Hollandazed: Thoughts, Ideas, and Miscellany — hex & counter
HEXES AND COUNTERS (by Tom Russell)
There is something immensely, elementally appealing about laying out a battlefield map made of hexes, tracing the shape of a ridge from hex to hex with the tip of your finger, contemplating the importance of this city, its nearness to the river, and pondering the effect of this clump of green circles that signify a consortium of trees. Then the edges of the map are populated with cardboard troops, each side forming its line. If they're new to the topic, maybe the players recognize a few of the names on the counters or the places on the map, or if...
COUNTERFACTUAL: BLOOD IN THE FOG (by Tom Russell)
People who don't know us well don't realize how utterly I depend on Mary, and how utterly hopeless I would be without her. It's not just that she keeps me centered, or focused, or that she brings out the best in me, though she does indeed do all of those things. It's not just that she keeps me safe from harm as I wander, Magoo-like, oblivious to the world around me and lacking anything resembling common sense. Though she does that too. Really, there are a thousand-thousand ways she makes my world go 'round, but the thing I'm talking about...
"DO WE HAVE ANY HEXIDECIMAL GAMES?" (by Tom Russell)
RIW recently moved into a new storefront (their old shop having been burnt to a crisp by the restaurant next door), which is less claustrophobic and brighter, but sadly lacks pics, so here is their logo. Before we discovered our Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS), RIW Hobbies in Livonia, we went to The Other Game Store. The Other Game Store was paradise if you were into minis, but rubbish if you were into board games, having a shelf dedicated to Munchkin, and another shelf where they squeezed in everything else, "everything else" being only the most popular of Euro-style games....