Any board gamers here?

[+pcpilot 181]

Ive always been fond of Panzer leader and Panzer Blitz, squad leader, and a few others like Flattop and Richtofens war. Found a renewed interest in PL and discovered this really nice website of a Canadian enthusiast of the game...Imaginative Stratagist. The new Lock and Load series looks pretty outstanding too. Anyone else here indulge?

[+Typhoid 231]

Ive always been fond of Panzer leader and Panzer Blitz, squad leader, and a few others like Flattop and Richtofens war. Found a renewed interest in PL and discovered this really nice website of a Canadian enthusiast of the game...Imaginative Stratagist. The new Lock and Load series looks pretty outstanding too. Anyone else here indulge?

 

did some board games over many years. Currently we square off with Civilization, Starcraft and some others.

[Echarlie 0]

Back in the day I had just about every wargame that Avalon Hill and Victory Games put out. A few years ago my mom found them in a huge box in the attic and sold them all in a garage sale.

All I have left now are

Luftwaffe

6th Fleet and

Vietnam 1965-1975

I'll prolly start looking on EBay for another copy of Richtofens War. That was always a favorite.

 

It all started when I went to the theater to see the movie "Midway" (showing my age here)

The next day I was in a hobby shop and saw a copy of Avalon Hills Midway game.

I've been an avid wargamer since then although computers pretty much took over after I discovered

Steel Panthers

[DWCAce 19]

Back in high school my friends and I played Axis & Allies every so often. It was a time hog though, sometimes it took use up to 30min per turn! Fun times though, and lot's of 'what if's'.

[JediMaster 451]

I played Axis and Allies to death. However, the large number of units in the later stages of the game made me write a little program in BASIC to roll the dice! Instead of taking those 6 dice and rolling them 5 times each, I could type "30" and it would randomly guess numbers from 1-6 then print it on screen.

1s - 4

2s - 6

3s - 5

4s - 5

5s - 7

6s - 3

 

A real time saver!

[Alexander51 3]

Done a few over the years myself. I always thought that after I had flown a sim on a PC for

the first time that I would never touch a board game again. I was dead wrong :

Board games have this nostalgia that is hard to ignore.

 

Anyone ever try SPIs Air War? Holy crapola what a monster that one was/is

[charlielima 328]

Done a few over the years myself. I always thought that after I had flown a sim on a PC for

the first time that I would never touch a board game again. I was dead wrong :

Board games have this nostalgia that is hard to ignore.

 

Anyone ever try SPIs Air War? Holy crapola what a monster that one was/is

 

Yup, Made me appreciate just flying a lone A-6 Intruder in snotty WX. Anything more and one would need some serious square footage or alot of friends to staff a Sim room and an Ops room.

:ph34r: CL

Edited January 15, 2009 by charlielima

[hanker422 0]

Yea I played Axis and Allies ever since I was young, and still get together with brother to play. But I guess it helps when your brother is the current Brand Manager of Avalon Hill games at Wizards of the Coast. And working at Wizards and Wizkids games got me even more into board and table top games!

[Vampyre 24]

Ahhh... I remember all the hours my brothers and I played Avalon Hills TACAIR and Fighter Ace and of course Larry Bonds Harpoon series... What a blast we had. We could not do it today though what with real life and the fact that we rarely see each other anymore. Thats why we still play computer games, they are so easy to keep connected and playing even with the distances involved. Maybe when we retire we could start playing wargames again...

 

Vamp

[TX3RN0BILL 3]

Yea I played Axis and Allies ever since I was young, and still get together with brother to play. But I guess it helps when your brother is the current Brand Manager of Avalon Hill games at Wizards of the Coast. And working at Wizards and Wizkids games got me even more into board and table top games!

 

Lucky you!

 

I've got a group of friends, we're 5 total, so the choice for boardgames is sometimes limited, they're not too keen on the overly military stuff so I was thinking on getting Starcraft maybe...

[DaSpungie 1]

Yes I do indulge alot in them sstill got over 50 games but soon all my battletech miniatures books and all will be hitting e-bay

most any game with tanks planes and biggun ships in my librairy panzer 88 squad leader arab isreali wars

air war airforce ambush bismark jutland mtb well thats a good start to the list

 

play my mail or play by e-mail anyone?

[+pcpilot 181]

Oh man! Axis and Allies! How could I forget that game, lol. My two pals and I played that religously for over 6 years every tuesday. Holidays didnt even stop us. The only excuse was a death in the family, lol. Got to playing first East Front by Talonsoft on the computer, then Ghost Recon and my board games started collecting dust.

 

Lol, yeah MrCraig, I looked at AirWar a few times and your right, it was a BIG brute. I figured no one I knew would ever get into it, kinda like Flattop so never bought it. I think I played two flattop games over 20 years against another opponent and finally sadly sold my game on Ebay a few months ago.

 

By the way, you guys DO know about Vassle dont you? Check out this link here...Vassel gaming Engine. It actually works pretty nice, at least from what I can see with Panzer Leader.

Edited January 16, 2009 by pcpilot

[DaSpungie 1]

wow most the games i got are on there

 

down loading now

[+streakeagle 871]

I still have a substantial collection of board games.

I never have the time to even mess with them and even if I did, none of the friends that used to play them with me have enough time to play them anymore.

During my countless moves in the Navy and prior to getting married, some of my games took a beating and a few are missing pieces and/or data cards.

As much as I love most of these games, I don't really ever see myself ever playing them again.

I am about to move again and may just save myself the hassle of hauling them to a new house by throwing most of them away.

The one reason I have to hold on to them is the hope that my 2-year-old son might one day take an interest in playing some of them.

Not knowing which ones he might like, I need to keep them all just in case...

But how much interest will he ever have in playing games designed to simulate a war that never happened?

 

A lot of my games were "modern warfare" simulations for 1970s-1980s air, land, or sea combat assuming massive all-out conflicts between the USA and USSR:

Avalon Hill's Flight Leader, TAC AIR, MBT, Attack Sub

Victory Games' Agean Strike, 2nd Fleet/6th Fleet/7th Fleet

GDW's Assault/Boots&Saddles/Bundeswehr/Chieftain, The Third World War, Combined Arms, Air Superiority/Air Strike/Desert Falcons, Harpoon

West End Games Air Cav, TSR/SPI's Air War, SPI's Foxbat & Phantom, FASA's Top Gun, GMT's Hornet Leader, 3W's Modern Naval Battles, Omega's Main Battle Area, Leading Edge Games' Phoenix Command, Timeline Ltd's Close and Destroy, Group 3 Games' Rolling Thunder, The Gamers' Force Eagles War, Enola Games' Warship Commander/Sea Command

 

For the most part, the only games I had covering any earlier time frame were air combat games with a few land and sea types:

Avalon Hill's Air Force/Dauntless, Luftwaffe, B-17 Queen of the Skies, Knights of the Air, Enemy in Sight, Wooden Ships & Iron Men

GDW's Command Decision, Lou Zocchi's Complete Fighter Combat System, Falcon Games' Mustangs and Messerschmitts, Air Games Ltd's Air Sortie, Emperor's Press' Red Baron

Clash of Arms' The Speed of Heat, Over the Reich, Achtung-Spitfire!

 

Nova's Ace of Ace's/Wing Leader/Jet Eagles series of book based "3d" air combat games are worth special mention as they lie somewhere between a board game and a pc flight sim.

 

But I also have a few RPGs and Sci-fi games:

the original TSR's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

Steve Jackson Games' GURPS, Car Wars

Fantasy Games Unlimited's Chivalry & Sorcery

Task Force Games' Star Fleet Battles/Federation & Empire

GDW's Traveller 2300/2300AD/Star Cruiser, Dangerous Journeys

I.C.E.'s Silent Death, Star Strike

Fantasy Wargaming, Warlord

 

All of these games pretty much became obsolete the day I got my first PC in August of 2000.

I was constantly trying to refine the rules to make the games more realistic, but with no one else to play them and having to spend endless hours alone trying to recreate battles that would have taken only a few minutes in real time... the PC was a savior. Real-time flight sims. I already had experience with Jane's Fighters Anthology on a work laptop. But playing Jane's USAF, Jane's F/A-18, Jane's WWII Fighters, Jane's 688i, and Jane's Fleet Command were generally equally or more realistic than anything I had done with board games, much faster, and far more fun. Then I found Aces High, Operation Flashpoint, and SFP1. I have never really looked back.

 

Until now.

I just bought my first board game flight sim in I don't know how many years.

Birds of Prey http://web.mac.com/philip_markgraf/Birds_o...ey/Welcome.html

I have looked over the contents and this is the promised land: a board game that rivals PC flight sims in accuracy/realism of modeling 3d flight fully acommodating all three axis' of rotation (direction, pitch, and roll) and the four forces (thrust, drag, lift, and weight).

They use some cool laminated charts with markers to do all they hard math graphically.

But, I am still having trouble making the time to learn and play this, though if I do learn it I have one old friend that might actually give it a shot.

I suspect I wasted my money buying it, but I couldn't resist since I own virtually every other board game/flight-sim ever released en masse and this one is clearly the best ever made.

 

I will say that the best part of playing board games is having a small group of friends gathered having the same type of fun that occurs at traditional poker games.

But I have achieved the same or even more fun by hosting Operation Flashpoint LAN game nights at my house (just had two nights of fun while my wife was out of the country).

I think I need to let go of my nostalgia and simply dump everything, which would certainly make my wife happier.

[+streakeagle 871]

By the way, you guys DO know about Vassle dont you? Check out this link here...Vassel gaming Engine. It actually works pretty nice, at least from what I can see with Panzer Leader.

 

I did not know about this.

A lot of my games are there, which means I could get rid of the big boxes and paper, but still retain the ability to play these games... not a bad trade-off.

[toonces 4]

Hey gents.

 

I assume that if you're reading this thread, you have a) an interest in air combat, and b) an interest in boardgaming.

 

I have a couple of recent, in print games I'd like to suggest.

 

1. Downtown: The Air War Over Hanoi by GMT Games. This game simulates the air battles over Vietnam on a 'raid' scale of a few planes to a full-on Alpha Strike. The big campaign game plays out several raids a day over a week or so. It isn't as tactical as, say, Air War, but it does allow for alot of tight tactical decision making. Game turns are 1 minute of 'real' time I believe.

There is a set of solo rules available for download which greatly enhance the playability for the gamer who has no partner...

 

2. Burning Blue by GMT Games. Same designer, same concept, but encompasses the Battle of Britain. No solo rules that I'm aware of.

 

3. Whistling Death. By the guy that did Speed of Heat (I think), a tactical game of WW2 air combat in the Pacific. 20 second turns. Very highly regarded, but too much time/reward for me compared to a regular ole flight sim on the PC.

 

Finally, boardgamegeek.com has everything you could ever want to know about boardgaming.

 

If nothing else, I'd head there and check out the Downtown page- it is probably the most interesting game to folks who are on this site and also have even a passing interest in boardgaming.

[JediMaster 451]

First PC in 2000? LOL, only 15 years after I got my first one!

[+pcpilot 181]

Lol, I thought I was slow in getting a computer in 1995!

 

Heck, maybe we could get a CombatAce board gaming community going...HA! Wouldnt that be cool... :0)

[+streakeagle 871]

First PC in 2000? LOL, only 15 years after I got my first one!

 

Imagine I was a poor-starving-student from 1986-1989, so I was limited to my 10th grade computer: a Timex-Sinclair 2048 (Sinclair Spectrum modified for the US market). I played Fighter Pilot (F-15 sim) and Tomahawk (Apache sim).

 

The next 8 years I was an enlisted sumarine sonar tech. Sure, other sailors had some PCs and Amigas, but I spent most of my time at sea sitting in front of green screens with a headset on playing the ultimate version of "Dangerous Waters" called real life in the USN on an SSN, so when I was in port I spent my money on two things: 1980 Corvettes and guns. I went through 3 1980 Corvettes from 1991 to 1995. The last one of the three surviving to this day as my primary driver to/from work. At that time in the Navy in California, gas was about 1.35/gal for 92 octane and I was spending typically $400 per month on gas despite my sea time. I purchased an AR-15 (technically a Colt Sporter HBAR) and a Springfield Armory 1911A1. Between the two, I spent $400 per month on ammunition. My credit card bills looked like this continuously repeating:

Shell Gas Station $25

Sombreros Mexican Restaurant $8

The Living Room Coffee Shop $6

Mission Armory $50

I had no need or desire for a PC at that point.

 

In 2000, I went back to school and had saved enough money that I didn't have to work and was able to get a PC. By doing so, I bypassed all the 386/486/Pentium/Pentium II/Pentium III upgrade cycles (though I had a Toshiba Satellite Pentium MMX laptop via work starting in January 1998 that played Fighters Anthology very well). My first real video card was a Voodoo 5500 purchased in November of 2000 and somewhere between the PC and the video card, I had gotten a Saitek X-36 USB. So, while I was late to the game and I never have bought state-of-the-art equipment at just-released prices, I haven't suffered from trying to play games like LOMAC on a Pentium II/400 either.

 

Besides, up until my first PC, I was pretty much content with my wargames which I sometimes played in 3d using 1/285 for armor combat and 1/144 airplanes on sticks for air combat.

To this day, I would like to build the Fulda Gap German map from West End Games Air Cav on a big train table and use it for 1/285 games.

Of course time and space leave me settling for Suddent Strike... which isn't a bad substitute other than being WW2 when I would much prefer a 1970s-1980s time frame.

[+streakeagle 871]

I experimented with Vassal for Air Force/Dauntless, 2nd Fleet, and Air Power (which is Speed of Heat).

I find that it works really well for Air Force, you can pretty much play without even having the game if you already know the rules.

I don't remember enough about how to play 2nd Fleet to rate it, but the map and counters look good.

It is at best just a map with markers and a few charts/diagrams for Speed of Heat.. adequate if you have everything else, but nowhere near as functional as Air Force.

[JediMaster 451]

Computers are cheaper than cars!

[DarthRevan 3]

I play Dungeonquest, Risk and Ticket to ride and Ticket to ride Nordic Countries sometimes

[MAKO69 186]

I love chutes and ladders, and candy land, OH and Hungry Hungry Hippos....is that a board game? great times.....I mean my daughter likes them when I play these with her. Now the wife we got this "BOARD" game,........ well you know.

Edited January 20, 2009 by MAKO69

[ptol 0]

The problem is that most of the people nowadays don't like those kind of games; I mean I like very much PC games but board games are more fun because you are with "real" people...!

[JediMaster 451]

The major advantage of board games is also the major drawback...you need to have a group of people willing to play in one location with the time to do it.

This is why online gaming is so popular...people can be literally anywhere!