What happened in 2023
I haven’t posted since June. It’s hard for me even to believe it is January of 2024. I made a resolution last year to try and up my game for the blog. Unfortunately, it appears that I have gone in a different direction sadly. I wish I had a good reason for myself. However, I really can’t point to anything in particular. I guess if I had something to point to, it was a bit of a lack of focus and motivation.
That isn’t to say I haven’t been playing games; discussing games; or designing games. As it happens sometimes, I just got to the point where I was going in alot of different directions and the blog was the thing I dropped.
That said, I’m hoping to turn that around this year. I have a pretty deep backlog of things to play, things I’ve played and not done a proper review of, and a few other ideas that I hope to knock out this year. That said, before I get into what the future holds for Cardboard Conflicts I figured I’d give a bit of a recap of what I have been playing and doing this past year!
Wargaming
Wargaming is still my first love when it comes to board games. I love exploring history through this medium. Some of the best games get me thinking about topics and sometimes even researching them!
Probably the most influencential this year in that regard was At Any Cost Metz 1870 designed by Hermann Luttmann and published by GMT Games. I’ve always been interested in World War I and the rapid technological, political and social changes of the late 19th and early 20th century. In many ways, the Franco-Prussian war was the catalyst to those changes, especially in the military technology front.
I was able to track down a copy of this game last year. Luckily, I was able to play a game of it in at Buckeye Game Fest with my friend Bill!
More Metz
After playing the game I got a bit excited to learn more about the conflict. I went and picked up several books on the subject and began reading up. I ended up with three books and then picked up another small game from CSL titled Mars-la-Tour based on C3i’s Gettysburg system:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/292817/mars-la-tour
After all my raving about the game online I finally got a chance to show the game to Fred Serval on his channel as well and do a teach-and-play for one of his pyjama streams! I was so excited that I got up early, rigged a setup in the dining room so I wouldn’t wake anyone, and did the stream at 5am. Check it out here (my mispronunciation of French and all):
Other Wargames
I was able to get several other plays of wargames through the year as well. Early in the year, I played with my friend and sometimes contributor to the blog: Jacob. We got in a few games of Commands and Colors Samurai Battles. It’s a commands and colors game utilizing cards to activate units in a section of the board. However, it focuses on unit type and “honor.” In the game Samurai are the strongest on the field but lose honor for fighting mercenaries or even more against peasant levy forces. It also has special action cards called dragon cards that can be swingy, but add some interesting choices to gameplay.
The other game we played was a bit of Horse and Musket I from Hollandspiele. In many ways, I feel it’s a contemporary of Commands and Colors, with modular map tiles, multiple scenarios, and somewhat generic units. However, it is much more traditional with an action point system that can be used to activate any units on any turn and several combat tables depending on the scenario. Very cool and one I want to revisit again this year.
Another game I got early in the year and played MANY times this year was Land and Freedom, designed by Alex Knight and published by Blue Panther. It’s a great CDG with some tableau building and a bag building victory condition which makes determining the winner difficult to predict all the way to the end. If you like semi-cooperative games and CDGs it is definitely worth a look.
Skies Above Britain was another game I got to the table a couple times. The game is a solitare only and centers around managing a squadron flying missions to protect Great Britain from German bombers. It has a fantastic narrative and is really great solitare system. The rulebook and way the game on-boards you is reminiscent of Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion. It starts out with a tiny scenario of the most basic action of the game: dogfighting. From there, it slowly feeds you rules through teaching scenarios. It definitely is a great solo game:
Speaking of solo games, I received my copy of Halls of Hegra this past year as well. It is another fantastic solo game! I previewed the game when it was just on Tabletop Simulator here: https://cardboardconflicts.com/?p=711, and I’m happy to report it didn’t change much. The production quality is fantastic and the game is a very good blend of mechanics and narrative.
This was another game I nagged Fred to cover on Homo Ludens’s discord community. He finally caved and brought me on again to play through a couple turns online. It says a lot that Fred normally hates solo games, but this one he really warmed up to this! This one I want to check out again! Don’t tell Fred, but I was happy to get up early to play this one with him.
The last couple of wargames I’d like to highlight from this year are ones I’ve wanted to play for a while. The first is Inferno from GMT and part of the Levy and Campaign system. Thanks to https://rally-the-troops.com/ I was able to play Nevsky a couple times this year. After that, I really wanted to get a physical copy of the system. I used the GMT sale this fall to snag a copy of Inferno and thus far played the intro scenario. It is a bit different from Nevsky but still a neat puzzle. I hope to get more plays in this year of this one as well!
The last game is one I had heard and raved about for quite a while and finally was able to play with my friends Aaref and Steven recently. The game is Maria, a 3-player game on the war of Austrian succession, and boy did it live up to the hype. It has a fantastic and clever card system that is used for battle. The way it does so really gets you thinking about where to pick your battles as only the suit that matches the area your army is in is a valid card to play.
While the game has relatively simple rules, it is very complex in the decision space. Along with that, it has some really interesting 3 player dynamics that make the game a classic. Like most wargames, it can be a bit lengthy. Don’t let that stop you though! If you haven’t tried it yet, find two other people (it’s really a three-player-only game) and get it to the table!
The British Way Campaign
Wait Russ isn’t The British Way a wargame? Didn’t you just cover wargames? Yes, that is correct on both counts. However, I wanted to give The British Way its own section because I played the campaign with my friend Jordan, and what a fantastic small campaign!
For those that might not know The British Way is in the COIN system from GMT that focuses on counter-insurgencies actions through history. I’m pretty confident in saying it’s the best-selling series from GMT games and has MANY volumes out there with more on the way.
The thing that makes The British Way unique is that it is a four-pack of smaller two-player games. Most of the other volumes in the COIN series are multiplayer, so this makes the games in this box unique. The interesting thing though, is that these are fairly low complexity; have some unique systems in them; and if played together can tell the story of how the British dealt with the exit of many of their colonies post World War II.
Jordan and I played over a couple weekends this year and we had a blast. The campaign covers Palestine, Malaya, Kenya, and ending in Cyprus. What is nice is the campaign is very few additional rules that mostly come in the way of a map that abstracts actions happening in other areas of the British Empire, tracks progress and has events that happen between the games to give some flavor. These might do things like limit your setup in a game as troops are pulled from your current game to deal with a crisis elsewhere in the empire. It really is a fantastic campaign to experience. With low complexity and each game only taking 60-90 minutes to play easily a campaign that can be done in one long afternoon or a couple weekends like we did.
The game quickly sold out from GMT. It might be available in a few vendors if you are lucky, but I’m guessing it will get a reprint given it sold out by the GMT sale this fall. If you have a chance to play or purchase a copy it is definitely worth looking at if you like COIN games or want to experience a campaign that you can actually get finished in a couple gaming sessions.
Other Gaming
his year I played a fantastic set of non wargames too. Some were historic and some were not. Though it is not something that I have covered here much, I felt that given my hiatus it was worth sharing some of the other games I’ve had the pleasure to experience this year as I’m always looking to expand what games I’ve played.
Early Spring
Early in the year I got in a couple plays of Pax Pamir in person, though I’ve played A TON of this on Rally the Troops over the past year, Pax games are always games I love. They are abstract chaos that really makes you have to roll with the changes and try to muddle your way through. Definitely a good time.
A big campaign game that I received and got to the table early in the year was Hoplomachus: Victorum. A solo-only campaign where you play as a champion in Greek mythology traveling the world and fighting Pluto’s minions to try and save the world. Probably one of the fanciest solo games I’ve ever seen produced, this one is a fantastic little tactical game. It’s a bit of a table hog but a neat experience, though it will probably be a bit before I have time to really dig into it again. It’s definitely a showpiece kind of game to have in your collection.
Cthulhu: Death May Die is a co-op game that is tough as nails and brutal to play. That said, we played a couple times this year, and I’ve enjoyed the heck out of it each time we’ve played. The production is fantastic, and it has an interesting system where your character powers up as you take morale damage. However, if you get too much stress, you eventually go insane and lose the game. It has a frantic pace and a ton of heroes with different powers to try out. Really a great game if you like co-op dungeon crawling-type games with a Cthulhu theme.
Sniper Elite is a hidden movement game where one player plays a sniper and tracks their movements on a hidden dry-erase board, while one to three other players try to hunt and capture the sniper before they can complete their mission. I got to play this one a couple times, and it was a very neat game. The hidden movement and push-your-luck element to shooting for the sniper causes a lot of tension.
The Expanse is a game I was lucky to find a copy as well as the expansion, Doors and Corners, as I believe the game is out of print. With the series over, I don’t see this one getting another print anytime soon. Designed by Geoff Englestein, the game is an interesting mash-up of COIN-style factional play area control; CDG card activation mechanics; with a Pax-style card market and scoring round system. The expansion adds several things including an easier-to-read board, more asymmetrical actions, and makes the Protomolecule more important. This is a game I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of because I love the IP, but the game mechanics and how they come together are fantastic.
Summer
The Witcher Old World is a game that Jacob backed that came in this past spring. We were only able to get it to the table once, but it had a really interesting card action system. The way you chain cards in attacks lets you perform some fantastic card combos. With a city/country story card system like Gloomhaven and a bidding mechanic for battles for nonactive players in multiplayer games, it’s definitely one I hope to convince Jacob to get to the table more this year. With several expansions that bring new wrinkles, it’s one I’d love to dig into deeper to see what else it holds.
I didn’t get many pictures but I did get this one in of my board in my four-player game of Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory this summer. A heavier euro game that is a bit of a political and economic game it was a fun time! I’d love to try it out again as I’m a sucker for heavy thematic euros with asymmetrical gameplay and this one has that for sure.
In August, I hit GenCon for a single day to check out the exhibit hall. While I was there, I did a quick demo of Star Trek Away Missions. It was an interesting tactical miniature game that, at least in the demo game, played very close to the theme of Star Trek. I mean that to say many problems could be solved without direct violence. In the game, you can instead focus on mission objectives and accessing computer terminals to try and complete tasks before the other player wins. I’m not sure it’s a game for me, but it was a nice little experience.
Fall
Bidding games! My first play of Ra didn’t go so well. I think I ended with three points and felt like a fool most of the time. I was either not bidding when I should have or was over-bidding when I didn’t have to. Overall, it wasn’t a great experience. In my second play, I did better, but still not sure it’s a game for me. That said, I started to warm up to it quite a bit and wouldn’t mind another couple of plays to form a better opinion.
That said the bidding game that I find really neat is High Society. I’m not sure why I like it better, maybe it’s not having the tile pull screw you over, or having to worry about set collection in Ra, but I got a couple plays in of High Society this fall and found them enjoyable both times!
War Chest! I think I’m something like 0 for 8 on the Boardgame Arena digital implementation of the game, but that hasn’t stopped me from loving it in person. I’ve played it several times, most of the time with my younger son, Oliver, as he really likes the game a lot too. The brainchild of the dynamic duo of David Thompson and Trevor Benjamin, I think the best thing about the game is drafting your units to start. It forces you to change up strategies each time because your mix of units will differ each play. The bag-building element and just the great feel of the chips in your hand are fantastic! It’s definitely a game I can’t get enough of.
The next game I almost missed out on but got my P500 order the day before GMT charged for it. That game is The Barracks Emperors. A hybrid trick-taking game, this one has very simple rules but is incredibly hard to play as the board state is always in flux. The Barracks Emperors hit the table several times after I picked it up, and I had fun introducing it to several people. I know Brian Boru gets a ton of love as a recent hybrid trick-taker, but even with the pasted-on theme and long playtime, I’d much rather play The Barracks Emperors any day. That really isn’t a dig on Brian Boru because I think it’s a good game, I just think that Barracks is super neat in what it does.
A game I picked up at GenCon that was a great small box solo game was Mini Rogue from Nuts! Publishing. A board game approximation of a rogue-like video game. The game has you dungeon crawling as a hero to try and make your way through several levels to fight a powerful boss at the end. I picked up a couple of the expansions for the game and found it to be a fun little game to play on a weeknight or as I did, during Thanksgiving between meals when kids were playing.
End of Year
I rounded out the end of the year with a ton of games in December. I’ll try to hit the ones I can remember to take some pictures of, but it was a bit of a blur! First up though was The Great Zimbabwe. It was my first Splotter game and one of the ancient civilizations building trade and trying to build the best monuments to their god. The game has very interesting shifting victory requirements whereas you purchase and unlock the ability to sell more goods, the higher level of points you have to get to win. A really think game I definitely liked the flow of it and the mancala-based initiative system. A really great game and one that I’m glad I got the opportunity to check out.
Zoo Vadis is a negotiation game where you try to get your faction across the zoo. It sounds easy, but it will require a lot of cooperation with your opponents to get to happen. I’m sure it’s a good game and it was enjoyable up until the last two turns. I had picked a different path than several of the other players and with limited spots in the victory space, it came down to the end where I could either let someone else in and lose, or try to convince them to let me in for a chance to win meaning they would lose. I didn’t like that the game came down to that decision as it didn’t make sense for either of us to budge so it was a very anticlimactic ending. I don’t think I had the points to win either way, but with an ending like that, it left a sour taste in my mouth for sure.
Quantum was up next. It was a very cool little dice game that was very confrontational but very easy and quick to play. With a cool little system to level up and incentives on winning combats, the game was incredibly tense. I’m usually a sucker for space-based games anyway so this one was definitely a hit for me.
Guards of Atlantis II is a skirmish game with a really cool card-based system and with a lot of different characters to choose from and team dynamics, it’s definitely a game that rewards multiple plays. I’ve only had the chance to play this one a couple times, but it’s a neat system and I really like seeing what all the different characters actions are. It reminds me of Gloomhaven in that regard that each character feels different to play and has a bit of a learning curve to it.
Wandering Towers: What a neat game. It looks very cool on the table with the towers being stacked on one another and the meeples on all the different levels. A game that has a bit of memory to it, it’s just a simple race game where you try to race around the circle to get your characters into the main tower first. The shifting board state and physical presentation along with a quick play time make this one a fun game to play and one I think my kids would enjoy as well. I hope to get another play of it in soon.
This past Christmas my family got a lot of games between us. First up was my youngest Ellie. She got a copy of Sushi Go!!: Spin Some for Dim Sum. A very simple set collection game with a fun art style and the fun tactile element of a spinning tray. We played this as a family several times over the holiday break. Playing very quickly and simply enough the whole family can play this was a fun little game that I’m glad to have experienced with the kids.
Next up my daughter Isabelle. She has a thing for ducks and so she got a game Abducktion. It’s really a set collection game where you try to manage a tableau of multi-colored ducks to fulfill research projects by matching patterns. A brain puzzler at times, it has a lot of ways you can mess with the other players too. We played this both the base game and with the expansion, which adds wild color ducks as well as a moveable section to your tableau making more complex patterns possible, this one is a fun little game I think everyone enjoyed.
The game my family got me for Christmas was Imperial Assault. The Star Wars version of a Dungeon Crawler I played this one via the app with Oliver and we had a fun time playing through the base campaign. With a fun little story and SEVERAL expansions out there this looks like a fun one that I’m sure we’ll come back to later this year as he asked several times to play it while he was off of school.
Game Design
The other thing that I did this year was complete my first game design! While very small, I was happy to get something over the finish line and complete a game design! While just a free downloadable Print and Play, I submitted a game for the Hissy Cat: Postcards from the Front game jam. It was a fun little event where participants had to create a full postcard game on a 5×7 or 4×6 card that had to include, rules and counters.
After reading a couple books on the subject, I decided to do mine on the last stand of the papal Swiss guard during the 1527 sack of Rome by the forces of Charles V. The game uses a d6 and standard deck of poker cards for activations but really focuses on the pinnacle moment where the Swiss Guard fought to the last man in order to give Pope Clement VII time to escape to safety down the secret passage to Castel Sant’Angelo.
The final game is available to download on Itch.io here: Last Stand of the Swiss Guard and is also available on Tabletop Simulator if you care to try it out there.
YouTube
I did try my hand at a quick review format of Santander ’37 this year on YouTube. Santander is a cool little hex and counter from Snafu Designs. With artwork by Nils Johansson, it really is a quick playing puzzle of a hex and counter as the Republican forces really have to pick the terrain and try to fight a delaying action to hold the Nationalist forces at bay long enough for a victory. Check it out here:
Buckeye GameFest
The other major gaming event I had this year was the Buckeye Game Fest in late April. Man, what a weekend of gaming. Played some very long days but had a total blast playing with folks like Bill, Jordan, Dean, Alexander, and Grant from The Players’ Aid, David Thompson, saying hi to Gary from Ardwulf’s Lair, Brant from Armchair Dragoons and I’m sure many others that I’m forgetting. For a recap of my time there feel free to check out my post about the con here: Buckeye Gamefest 2023.
Looking ahead at 2024
Whew! That took me longer than I thought to work through 2023. So that brings me to New years resolutions. What is on the agenda for this year? Since I didn’t live up to my goals last year for the channel I figured maybe this year I’d put these down in the blog. That way it’s out there for the world to see and maybe it will help hold me accountable this year.
Blogging
This year again I’m going to hope to increase the frequency of my posting. I’d like to say I could get to the point where I can get at least two posts out per month. However, I’d be happy if I could just keep on a semi-regular schedule.
As for the type of content I really liked my combined arms article on The Battle of the Bulge. While I don’t think I’ll do something quite as intense as several games on one single battle again, I like the idea of a longer form blog post that looks at a collection of games either by publisher, topic, era, etc. and does a bit of a deep dive. I’d like to revisit that format again this year hopefully a few times.
I keep thinking back to why I started this blog. Essentially I was inspired by folks like Fred and the Homo Ludens community, The Players’ Aid and how welcoming to me as a newcomer to the scene they have been, other content creators and designers that have been welcoming and supportive online and I wanted to pay it back. To that end I’d like to work on a few articles for newcomers, maybe some wargame vocabulary, discussion on mechanics, and even a breakdown of scale as these can be things that come up often online and for someone new, I know there might be people afraid to ask. I’m not entirely sure what that might look like but I definitely want to try a few things to see what happens.
As always we’ll see if I get a couple previews in there along the way. Those are always fun to do and keep me honest as there are deadlines to hit!
YouTube
I’ve slowly started to invest in some better gear for video production and editing. As I do so I’d like to continue to try my hand at videos as I think they offer a different experience to the blog and can accent it very well. I like the idea of small run-time reviews in the length of 3-5 minutes. There are definitely sites out there with long extended reviews, but I think there is something to be said of something quick that gives an overview of a game in only a few minutes for people who just want the quick version.
We’ll see how that goes. My first love is the blog, but if I can split time between the blog and video hopefully I can keep the blog for longer more in-depth pieces with reviews in video form.
Game Design
First off, I have updates to Last Stand of the Swiss Guard to expand the game a bit. I’m hoping to have that put together very shortly and hopefully, I’ll have some news on where you might find it later this year.
As for other stuff, I have various ideas for games that I’m slowly researching to try to get the background information down before mapping anything out.
While I’m not ready to reveal anything just yet if I can get just one or two games finished this year I’ll call it a win! Even if they never get published or see the light of day outside of print and play or something I make for myself I’d be happy to say I’ve done it.
Conventions
I hope to make three wargaming-focused events this year:
- Circle DC: April 4-7 this year I missed a whole bunch of friends at the first Circle DC in 2023 last year. I don’t want to make the same mistake twice! Kevin from Fort Circle has been cranking out some great games and from what I’ve seen online and heard he puts on a mean convention
- Buckeye Game Fest: May 2-5 this is the main convention I’ve been to the last couple of years and man its been a blast each time. With only a couple hundred to begin with the dedicated war room has even fewer people at times which makes it very intimate, but packed to the gills with wargaming. I’m hoping to get some Empire of the Sun in this year!
- SDHISTCON: sometime this fall: I was planning on hitting SDHISTCON this past year, however had some unexpected home repairs that came up last minute that killed my plans. While this is definitely a bit of a trek for me, the idea of San Diego in the fall and the in-person convention that really started my love of wargaming is definitely one I want to hit this year for sure!
Wrap-up
So that’s it! It was definitely a busy year even if the blog didn’t make it seem like it. I’m looking forward to 2024 and hope to keep busy on the gaming front the whole year as I have a rather ambitious set of goals to hit this year. As always I’m around on Twitter as well as several different Discord and slack channels out there. I love meeting new people online and have regular async games going on Rally the Troops and occasionally on Boardgame Arena.
So with that here is to the new year and with it a new set of goals for the year. As for your gaming may your dice rolls be good and your card draws ever fortuitous! Happy gaming everyone!
