03 January, 2016

2016 a New Year of Gaming and Looking Ahead

 

As we get ready to take on another year, I can't help but think of what's to come in 2016. More Flames of War, we'll also be playing a load of other games in the coming year! X-Wing, Beyond the Gates of Antares, Team Yankee and some more Napoleonics! We plan a relaunch of our gaming podcast and more frequent updates. We hope you'll make the journey with us!

Kicking off another fresh year in gaming is always exciting, there are new releases, discovering older games that have been around for a while and of course the assembling and painting of gaming models/miniatures.

Tristan, Andrew and Dennis look on as we played a game of Twilight Imperium (3rd Ed.) It was our first real gaming session of 2016 and gave us a chance to relax and just hang out and roll some dice. This game has been around for some time and I bought it around six months ago and had never played it. It's a great strategy game with very in depth strategic, diplomatic, and combat elements. Think Risk meets Shogun meets Civilization, but on a larger scale.


What's great about this game is the changing battlespace and alliances that are both formed and broken. Sometimes within the same turn! It's awesome that everyone agreed this was a good investment on my part for picking this up. At $120 to buy and never having played it was risky, but I'm glad I did and I think this could become a staple in our gaming arsenal this year. It really will play out differently every time you sit down with your friends. You've likely read that this game is highly rated on board gaming websites and if you have the money and the time to play it, you need to add this to your gaming shelf.


Every player will have a corresponding card belonging to the race (faction) they end up playing. Because this is random, you play what you're dealt out of the 12 factions available. This makes for a more fun approach than just picking something that 'looks cool'. You have a limited number of tokens, which basically decides how many actions you can take during each game round. It takes careful planning to balance your political, strategic and planetary conquest ambitions in this game.


Dennis carefully figuring out how many 'Dreadnoughts' he can purchase. The second largest unit you can build for your fleet in this game. With a straightforward d10 system in place, combat is simple and quick. As we all learned the rules and worked out the finer details of the game, the later turns started to move along fairly quickly. You'll need a good chunk of time in order to finish a game and we recommend you use 10 victory points for your first time out. I would say four players would be the minimum you would want to have, and six being ideal. Your other option, when you're ready will give you a few more additions of leaders and other elements to make the game a little more 'complex'.


New ships, new missions and of course with the new movie, X-Wing is alive and well. Expect more write ups, battle reports and reviews in 2016!


There's no way that we'll stop playing Flames of War, though in the past few months, it's taken a back seat to other games, this game is still my favorite and I look forward to tournaments, building some new lists and getting some much needed modeling and painting done to bolster my Flames of War forces.


Stay tuned for a relaunch of our podcast, with life being what it is and scheduling time to talk gaming, there was quite a lull in content for our podcast in 2015. We know there are a lot of you that enjoy this and we are very thankful you download it or stream it into your car or home. You will see a new episode before the end of January and then a regular schedule will keep us on track to bring you new and exciting gaming related chatter, tips and more.


You've see a ton of stuff on Dennis and his Napoleonics reports over the past month, now get ready for more Team Yankee! Some of the crew will be diving into this new addition to Battlefront's growing gaming library. I has elements of Flames of War in a more modern setting. Russian tanks, new US aircraft and many other model/unit types are sure to make this a great new alternative!

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