Board Wargames

By Patrick S. Baker

“Peace, impudent and shameless Warwick, peace, Proud setter up and puller down of kings!” – William Shakespeare – Henry VI, Part III, Act III, Scene 3.

Besides being a great background for some of Shakespeare’s best plays, the Wars of the Roses make a fantastic setting for a great game: Kingmaker. Developed by Andrew McNeil and released in the United Kingdom in the fall of 1974 by Ariel Productions Ltd, a division of Philmar, Ltd. The front page of the rule book read in part: “

…. The game takes as its basis the concept that the dynastic struggle between the royal houses of Lancaster and York (called the Wars of the Roses) was, in reality, a series of brutal and bloody power struggles between factions of self-interested noble families, with the Yorkist and Lancastrian princes the pawns in a greater game of gaining control of the country in the name of one or the other monarch. Players control pieces representing the noble families as they seek power by a combination of military, political and diplomatic skills.”

By Mitch Reed

On a windy President’s day weekend, a group of 24 gamers gathered in a northern Virginia hotel to play three days of Combat Commander, a game series from GMT and Hexasim. The event run by Steve Gibson and Art DeFilippo was a smashing success, with over 70 individual games being played and a lot of new gamers (me included) becoming quick converts to this excellent game system.

By Mitch Reed

In our last article, we did an overview of all the games in the Commands & Colors series by Richard Borg. In this article we will compare how the core game mechanics are tweaked for two of the games that take place in the black powder era, C&C: Tricorne (CC:T) which covers the American Revolutionary War, and C&C: Napoleonics which covers the wars in Europe that started about twenty years later and shows how the subtle changes in the rules give you a unique period flavor for each game.
Each game uses the same basic mechanics that is shared throughout the entire C&C franchise, however, changes in how combat dice are calculated, the dice themselves, and some unique rules give each game a different experience and is not just a “re-skin”.

By Mark Greenwald

What’s the best thing to do in Spain? Visit Barcelona, Sagrada Familia, Madid, Prado Museum, Granada, Alhambra Palace, Segovia, Roman Aqueduct, Seville, Alcázar, Cordoba, Toledo, Valencia?

No, my friends, the best thing to do in Spain is go to a board game convention in Badajoz! For me, it’s been since 2019 for a game convention (GenCon and WisconsCon). I really enjoyed spending a long weekend making new friends in Spain while playing some historical board games.

First up…why is a convention named for an acorn?  Well, Badajoz is famous for producing Iberico Jamón (ham from pigs fed on acorns). Badajoz has been settled since Neolithic times, with several Dolmen and Roman ruins nearby (it was part of Roman Lusitania).

It was also a Muslim Taifa kingdom, so has medieval ruins to explore as well. The convention takes place in January, which is great because Badajoz can get really hot during the summer.

By Mitch Reed

One great aspect of my “day job” is that I get to see some really innovative wargame designs and meet some very gifted designers. One such designer is Sebastian Bae, who I have written about before with his work in teaching wargaming at Georgetown University.

Sebastian invited me to see the games his students were working on this past December and I featured them right here on NDNG. One game which Sebastian designed is now available for presale and I wanted to make sure our community had the chance to pick this game up.

By Mitch Reed

To kickoff 2022 I had some fellow gamers over to play two different games from the Command & Colors game system. We split into two groups, one playing the American Revolutionary War-based Tricorne and the other team playing the re-make of Samurai Battles. Since this event, I have been thinking about the Command & Colors system created by Richard Borg over twenty years ago and how I became a fan of it.

By Mitch Reed

Recently I accepted an invite from Professor Sebastian Bae to attend the “finals” for his wargaming class at Georgetown University. This marks my second time helping him out, last spring I headed up to the US Naval Academy to do the same thing with his Midshipmen. What better way to have a final exam than to play some of the games his students worked on this semester.

By David Garvin

In 2019, released Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit #4, Pacific Theater of Operations. With it, players new to Advanced Squad Leader could learn how to play the various forces that fought in the Pacific Theater in the Second World War.  Players new to the system, or even just new to the Pacific Theater and its nuances, could learn such things as how the Japanese Squad would stripe when it failed a morale check, or how to conduct a banzai. Due to the nature of the fighting, players also learned how to use concealment, a first for the Starter Kit system. Other new concepts focused mainly on the unique terrain of the Pacific, such as jungle and kunai.

Where it begins for many in the Pacific

By Mitch Reed

Tarawa 1943 from finally arrived at NDNG HQ, and I was eager to check out this solo game that features the mid-war bloody battle that lives in US Marine Corps lore. I played the game a few times right after it was delivered and I cannot stop playing it, some how the game dares you to beat it which makes it very addictive.

By David Garvin

The effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic are still with us and as gamers, the one thing we all strive to do – play games against an opponent – was a rarity.  Thankfully face-to-face opportunities are with us once again, masks notwithstanding! Such was the case recently for players of Advanced Squad Leader in Eastern Canada.