Printing Pondering

by on May 19, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Posted In: News

If you deal much with ink-jet printers, you know that printer manufacturers are making most of their money with consumables: ink and paper. The fight to maintain their profits include various methods of convincing people to use their own branded paper, and more especially ink.

I just came across this article at Trustedreviews, looking into how all of this holds up in actuality. The methodology looks pretty tight, though I need to look for the promised updates for color durability.

The interesting points include:
*The combination of printer+branded ink+branded paper did not win any of the overall quality scores.
*The branded papers did better than the branded inks.

On the entire ‘no-refills thanks to the embedded chips’ thing, it seems that’s something of a myth. The refilled cartridges generally work fine. However, Lexmark printers will claim ‘low ink’ for the entire life of an off-brand cartridge, and most off-brand (not refilled) Canon cartridges want you to transplant the chip from a real cartridge (odd…).

More worrisome is the fact that they did have some reliability problems with the off-brand inks.

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Wargame News IV: Catch up

by on May 14, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming, News

Been meaning to post on happenings in the wargaming world for a little bit, but it’s hard to find the time to gather everything together.

First off, ADB, after several delays, is putting out it’s next round of products. There have been delays because their die-cutter told them they didn’t want to do it anymore, so ADB ended up shopping for a new one at the last minute. But, as of today, “Distant Kingdoms, Omega Five, Boosters 19 and 20 are on the cart.” Omega 5 and FC:DK were mentioned in Wargame News II (correction: Distant Kingdoms isn’t a boxed set, but akin to the “Attack” products—lots of stuff, but not a complete game). The Boosters are more ship cards for FC, I assume to go with FC:DK.

In all the excitement, other things have been pushed back. Captain’s Log 37 will probably come out in June, and it sounds like X1R and/or Y2 for SFB will be out for Origins (both have just had their counters done). Progress is being made on d20 Modern version of Prime Directive, with d20 and GURPS versions of the Federation sourcebook due after that. The next important FC release is Orion Attack, which is currently scheduled for August or September.

MMP is keeping busy, having quietly put another four items on their preorder page recently. Where Eagles Dare is the second half of a company-level treatment of Operation Market-Garden. No Question of Surrender is part of WED/TDC “Grand Tactical Series”, dealing with The Battle of Bir Hakeim. No Peace Without Spain is a strategic game about the War of Spanish Succession (I need to take a longer look at this one). And finally, Angola is a reprint/rework of a 1988 game on the Angolan civil war.

Meanwhile, Action Pack 4 hit its preorder number in under a week, spent a little under a month in final proofing, and now all the components have come back from the printer. It’s just waiting on the last initial shipments of South Mountain to go out, and then it starts shipping.

In the last month, GMT has shipped a reprint of Combat Commander: Europe, and a new version the Avalon Hill game, Blackbeard. SPQR Deluxe and Kutuzov will ship at the end of this month, and in June, respectively, and GMT has started charging preorders for them. And, they’ve added three new items to the P500 list: Crown of Roses, a block game of the Wars or the Roses. Nightfighter, a WWII nighttime dogfight game. And Serpents of the Seas, an age of sail naval game.

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We Who Are About to Game, Salute You!

by on April 21, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Posted In: CC:Ancients

Well, the gang got together for an afternoon of wargaming this Sunday. Patch, Mark and Jason came over for Commands & Colors: Ancients. It’s a short game, and we all managed 4 playings of it each.

The general format for the afternoon was for us to pair off (thankfully there were two sets available as both Mark and Jason have it), play a battle, swap sides and play again, and then swap opponents and do the same thing with a different battle. As victory is determined by ‘banners’ (victory points) awarded for unit eliminations, the total number banners from winning and loosing games can be added up for everyone to see who did the best.

First was the Battle of Akragas, in 406 BC between Syracuse and Carthage. It’s a fairly simple and light battle, and made a good introduction to the system for me (and, I hope, Patch). I had a good shot at winning my first game against Jason, as the Syracusans my right flank was heavily engaged at the beginning with the rest of the battle developing more slowly. I took a random leader casualty (effectively, boxcars) which handed Jason an extra banner. Without that I may have managed a win. Score: 4-5.

The second game didn’t go nearly as well. In part, my cards were not nearly as friendly as the first game, but I get a feeling I just don’t know how to handle Carthaginian troops. Score: 3-5.

For the second round we swapped partners, so I was facing Mark, and Jason was facing Patch, and we were fighting the Battle of Zama. This is a much bigger fight, and has a couple of the more complicated troop types, but still has no terrain. In the first go-round, I had the Carthaginians, who I still had trouble getting the most out of. I think I got more use out of my elephants than anyone else, but that’s not saying a lot. I was also fairly happy with the two units of warriors I had, but they got unsupported and died quickly, after chasing a Roman general all the way back to the rear, but not quite being able to kill him. Score 4-8.

The last round, as the Romans against Mark started off very well. I generally controlled things against the elephants, managed to keep from having too many problems with an overpacked line, and got off two line advance maneuvers in a row. That allows you to move any and all foot units that are in a single continuous line. In my case that was all my infantry. Mark was quickly getting pressed up against his own back line where retreats cause casualties. Despite this good start, and a very good early exchange, I just couldn’t capitalize on it, and Mark kept knocking out units with better rolls than I could get. When a pair of attacks that should have taken out one of his units instead merely took out 3/4s of two of my units, I just couldn’t find anything to do for a bit. I eventually recovered from my personal morale failure, and we ended up trading blows at 7-7 to try and get the final banner for the win. I got just lucky enough. Score 8-7.

This gave me 19 banners for the day and an overall 3rd place directly between Mark (20) and Patch (18). Patch had beaten Mark both times in the first pair, but went down 8-4 twice against Jason, who won every battle, and scored 26 banners for the day.

We talked over several possibilities for next month over lunch, but right now it looks like we’re going to do Onward Christian Soldiers four-player.

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Wargame News III: New MMP Preorders

by on April 7, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming, News

MMP has just put a few new things on preorder:

The star of the show is definitely ASL Action Pack 4: Normandy 1944. The fighting in Normandy is probably the most well-covered part of WWII in ASL, and this is going to add another 12 scenarios to the total. The good news is that a lot of the early coverage was purely centered around the paratroopers on and right after D-Day, while this is a bit more spread around. However, I’d say the really nice part is the three boards that will be included: 53 – a nice village surrounded by orchards; 54 – typical dense hedgerows and orchards, which we haven’t seen on a normal board before, and I like the wooded path at hexrow L; 55 – more hedges and orchards with low hills and some sunken roads that I understand a lot of hedgerow roads turned into. So, terrain-wise it looks interesting. Supposedly, MMP is trying to get all ASL materials into final proof before putting it on preorder, so it should be ready about 4 weeks after it hits the magic number (and that’ll take what, a week?).

Next is Bastogne, a game focusing on the actual defense of Bastogne behind the lines of the German advance during the Battle of the Bulge. I don’t know of any games done just on this subject, but I’d be surprised if it hasn’t been done before this.

And last is Kawaguchi’s Gamble: Edson’s Ridge, which is on the Japanese attack that tried to take Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, which would have been essential in defeating the U.S. invasion of the island. It sounds like it’s meant to be quick, with five turns and a playing time (once you’re used to the game) of about 3 hours.

Meanwhile, GMT has announced that Blackbeard is done, and should ship out to customers by the end of the month. ADB has had to push back its product schedule a bit due to problems with getting the die cutting for the counters done. Main upshot is that Distant Kingdoms (which I just recently realized is not a boxed set) is now scheduled for May 5th.

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Rule Britannia!

by on March 22, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

(It’s a pity that I wasn’t playing Britain.)

Me, Patch, Mark, and Jason (a friend of Mark’s, that I’ve seen in a while). Got together today for a game of Soldier Kings. It was planned as a five-player day, but continuing car-trouble means that can’t attend at the moment.

It’s been a while, so, despite everyone having the rules to look at ahead of time, there was some fumbling around at first, though it went far better than last time.

Mark got Britain, Patch got France (I was just as happy to leave the naval war to them), I got Prussia and Jason had Austria. The big discovery is that it’s just very hard to keep Britain from doing whatever it wants, navally speaking, without Spain in the game. Patch tried to get them as a minor ally at one point, but couldn’t quite do it. After the first year, Britain was almost half way to winning, and Patch had his hands full slowing him down, never mind stopping him.

I think the underdog in a fight can do more than Patch did in that situation. You have to stay flexible and keep the other guy off-balance. Not that I’m a good one to talk. I’m in the same boat as Prussia, have better means of doing it (a pair of good leaders), and didn’t do all that well.

Things started well enough with a couple of good rolls helping me win battles. Sadly, at the end of the first year, I had a couple of big reverses, which reduced my army, lost me a leader, and lost me Silesia. Even though I was able to immediately get a new (lesser-quality) leader, this definitely put me on more of a defensive footing. I did grab the Netherlands from Austria, but the French got it from me right afterwards.

The second year was slightly better. I managed to take Saxony that fall, which left that minor ally army with a single wounded army, and no way for it to repair. The third year again started out well, and I lost it all at the end, including the death of Fredric the Great, which really cut down my options.

Meanwhile, Mark slowly built up his dominion in the New World. He shipped his best army over early, and since France was in no position to send anything meaningful over, it just slowly battered everything else into submission.

So, we’re definitely wondering how to keep Britain in check without Spain in the war, and a little concerned that they have the fifth player be Russia instead of Spain. Still, it’d be good to try again, especially with 5-6 players.

Next time is up in flux. If we have three, we’re probably playing the SFB scenario Flashpoint Mantor again. Things could definitely have gone better, and Mark and Patch have been eager to give it a go. But, we’re checking to see when Jason is available again, and if it works out, Mark and Jason may bring their Command & Colors: Ancients sets over, and we’ll all try that.

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