I was lucky enough to be invited by Fred Serval to be his opponent for an early preview of the final version of Mark Herman’s latest American Civil War game: Rebel Fury. We played the Chickamauga scenario, which Mark recommends as the best starting point in terms of length and complexity. Rebel Fury expands on his game Gettysburg, originally published in C3i Magazine, but has a few neat changes. The combat system has been pretty substantially overhauled, with more factors to consider around unit positioning and support between units, but the change I liked most was how headquarters now have to postures they can assume, one which benefits them in battle but limits their command range and one that allows for a wider range of movement but cannot add a DRM in battle. This is a promising looking system and I’m keen to try more. You can see our full play through of the first two turns (just under half a full game) of Chickamauga here:
Teach and Play of Antietam 1862 by Grant Wylie
Hot on the heels of my initial review of The Seven Days Battles, I joined Fred Serval to play an introductory game of Antietam 1862 - the first game in the same series. We played a quick game of the Bloody Lane scenario, a very small and quick playing introductory experience. We also chatted about our thoughts on the series as well as a variety of other games. You can watch the video below:
Revisiting Commands and Colors: Ancients by Richard Borg
I played a lot of Commands and Colors: Ancients in college - I convinced the board game society to buy the base game and its first two expansions and for my enthusiasm I was tasked with stickering all three boxes! Luckily I love putting stickers on wooden blocks, so I didn’t mind in the slightest. After I graduated, though, I didn’t play it nearly as much because I didn’t own my own copy and it was harder to borrow the society’s copy when I was no longer an undergraduate (as a post-grad I could be a member but I rarely had the time for hanging around that I used to).
First Impressions - Fire and Stone Siege of Vienna by Robert DeLeskie
If the fact that I spent a month playing every game I could find on the 1565 Siege of Malta didn’t give it away, I have a bit of a thing for games about sieges. I think siege warfare is a fascinating and often underrepresented aspect of military history. In my own topic of study sieges were far more numerous and more important than set piece battles but it is the battles that most people have heard of. When it comes to game design battles again dominate, with siege games being relatively few and far between, but I am sympathetic to designers faced with the challenge of making a truly engaging siege game. It is precisely because it is so challenging, though, that I am interested in seeing how game designers approach siege games My fascination with siege games meant that naturally I would be interested in Fire and Stone Siege of Vienna, and it definitely didn’t hurt that the game is gorgeous. That’s why I was very pleased to be invited to be taught the game by the designer and play against Fred Serval on the Homo Ludens YouTube channel. The full video is embedded below and I would recommend watching it, but I also thought I’d give some of my thoughts now that I’ve had time to meditate on my first play of Fire and Stone.