Sunday Summary – Puzzling over 1979-2034 Rostov Submarine Barns (#wargame #boardgame #books @MultiManPub @HABA_usa @FoundationDietz @Bublublock @compassgamesllc @DanThurot @USNIBooks @Academy_Games)

Wargames

A very pleasant week of wargaming. I got Rostov ’41: Race to the Don (Ray Weiss, Multi-Man Publishing, 2020) to the gaming table for multiple plays. I really enjoy the Standard Combat Series and this title was truly a Rev to My Gaming Engine. Deeper thoughts will come in this weeks “#Wargame Wednesday” posting. I also pulled Steve Peek’s Submarine (Avalon Hill, 2nd Edition 1981) off the shelf to support a “Rocky Read for #Wargame” entry on The Enemy Below (Cdr D.A. Rayner, Henry Holt & Co., 1957) that will post later this week.

Boardgames

The Kickstarter campaign for 1979: Revolution in Iran (Dan Bullock, Dietz Foundation) successfully funded this week. This is the second game in what I (very informally) call the Axis of Evil Strategy Game Series. The first game, No Motherland Without: North Korea in Crisis and Cold War (Compass Games, 2020) was the subject of a very nice Space-Biff column this week.

Miss A brought her birthday present game, Barnyard Bunch (HABA, 2019) to the house this week when she came for her tutoring with Mrs. RMN. This is a very kid-friendly cooperative game that was really fun to play together with her and Mrs. RMN. The goal of the game is to keep the animals from running away. Every turn, a player rolls the die to see what animals advance (depends on color of die face), or retreats one space (the Farmer), or which is taken all the way back to the barn by the Dog. Then, you draw a card that will advance an animal, lure an animal back one space with food, or show the Farmer (choose one animal back one space) or Dog (one animal back to barn). Not much strategy needed as the game is played cooperatively with all players participating in the choice of animals moved by the Farmer or Dog. Given Miss A is 7-years old we thought that maybe the game is actually too simple for her. However, we were later told she took the game to a friends house and taught it to her friend. So…it was an obvious good choice by Mrs. RMN, right?

Puzzles

No, not puzzle games, but real honest-to-goodness jigsaw puzzles. Got notice this week that two historical puzzles I ordered through Academy Games arrived at the warehouse. For the RockyMountainNavy Boys summer enjoyment they will get to work on these 700mm x 500mm, 1000-piece puzzles featuring cover art from Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear and 878: Vikings. As I look at the pledge page I see very few puzzles ordered. I know we are coming out of COVID lockdowns but, hey, let’s show some love here!

Books

With the arrival of summer I decided to order “a few” more books for those lazy evening reads. I started off with Naval Institute Press (where I am a member) and ordered several from the Fall 2021 catalog. Stupid me, I failed to realize two of the books are “coming later this year” so I only got one book from this order in hand (Norman Friedman’s Network-Centric Warfare, 2009). I also ended up ordering seven more books from the “Clear the Decks” sale section—still awaiting delivery of those. I then ordered two titles from Amazon which is how 2034: A Novel of the Next World War by Elliot Ackerman with Admiral Jim Stavridis, USN (Ret.) and The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, A Temptation, and the Longest Night of World War Two by Malcolm Gladwell arrived on my bookshelf. Of the two, 2034 is very likely to feature in a near-future (no pun intended) posting of “Rocky Reads for #Wargame” since Compass Games is scheduled to release John Gorkowski’s Indian Ocean Region in the South China Sea series of wargames this month.