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Permalink Reply by Eric Walters on April 23, 2010 at 10:10am

How could I resist this? Here's my list of games I'd be buried with--and why:

1) DIPLOMACY. This was the rage in my high school Strategic Games Club (rivaling the school chess club) and we played it every Friday afternoon after school in the library. I still love it, even if don't get to play it all that much.

2) CONQUISTADOR. We played the hell out of this game when I was in college...my STRATEGY AND TACTICS edition has a map and rulebook nearly decomposing and the counters (to include home-made Portuguese Variant units from MOVES magazine) are faded, discolored, and rounded on the edges.

3) The AH version of NAPOLEON. My favorite block game of all time. Played it incessantly both in college and when at home, playing with the University of Central Florida Conflict Simulations Club during the summers.

4) ASL RULEBOOK, BEYOND VALOR, and RED BARRICADES. When I was a young lieutenant stationed at Camp Pendleton and playing with the Camp Pendleton Conflict Simulations Club, a wily Captain Don Chappell corralled me into his ASL playtest. And I'd just mastered G.I.: ANVIL OF VICTORY (and therefore had to unlearn everything!). Didn't matter--I got hooked in sort order. My first playtest ever--and it had to be ASLRB 1st Ed and BEYOND VALOR. Sigh. RED BARRICADES may now be surpassed by VALOR OF THE GUARDS as the ultimate Stalingrad HASL, but I still have a lot of nostalgia for the first HASL ever.

5) ASSAULT and BOOTS AND SADDLES. These are the games that taught me Soviet tactics when I was a new Marine intelligence officer. While long, these games (and the follow-ons BUNDESWEHR and CHIEFTAIN) were the best modern hypothetical tactical system going. And I'd played them all!

This would have been my list ten years ago as well. But with all the cool new games out there that I have yet to master, my list might be a bit different ten years from now!

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Permalink Reply by Brett W Avants on April 23, 2010 at 10:24am

Hey Eric;

Coincidentally, I played a lot of Assault and Boots and Saddles with the USMA wargame club and even at Pointcon a few times. I also learned a lot about Soviet tactics from these games, which served me well as a young junior officer in Germany and in the desert. I was recently able to re-acquire the four basic games (minus Reinforcements) and am re-reading the rules now. Can't wait to get these back on the table.

Diplomacy was fun back in high school. We had a rowdy bunch that played this, and I have to say, treaties were tenuous at best. Machiavellian international relations is still in my blood! I haven't played this since then.

Thanks.

Brett

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Permalink Reply by Russ Gifford on April 25, 2010 at 9:00pm

OK – I can’t do the ‘buried with’ thing – takes a good game out of circulation, and deprives someone the chance to play it! I can’t do that! So – Here are the games I will bequeath to my worthy successors on the agreement that they will PLAY them all, at least once!

1. TERRIBLE SWIFT SWORD - 1st Edition. You know, I can’t play it now, but it is still the hands down best game ever as it ‘originally’ rolled off the shelf. The look of Redmond’s Grey and Blue counters mixed with the picture perfect tans in the map would have been enough to make it a keeper, but coupling it with Sir Richard’s game, it is no wonder why people still play this or a version of it nearly 35 years later.

2. ADVANCED SQUAD LEADER is the best game EVER, period, but really, ASL required multiple modules to reach critical mass – and this after a 10 year shakedown cruise as SL! Still, as much as you want to pick at small issues about the rules, it is incredible how it still holds up, despite my having played at the minimum 500 games, and perhaps closer to 1000. Offer to play me a game from, PARATROOPER, RED BARRICADES, or anything on the STREETS OF FIRE boards, and I’m already pulling out the counters. (Any of the other modules, I’ll make you bid for sides….)

3. THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN – certainly a classic of the highest order. While I’ve likely played it no more than 25 times, the thrill of setting up and playing it again is always a great feeling!

4. SPEED CIRCUIT – forgive me, but I love the cool, clear THINKING required by this game, not the dice tossing that comes with other racing games. Not many gaming events as thrilling as the one you get when 6 or 8 players are on a track and you are all vying for that line on the first corner….

5. DIPLOMACY – it has been at least 10 if not 15 years since I played this. I would still play it in a heartbeat. My memories of the 8 games of this that I played in the open gaming section of Origins ’88 far outweigh the memories of the tournaments I participated in while I was there. (I came THIS CLOSE to WINNING as ITALY! This close!)

6. And honorable mention has to go to CITYFIGHT, which was always my favorite. I have not played it since May 13, 1984, but someday. (My one unrealized gaming dream would be the chance to play CITYFIGHT again, and to play it enough times to get as good with CITYFIGHT as I am with ASL.)

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