We picked the winner of the Sins contest and it was a really tough decision as I was torn on two entires. I announce it later today but I am going to do my best to get the second runner up some kind of prize because I could really use both of these banners.

I'll be back later in the day with some more news.

One of my gaming buddies passed this along. I'll post my thoughts when I have time, but best wishes go out to his family.

I've settled on 3 banners I really like, I wish I had a prize to give all of them but I don't. Because I can't decide which one works best I am going to leave it up to my wife. I'll be announcing the winner tomorrow night.

Days of Wonder has announced a Ticket to Ride Card game, I love TTR as much as the next guy and think the Swiss expansion is a must buy. But I wonder if this is just milking the name for some cash at this point.

Preview #7 is up over at the FFG site, this time covering monster I do believe. I must imagine this game will arrive very shortly to their warehouse to be promoting it this much. Also of interest while I was sick over the weekend, word has broke that an Anniversary Edition of Axis & Allies is due this year in October. This newest edition brings the number of Axis & Allies versions up to 1 million. All kidding aside here is the blurb found on the Geek.

The Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition will feature the debut of Italy as the third Axis nation, the introduction of the cruiser unit to the naval lineup, and the largest Axis & Allies board to-date measuring 24x46 inches. With over 600 pieces, players will be able to recreate and decide the outcome of WWII like never before. The Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition is designed and developed by Larry Harris, the original designer of Axis & Allies, and will release on October 23, 2008.

A&A was one of my favorite games when I was in college, we use to play it all the time. I don't think I've touched the game in many years but I will probably pick this one up. Another Avalon Hill classic being re-printed in anniversary form is Diplomacy, this is due out this month. I still have a version from when I was a kid, it has better bits then this new version.

Thats all for today, this months contest will run later in the month and it will be for one of the Battle Lore expansions, I'll post moreo n that later.

I'll be announcing the winner of the contest in a day or two, the flu has hit my household and my youngest daughter and I our the lucky winners of feeling like a train hit us. I'll try and get back in the swing of it tomorrow.

This time we learn how to pack up the game, yes pack up the game. Road to Legend is an expansion adding a campaign aspect to the game so it can't be done in a single session, at least not by normal people. You can read about it here.

Latest preview is up for the Descent expansion, I think this is preview #5. Also played 3 more games of Pandemic tonight and we lost all of them. That game sure is tough, we missed winning on the last game by just a few moves. The second game of the night was over in about 10 minutes, the game really plays differently each time, I really enjoy it.

Also correction to something I posted last night the game is 2-4 players. Played some Nexus Ops tonight and that is a first for me, I enjoyed it. Tomorrows the last day of the contest and then I will be doing the judging over the weekend.

Pandemic is a great new game which pits 2-5 players against the game. In other words it is my favorite type of game a cooperative one. I'll do a full blown review another time but after just one session I highly recommend it.

My wife Idy and I choose to give this game a whirl tonight, having just got the game today wasn't an issue as it is easy to learn and teach.

Idy drew the Operations Specialist who has the ability to create a research station anywhere they wish without having to have that cities card. I drew the scientist who can cure a disease with 4 cards instead of 5.

Our initial set up saw a large concentration of the Blue disease in North America and a small bit of yellow in South America, Black had a few cubes out and red was almost no existent. Of course Blue had 3 cubes in New York and Atlanta to start the game.

Turn 1 - Idy
She heads to Kinshasha and builds a research station and then does some treatment to remove 2 yellow cubes. Yellow has the second largest concentration so we want to cut down those 3 cube spots.

Turn 2 - Dan
I move to Kinshasha to meet her and wait a turn to get her black cards via shared knowledge. I'm a bit unsure but the card reads that you can pass a card for an action with shared knowledge which we determined means she has to pass it to me. If she had just passed it to me in Atlanta I could be curing the black disease on turn 2 but i didn't notice what cards she had before she made her move.

Turn 3 - Idy
She uses an action to share her black card with me, then moves off to Miami and makes her way to Toronto to try and treat Blue.

Turn 4 - Dan
I cure black, and since there is so little on the board I decided to move through the area trying to eradicate the disease.

Turn 7 - Idy
Idy moves to Baghdad to share some more yellow cards with me, as we have collected 2 apiece and my scientist can cure with 4.

Turn 8 - Dan
I make my way back to Atlanta via a direct flight and then cure yellow. Things are looking good except on my draw phase I get our first epidemic card. Fortunately it is in Hong Kong and Red isn't an issue at this point.

Turn 11 - Idy
Well Blue isn't looking to hot, since the Epidemic I know that it's a matter of time before we have blue outbreaks. I'm trying to treat blue just to get the numbers down and Idy is over in China removing Red. Unfortunately on her Infecter stage she pulls Mexico city which already has 3 yellow cubes so an outbreak occurs and even though we have a cure for yellow a Mexico city Outbreak is an issue.


Turn 12 - Dan
We still don't have any Blue cards in our hands and I know that Atlanta or some other Blue city is due up. I'm still treating Blue and Idy is trying to make her way back to start eradicating yellow.

Unfortunately on my draw phase we have another epidemic and I pick Chicago and this causes and out break. Which chains to Atlanta and that chains to Toronto and in a matter of seconds all of North America is covered and we are out of Blue cubes. Which resulted in many curses from my wife which was funny.

Conclusion
Overall it was a great first game my whole purpose for buying this game was to find something new my wife would enjoy and she gave it a 10 when I asked her to rate it. We saw that we squandered a turn and then took too long in getting to the blue. The first few turns when black wasn't an issue and we had a cure I squandered trying to eradicate black. There is definitely some luck and randomness to the game, but thats what makes the game fun in my opinion. I know we can't wait to play again, tomorrow night I get to see how the gaming group likes it.

I unfortunately forgot my camera and this AAR is from last week. I had to stop penning it due to work and tried to finish it out tonight. Some of the details are a bit hazy at this point. Good news is i am playing another one tomorrow in my gaming room so I should have pictures with that.

Operation Crusader AAR
Todd and I decided to try the Operation Crusader scenario, we figured it would play fast and we were eager to give an all vehicle scenario a try. I took the Germans and he the Brits. Initial placement had both of us grabbing our country specific objects to start gathering command.

Turn 1 – Initiative Brits
The Brits made a quick dash with their Matilda’s and got behind the cover of the small buildings on the left edge of the map but also grabbed the neutral objective there. I elected to move my Panzer III’s up the other edge of the map but couldn’t reach the objective, I was able to find some good ground to cover this edge and the center of the map.
His Crusaders then made the move up the right side and middle, securing another 1 point neutral objective and in prized position to gain the neutral 2 objective. My final play was to move my Panzer IV’s up the left edge and position them so that if those Matti’s stuck their nose out I would blast them.
Reinforcements arrived at turns end and the Brits were concentrating on that left edge so I positioned to counter.

Turn 2 - Initiative Brits
The Crusader in the middle of the map moves into the Dunes capturing the last command point. From this point on I will never have initiative or will I capture anymore command. He fired his Crusader at one of my Panzer III’s on the right map edge and lightly damages my tank. I return fire with the lightly damaged tank first and the second Panzer III the results of both attacks leave his Crusader heavily damaged.
He captures the 2 point neutral command token near the Dunes but I’ve brought a Panzer IV and a Panzer III to bare on this tank but don’t manage to score any hits. The rest of his reserves make there way up the left edge and I reply in kind. The left edge and Center of the Map is Tank Heavy next turn the fire fight is going to begin.
We get our final reserves on this turn and they will move up next turn to join the fray.

Turn 3 - Initiative Brits
The Brits have pretty much ignored the right side of the map, he has 2 Crusaders there and is moving up a Matilda to strengthen his units. I’m only covering this area with 3 Panzer III’s, two of which are behind some light cover and the other is exposed. He fires bottom of his Crusaders at my lightly damaged tank and only manages to heavily damage it. I return fire on this side with both of my tanks and manage to tank out one of his tanks. His Matilda moves up and next turn will have his choice of prime targets. Still not wanting to make a move on the left edge he moves a Crusader to support the lone tank on the Dunes.
I fire with my last tank on the right edge and manage to lightly wound the crusader. I decide for my next action to fire my IV at one of the Tanks on the Dunes and again manage a light damage. Some positioning is done along the left edge but no one has made a move yet.

Turn 4 - Initiative Brits (Germany 1 – Brits 0)
His Matilda on the right side manages to finish off my damaged Panzer III but his Crusader missed. I return fire with both my P3’s on his Matti and manage to heavily damage it. He finally makes a move on the left and brings 2 Crusader around the building to fire on my P4 and P3 trained at the Dunes, neither shot hits. I still want to clear the Dunes so I don’t return fire on the newly exposed Crusaders and concentrate on those tanks and miss.
His other Matti’s roll out of the other side of the building, one shot and heavily damages a Panzer 3. Again I regret forgetting my camera but the left edge of the map is now a mishmash of cross fire. He has 4 tanks trained on my 2 tanks covering the dunes. We each have 2 tanks squared off on the other side of the building and each of us a 3rd coming up to support.

Turn 5 - Initiative Brits (Germany 1 – Brits 1)
The Brits 2 tanks on the Dunes open fire again on my PII and IV who have been opposing them and both miss. I switch back to the right side destroy the Matilda and heavily damage the Crusader. The right side is pretty much mine at this point although he manages to lightly damage one of my tanks.
Back to the left two more shots at my exposed Panzer III results in the loss of that tank. I open fire on the left side of the building and manage no hits. His 3 tanks on the left side fire and manage to down a Panzer IV.

Turn 6 - Initiative Brits (Germany 2 – Brits 3)
The Brits have so much command he can pretty much play any card in his hand. He plays one that allows him to interrupt my move and another that gives him 4 actions on a turn. He plays 4 actions right out of the gate. The results are a heavily damaged Panzer III on the right side of the board. A lightly damages Panzer III and Panzer IV on the left side. He then interrupts my move and manages to lightly damage another PIV.
Things aren’t looking good at this point, all but one of my tanks is damaged at this point. I am down in VP and there are two turns left. I take a shot on the left edge with a III on a Crusader and manage to kill it with a single shot. This was to me the turning point of the game. My Panzer III and IV who have been covering the Dunes also shoot well and I manage to take down another Matilda and heavily damage his support. Over on the right I manage to kill his heavily damaged tank.

Turn 7 - - Initiative Brits (Germany 5 – Brits 3)
Turn seven turns into a lot of missed. He does finish off my heavily damaged Panzer to close the score. But it is going to require some good shooting in Turn 8 for the Brits to pull this out.

Turn 8 - Initiative Brits (Germany 5 – Brits 4)
Once again the card is used to give him 4 actions, it’s pretty much all out attack. All of my tanks are damaged at this point but none are heavily damaged. Of his remaining Tanks he has 2 heavily damaged tanks. The trend for the Brits this game has been miserable die rolling and it continues, he scores zero hits with any of his tanks this round. I manage to take down another one of his.

Final Score: Germany 9VP British 4VP
I’ll be honest even though I won I didn’t care much for this scenario. It certainly plays fast and is an excellent introduction to using Tanks in the TOI game. But it has a real Death match feel to it, putting Tanks in Op fire is pretty much pointless unless you manage to grab a big early lead and your opponent is forced to move into your LOS.

Preview 4 is up and this time it is on the OverLords. I've finally pre-ordered this game.

This is going to be a crazy week for my real life job, I'm still going to try and get some good content on the blog though. I've got 2 AAR's and a review for Days of the Fox they just need to be polished up a bit. I should have an Out of the Box post on Pandemic and I've got something cooking in the video arena in the near future.

I've gotten only a handful of entries, none of which I have looked at yet other then to verify they were legit. So if you want a chance at winning this game see the contest link on the right.

Next months contest won't involve any art skills I've learned my lesson.

Some of you may have noticed that I switched to an actual domain name. The old blogspot address will still work and there may be some issue resolving the DNS for the next day or two.

The new one is www.oldboardgamers.com

Road to Legend preview #3 is up this time covering towns. I hate Fantasy Flight with a passion as I will be buying this game, I should just get a job their it would be cheaper. Speaking of my future employer news has broke that they have hooked up as a publishing partner with Games Workshop. Which means they will pick up the printing of Talisman and future expansion for it.

Got to play the Operation Crusader scenarios for Days of the Fox last night and I am penning an AAR of it, forgot the camera though so no pictures.

Days of Wonder publishers of Ticket to Ride, Pirates Cove and another favorite of mine Battlelore has been very quiet lately. Many are wondering whats going on with Battlelore and what new products they might be releasing. Well today the dropped a press release and unfortunately it doesn't cover any of that information, it does however tell us that they are raising their prices across the board. My advice if you are in the market for any of their games hit the online retailers before this takes effect in full.

I've order a new game called Pandemic and I hope to have that by next week and I'm also waiting on the release of Key Largo. So hopefully lots of reviews coming up.

Finally I submitted my review of Commanders: Attacked of the Genos to GameShark and that should drop next week unless Bill Abner hates it, then he just comes to my house and hits me.

The next preview for the Road to Legend the upcoming expansion for the game Decent has been posted at FFG's site. Curse them and their previews I'm pre-ordering it right now.

The above title could be used to describe my work week but it is also the first scenario in the Days of the Fox expansion that I played last night. I will post a full AAR sometime soon with photos. Also planning on playing again Thursday night to get a few scenarios in so I can write a review.

I really like the way Days plays compared to the original TOI scenarios. Desert warfare is wide open and cover is pretty much non existent at least in the Hellfire Pass scenario. As the Brits you only start with 2 tanks and then receive reinforcements each round. The goal is to take out two 88's which are positioned on two hillsides behind an entrenched German squad. Before I had even made a move I lost one of my Tanks it was crazy and fun.

In other news I am working on a review of The Genos game I mentioned last week for Gameshark. It's a blatant Advance Wars rip off but it is fun, I've yet to get in a multi player match which I need to do for the review so if anyone is interested let me know.

According to a report at BoardGame News whose link you can find to the right the game Wits & Wagers is coming to live. The game is a trivia type game with a twist and i can see how it would translate well onto Live. I'm not a big fan of it myself but it will certainly entertain a lot of people.

I also read at Kotaku that Magic the Gathering is coming to Live as well. Not many details on that at this point but I like the trend that I am seeing on Live.

I received a few emails as to my thoughts on Gencon filing for Chapter 11. I really don't know enough about the situation at this point to comment, I'm glad that GenCon Indy isn't canceled this year but it doesn't bode well for the future of the hobby that the biggest convention might be no more. It's also another reason for me to hate George Lucas beside the new trilogy, although to be fair if Gencon LLC did what the suit claims then they are scum.

Hmm I guess I did have some thoughts after all.

Finally I have gotten 2 whole entires for the banner contest, so if you're on the fence your chances are good. I've decided not to look at them until judging time so i am not swayed. It's nice to see traffic increase on the blog as well so thanks to all the new readers.

So I had a chance to sit down and open up DOTF yesterday and snap a whole bunch of pictures. You can see all of them if you go to my Flickr page, otherwise enjoy some here. This isn't a review of the expansion that will come after I have had a chance to play at least 2 or 3 scenarios. This is simply an OOTB impressions post.



The game comes with a 19 page rule book although only 6 of those pages contain rules. The rest are the 6 included scenarios.

A full compliment of British figures (76 in all) which is highlighted by the Matilda II and Crusader tanks plus the Bren Gun Carries and QF 6 pounder anti-tank guns.



I should also note that the British squad bases had no issues, i was able to pop in the figs without any problems, unlike the original game where many people had to take drill bits to the bases to widen the holes.

12 German figures consisting of Panzer III and Panther Tanks plus the famed German 88mm AT gun.

You also get 4 American MI 57mm AT guns as well.

Two new unit reference sheets which felt a little flimsy but I didn't have my original TOI opened to compare so this may just be my imagination.

9 new Map overlay pieces consisting of Desert terrain as would be expected. These look and feel phenomenal just like the original games boards.

14 map overlays including new Terrain overlays for Dirt Roads, Crevasses and Dunes to name a few.

55 new cards including some new decks such as Desert Tactics and German Air Support.

Of course you get all the standard chits you would need for the British which I won't bother to detail out here. There are 3 new Specialization Tokens called Recon, Alpha and Bravo. You can read about those in an older post or wait for my review.

On the whole everything was at Fantasy Flights high standards when it comes to components. Surprisingly all the Tanks and all of the individual figures were in perfect shape out of the bag.



The 88 guns however where bent to hell. Some such as the one in this picture probably unfix able as it feels like it is ready to snap already.

Anyway I will be playing one scenario tonight and I hope to be able to review it sometime in the next week or so.