Sunday 8th April, 2007

Whilst our fair womenfolk took our smaller womenfolk out for the day, Vin and I enjoyed a day of lad's gaming. Did we marry the right women or what!

Vin was very eager to introduce me to Rommel's Panzers which, to quote BGG is a "MicroHistory #1 in the Metagaming MicroHistory series.
A game of Tactical Unit combat in North Africa. In 1941 Erwin Rommel arrived in North Africa to save the collapsing Italian empire. Among the units under his command was the Deutches Afrika Korps. With the Afrika Korps Rommel wreaked havoc and exercised such military ingenuity that he would therafter be known as "The Desert Fox"."

Now, this involves moving tiny cardboard squares on a map made up of hexagons. I used to love this sort of thing over a decade ago but I have kind of lost interest since. Still, I'm happy to play anything at least once and so I gladly sat down to a game. I didn't mind having to count hexes to assess range, or refer to hit tables half as much as I thought I would. It was good fun.

We played the 'Dawn Attack' scenario in which a British armoured encampment is surprised at dawn by a German Panzer column. It was a hard-fought battle but, in the end, the British were victorious although they only had two vehicles remaining.

Next, I introduced Vin to the joys of Carcassonne The Castle - perfect for two-players. Vin really enjoyed this and was only narrowly defeated 89 points to 84. I had the largest keep which gained me 7 points.

We then tried the two-player version of Finster Flure (Fearsome Floors). Vin enjoyed this a lot more than the four-player version we had played previously; it's much quicker for one thing. In the end Vin was victorious as two of his team escaped from the monster whilst only one of mine survived.

Vin then requested another go at The Castle. This time he was royally whipped 97 to 67. I managed to obtain most of the tokens and finish several high scoring buildings towards the end of the game.

We then decided to play Carcassonne with the added bonus of the Builders & Traders expansion. We played this twice and I won both (178 to 129 and 198 to 139). I concentrated on obtaining the trade goods tokens to ensure a monopoly. I also managed to place some high scoring farmers (and piggies!).

All in all a great days gaming and the realisation that hex-based wargames are more fun than I thought they would be!