GAME KIT NEWS
Death Ride: Mars-La-Tour Back in print, email me if you want a copy.
Leopards And Lilies: Slumbering.
Anglo-Dutch Wars: Depending on building a merchant marine model that is both simple and yet effective. To this end I am testing one on a Napoleonic naval game using the same structure based my work on the tables in Clive Emsley's book.
Field of Battle: Rejuvenated by the appearance of the excellent HäT and Zvesda plastic figures. I have assembled a grid sheet for the tabletop (brown wrapping paper does just fine) and enough undercoated figures for the Trebbia. [I am using DBX basing conventions]. The old system works very well at about 10-30 minutes a game (perfect for campaigns where a decisive battle decides things), but for a figure game I need to do a version that runs out to about 60 minutes. This work will start now on the Punic Wars period.
Les Quatres-Bras: We cannot be far away from this one, but until I have Mars-la-Tour back in print I have decided not to do much more with it. I do now have an A3 inkjet though, so we are looking at a one-map game.
Louis XIV: As with the Anglo-Dutch Wars the maritime system is the key.
The Hobby continues to shrink at its boxed game heart, though the shrinkage shows an interesting trend. Remove GMT from the picture and things are rather moribund. Perhaps MMP will do something exciting, but the other producers seem very quiet (The Gamers are, as ever a mystery to me, but they have not yet sold two thousand copies of Drive on Paris so one wonders about their audience). Even the DTP scene is less boisterous than before. Micro-Games Co-op continues to produce new stuff, but there are only so many Brian Train games one can take at a time. Add in GMT however and the picture changes dramatically. Not only has this imprint continued to produce its trademark Berg and Von Borries' games but it has added dramatically to its range such that even I have found myself with a surprising number of games on order from them. This is especially true because the P500 scheme allows such dramatic savings. I have expressed my opinion on this scheme before - it is, I think, bad for GMT, but it provides astonishing value to us. Expect to see reviews of the new PoG scenarios and Wilderness War in the next PA.
Vae Victis has had some weak games of late so the return of the ever professional Frédéric Bey's Jours de Gloire system and the tight Plan Jaune are to be applauded. Sadly Leuthen and Tobrouk look like wash-outs.
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© Copyright 2001 by Charles and Teresa Vasey.
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