The Raft Lookout

A couple of things have recently caught my eye.

First, Campaign Game Miniatures have released two new 18mm napoleonic figure sets. The first is a party of soldiers with supplies, the other one is a Vivandière with a pack mule.

I’m especially happy about the second one – Vivandières played an important role in the French army and women in similar functions (official or unofficial) could be found in many other napoleonic armies. The models look very nice and clean. I will certainly get a set of each. Dermot has already announced that more stuff will come for the “camp and supplies” section of his range. As I’m mainly playing skirmish games, I can never have enough of such things, so I’m really looking forward to the new releases.

TooFatLardies have announced a new set of rules: What a Cowboy! The name already suggests that the game’s DNA is derived from What a Tanker!, a game I like very much (even though I’m not interested in tanks). If you follow the Lardies on social media, you will have seen some of their numerous test games. The rules will be out by the end of February. I will certainly get those, not only because I like the basic mechanisms, but also because I already have figures I can use, namely my Mexican Revolution collection.

Virago also has a long-time plan for a Wild West project (and some figures stashed away), so you can expect reports of shoot-outs in the near future.

My Spanish Civil War naval project has triggered an new interest in the Spanish Civil War in general. So my curiosity was roused when I read about a new boardgame being published.

Land and Freedom: The Spanish Revolution and Civil War looks very promising, especially since it is a semi-cooperative game where all the players work together against the fascists. This is a good idea because first, who wants to play the fascists, and second, instead of depicting the anti-nationalist side as a coherent block, it allows to show the difficult cooperation between the different factions. It is published by Blue Panther and will be out by the end of January.

What A Mecher!

Maybe you won’t believe it, but I did something else besides playing Sharp Practice! (Truth be told, I do play other games, but I usually don’t write about them on the blog…).

Soon after What a Tanker! was released, Virago started talking about making a variant for Battlemechs instead of tanks. I always liked the idea of Battletech – the German edition of the boxed set was my first hobby boardgame and I read a number of novels.

This box was my first “hobby” boardgame!

However, the original game is rather unplayable, especially nowadays, when I’m much too old for long-winded, extremely detailed and convoluted rules. What a Tanker!, on the other hand, is a great fast-paced game I like very much, even if I’m not interested in tanks at all.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, Virago announced that he was ready for some What a Mecher! action (incidentally, WaM is a working title…). He had put down some ideas on how to convert WaT to the Battletech setting, which basically means replacing tanks with giant robots. Which is much cooler in my opinion.

So far, we had a couple of games which worked really well. Sigur has written detailed reports here and here, so I’m not going to repeat myself and just show you some images from our games.

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The game has everything a Battletech game needs. Virago, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of Battletech lore, has devised very clever mechanics for heat management, which is one of the core mechanics of the original Battletech and also features prominently in the novels. There are also rules for different kinds of weapons and mechs and of course for close combat – what would giant robots be without punching each other up?

The game is great fun and I really enjoy playtesting it!

First Game of What a Tanker!

Last Friday, I could persuade Sigur and Stephan to set up a game of the new Lardies extravangaza, What a Tanker!, at the local club. They had both played the game a couple of days before, but unfortunately I didn’t have time then, so I was very grateful that they indulged me and played again.

We set up a desert table with rather eclectic terrain. It looked like the set for a cheap 60s B-movie, but that fits rather well with the aesthetics of the rulebook. Incidentally, the cover is a work of art. It’s fun and irreverent and pours scorn on the Nazi kitsch that pervades some WW2 games.

We played with Sigur’s 15mm tanks and as he only had British and Italian, Stephan and I took an Italian tank each and Sigur got two British ones. I can’t remember which – I’m lucky if I can tell a tank apart from a bicycle.

The game is easy to understand – it’s the simplest Lardies game I’ve ever played – and flows along at a nice pace. The dice activation mechanics is great, there is friction but as long as your vehicle is undamaged you have a lot of dice, so the chances are good you can do stuff. While I fumbled around a bit, Stephan proved to be an old tanker and smashed the British vehicles. In the end, I think I got the hang of it and could contribute to the Italian victory.

I really like the game. Playing it felt strangely relaxing. Perhaps that’s because I’m not really invested in the period or the vehicles (in contrast, after a game of Sharp Practice, I usually feel pretty exhausted). Perhaps it was because we played with early war tanks – I’ve heard that late war fights are faster and much more dangerous. One thing that certain contributed to my mellow mood was playing with two congenial chums. What a Tanker! works really well as a multi-player game, the turns being fast enough to keep downtime short but still long enough to have fun watching the others manoeuvre and shoot.

I don’t see myself buying tanks, but Sigur and Virago and the others have enough anyway, and I’d certainly be happy to play it again. It’s a great little game for a fun evening with mates.