March was a bit of a slow gaming month here at Casa RockyMountainNavy.
The numbers are a bit deceptive; 23 plays of 12 different games but if you throw out the 11 plays of Quarriors (WizKids, 2011) than that is a single play of most other games. Quarriors dominated the family gaming time this month with many games played in the short time after evening chores and bed time. Great family filler game!
After flirting with Villainous, I picked up the expansion. It kinda fell flat. There is not anything necessarily wrong with the game, it just didn’t grab us. Same goes for Illuminati; mechanically the game doesn’t know when to end and my older version has political and social references lost on the younger generation (to their detriment).
Four of the wargames played this month, Great War at Sea: 1904-1905, The Russo-Japanese War, Great War at Sea: U.S. Navy Plan Orange, Plan Orange: Pacific War 1930-1935, and World in Flames (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), are larger games requiring more time to play. In terms of gaming hours each individual play takes up more time than a quick scenario of something like Commands & Colors Tricorne: The American Revolution. Unfair accounting?
Speaking of Commands & Colors, there are some interesting developments in the series. I always understood that the main designer is Richard Berg, but didn’t realize until this month how the game license is divided up amongst publishers by era. GMT Games has Ancients, Medieval, Samurai, and Napoleonics; Compass Games has The American Revolution; Fantasy Flight Games has fantasy; PSC Games has World War I and space; and Days of Wonder does World War II. The question becomes who is going to do the American Civil War or the French & Indian War? This is important for my gaming budget!
Rocky Mountain Navy Gamer 