The New York City Gang Of Four

[chas]

Happy December! It looks like there will be three of us for my Wed. Dec. 13th game, as Thraser Darkrai recently told us he will be busy, and Kolakoski is away on vacation. We'll get back to their GM turns in January/February.

Everyone except Sherman Davies has made two armies apiece for this game. I'll add some more hexes to the start zone of the 2 Player map I picked out when I build it next week. Since the armies aren't all in yet I won't reveal it, because it does have a lot of one kind of terrain which would unduly benefit a certain type of army being used on it. So if people knew what that was, we might have too similar armies fielded for this battlefield, since some of the army themes overlap. And I don't want anyone counterdrafting the armies that exist so far. No one else suggested army themes other than the eight I had come up with, although I invited their input in a private post.

My own two armies were thought up very quickly, since I had specific themes for them.

The Spy/Agent/Martial Artists army theme originally had Kolakoski in mind; as a Karate player in real life he loves that kind of stuff. This time I stayed away from the excellent VC martial artists hero pair that work particularly well together, in order to include different permissible types in that army. And I had used this pair several times before to great effect. One of the fun things is Scaping is constantly coming up with new combinations of characters. We usually throw the newest VC figures onto the table when they come out; we've already had Agent Nora on the table as noted above.

The Flier theme was something I was also interested in building. Both of my armies combine Classic and VC units. Its always great to see how well they mesh together, and I do have all the VC cards here, although we still use many proxy figures of our own when fielding them. We combine these two types quite often, as there are now a total of about 400 characters/cards available between them!

I also allowed the Unofficial Age of Annihilation units that we've been "playtesting" this year, since Anitar provided most of their cards in that site section. Its exciting that some Official AOA units may be out in the coming year--supposedly in two Renegade Waves! Thrasher Darkrai has used them the most in our regular games, as opposed to the AOA only games I'd been running.

***

As a personal holiday note, this year I'll be going upstate to Taeblewalker's place for Christmas Eve (my birthday) and Christmas and a few days around them. We'll probably be playing other board games with one or two of his local groups up there, who I've played with on earlier visits there. Since I don't travel much anymore, this will be my first vacation trip in years. In the past I've traveled to about 25 foreign countries and perhaps half of our 50 states.

During the many weekend gaming sessions I host here at The Game Palace, we've been playing lots of the new The Last Kingdom here, as well as other things (see the Other Board Games threads). I recently also got to try Last Light, that a pal backed, for the first time. My own next new game will be Dune: War For Arrakis, which should be here in January.

[chas]

Uh oh! Just after I spent an hour and a half building the battlefield map, Sherman Davies had to drop out! So its just me and Taeblewalker for today. Luckily the map I chose is basically a 2 Player anyhow. So we'll play a couple of games with the armies we constructed this afternoon, and then play his board game Now or Never in the evening.

Plan B
We'll play my scenario again in January, hopefully with the full crew. Then getting back to our regular rotation tentatively, February will see Thrasher Darkrai as our Game Master and March will be Kolakoski.

Our GMs present us with their own custom scenario on a map of their choice each month, and then run their games here at my place. They also oversee army building for the group if any pregame choosing or approval is necessary, and etc.

[chas]

Had a nice mellow game day with Taeblewalker yesterday who drove down from upstate. I thought the map worked very well. It turned out we each had a shooting army and a melee army with our chosen army themes, and a random die determined that they would face each other by type. TW won the first game between the two shooting armies handily. The second game between the melee armies seemed close, but I pulled it out in melee at the very end, eliminating his force with only two figures of my own still standing! So we each won one game. We took a few photos, which may appear here eventually.

Then we played TW's board game Now or Never by Ryan Laukat, which was my first time for this game of that storytelling series, most of which I'd played before, as he has them too. I managed to win that one; its always satisfying to win a first game, which doesn't happen often to me! So we split a pizza and then he split back home.

Since the other three guys couldn't make it, I'll run my scenario again for the whole group in January, tentatively on Wed. Jan. 17. This is the first time I can recall replaying a game the month after its first play. The next day I took the map apart and bagged the parts separately, to make its reassembly faster next month. I also bagged up the cards and figures for my and TW's four armies. It will be interesting to know later on how many of us can make the replay next month!

I'll see TW again soon when he drives me up there for my first vacation in years. I used to visit him up there before Covid, and we'd have fun visiting historical sites and checking out the scenery. This time I'll be up there to celebrate my 72nd birthday (Christmas Eve) and Christmas, and we'll game with one or two local groups he plays with regularly.

Happy holidays to all!

[chas]

[chas]

Photo Commentary: Battle of the Teutoburger Forest

Back in Posts #1758-59 on Page 147 I described how I was going to modify Griznahk's old historical scenario and restage it, years after I originally tried it out. I added about a third more troops to the battlefield. Finally, here are a few photos I took of this battle, which I played out solitaire.

Photo 1: Here we see Roman Commander Varus at the head of his long column, near his flagbearer. The Germans are up on the hill awaiting the giant ambush.

Photo 2: This panoramic view shows the entire German position. The first Legion is made up of the standard Red trimmed Romans. The second behind them is made up of a repainted collection of them trimmed in Black. The third Legion is made of of Greeks, the last Legion in the column. The poker chips designate the Roman Leaders/Heroes.

Photo 3: A closeup on the second and third Roman Legions in the march column.

Photo 4: The rear of the Roman column, wrapping around the German position.

Photo 5: The Germans are made up of Tarn Vikings, Elves, Warriors of Ashra, and many more. Note the German Commander Arminius (aka Herman The German) with his Elven Standardbearer in the second tier of the defense.

Photo 6: a close up on the German Commander with his standard.

Photo 7: The three levels of the German position. Lowest to highest: the first level just behind the stone wall, the second up on the hill behind a stone wall, and the third up on the crest of the hill.

[Taeblewalker]

@chas is visiting me upstate in Monticello, my new home for the past ten years since I left NYC. We'll be doing some gaming, and also celebrating his birthday and Christmas!

[kolakoski]

Well met!

Happy holidays! Glad for you all upstate.

Been busy of late doing the custom thing. Limited editing ability on Babs’ pad, but created a David Carradine Kung Fu homage and a major revision to Captain Xue.

Looking forward to my return,

kolakoski

[Taeblewalker]

Yesterday we played Cyclades, Blood Rage, Fleet: The Dice Game and The Last Kingdom. Today we played 1775 Rebellion.

[chas]

Add to that as I just got home: [/B] Return to Dark Tower, Tyrants of the Underdark and Flamecraft! Also, TW gave me his old copy of Ventura (FFG, 2010) which he hadn't opened yet. I'm very interested in it. We watched Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which we all liked more than we expected to do!

[kolakoski]

Well met!

Happy New Year!🎆🎈

It’s a big deal here in Negril, with fireworks and thousands of Japanese lanterns filling the sky.

See you all soon . . .

kolakoski

[kolakoski]

Well met!

Super excited to be testing Captain Xue at our next Gang gathering on January 17th. In anticipation of playing two games, I'll be fielding the following two armies in a 600 point, themed scenario of chas' design:

Women Only
150 WoA x 3
140 Eltahale
125 Captain Xue
60 Elaria the Pale
35 Seleena
600 points, 13 spaces

Soldiers, Warriors and Their Leaders
200 Romans x 4
125 Captain Xue
120 Mogrimm
100 Marcus
50 Me-Burq-Sa
595 points, 21 spaces

We'll be looking at how she plays, how much tweaking, if any, Captain Xue's Edge might merit, and, of course, what would be the best price for her. I'm also wondering if eschewing Elaria the Pale with her is ever a good idea, but the second army's theme requires it. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

[chas]

Hooray! Kolakoski is back from his Winter vacation in Jamaica. I just talked to him about his armies on the phone. We'll be playtesting his new version of his character (see card above) too.

Last month for various reasons no one but Taeblewalker and I were able to get together for a monthly session, although we did have fun. He and I will be playing the same armies on the same map, which is still secret because I don't have armies from Sherman Davies yet. Thrasher Darkrai will be joining us too, so it will be good to be getting the gang back together after the holidays.

***

Had a great six days upstate at Taeblewalker's, where we celebrated Christmas and my Christmas Eve birthday. Thanks again to him and his other half! During that time, had a warm, cozy vacation, and played eight different games.

I also found an obscure game called Ventura (FFG, 2011) on Taeblewalker's shelf, which neither he nor the person who gave it to him had ever tried out--the components were still in their shrink wrap, although the box had been opened. So he gave it to me as a birthday present, and I spent early Christmas morning checking it out! Its a rare wargame set in the Italian Renaissance, and designed by Italians (FFG adapted it for the US).

Since Ive been home I've researched it quite a bit, and now played it solitaire three times in all possible 2, 3, and 4 player counts. Posters on BGG consider it good but needing a bit more design work, which I've now done, after summarizing the discussions there from when the game first came out. I'm having lots of fun with it, and look forward to trying it out with live opponents.

***

Meanwhile, our next NYCG4 Scape session is coming up next Wednesday, and we still have one possible vacancy, if you're in or near NYC and want to join us! The scenario army requirements are back on Post #1818.