Hollandazed: Thoughts, Ideas, and Miscellany — Ancients
S & S ANCIENTS (by Tom Russell)
Shields & Swords Ancients is something I've been planning to do for a very, very long time - since before we started Hollandspiele, really - but which I've only gotten around to in the last while. Part of this is that I've had a few games that were critical and commercial successes (Supply Lines, Table Battles, Agricola) and so I prioritized more games along those lines (The Southern Strategy, the TB expansions, and Charlemagne, respectively) as well as idiosyncratic stuff like This Guilty Land and Westphalia. The S&S II series is something I enjoy, but it's far from being my...
NOTES ON TABLE BATTLES: AGE OF ALEXANDER no. 17-23 (by Tom Russell)
17. Chaeronea (2 August 338 BCE) When I translate a given engagement into the peculiar language of Table Battles, a lot of my time is spent on things that a lot of players won't really notice. What die results a card can accept, whether or not it's limited to one die per turn, how cards are divided into wings and how often die results are duplicated within a wing and within an army, how the cards interact with one another: it's there, and it's what makes the thing work, but it doesn't necessarily call a lot of attention to itself....