The game is simple in premis.  One player is Jack the ripper, disguised as one of eight characters, and the other player is the Inspector trying to nail Jack before he escapes London.  Play takes part on a hex-grid, featuring buildings, gas lights, and manholes.  The characters are represented by wooden discs featuring the various characters portraits.  The inspector has 8 turns to discover which character is Jack, and to move another character onto their token to arrest them to win the game.  If Jack manages to move their piece off the board from one of four exits, or remains undiscovered after 8 turns, he wins.

Players take turns choosing from a selection of characters and moving thier characters token a number of hexes around town.  At the end of each turn, a “call of witnesses” occurs.  Basically, any chaarcter adjacent to a street light or another character is “seen”, while all other characters are “unseen”.  The Jack player must declare if his character is seen or unseen, and this will often prove the innocence of one or more characters each turn. 

Each character has their own special ability to spice things up.  Selecting Sherlock Holmes for example reveals a single randomly selected innocent character, Ms. Stealthy moves 4 hexes rather than 3 and can move through terrain, William Gull can switch places with another piece, etc. 

Aside from the bluffing and deduction aspects of the game, players must also pay very close attention to the position of every single piece on the board.  Jack can only escape from play “unseen”, thus Jack must try to manoeuvre his piece so that it is unseen, while not giving away who Mr. Jack actually is.  The Inspector must be careful to close off escape routes to any unseen character while trying to eliminate potential suspects when it comes time to call witnesses.  Every move is critical - the slightest mistake can spell a instant and crushing defeat to either player.

The thing with this game, is that it’s all about lessons learned.  You will lose, and lose, and lose some more to more experienced players before you learn all the obvious tricks, and then you’ll have to lose some more before you learn how to counter them.  But with each loss you get a little better, and eventually you’ll find yourself actually pulling off a win every now and then.  Oddly, this is one of those games where you dont mind losing too badly, because you usually walk away with a new move for your bag-o-tricks.  Its kind of like chess - only a game of Mr. Jack takes about 30 minutes instead of an hour or more.

All in all, this game is awesome, and has quickly gained its place in my game cabinet.  And what’s great is that it’s offered online for free HERE, so you can get yer ass handed to you from players from all around the world!  If you want a game, my handle is “DeacoN”, and I’m always up for one.  Try it out - you just might discover a new favorite.

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DEACON

Alexander differs in many was from Rommel particularly in scale. Time frames are longer, distances are greater and the number of men a counter represents has increased and for me Alexander has a greater strategic feel than its predecessor. But as I don’t want to dwell too long on comparing the two titles I’ll just sum it up and say that Alexander improves on what was already a great system.

The Field Commander Series are solitaire games that have the goal of distilling some of the great strategic minds of history into a playable format and in that regard Alexander is a success. I’ll admit that going into the game I knew very little of Alexander the Great and coming out of the game I now know enough to make me dangerous as in I have some interesting trivia knowledge but could find myself wrong a lot of the time if discussing his life. But the point of the game isn’t a deep analysis of the tactics that he used in particular battles, but his overall strategy on how to conquer and subjugate a region.

There are many decision points for you as the player which is great because often I find that solitaire games sometimes get a feeling of playing themselves as numerous charts are referenced and dice rolled. After a region is conquered you have to decide if you’ll govern the area which creates a steady income and has some positive effects later in the game or you can raze the land for a large and immediate cash bonus. You get to pick and grow your pool of personal and trusted advisers and who to pick and when will have long term effects during the campaign. How large of an army to muster and march around the land will often be dependent on the health of your treasury. Many aspects work and balance together creating a wonderful narrative as you work through the campaign.

The campaign game is where Alexander really shines though. The game includes four scenarios to play as a linked campaign which starts off early in Alexander’s career as he conquered the land around Greece and then moved south and east through the Middle East towards India. How well you do in the campaign will determine for how many years Alexander’s name will be remembered and his exploits told. Though each scenario is based on the same game system, as Alexander matures and grows in experience, as his pool of advisers expands and as various tactical “Insights” are gathered the scenarios feel and take shape differently. There are also a few special rules for some of the scenarios that help expand and grow the variety within the game.

What I find most impressive though is just how playable the game is. Alexander with the larger scale means the enemy isn’t moving on the map and due to that the administrative work for the enemy is very minimal. That means most of the time playing is making decisions for what you plan on doing with your forces. Which is very refreshing compared to other solitaire games that I’ve played where it feels more time is devoted to figuring out what the game’s AI will do during a turn than you actually take for your turn.

The only thing that I would complain about is now that I’ve worked through the few campaign a number of times I tend to find myself falling into similar patterns. I like to start with X Adviser, I like certain types of troops over others, I like to spend my money in certain ways, because I’ve found some patterns that work better than others for me and my play style. The game does do a good job with mixing thing up and presenting you with different challenges each time, but there is only so much that can be put in before the ease of play becomes cluttered and clunky. With solitaire games I’ll take ease of play over historical accuracy or a cumbersome game AI any day of the week. And even though I find myself falling into patterns I’ve found asking “What If?” sometimes forces me out of those patterns which allows the game to present different challenges for me to overcome.

As it stands this is a game that I feel will be staying around for a long time. The full campaign of four scenarios takes me about four hours to play and I am a slow gamer who likes to get up, walk around and contemplate decisions. If someone other than me were to focus from start to finish I could see it possible to play the entire campaign in around three hours. That means the campaign is perfect for a lazy Saturday or Sunday afternoon or a week night where you have no plans. Additionally if you only find yourself with an hour to an hour and a half then a single scenario is perfectly playable in that time.

Production is very nice though there are a few things that my anal retentive nature cringes at, but they aren’t even worthy of note. The only thing that I can see on the production end that did fall a little short of my expectations are the mounted map boards. They just don’t lay flat as they have warped a bit, but it isn’t a big deal to me personally and I’d take the mounted map boards over the paper maps in Rommel every time.

In closing Field Commander: Alexander is one of just a handful of solitaire games that I’d recommend to people because there are so many things that are going right in the game. The common pitfalls I’ve experienced solitaire gaming are burdensome game AI, repetitive, long, minimal decision points as well as a few others. Alexander has none of those traits, it is just as the system intends: To make the lives of histories great leaders playable in an accessible game format.

‘Til Next Time - Happy Gaming
LvT

That night I ripped into the rules because I just had to know how to put these great toys to use. And it is then that my heart and excitement started to sink. I had heard that the game was a fairly simple affair so I wasn’t expecting a whole lot of depth or complexity but being part of the GameMaster Series I was expecting more than what I was reading.

The game takes place over two phases the Broadside Phase and the Boarding Party Phase. During the Broadside phase players use small little ships to sail around the map which details a small area of sea spattered with a few islands. Superimposed on the map is a dot grid with lines connecting at ninety and forty five degree angles creating eight directions out of each point and these points and lines determine movement and facing. During this phase players move around the map by using a plotting system where each player takes three cards from their movement deck, places them face down in the order they want to execute the moves. Similar to systems used in Space Alert and Robo Rally. The movement options are Move Forward, Stand Still, Turn Port and Turn Starboard.

Once players have selected their movement for the turn one card at a time is flipped over and players move their ship according to the card selected. This process is then repeated for the next two cards. But, if the two ships land on adjacent and connected dots after a card flip it is possible for both ships to open up with their cannons and try to pepper the enemy to weaken them up before the Boarding Party portion of the game. Depending on the facing of the ships in relation to each other determines how many shots each ship will get on the other. Once the number of shots is determined players select which area of the ship they want to target (there are eight “zones” that can be attacked). Once a player selects the zone they roll a dice and depending on what they roll the shots can can cause masts to be blown off, crew members killed, cannons destroyed, structural damage to the ship or just harmlessly plonk into the sea.

This dance between the two ships goes on for a while but at some point the chances are high that these two ships will meet in the same dot on the map as they jockey for the better firing angle. When this happens the Broadside portion of the game ends and the Boarding Parties portion beings. The map where the smaller ships were sailing around is cleared, masts removed from the large ships which are then placed next to each other with an orientation dependent on how the ships collided with one another. During this phase players move their crew members around the deck and over onto their opponent’s ship all with the effort of killing the opposing captain in hand to hand combat.

Players get three moves a turn which can be divided between various crew members or used to move one crew member three spaces. After a player has conduced their three moves combat takes place with each side rolling a dice and adding to the roll the difference in crew strength. For example if one side had three crew members and the other side had one the side with three would add +2 to their dice roll. The losing side removes a crew member. The differential in crew is calculated again, more dice are rolled and this process is continued until one side is eliminated from the space. Players then go back and forth with players executing three moves and rolling for combat until one side’s captain is slain - The winner being the surviving captain.

As I mentioned when I first started to read the rules I was less than impressed and a ball of regret started to form. I wasn’t sure if I made the right decision to try to acquire this game and had I read the rules beforehand, even though the toy factor is strong, I’m not sure if it would have overcome how unexcited I was while reading. The lavish production of the game didn’t match the simplicity of the rules and that caused my worry.

Finally though the game hit the table and as our little ships picked up anchors and sailed out of port I started to get excited again. The movement around the map started to get interesting as we closed together. I tried to get inside my opponent’s head trying to out fox and out maneuver him attempting to get maximum firepower from my cannons while minimizing him. As our ships sustained more and more damage the time came for the crews to leave the ships attempting to board the other. The excitement and overall level of fun was rising and eventually we were laughing and chucking dice like there was no tomorrow.

What resulted from that first game was a gaming memory that will last a lifetime and that alone makes any game worth the price in my opinion. The captains of both ships must have been cursed or something before they left port. As our ships first closed within firing range the first volley of the battle was unleashed with me rolling first, killing a couple of crew members as well as destroying a few cannons. “Great opening volley” I thought but then the return fire happened with my captain taking a cannonball to the head. This caused my crew to panic while a new captain was field promoted causing me to miss my next movement phase. This allowed my opponent to sail around me peppering me with 12 more shots.

Some poor dice rolls lessened the damage I should have taken, but I was in pretty poor shape compared to the other ship. And then we finally moved to the same space and the Boarding Parties Phase began. We lined up the ships and lo my opponent’s captain was standing there with one other crew member right across from two of my crew mates. A quick roll to determine who would go first was executed and I won allowing me to move my guys first. As soon as the ships were grappled together these two crew members jumped over their railings giving the opposing captain what for. A few dice rolls later the captain was dead and my plundering of his ship began.

Overall the game is simple and has a heavy dose of luck. The ships and components are a bit problematic especially since some of the places where you’re supposed to balance crew and cannons are tilted. The masts are loose and have a potential of falling at the first strong table knock, but despite the problems of the game and production it more than makes up for it in terms of pure fun. As my captain took a cannonball to the head my opponent struck the pose of the captain figure and acted out the final moments of my captain before his head exploded. We laughed as my dudes jumped the rail and planted a nice shot between the eyes of the opposing captain and laughed as the rest of his crew dropped arms and surrendered.

Yes, I was behind in the game before a few lucky rolls went my way, but what I’ve found is defying the odds, getting a little bit of luck and having game mechanics that allows some improbable things to happen is what got me into gaming in the first place. The laughs we have had and gratification of a positive shared experience, those are the main reasons why I game and Broadsides and Boarding Parties delivers on those experiences. Even though the game box is huge and the components grossly more than what is needed the game is quick at about 45 mins or so and heaps of goofy fun.

Rating: 4 out of 5

‘Til Next Time - Happy Gaming
LvT

The components to Catacombs are pretty straight forward. There are three two sided game boards, a few decks of cards and tons of wooden discs with stickers that need to be applied. A neat little feature to the gameboards are holes that are cut in them to hold large wooden discs that create obstacles for players to flick and maneuver around. The dungeon is setup by taking the dungeon cards and separating them into their different levels. Starting with ‘0′ and ending at ‘2′ they progressively get harder by putting more or stronger enemies on them. Eight cards are placed face down which form the dungeon. Mixed in at specific areas is a merchant, healer and the final dungeon lord who is the big bad guy who the heroes are tasked with killing.

To start the game the first room card is flipped over (which at this point is a Level 0 room), the proper board is picked and the monsters detailed on the cards removed from the monster pool. The heroes setup first along the back edge and then the monsters setup about a third of the way up the board on the opposite end. Heroes get the first turn and can either move/melee or use a special power. Special powers are things like a bow for the Elf, magic for the Wizard and a berserk attack for the barbarian. A move/melee attack is a simple flicking of the hero and if it hits an enemy it is a melee attack and if they don’t then it is considered a move. When a hero hits an enemy that token is flipped over if the monster has multiple wounds or removed if they have only one or are down to one wound left. Monsters work in the same way with some (though not many) having special attacks or they can do a move/melee attack but the heroes are able to take substantially more damage than a monster.

What I really love about the game is the shooting attacks. Say for example the Elf was shooting their bow, a small yellow disc is placed next to the hero and then flicked. I just like the neat little feature of seeing a projectile actually shoot out of heroes or monsters it just feels more thematic instead of rolling a dice and saying “oh I hit” or “oh I missed”. You actually see the arrow bounce off of a stone pillar or just missing the target by a fraction of an inch. I found that when my wizard misses with a fireball it isn’t my fault even though I flicked the disc, it was the wizards poor mastery of the spell that caused the failed shot.

With all this praise though there are a few issues I see with the game. First is there are times where you want to get a little oomph behind the shot perhaps to cause some dramatic ricochets to try to hit two or more targets, or perhaps you want to try to bounce a fireball off a pillar to hit something you don’t have a straight shot to. What happens is the disc moves so fast that it is sometimes hard to tell what hit what. Was it the actual projectile that hit to cause the enemy to move, or did something else bump into it? It is just hard to tell at times. The second issue I have with the game is the boards don’t have rails or a moat to catch discs that may fall off the board. When a disc does come off the board you’re supposed to place it back on at the location that it came off which sometimes is very tricky to do because it might be a two or three inch area that looks like the area where it came off the board. But on the flip-side some sort of rails along the side would mean that a target that was on the edge that you were shooting for and missed could be the victim of a bounce off the wall making it easier to hit targets.

All in all though there is a bonus to these potential areas of vagueness - It keeps the game light. To play the game cutthroat will lead to constant arguments with what hit what and where things may have left the board and to get caught up in that will do little more than kill the fun of the game. It is a light romp that should take no more than an hour or so to complete.

Overall this is a unique game in my collection and one where I don’t think I’ll ever have the desire to get rid of it. I greatly look forward to future expansions and look forward to a day where I can select my party of four from a good size pool of heroes. I look forward to seeing more monsters added to an already diverse selection. And most importantly I look forward to the many, many more times that I anticipate this game to be played.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

‘Til Next Time - Happy Gaming
LvT

After many many years of hiatus (I played back in third edition) I had decided to pick up Warhammer Fantasy again. And since I have always been a fan of the works of Frank Frazetta, Simmon Bisley and Richard Corben I decided to go for a Warriors of Chaos army.

To start the army I got two battalions, two boxes of Marauder Horsemen, one box of Knights (for the mounted characters) and a Giant. I also added some old 3rd Ed. WHFB Chaos Warriors as Characters on foot (that I still had lying around). The idea was to have a big block of warriors with a sorcerer and two units of marauders in a “V” formation as my center. Two units of knights supported by Marauders on horse were to serve as the mobile element with Chaos Hounds to harass the flanks and limit marching moves. The Giant could support either the center or the mobile elements, depending on situation. The mobile elements were to be either set up in a pincer formation or form a refused flank.

I tried to keep the color scheme for the army very simple. The chaos army offered a variety of units and models, but to have a unified look I needed to limit the palette. The main theme of the army was to keep most of the metallic parts in Boltgun Metal and offset that with Gnarloc Green shields, cloaks and banners. The whole theme was inspired by the armies of the black moon in the “chronicles of the black moon” comic. After having painted a few units I realized I should have probably chosen Goblin green instead of the Gnarloc Green, but too late now.

Personally I don’t play with unpainted models (if they are my own). People sometimes ask me “how I find the time” or how I manage to “output so many painted minis”. The trick is to find ways to motivate yourself and to keep the painting going. So over the years I have developed a few tricks to do that, I have listed them at the end of the article.

So I started with building the core choices first. After a bit of research the best option seemed to have the Warriors with shields and halberds. The marauders would have shields and hand weapons.

The Warriors’ halberds came from the official bits pack. Two packs gave me almost enough for the whole unit. With the banner bearer and musician not having a halberd I was still two short. These remaining ones were converted from the axes that come with the warriors as standard. The Champion had his pointing axe arm converted to hold a halberd instead and the arm slightly repositioned. The warrior models are fairly static, so that was the only conversion.

For the Marauders I decided to distinguish the two units by making one “Viking” looking and the other more “chaotic” looking. This was largely done by choosing different styles of heads/helmets on the rank and file and converting the Unit Champion.  The first unit champion was turned into a Viking warrior by adding a mane of hair, adding to the beard and giving him a big fur cloak. His unit got the Viking looking helmets with curved horns and the bare, bearded heads from the marauder sprue.

The second unit champion was converted to have a pig/boar hood. He is based on an illustration of a warrior in an old RPG I played a long time ago. I always wanted to convert a guy like him and this gave me the perfect opportunity. Most of the guys from his unit received heads and helmets from the marauders horsemen sprue. These look very “Chaotic”. I also added 4 guys with mutations from the old mutation sprue, again to emphasize the chaos look. On both units I used left over horns from the warriors to equip the unit musician, since I didn’t like the drums.

Cheers, Lamenter.

Next up: Horses, horses and more horses. And some characters on Horses, too.

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Lamenters motivational tricks for painting armies:

1. I only ever assemble what I can paint. Having a large mass of unpainted miniatures sitting on my desk seems to somehow make it such a big deal. Keeping them inside the boxes and on the sprue keeps them out of my sight and I “forget” that there is still a lot to do.
2. I start with units of rank-and-file  or cavalry (which nobody seems to like to paint) and intersperse them with the heroes or other unique models as a reward. In addition I try to put small conversions into the rank and file, that no-one will ever notice on a table but they help me to break up the monotony. For 40k armies I do the troop transports (since I don’t like painting tanks) first, then the troops that go in them afterward.
3. Large groups or units get broken up into groups of 5 men, which is a group I can do in one evening. I then try to do the Unit Champion/Leader model last.
4. In addition I find painting rank-and-file models very “meditative”. The constant repetition of colors and techniques makes it very easy. So painting is a way of “winding down” and relaxing for me. (maybe it is also a sign of my increasing madness).
5. And lastly - I think it is important to find a level of painting that is suitable for table top war gaming. That means the models I paint are not perfectly painted. They look good and are shaded and highlighted (and are probably on a high standard for the gaming table). But I wouldn’t enter them in a painting competition. If you try to achieve perfection while painting 100+ models you will never succeed.