Paper Time Machines.

A recent Victory Point Games newsletter referred to their games as "Paper Time Machines".  I don't know who first uttered those words, but they are brilliant.  They really got me thinking.  Those three words perfectly encapsulate what historical wargaming is to me.  I play them to be transported back in time, and be put in a position where I can see why history unfolded the way it did.  Where I can experience what commanders had to deal with, and why they made the choices they did.

Zulus on the Ramparts Review

Zulus on the Ramparts has been on my wishlist for a long time.  I love the States of Siege series, and Zulus' has gotten great reviews.  But it looked like it strayed quite far from the formula, and I wasn't sure how I felt about that.  I got Zulus for Christmas however, and I've played it nonstop since then.  It's not as easy to get 6 games played in a row, like Soviet Dawn.  But if I play one game, I'm incredibly likely to at least play a second.

Zulus on the Ramparts was released in 2009 by Victory Point Games, and was designed by Joseph Miranda.  It's a single player wargame, based on a battle at a mission station in Africa.  It's 1879, and an enormous hoard of Zulus is descending on the British troops there, who are hopelessly outnumbered, 4000 to 140!  Your goal is to hold out through the night until help gets there.

First Impressions for January

I've been branching out into a few more games over the past month or so.  Games which I haven't had the opportunity to work on a full review for, and may not for some time.  But I really wanted to say something about them, so here are my first impressions.  I'm expecting to have a full review again next week, and am aspiring to an every other week schedule on full reviews this year.

Red Winter

I got this wargame mostly because of it's solitaire potential.  What I found was a game that easily ranks up there with No Retreat in terms of simplicity, and relatively reduced counter clutter.  It is a far more deterministic game however, with slightly less of a resource management aspect.  It is tactical after all.

Star Realms Review

Star Realms is a Kickstarter project that ran in October, and went out to backers in December.  Personally, I almost didn't back it because that just seemed to wildly impossible.  But it arrived the day after Christmas, and I've played it constantly since it got here.

Star Realms is a sci-fi themed deck building game, most closely related to Ascension.  It was designed by Robert Dougherty and Darwin Kastle and published by White Wizard Games.  Robert Dougherty in specific put a lot of work into the Ascension series, which explains how closely related the two games feel.