Village Games' Blog

Around the shop lately we have been playtesting another variant of the Combat Cards – the Ancient/Medieval/Fantasy Skirmish cards (the ’Archaic Skirmish’ Combat Cards). These play along the same lines as the other versions – with players having the make choices about allocating card resources, only you are commanding individual warriors equipped with more archaic weapons this time.

These cards also incorporate magic into the game – though it is an optional feature of each card. If you would rather do some historical skirmishing (say a Roman raid on a barbarian village) then simply ignore the magic portion of the cards.

Another cool aspect about the Skirmish cards (both the modern and archaic skirmish ones) is the ability to incorporate any unit, or any miniature, you want. There is a simply one page reference chart that allows you to assign characteristics to each unit on a comparative basis. This means that literally you can use the cards for whatever period/genre you want – that flexibility is, to me, what makes any game high on my play list. If, as a player, I can dream up new scenarios or try new genres/periods without having to learn new rules, I am much more inclined to stick with a game and not get bored and drop it.

Anyways, the scenario we were running involved two groups of wizards - one good, one bad - and their entourages’ encountering each other in a dungeon. The objective was simply to try and wipe the other group out. In the two games that were played the ‘good’ wizards did end up winning, but how they got there were completely different paths.

In the first game – a boyfriend/girlfriend duel – the ‘good’ wizards (played by the female component of the duo) pretty much had their way from the word go. They could not be harmed and their magic was vicious. In the second game, the ‘good’ side took a serious beating before they finally made a comeback and knocked out all of the ‘bad’ wizards.

In the end, everyone seemed to have a great time.  In fact, in the second game both players agreed they should call the game in 10 minutes so they could clean-up their stuff to go home. Forty minutes later they finally realized how much time had passed – after they had actually played the game out to its end. I guess you could say they were into it, eh?

If you are interested in trying these out, we are going to be running demos of both games (the Modern and Archaic skirmish) around the shop for the next several weeks, so watch the calendar and stop by to join in. You can either play with the figures provided, or bring your own and see how easy it is to stat out a unit.

Well, until next time…

Watch out for wizards with good lines-of-sight J!

Dan

Recently the Modern Treadheads were at it again at the shop with their semi-regular modern micro-armor game.  This time they had brought their own very excellent terrain boards to play on. Check out the forests and gently sloping topography of these bad boys!

This time I believe they were playing a ‘learning’ game as they had just recently picked up another new player (welcome Eric!). I think the next scenario will be another learning experience as they fold in more elements of modern combat, including infantry fighting tactics and possibly air-mobile operations.

Of course, with all of this renewed interest in micro armor (there are folks getting into the WWII side of it as well) we are getting requests for additional items on the next order. Ah, pleasing the masses is never done… J

Until next time…

Here’s to Explosive Reactive Armor!

Dan

Just a quick entry today – Dave A. has sent me some pictures of a Korean War scenario he is getting ready for the Combat Cards.  He will be taking the game on the road to promote the Gamer’s Reunion Convention in Rochester, Minnesota in September (yours truly may even be able to attend and run a few games of the Cards there – here’s to keeping the fingers crossed!).

Dave says he is doing the battle in 1/72 scale which should make for a very big, and very cool looking, battlefield when finished. I believe the scenario is based on Task Force Smith’s battles on the road to Osan in July of 1950. Hopefully GuruDave will keep us updated on how the scenario development goes, and will even provide us with some shots of the events when he runs them.

Until next time…

Dan