With GMT’s recent release of Manoeuvre, an abstract light strategy game with a wargame theme, I thought it would be worthwhile to discuss what makes the better gateway game to more serious wargaming: Manoeuvre or the Commands and Colors system.

Before we begin let me tell you how I’m framing this. I’m not going to talk about which is easier to learn, as both systems can easily be handled by your average non-gamer. My goal is to examine both titles from the perspective of which provides a better launching pad into other consims.

Oh, and for C&C I’ll be using Memoir ’44 as the example. Why not Battlecry when Manoeuvre also focuses on pre-20th century warfare? For starters since it’s out-of-print I want to reference a game that everyone can access. I also think that the World War II theme provides a far greater interest level than the medieval/fantasy trappings of Battlelore or the skirt and sandal action of Ancients. Ultimately since the system remains essentially the same from Battlecry through Battlelore any one of the titles could probably be my reference point.

If you’re not familiar with either game both share superficial similarities. Units are ordered by cards. They are variable board configurations (though achieved by differing means). Both are simple enough that a new player could pick up the game within minutes, and the typical session takes less than an hour. Beyond that though Manoeuvre and Memoir ’44 are quite different.

In Manoeuvre players command a set number of units on a grid map. The map is created by assembling four separate map sections, each section having a four by four grid superimposed on it, for a variety of configurations. Except for the creation of redoubts there are no terrain overlays.

Units are either infantry or cavalry, with an emphasis on infantry. The game uses double-sided counters with the name of the unit and its combat strength. Artillery is abstracted through card play.

Each player has a hand of five cards drawn from their unique nationality deck (there are eight different nations to play, allowing for ahistorical match ups). Each deck is comprised of cards that can be used to attack or defend when matched to their particular unit, along with special cards such as leaders and unique actions. The composition of the decks vary according to nationality, so there is some variety with commanding the various combatants.

During a turn players can discard, draw to their hand limit, move one unit (unless having a card that allows an extra unit to move), and then make one attack. Attacks can only be made by playing one or more unit cards that match a unit, meaning that it is entirely possible to go through several turns with having no possible means to attack the enemy even if your men can see the whites of their eyes. Finally, units that have suffered a hit can possibly rally back to full strength through various means such as playing a Supply card.

While there are a few ways to achieve victory there is essentially only one scenario to the game: pick out two armies and go at it. In that sense it’s sorta like DBA—a historical fantasy fight club—although without many nods to modeling realism.

Memoir ’44 uses a standard hex map divided into three sections and creates its terrain by overlaying terrain hexes onto the map. This gives the game a near infinite range of maps. Units are not counters but miniature figures, with damage represented by removing figures from the stand much like in actual miniature gaming. There are three different types of units: infantry, artillery, and armor.

Players command their units through section cards. Each player draws from a common deck to a hand sized determined by the scenario. Each card is either an action card or a section card. A section card allows a player to activate a certain number of units in one or more of the map sections, while an action card can grant special privileges to specific unit types or impact the game in other ways such as representing an air attack.

Victory varies according to the scenario but usually revolves around eliminating a certain number of enemy forces, but the holding of objectives can also play a part.

So how do they stack up against each other in teaching basic wargaming concepts?

In terms of components Manoeuvre offers up its units as counters, which is still the default component for wargames. Memoir 44’s plastic figures have the toy factor going on, but with a few exceptions unless you’re getting into actual miniature gaming you won’t encounter plastic figures with your wargaming.

Manoeuvre’s victory at introducing counters to potential grogs who grew up on plastic Risk pieces is slightly reduced by the fact the maps in the game use a grid. You have to go pretty far back in the world of consims to see grids used on any type of regular basis. Memoir ’44 with its hexes will help ease newcomers into the typical wargame map far easier than Manoeuvre.

Then there’s the basic gameplay structure. Manoeuvre only provides players with one way to play. Memoir ’44 is a scenario based system, which like hexes, is rather common in the world of wargaming.

Manoeuvre scores points by having the different armies play differently. Memoir ’44 units are all even across the board, with one or two special cases (e.g. heavy German armor units, French resistance, etc). Since wargames are rarely about two mirror images duking it out, Manoeuvre provides a better idea of what someone can expect from a more serious game.

Mechanic-wise, Memoir ’44 comes off better because of the inherent structure of Manoeuvre with its move one unit, make one attack if you have a matching card. There are some basic wargame mechanics such as line-of-sight and terrain benefits found in Manoeuvre, but overall Memoir ’44 handles the subject of mechanics much better. Examples include the fact that advance after combat is not mandatory, more varied terrain benefits, and the use of combined arms is more transparent.

In the end I think Manoeuvre’s basic game style is what damages it the most. While it is entirely possible in Memoir ’44 to end up with a hand full of useless cards you still can probably at least fight someplace on the map. Manoeuvre is far too luck dependent since you can’t make any form of attack with a matching card. Ultimately the game lives up to its name, as both players move their forces around the battlefield, hoping to be in proper position for when the proper cards are finally drawn. In Memoir ’44 it’s far easier to formulate an overall strategy and go with that, much like what is necessary in deeper games.

Manoeuvre may give players a whiff of cardboard gunpowder, but Memoir ‘44 (or Ancients or Battlelore) has a slight edge when it comes to transitioning to more meatier fare.

I have a friend who will always lead his observations of a game with something negative. You can usually tell how much he likes a game by how petty these negative reactions are. So if the only thing he’s complaining about is the pips on the dice should be bigger and the blue on the French counters could have been one shade lighter, you’re probably dealing with a game he really likes. The important thing to realize though is he always bitches and moans. Always.

The majority of gamers I personally know aren’t like him, but judging from the gamers I don’t know but encounter through various forums, blogs, conventions, and so forth there are a lot of folks that have similar dispositions. These gamers, whether it’s in the world of cardboard or the digital, thrive on negativity. Nothing is ever good enough, and even if someone is giving a game away they’ll find some way to complain about that.

Most games aren’t perfect, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with not liking a game or finding fault in it, so I don’t have a problem with pointing out a game’s flaws or just generally disliking it. What I’m talking about though is that extra level of uncalled hatred or disappointment as if the game designer purposefully created the game with one goal in mind: to really piss those gamers off.

Looking at my friends I think the ratio to gaming to non-gaming is about 50/50 (maybe leaning more like 45/55). If you throw in acquaintances the non-gaming would go up even further. And one thing I’ve noticed in the company of my non-gaming friends is that you don’t have the same kind of debates like you do with gamers.

Hang out with a group who’s into music you just don’t have long rants on how Yngwie Malmsteen now sucks because he’s using Hannabach strings instead of D’Addario (and no, I don’t know what he’s using in reality–nor do I care). Spend some time with movie lovers and even discussing bad movies can be done in a jovial, light hearted manner. Bibliophiles don’t ever whine for hours about the font size.

Again, not saying that people don’t dislike certain things, just that there is a different approach to disliking things outside of the game world. For the most part the game world sometimes seems to be filled with misanthropes whose only means of expressing themselves is by hurling feces and shouting obscenities like GG Allin on a bad day. Or then again, on a good day.

So why are gamers so cranky? And is that one of the reasons for the most part the circle of gaming remains an incestuous one? Do we scare off prospective new members to our club with our, mmm, passion?

It’s another busy Saturday which means rather than presenting you with one huge blog course here are a bunch of bite sized nuggets of observation and sites to check out. Consider it a buffet of geeky goodness.

Khyber Pass’ B-29 Superfortress

My copy arrived on Thursday so I’ve had little time to do anything more than ooh and ahh over it. From what I can tell it looks, feels, and (will) plays a lot like B-17: Queen of the Skies (and no, I haven’t forgotten that I’m planning on doing an AAR series for that game, it’s coming…sometime ). Don’t like the slipcover presentation (good for publishers, bad for gamers) but since the money they saved on the box looks like it went to some really nice counters I guess it’s okay.

Flipping through the chart book (which is thicker than the manual) I was impressed by the level of detail. There’s definitely a lot more meat with B-29 than B-17. I also like the fact that throughout both the manual and chart book there are lots of design notes explaining the rationale behind a rule or table. Frankly I think there should be some sort of Gaming Law that stipulates there should always be designer notes in a game’s manual. I just like seeing the rationale behind some decisions, especially in historical games. Too many cranks (and cranky gamers is a topic I want to address in a full post in the near future) don’t seem to understand that when you design a game it’s a series of compromises to achieve a balance between playability and reality. Yet, there is always someone out there who will rant about the fact that the game doesn’t include rules for the problems King Tigers had when starting in cold weather, or some other mundane piece of trivia that has no real effect on gameplay.

On the subject of solo gaming I’ve put some time into Field Commander: Rommel, although not as much as I’d like. As usual for a Dan Verssen game some rules as presented in the manual are a lot more murkier than they should be. You can figure out what they’re trying to say, but that’s after playing once or twice.

From a decision making standpoint there are some nice choices to make during play. So far I haven’t felt that I’ve discovered the chink in the game system’s armor (the downfall of many solo games). I do question the fact that you make your tactical decisions after seeing what the game system chooses to do.

War Is Hell Issue 2

I’d like to say the second issue improves on the first. It doesn’t. Once again our fearless flyer yearns for action but then once he gets it, he doesn’t like it. At the end of the issue he has an encounter with a French prostitute, but doesn’t seem to hone in on the fact that she sleeps with him for money. How someone this clueless and idiotic could become a pilot at the dawn of the flight age, much less a pilot in a war, is beyond me.

At this point I’m thinking maybe the entire series is meant to be a joke. It’s bad. And not Zombie Strippers kind of bad, but brussel sprout kind of bad.

Gaming Food and Drink

I’ve been a fan of Jones Soda’s Strawberry Lime for a while but this week decided to try their Green Apple. Wow. Nice kick. It’s like a liquid Jolly Rancher. Both sodas are made with cane sugar. Yay for cane sugar!

I also tried out the new Snickers Charged candy bar, which infuses a Snickers bar with caffeine (is there anything caffeine can’t do?), vitamin B, and taurine. It even includes a warning label for pregnant women and children so you know it’s gotta be good, right? Alas, it won’t provide you with caffeinated bullet-time like perception (as seen in Futurama when Fry blows his Tricky Dick’s fun bucks on one hundred cups of coffee) but it does seem to give you a little boost.

Ogrecave’s GAMA Report

Ogrecave has a brief overview of some of the cool things as the show. Yetisburg and Warball sound cool. In the comments Mike Selinker mentions they’re working on Attack!, also. I had heard about this before but didn’t realize they were the ones doing it. As Attack! was probably the best game to come out of Eagle a new edition isn’t a bad thing.

Jay Adan also has some nice photos from GTS here. The Dust Tactics models are pretty sweet looking, and for you AT-43 fans it will use the same system. Myself, I’m thinking dusting off Gear Krieg and using them with that isn’t a bad idea.

Good Service

I recently purchased the expansion bag for Duel in the Dark at my FLC/GS only to discover the quad flak piece was not present. I dropped Z-Man an email about that and within two days had the replacement piece. Nice!

All righty folks, have a great weekend!

      It’s funny it only seems like a few weeks have passed since Tim and I first met while he was finishing up 101rst Airborne.  At the time I was almost finished with my tenure as head of Marketing and Business Development at Wargamer.com and we were interviewing Tim for the final release of his game to the general public.  Fast forward almost a year where Tim had just started Shrapnel Games.  I had started down the road to the gaming business by launching the product Red Thunder, for the now defunct EdenSoft Games, and was intrigued by Tim’s idea of how to change the face of wargaming.  I have never been one for conformity and I had been increasingly frustrating with the direction of the serious war and strategy gaming market.  Tim’s idea was to bypass retail and bring good games to the people and I felt it was an idea whose time had come.  And so a 9 year relationship with Shrapnel Games was born.

     I will always be indebted to Tim and the community for this opportunity over the last 9 years.  I can remember the early days where we struggled to find a reliable web host and spent several days down during the ice storms of late 99.  Recruiting and signing the first developers was a thrill and those early days of getting excited over an individual sale of a game or an individual post to our forums will always be special memories.  My favorite times were meeting with the people behind the forum posts and I will always cherish my visits to Connections or Origins and meeting our incredible community face to face. 

       If nothing else we did change the face of the industry.  Now the market blazed by a few small companies has blossomed into a way of doing business.  We also, in the process, developed a lively community of close to 10,000 registered members, who are passionate about gaming and each other.  We published some of the most award winning games in our genre and developed a reputation for excellence and close connection with our fans and community.  And I am glad for every moment I spent along that journey.

      Many of the newer members of the community probably will not remember any of this, and to be honest, probably will wonder who this Richard guy is .  That’s the other reason for leaving.  Over the last few years my real career has taken off and has increasingly asked for more of my time.  In that time other people have stepped in to take over many of the things I used to do and I think there will be opportunities in the future for more folks in the community to help continue to fill that void.  So that’s why it’s time for Mindi and I to step aside so we can concentrate on the other interests in our life and blaze our own path along the road.  That doesn’t mean we won’t be back from time to time but when we do it won’t be doing it as employees of Shrapnel Games, we’ll be doing it as supporters of the community.  Because if there’s nothing else that I treasure of the last 9 years it’s the folks I have met along the journey to where I am now.

       So thanks again for everything and hopefully we’ll see each other in the future.

They say to everything there is a season and I certainly believe that’s true.  We change, we grow, we evolve….  So it is with mixed emotions that Richard and I announce that we are stepping down from our positions at Shrapnel Games.  It’s something that we’ve been talking about for a while, but finally decided we couldn’t put it off any longer.  We’ve reached a point in our lives where we want to pursue some of our other interests and need to make different priorities.  We aren’t even for certain yet which of our other interests we want to pursue, we just know it’s time for us to make a change and chart our own course.

We want everyone to know that we’ve enjoyed being part of this family and will continue to pop in from time to time even after we finish with our official work.  We won’t be leaving tomorrow, next week or even next month, but once we finish up some technical projects we have going on and transition our responsibilities to other Shrapnel staff members, we will be leaving our official roles.

On the personal side, I want to thank everyone who welcomed me with open arms when I came on staff.  You all made working on the beta tests and with the community a joy….well most of the time.   All kidding aside, I have enjoyed getting to know you all and will miss being the leader of a community filled with great people. 

Why is it so hard to find information on Origin nominees where you would expect it? Every year it seems like to see the list you have to go to some site reporting it as news rather than direct from the source. This year is no different.

You can find the list of semi-finalists here. Typical list of products that you’ve heard about and are worthy (Saganami Island Tactical Simulator, Delta Green, Last Night On Earth, and others) and a whole lot that will make you go ‘hunh’.

For giggles when the winners are announced be sure to compare how many of them also just happen to be sponsors of Origins…

There’s a “real time” Call of Duty card gaming coming your way via Upper Deck. You can read about it on the official site here, or as much as I loath pointing you in the direction of the M TeeVee, you can read a play action report here.

While Upper Deck seems to be triumphing the fact that it’s a “real time” card game (referring constantly to it as the “Call of Duty Real-Time Card Game”) I’d hate to break it to them but James Ernest already pioneered the real time card game genre with Brawl. And then Tom Jolly introduced the world to (near) real time board gaming with Camelot.

Expect the game to be out in time to massively market the forthcoming Call of Duty 5, which sadly is back to World War II. Hopefully it won’t be another American/British/Russian campaign. Let’s mix it up. How about Gurkhas/Poles/Dutch resistance? Better yet, how about we finally get a campaign from the Axis perspective? I find it silly that we have no first person shooters from the German perspective. Waaa, the PC crowd might throw a hissy fit. Because as all students of military history know every German soldier during WWII ate babies, tore mattress tags off, and were the spawn of Satan.