What's on your table right now?

[Nefaro]

I finally, several months after buying it, opened up GMT's Hoplite and started trying a few scenarios. I am hooked/. This is a great game and a great system. I think I'll be ordering some more GBOH titles very soon.

There are only a few retail titles available at any one time.  Picked up half of my current GBoH games via resale and most of the others were snatched during the period shortly after printing. 

I didn't plan on playing Alexander Deluxe, Ran, or Chariots of Fire for awhile but I grabbed them while the grabbing was relatively inexpensive.  Also planning to get the P500 reprint of Cataphract whenever it eventually hits the goal.  Hoplite is all punched and ready to go IIRC, although I've not set it up yet. 

Which reminds me .. still waiting on the reprinted Alexander counters.  :-\  That's the one with the widest range of troop types, and a strong representation of the quantity vs quality dichotomy, so it's a bit more appealing to me than two sides with similar ones.  I hadn't played it since the original ugly orange box from the early 90s - it's so much larger now.   ^-^

[Barthheart]

Those are some nicely clipped counters Panzer!~

Thanks! I have to admit that I'm usually more in Vance's camp of not clipping, but I saw some pictures and video of someone else playing this game with nicely clipped counters and liked the look. The Napoleonic 20 stuff I've been playing also has laser cut counters with rounded corners and I think I'm getting used to that as a standard.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo..... 

[panzerde]

Have no fear, my other stuff remains unclipped!

[panzerde]

There are only a few retail titles available at any one time.  Picked up half of my current GBoH games via resale and most of the others were snatched during the period shortly after printing. 

I didn't plan on playing Alexander Deluxe, Ran, or Chariots of Fire for awhile but I grabbed them while the grabbing was relatively inexpensive.  Also planning to get the P500 reprint of Cataphract whenever it eventually hits the goal.  Hoplite is all punched and ready to go IIRC, although I've not set it up yet. 

Yeah, I noticed that. I'd love to get my hands on SPQR Deluxe. Turns out the Enterprise Games, who I bought from at Origins is located in a nearby town and had an unpunched copy at a fairly reasonable price, so I grabbed that. I want Alexander, which appears to still be in stock at GMT. I wonder if their copies have the new counters?

[Nefaro]

There are only a few retail titles available at any one time.  Picked up half of my current GBoH games via resale and most of the others were snatched during the period shortly after printing. 

I didn't plan on playing Alexander Deluxe, Ran, or Chariots of Fire for awhile but I grabbed them while the grabbing was relatively inexpensive.  Also planning to get the P500 reprint of Cataphract whenever it eventually hits the goal.  Hoplite is all punched and ready to go IIRC, although I've not set it up yet. 

Yeah, I noticed that. I'd love to get my hands on SPQR Deluxe. Turns out the Enterprise Games, who I bought from at Origins is located in a nearby town and had an unpunched copy at a fairly reasonable price, so I grabbed that. I want Alexander, which appears to still be in stock at GMT. I wonder if their copies have the new counters?

They just got all the new counter reprints for Alexander Deluxe in a couple weeks ago, or more.  Since they planned to replace those in every game that needed it, which was likely most or all of them, I'm sure they're either adding it to their current stock or shipping it with the box.

I'll probably send an email next week to make sure mine are on the way.  From what I read in the GMT newsletter, they were supposed to be done shipping them a week ago.


GBoH Alexander doesn't have chit draw activations, but one alternating between commanders based on skill.  But it's still the same system (maybe a bit more complicated due to higher variety of troop types) and the Deluxe edition has a LOT of stuff.  Like seven counter sheets IIRC. 

[panzerde]

Well, I've ended up picking up SPQR Deluxe, Alexander Deluxe (GMT via Amazon for $20 less than on the GMT web site), and Ran this weekend. That ought to keep me busy for awhile.

[GJK]

See if I can get my camera phone to take a decent picture like panzer's....

Hoods division accepts its orders to reinforce the attack at the cornfield:

[Nefaro]

Well, I've ended up picking up SPQR Deluxe, Alexander Deluxe (GMT via Amazon for $20 less than on the GMT web site), and Ran this weekend. That ought to keep me busy for awhile.

SPQR Deluxe reprint would be my final entice.  I don't expect that to happen anytime soon since they've had multiple reprint P500s for it.  What was the last... fifth edition or something?  Seems like the last sweep of the interested.   :(  We could be screwed.  In limbo as far as I can tell.

This has been one of the longest, most popular, wargame series.  But the reprint pre-orders shrink by nature, over time.  The few lament.

[panzerde]

See if I can get my camera phone to take a decent picture like panzer's....

Hoods division accepts its orders to reinforce the attack at the cornfield:

Great pic! Is that the Civil War Brigade Series game for Antietam? I have the first edition of that when it was published by The Gamers.

[Arctic Blast]

Oh, Sons of Anarchy, you do entertain. Fighting over turf while gathering little plastic guns and bags of contraband and competing to be the biggest badass biker gang around doesn't cease to entertain.  >:D Promised deals that you back out on, multi-gang pileups for lucrative pieces of turf, event cards that can potentially obliterate someone on a whim to the amusement of everyone else... it all earns a loud Gus Teehee.



Not my picture. Not pictured : every player stabbing one another in the back and trash talking to excess while swilling beer. If you're going to play, grab the Grim Bastards and Calaveras expansions and toss 6 gangs out there.

Spartacus was an otherwise enjoyable game which was let down by a fairly weak gladiatorial fight stage. Firefly had nice ideas, but man could that game drag...and woe to any table that wasn't enormous! This, though. THIS is Gale Force 9's crowning achievement.

[GJK]

Great pic! Is that the Civil War Brigade Series game for Antietam? I have the first edition of that when it was published by The Gamers.

Nope, it's their "Line of Battle" series which is the update for the Regimental Sub-Series so it's Antietam but at the regimental level.  They streamlined a bunch of stuff and it plays really smoothly.  I've enjoyed the CWBS stuff for years but never got in to the RSS stuff because a) the large footprint and b) I heard that the rules were buried with minutiae that was tacked on to the CWBS stuff.  They seem to have it working quite nicely in the LoB series (of which they only have Antietam and Gettysburg covered at this point).

[Staggerwing]

Oh, Sons of Anarchy, you do entertain. Fighting over turf while gathering little plastic guns and bags of contraband and competing to be the biggest badass biker gang around doesn't cease to entertain.  >:D Promised deals that you back out on, multi-gang pileups for lucrative pieces of turf, event cards that can potentially obliterate someone on a whim to the amusement of everyone else... it all earns a loud Gus Teehee.



Not my picture. Not pictured : every player stabbing one another in the back and trash talking to excess while swilling beer. If you're going to play, grab the Grim Bastards and Calaveras expansions and toss 6 gangs out there.

Spartacus was an otherwise enjoyable game which was let down by a fairly weak gladiatorial fight stage. Firefly had nice ideas, but man could that game drag...and woe to any table that wasn't enormous! This, though. THIS is Gale Force 9's crowning achievement.

I see the Mayans and the one-niners and have to I assume that SoA is one of the factions not in view. What's the fourth gang in the base set? The Byz-Lats? Lin Triad? Nordics? True IRA?

[Arctic Blast]

^^The Sons are the black figures, Mayans are green, One Niners are purple and Lin are orange. The dudes on bikes are full members, and the standing figures are prospects.

Every gang has different starting levels of various commodities and differing gang sizes. Every gang has a different base number of order tokens (those are the round discs on that tile with a few Mayans on it), with each full member adding another. On your turn, you spend those tokens to use a location you solely control (only your guys are on it), recruit a prospect (max. 5), patch in a prospect (max. 5 full members - also costs one money and one gun), 'Ride Out' (move any number of members and prospects from one location or your base to another location), Pass (maybe you want to see what other players are planning) or Throw Down (you need at least one full member there). Each gang in a throw down can use order tokens to call reinforcements from other locations. Then, each player decides secretly how many guns to send to the fight, with all revealed simultaneously. Everyone sending at least one gun sees their Heat level rise by one. Each gun counts for 3 points, member for 2 and prospect for 1, and each person rolls a D6 and adds that number to their total. Highest wins, everyone else retreats. In a tie, everyone retreats...except the holder of the first player patch, who wins ties (if you beat him, you take the patch). Each gun sends someone's gang member to the ER where they have a 50-50 chance to die or return.

Once that's done, players can sell contraband on the black market (with a maximum determined by their heat level. Someone going beyond their Max Heat also has to have a gang member take the fall). Each player again decides secretly how much to sell, then everyone's total is revealed simultaneously. The more total contraband sold, the less each bag is worth. So anyone with a ton of schwag to unload can purposely flood the market.

The locations provide cash, contraband, guns, free promotions, and other special abilities for whoever controls them. Each gang has unique abilities and opportunities that nobody else can use. And there are Anarchy cards which are drawn at the start of each of the 6 rounds that can offer one round opportunities to send gang members to, drop the hammer on someone, or drop the hammer on EVERYONE.

It's a really simple game with a lot of opportunities for screwage, direct attacks and passive 'behind the scenes' dealmaking (you can make deals at any time with anyone, but they're never binding). Takes maybe 90 minutes to play with a full complement of 6.

[LongBlade]

Three of us played f SoA a few months back. While the two of them chased each other (and me) out of various hideouts and whatnot I was quietly amassing a fortune behind the scenes. They were totally blown away when they realized the game wasn't only about fighting over locations but that you could make a profit for a round or two, retreat, go somewhere else, sell your goods and then gain cash.

The whole time I looked like a chicken backing out of all their fights, abandoning locations when it became clear someone else wanted them. And I still won. It was pretty awesome!

[Arctic Blast]

Three of us played f SoA a few months back. While the two of them chased each other (and me) out of various hideouts and whatnot I was quietly amassing a fortune behind the scenes. They were totally blown away when they realized the game wasn't only about fighting over locations but that you could make a profit for a round or two, retreat, go somewhere else, sell your goods and then gain cash.

The whole time I looked like a chicken backing out of all their fights, abandoning locations when it became clear someone else wanted them. And I still won. It was pretty awesome!

Exactly! There are times when you need to fight if it's a Location that's vitally important to what you're trying to do at that time. But sometimes it's best to just Ride Out and away from where something is about to go down and go on a different path. But maybe you leave one or two guys behind because you're sitting on A LOT of guns and you can afford to spend some blasting away and weakening a rival...