Beer, Pretzels and Dice: Fun games you can play quickly and easily.

I am sure many of you are like me and find little free time available to roll some dice with friends. The term “quick game” is a misleading statement and we often feel that games that play quickly lack the details we like and may feel like an “arcade game”.

While I could have picked a ton of games to talk about here, I decided to focus on two new titles I just added to my collection; What a Tanker from Too Fat Lardies and an older title called Gunfighter’s Ball from Knuckleduster. I selected these games because they have a low model count, have easy to learn rules, can have more than two players and can be quickly played in less than 90 minutes.

In the past, I (mis)used a term that caused a lot of folks some heartburn, so I want to properly define what I mean or what is meant by the phrase “beer and pretzels”. According to the:

…a beer and pretzels game is any of a class of tabletop games that are light on rules and strategy, feature a high amount of randomness and a light theme.

While I may not agree with this entire definition, I think we get the meaning here. Much like my “Meta” controversy, the term is often misused by gamers. I have heard the term used for games that I felt were a bit more complex than they appeared and the official definition above does not mention the time factor which I plan to use here.

What a Tanker
I love games from the folks at  (TFL) and I do not know why their games are not more popular; you just have to love the punny names they use in their game titles. In the past, I have played Chain of Command, Mud a Blood, and I do love Sharp Practice; so when I saw this title I just had to give it a try.

is a WWII tank skirmish game where you roll off initiative for your tank and then roll a fistful of dice which dictate what actions your tank can take when it is activated. The commands are pretty simple, you can move, load your main gun, acquire an enemy tank, aim at your target or shoot at it.

Like most TFL games movement is done by D6 rolls which I never really liked in other games, however for this game it does work out well. Another interesting mechanic that some may not like is the command dice, so if you fail to roll a “1” which allows you to move, your tank could be a sitting duck for a turn. Rolling a “6” gives you a wildcard command than can be used for any of the other 5 commands in the game.

So if you are loaded and behind a building out of sight, rolling a bunch of two’s (load), three’s (acquire) or four’s and fives (aim and shoot) will not help you very much. Tanks can suffer major or minor damage which is pretty cool and the only thing you will really need besides the rulebook is the hexagonal “Tank Tool” and to print out the status console and cards from the TFL website.

The rulebook is well done and fairly easy to follow, however, the rules which cover how the tank turns took us a few re-reads to get right. We played the game with some 15mm tanks that I use for Flames of War and on a table bit smaller than one would use for Flames of War. The terrain we used was simple 15mm terrain, but you can make the table as open or dense as you want which makes set up very quick.

When Throck and I tried this game out we made the mistake of each playing a platoon of tanks, which is a lot to manage. This game is great for a group of 4-10 where each player controls just one tank. We both thought that a time limit for your activation would be a fun twist to add to the game, which can add some fun snap decision making.

The game also has a mechanic that gives your tank cards for additional skills they can use to get “kill rings” from combat. So you can play a linked series of game where surviving tanks get to play again. The book also has a good selection of tanks for most major combatants (including Italy and Japan) the WWII and has them broken down by tier and year so you will not have your Matilda tanks running against Panthers.

I like this game because it does play quick and is a bunch of fun. It also uses the dozens of tanks I already have in my collection. Yes, it does have some quirky rules that folks who have not played other TFL games in the past.

Gunfighter’s Ball (Greenhorn Edition)
This title from is a game I was told about after we finished playing What a Tanker for this article. The game takes place in the old west and has a very low model count (2-3 per person). Furthermore, the rules are free and can be downloaded from the Knuckleduster site. After hearing about how much fun this game is I got seven 32mm models for about $3.50 each in order to play this game.

The models are very well done and most represent some great characters from the old west. Other than the models you need some poker chips, a spare deck of cards, dice (D10, D6 & D3) and something to measure with. The rules took me minutes to read and are clear and intuitive. While I have not played this game yet, I can tell this will be a great quick play game I will get others to play with me.

You can tell that Gunfighter’s Ball was designed to be a real beer and pretzels game from the ground up unlike the other titles I wrote about above. Even if the old west is not your thing, I would say this game would fill your need to roll some dice in a quick pinch. I do look forward in playing this great game and being free it would not be too difficult to just check out for the curious.

The above games are not the end-all list of beer and pretzels I would recommend or even own and play at this time. The market is full of these games and they do not have to be miniatures games; card and board games are also great ways to have some quick fun when time and massive brainpower are not abundantly available.

Deadball

Ok, you may think that this game does not belong here but baseball is historical and sports and war have a lot of similarities. I found this great game on Kickstarter and it piqued my interest immediately. The most recent Kickstarter campaign is for the second season of the book by W.M. Akers which quickly simulates baseball using dice and real statistics.  I picked up the of the game and played with my my cousin Micheal who is a relief pitcher for Lynchburg College. We found the game easy to play and we both felt it works as a great baseball simulation. We got thru most of a game in less than 20 minutes, even with us looking up the rules in the first few innings. A full game will take you less than a half hour and you can play out a series with someone very quickly. The game is also great for solo play. The game uses fictional teams, however with some quick research you can make rosters of some of your favorite major league teams. So if you like baseball and to roll some quick dice I would pick up this great game. I have communicated with the developer and I hope to get him on a podcast in the near future.

Beer, Pretzels & Fun

Not every game we play needs to be a deep analytical study with a thick rulebook. Few of us play games to debate or re-write history, we play in order to have fun and distract ourselves from real life for a little while. These games above are light on rules, however, they are not light on fun. I also feel that despite the ease of play, they do act as a good simulation of the topics they cover. I plan to have these games in my bag at upcoming conventions, so hit me up during some downtime and maybe we can get a quick game in.