GW Store Closing, Patents, and The Future of Gaming 3

Back on May 31st I wrote Games Workshop New Store & The Future of Gaming. It drew heavily from then recent conversations I had with game store owners and a great blog article, Predictions: 2007: The Game Industry, written by Ryan S. Dancey.

On June 1st I wrote Addendum: The Future of Gaming 2. That released new information, with my observations, drawn from another Ryan S. Dancey article entitled Followup: 2007 Game Industry Predictions 2.

If you haven’t read those articles before I suggest you do. They provide the background information to bring you up to date for this article.

In Massachusetts there are 3 Games Workshop stores. One is in Harvard Square in Cambridge, yes near that Harvard. One is in Danvers in the Liberty Tree Mall. The last one is in Natick in the Natick Mall. I found out last night that GW Harvard Square will be closed within a week. A close friend of mine is friends with one of that store’s employees who passed on the information. To verify the information I went to the forum of Danger Planet Games and found they have a GW Store in Harvard Square closing. Please read that thread for more information.

I don’t know the reason for GW Harvard Sq.’s closing but I do know there is a sign in the window telling people to go to Danger Planet for good gaming and GW products. There is irony here because GW has screwed Danger Planet over so many times that GW and DP are in somewhat of a feud, or so my friends term it. As such DP has removed all GW product from their store excepting a small section at the back of the store for some 40k product.

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Sitting Ducks Gallery

Are you ready for 20 minutes of the most laughs, excitement, and fun shooting a bunch of ducks minus the blood and gore? If so Sitting Ducks Gallery by Playroom Entertainment is for you.

Sitting Ducks is one of my all time favorite games currently tied with Connect Four as most often played card/board game. Ducks is intended for ages 10+ but is real fun for all ages. Last night at Battleground Games in Abington I played Ducks for 2 hours with most of the people in the store. We never dipped below 4 players and maxed out, twice, at 6.

Nothing is funnier than ganging up on the purple duck in homage to Tinkie Winkie of the Teletubbies. Nothing is sweeter than getting revenge on the person who keeps turning your ducks into duck l’orange. Nothing is better than hiding your duck under another duck and a Bottoms Up card. Nothing is more incredible than Sitting Ducks!

Gameplay is simple enough for the youngest child, most feeble minded, and the drunkest gamer. Each player picks a color duck (Blue, Green, Orange, Yellow, Purple, and Pink) and then must be the last player with ducks alive in the game. You achieve this by shooting, misfiring, hiding, and changing the arrangement of the ducks.

The art of diplomacy can save your duck at a key moment but your “ally” will just as soon shoot your duck in the back when the moment is ripe. There are a plethora of cards to help you in your mission. You can Take Aim (necessary to do before shooting), Shoot, move the Line Forward, Move your duck Ahead, Move your duck Back, Fast Forward your duck, Bump a target Left or Right, Duck and Cover behind another duck, Bottoms Up behind another duck for a turn, Disorderly Conduckt and Duck Shuffle to rearrange the line and the deck, Quick Shot a duck without aiming at it first, Double Barrel to aim at two ducks at once, Two Birds to shoot two ducks at once, and Misfire to kill a duck next to one that has a target.

If all this hasn’t convinced you to buy and lay Sitting Ducks Gallery nothing will. But, you should definitely go to RPGNet for more information on the game.

War @ Sea Scenarios: Guadalcanal

The official A&A website has a bunch of scenarios focusing on Guadalcanal for the worldwide A&A tourney that uses the board and mini game. At Battleground Games in Abington yesterday I tried out one of the scenarios with interesting results.

Most of these prebuilt scenarios have pre-arranged fleets. It is a nice change of pace from the usual planning your fleet and it really keeps you on your toes. A major downside of this method is the required quantity of certain ships.

One scenario requires 4 USS Fletchers. Another requires 3 USS Boises and 5 USS Samuel B. Roberts (crappy destroyer). I have 3 of most lesser ships like the Roberts and Fletcher. I have quite a few of the Uboats and even the HMS Javelin or other good ships. But, some of these requirements are burdensome.

I have almost a complete set, missing only the Graf Spree, with many duplicates. How is someone just starting the game or with a small collection supposed to play these scenarios when an individual, like myself, with a complete set (or nearly complete) encounters difficulties? Especially now when the game is out of stock across the board. Some of the scenarios are unrealistic in their requirements.

If we get past the problem of fleet composition, maybe some gamers do have 10 Roberts or 13 Fletchers or can borrow sufficient numbers of required vessels, the scenarios are a nice change.

Some of them have unique victory conditions. Others alter how special abilities are played. And some have new deployment methods. All of the variations strengthen the entire game and increases its playability factor. There are only so many times a person can play the “shoot them till their dead” scenario before succumbing to boredom.

The scenarios, as a whole, can make for some great league play. Depending on the rules for the league it is possible for all of the scenarios to be played. With a little teamwork and willingness to share, we all learned that in kindergarten I hope, even the gamer with the least number of vessels can participate.

Hopefully, the scenarios will guide and encourage gamers in creating their own scenarios. It is possible to design a wonderful historical scenario to further the fun using the official ones as a guide. Many historians enjoy discussing “What If” such and such happened. In fact, there’s a couple books in print titled What If and What If 2 that discuss famous historical battles and use real data to discuss plausible other outcomes. Now the armchair general can do the same for WWII naval battles.

If nothing else the scenarios are worth a look. Be sure to check them out at A&A Minis Scenarios paying close attention to the ones that say War at Sea or Combined in the title.

How to Contribute to the CWF Game Cast

There’s a lot of people who visit and read the blog or listen to the podcast. I’m sure at least some of you want to know how to contribute.

Here is your To Do List. Below we tell you how to do each of these.

  1. Register your FREE Membership
  2. Leave a Comment
  3. Write a Post/Article
  4. Join Team CWF
  5. Tell your Friends about us
  6. Share our URL (https://wargamingforums.com) with friends
  7. Put our LINK (https://wargamingforums.com) in your signature (for e-mail, message boards, and more)
  8. E-mail Us Feedback
  9. Listen to the Podcast
  10. Read the Articles

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War @ Sea Official Rules Clarifications

Avalon Hill, official maker of the War at Sea game under the Wizards of the Coast label has released a 3 page set of rules clarifications. We have made them available at https://wargamingforums.com/downloads/War_at_Sea_Clarifications.pdf (the pdf requires the FREE Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the file. You can get Acrobat Reader for FREE HERE).

The rules clarifications are relatively new and feature a couple vital changes. The main area of importance concerns aircraft. Updates to rules concerning aircraft appear on page 1 (Sequence of Play: C. Air Mission Phase), page 2 (H. Air Return Phase, Movement and Position: Stacking, Aircraft and Airbases: Carriers) and page 3 (Effects of Damage: Aborted, Special Abilities: Draw the CAP, Special Abilities: Lay Smoke Screen).

As you can see that is a lot of ink devoted to planes and rightly so. Aircraft are a powerhouse in the game and it is important to do it right to avoid turning aircraft into a more powerful force than they already are (more on rules clarifications for aircraft at the bottom of this article).

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