Travis Reynolds: Basic Training – Athens & Sparta, Battle at the Cross Roads

Editor’s note: Basic Training is a new column that will run monthly on BGN if Travis enjoys it enough to keep writing. As for what the column is about...

For the military, basic training is the course that transforms civilians into soldiers. In this case, it represents the effort to transform gamers into wargamers. Okay, maybe the word “transform” is a little much; more accurately, let’s say the goal is to introduce wargames to gamers who are not familiar with them. An eye opener, so to speak. Certainly, the gap between the average gamer and wargamer is nowhere near as large as that between a raw recruit and the heroic soldier he is to become – although some may argue with that! In any case, this task should be much easier…right?

Let me first say that I am no huge wargamer myself. I have my share of experience playing wargames and miniature gaming, but I don’t consider myself a wargamer. I would say more that I am in love with the idea of being a wargamer. So for me, this column is an opportunity to explore that. Some of the things I hope to accomplish:

• Review new games (some really new, some just new to me!)
• Explore the question, “What exactly makes a game a wargame?”
• Attend a show here and there and report back on the wargame scene
• Give readers a heads up to what is on the horizon
• Play some of those great games collecting dust on the shelves at my house and others

Review: Athens & Sparta

Recently, Kris Hall (yes, I know him, don’t tell anybody) and I had a chance to play the latest block game from Columbia. This game takes the players back to the Second Peloponnesian War (431 BC to 404 BC) and lets them fight out the battles between the wealthy naval power of Athens and the dominant land forces of Sparta (insert obligatory 300 quote here).

My experience is that the Columbia block games generally do a fantastic job at taking the same basic game system, making slight modifications/additions to it and ending up with a game that feels like it was designed specifically for the theme it is representing. Athens & Sparta is no exception.

The basic concept of the block game is present. Movement is determined by randomly dealt cards that assign a number of movement points and are played one at a time. The information side of the block faces the owner, showing troop strength and combat efficiency. As they are wounded, the blocks are turned to indicate a reduction in strength. Meanwhile, the opponent can see only a blank block face, creating a “fog of war” effect. The combat remains simple, taking place in sequence from A to B to C (A-rated units go before B, etc.) and success being determined by simple six-sided die rolls compared to the units combat rating. It is win or go home for the attacker, as he has two combat rounds to destroy his opponent or at least convince him to retreat.

For me, the things that stood out as making this different from the other block games I have played were naval movement, revolts, wintering, siege attrition, and victory.

A quick peak at the map and all the blue on it will give you an idea on just how important naval movement can be to this game. Lots of islands are accessible only via naval units. Plus, port cities are not considered fully under siege unless they are also blockaded by an enemy naval unit.

Revolts are an interesting option in which a player may use one or more of his movement points to sponsor a revolt in an enemy city. Revolts are represented by actual blocks that must be fought.

Wintering is different in this game in that it does not exist. In other block games, units must find shelter for the winter or face penalties. Not so in Athens & Sparta. This is somewhat countered by a change in siege attrition. In this game, both the attacker and the besieged must make siege attrition rolls at the end of their turn. This is a notable change from what I have seen and makes sieges very interesting.

Finally, the victory conditions for this game seem to set the tone. Either side may win by capturing 30 victory points worth of cities or by simply occupying the enemy city (Athens/Sparta). If neither happens by the end of the game, the Athenian player wins by default. I think this forces the Spartan player to play aggressively, which can be very difficult, as the combination of the map’s chokepoints and naval movement make the game very incremental. Meanwhile, it allows the Athenian some options, one of which is taking the advice of Pericles to sit behind the walls of Athens while avoiding conflict with the armies of Sparta.

Athens & Sparta is a very solid game. Both Kris and I will readily play it again. As with most games, even more so with wargames, I am sure both our approaches would be much different next time around. I highly recommend this game or any Columbia block game you get a chance to play.

Convention: Battle at the Cross Roads

This month I was lucky enough to make it out to Battle at the Cross Roads, which is mainly a miniatures show that is put on by Jeff Russ and the HMGS Great Lakes crew. Jeff and HMGSGL as a whole are both very supportive of CharCon, so we like to try to return the favor by attending Cross Roads.

I used to play a lot of miniature games, and I never tire of seeing the amazing scenery and paint jobs that people are able to produce. The room was full of gangsters, pirates, generals, tank commanders and more. In addition to all the mini games, there was a table on which Memoir ‘44 and Battle Cry were being taught. I know from personal experience that they serve as a great gateway to get miniature gamers to play board games, and I found it very interesting that they are also being used as an introduction to miniature gaming. I took some time to chat with the instructor and caught up with him later to show off BattleLore. Several other folks stopped by to check it out and were very interested in picking it up.

While at Cross Roads, I got to play in two different games myself. First, I took to the skies in a game of Canvas Eagles. This is a game of WWI ace pilots fighting over the skies of Europe. It uses actual 1/72 scale model planes that are placed on telescoping rods and moved around the map. Canvas Eagles is very similar to the wildly popular convention game Aerodrome, but more to the point it is very similar to Wings of War. I don’t know much about the history of WoW, but the game could very easily have been inspired by Canvas Eagles or Aerodrome. All three have similarities, especially with the release of the WoW Miniatures. I managed to fly out, shoot up some Germans, and fly my British Snipe home. What else could a WWI Ace ask for?

I also played in the Cross & The Crescent: An afternoon at the Crusades. This was a tournament using De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA) and matching Christian forces against Muslims. I had never played DBA before, but I was fairly familiar with how it worked. I took control of a Late Crusaders army and proceeded to wipe almost all of them out over the three rounds. It was lots of fun and as I played, I was struck by the similarities between this game and the Commands and Colors system used in the games mentioned above and more appropriately, C&C: Ancients. In DBA, movement is limited by the roll of a die, and in C&C it is limited by the card you are able to play. In both games, players move individual units and are rewarded at times for keeping them in a line formation. In both games, the tactic of flanking your opponent so that you can cut off his route of retreat is prevalent and quite often results in victory for the player who is able to employ it. The games even share some similar victory conditions regarding number of units destroyed.

Afterwards, I took advantage of both the theme and the game similarities to show off my copies of Crusader Rex and BattleLore. Lots of guys seemed very interested and asked lots of questions.

Cross Roads was a great time. While I didn’t play any board games, I did get to talk with a lot of miniature gamers about board games and found myself playing games that felt very familiar, even if they weren’t made of cardboard.

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Comments:

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Welcome, Travis.  Good to have you aboard. We might mention that our game of Athens & Sparta took a full five hours to play.  Of course, I assume that playing time would drop once we got used to the system. I suspect that Hammer of the Scots might be a better introduction to the Columbia line of block games.  I don’t know exactly how long my first game of HOTS lasted, but it was under three hours. Posted by Kris Hall on Feb 15, 2008 at 06:31 AM | #

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