Unboxing: Against the Odds Magazine Annual 2021 (ATO)

Unboxing is a loose term, in this case.

Recently arrived in the mail is my copy of Against the Odds Magazine Annual 2021, Operation Roundup: The Allies Invade France in 1943. For those not in the know, Against the Odds (from here on, ATO) has produced a semi-regular military history/wargame magazine since around 2002, with each issue containing a full wargame with mounted counters and rules. The ATO Annuals are known for their questionable year labels (ATO Annual 2021 was literally just released within the last week or so), but also for including a bit more with the game. Sometimes this is more than one game, sometimes it's a slightly larger game. Either way, ATO Magazine games tend to be lesser-covered topics, with a theme of one of the forces fighting 'against the odds'.

I've been a subscriber for quite some time, and have enjoyed every issue that I've received (I haven't played every game, but a few have made the table - take for examples, a session report here and various pictures on BGG of my game experiences).  This one is proving to be just as enjoyable a package as any.

Opening my mailer, I was presented with a nice bagged up package:

Pulling things out, I started with the set of mini games on top, the full set of the Five for Fighting series with mounted counters:

I have played three of these five games (they all use the same system), and I think they have some issues, but actually make for a good introductory wargame. There is also a combined game called Tuesday, The Führer Slept Late that has better reviews than the individual games (not included with this issue). Anyway, as I already have these and the mounted counters, I will probably look for an opportunity to give these away.

Moving on, the magazine itself has a striking cover:

A painting of the USS Emmons at Normandy, painted by Dwight Shepler.

Inside the issue, we have our Table of Contents:

Issues of ATO magazine have a variety of articles related to military history, with the cover topic the focus of the largest article and game in the magazine, usually another article or two somewhat related to the cover topic, and then a few articles about unrelated topics. This is similar to what is done by other magazine game publishers, so no real surprise to anyone with experience here.

I won't delve too much into the historical articles (buy the issue if you are interested!). I learned quite a lot from all of these articles, as I always do from ATO issues. However, I will make a few comments on specific articles:

Push to the Sea! is not a historical article, but rather a scenario for the Five for Fighting series shown at the beginning, using the Sword and Juno postcards. It focuses on the 21st Panzer Division, and provides a variant combat rule where you use a die to resolve combat instead of a card draw (I very much like this change, as it solves a complaint I had with the original games).

Maneuvering to War is about the Louisiana and Carolina Maneuvers prior to our entry into WWII (read more about the former here). I knew nothing about this until reading this article, very interesting!

Operation Wolf Hunt seems to be an article covering the hypothetical progress and aftermath for the game A Cornered Wolf included in this issue. It feels a little out of place.

Widening the GIUK! provides expansion rules for a recent ATO Pocket Battle Game release, Mind the GIUK! I thought I had all of these, but I am pretty sure I don't have this one. It is a recent release, so I must have missed it somehow. Anyway, it adds rules for air units and commandos, which are on the mounted countersheet for the game, should you have that, and a random events table.

Spandau Ballet provides additional rules for The Cruelest Month, the game in ATO's 2020 Annual. The counters are on that counter sheet, but have rules included in this issue, which includes a variant British squadron, Balloon Units, and additional ground units. The game seems well regarded, and more options are always better, so seems like a win.

Okay, onto the games. This issue comes with two, and a full expansion for another game.

First, we have the cover game, Operation Roundup.

Fourteen pages of rules, a map, and 176 counters.  Designed by Ty Bomba and developed by Russ Lockwood.

A quick look over the rules shows a pretty interesting game with pretty standard rules. A few things I noticed are that the German reinforcements for the game are determined randomly at the start of the game, so sitting down and beginning, you don't know exactly what you are going to get (you'll know most of them, but additional Luftwaffe support and forces from the Russian front may or may not come). Notable also is that the victory conditions are tied to which reinforcements you are allowed to have during the game. If you are provided more reinforcements, you will need to have more significant battlefield successes in order to win. Makes sense, and may provide a bit of additional replay in this game.

There are also quite a number (twenty) of optional rules to make each game unique.

Second game is "A Cornered Wolf", a game covering a hypothetical air assault on Hitler's military headquarters in Rastenburg. Designed by Paul Rohrbaugh and developed by Steve Rawling, it comes with a map and 80 counters.

The game seems pretty simple, although it does use Paul Rohrbaugh's typical card deck for activations and combat, which isn't something I love- it leads to too many situations where a defending player may throw useless attacks out to trigger the turn end, and in an 8 turn game, that can really disrupt the balance. To be fair, this is a complaint I have about Combat Commander, too, not just Paul's designs.

The German player is trying to escort Hitler out of the bunker while fighting off the Soviets. The Soviets are trying to kill or capture Hitler (and other VIPs), but can also score points by going to specific sites on the map and looting intelligence. You want high cards for some things, low cards for other things, and you will use die rolls to resolve yet other things. That seems a little all over the place to me... but maybe actually playing the game would reveal that the design is perfectly good as is. Will have to play and see.

Two scenarios are included, one each for a July and August attack, with different levels of preparation for each side.

Finally, we have a new scenario for Arctic Disaster titled Immer Voran! The game Arctic Disaster comes in ATO issue 47. We also get a whole bunch of addenda counters, plus counters to play the new scenario, where you are trying to trap and destroy the Scharnhorst.

Unfortunately, although I do own this game, I have not played it yet. It has decent reviews, so I hope to get to it sometime in the future.

So, there you have it. It's a nice package, with plenty of content to keep you occupied, and multiple new games to try out. Go pick it up, read, learn, and play some games!

Unboxing: Vijayanagara: The Deccan Empires of Medieval India, 1290-1398 (GMT Games)

Next game in the huge package mentioned in my last post wasVijayanagara: The Deccan Empires of Medieval India, 1290-1398. Two things about this game appealed to me. First, this game represents the first entry in GMT's new Irregular Conflict Series. GMT posted an article a few years ago about this series, but essentially, these games have some similarity to COIN games, but don't quite qualify as one. They are in their own series, and may have quite some variance in how they differ from the COIN model. Overall, I am a fan of the COIN series, so this seemed like a decent enough draw for me to check out.

Second, I know nothing about this topic. That's a turn off for a number of people, but I actually find I much prefer wargames where I know nothing about the topic. How else am I going to learn, unless I branch out? Knowing that, please understand that this unboxing will be light on insight into the game's mechanics and theme. It's high on my list to get on the table, and fortunately it offers a solo mode AND I believe I can get some people to play, meaning it may see table time sooner rather than later.

The box itself looks great, continuing GMT's run of absolutely incredible box covers. The front and the back of the box:

The solitaire rating of nine is due to the robust solitaire bot system included, that I believe mirrors the functionality of the COIN system bots, so should be fun to play against. The complexity of four feels lighter than the average COIN game, and that is totally fine, not every game needs to be terribly complex. Two other things to note from the back- the player count is 1-3. That's awesome and not super common. There are tons of two player wargames. Having another offering where a third player creates the full experience is great news. Yet another reason I would have picked this up (had I paid attention ahead of time, haha). Finally, the playtime of 1-2 hours is really nice, too. Will be exciting to see if that holds true in actual experience.

Next, we have the books included in the game:

Rulebook, available here on the GMT website.

This book is specifically rules for the bots, if you are playing with fewer than three players. There are also additional components to support this later on.

A beautiful Learn to Play booklet (available on the GMT site here). I love that they are starting to include these in games- creates a very easy way to get into the game. Well done, GMT.

Finally, a Playbook is included, which may be one of the first things I end up reading, given my lack of knowledge regarding the history of the game. That pronunciation guide is a great inclusion too- wargame publishers, please consider something like that in other games!

Now we get to the player aid cards, and there are quite a lot! First up, we get three identical faction aid sheets, which are pretty standard in the COIN games, helping you see what your options are on your turn, and what to expect from your adversaries.

The Mongol Invaders are not a player faction in this game, but will be controlled by either theBahmani Kingdom Amirs or Vijayanagara Empire when they appear, and will be a constant threat throughout the game.

A handy Sequence of Play card, with a visual instruction on how to set up the deck for the game.

This is on the back of the Sequence of Play, and I was not sure what this was, so I had to check inside the rulebook. This is an optional way to resolve a tie at the end of the game, and is a variant of Bagh-chal. That's... really cool, actually. I'm sure someone out there is going to hate on this, but I love it, very thematic (the rulebook has a picture of the source for the board) and unique.

Next up we have the player aid cards for managing the non-player factions. I don't know the system at all, but again, I have heard good things about the COIN bots, so I have no reason to doubt these will be excellent.

All of the cards have a nice finish, and are on pretty good paper stock. Lovely components. On to the counters:

Pretty light in this department, but that's typical of the COIN games, too. The majority of these are to mark control of provinces by one of the three factions. Again, pretty common.

Next, a beautiful mounted map:

A better view, with more detail is on the GMT page here, and although it is listed as 'Near-Final', I do not see any difference between it and the map in the box.

The game comes with some dice:

The game also comes with a big stack of cards that are the primary engine by which the game progresses:

Quite a number of different cards in this stack, including Event cards:

Mongol Invasion cards:

These cards look to correspond to the non-player bots, showing the decision trees for them:

Finally, the rest of the cards are a bit of a mix:

There are Succession cards, a Dynasty card, and some reference cards. There are rules for events that happen with the Succession and Dynasty cards, but I'm not qualified to talk about that yet. Maybe they fill a role like the Viceroy in Gandhi?

Finally, as with COIN games, the game comes with a bunch of wooden pieces.

These pieces represent the Governors, Troops, Amirs, Structures, and Rajas used in the game. Pretty typical stuff, if you have played any of their COIN games.

And there you have it. The content of the game looks great and I'm excited to give it a shot. This one in particular I have a plan for, even- I'm currently doing a solo game of Marvel Champions on my one game table at home, but once that play is finished, I'm going to set this up, and play it solo, where I will take some notes to post here on my blog. Doing it this way for my first play will be best for me, because I can read the historical context of each card when it comes up, which helps inform me more about the period. It is a great way to play and learn.

Anyway, that's it for now, thank you for stopping by!

Unboxing: Panzer North Africa (GMT Games)

As part of mail call yesterday, I received a huge package from GMT Games, filled with P500 items.  I figured I would post something about a few of the games I received, starting with Panzer North Africa.  This is the sixth game in GMT's Panzer series (a remake of Yaquinto's Panzer series from around 1979), and is the second stand-alone volume in the series, which created a perfect opportunity for me to pick it up, and see how I like it.  It's quite a large package!  GMT lists the box as 3.5" deep, which I did not verify, but certainly seems accurate.  Speaking of the box:

We have the front and back of the game box.  Very nice looking art, and a striking cover.  The back of the box obviously talks about what is included, but we'll spend more time looking over the components in this article.  The Solitaire rating is a 9, given that a solitaire system is included with the game.  The Complexity of 6 may just be for the basic game, disregarding the advanced rules... but they don't specify, and I haven't played this yet, so I can't really guess.  Either way, this game seems a bit on the complex side.  That's appealing to me, although that does mean this is probably sitting on the shelf a while until I find someone eager to play it, since it might be tough to teach.  We shall see.

The back of the box mentions six double-sided geomorphic maps.  Let's take a look at them:

First thing I noticed when pulling these out was how long they were.  Other games with geomorphic maps (for instance, Advanced Squad Leader) have maps significantly shorter.  It feels a little awkward, but the focus on armor might want longer range in the game to showcase the units effectively, and probably will play just fine.  These two maps are on the same sheet, just on the backside from one another.  One with a giant hill dominating the landscape, and the other, fairly open, but with some rough terrain batches.

All of these maps are really nice looking, I will say.  This set has another very open looking setup, and then a map with some groves around a small oasis.  I think the groves block line of sight, so this one could be quite interesting.  And looks like it has a gully off on the right?  Very cool.

Another open map (these battles are in North Africa, for the record, so this is expected), and one with an airfield with some small towns on either side of it.

Another open map with a (paved?) road, and then a series of hills with a lot of other pieces of terrain incorporated.  That looks like a nasty map to have a fight on.

I worried for a second there that I had already uploaded these.  But nope- more open maps.

Finally, more open maps, but one with a gully down the center.

Admittedly, these are not the most exciting series of maps I've seen in a game, but as I have mentioned- this is North Africa.  If you look at maps of some of the areas of major battle, you see that this isn't far off.  Plus, as we'll see in a second, the maps are designed to be more flexible than they appear.

So, when I refer to flexibility here, what do I mean? Overlays:

These go on top of the map, modifying it. They look incredible, and you get six sheets in this package (first one visible above).

These will turn any map into something interesting and unique.

Included next are a series of books.  Six of them, in fact.

This is the TO&E Manual (Table of Organization and Equipment).  There is a lot of detail about the organization and orders of battle of the formations involved in this theater and period of the war:

There is a ton of information in this book.  It looks like its primary use is for designing your own scenarios (the published scenarios have the information on included units).  A great source of information, certainly.

A 68-page Basic & Advanced Rules book.  GMT provides this online, here.

A 24-page Optional Rules book.  Again, GMT provides it here.

A playbook, which essentially tells you how to read the scenarios, but also provides the solitaire system for the game (the way I will mostly likely get it on the table, alas).

Two scenario books are included, providing 32 scenarios and a campaign game.

The first such book, with its table of contents (so you can see what scenarios are included.

And the second book, with its table of contents.  A decent looking selection of scenarios, from my brief glance.  Plenty of play in this box!

There are eight countersheets included, providing forces for the Germans, British, and Italians, plus a lot of status counters.  I love seeing the turret facing counters, without knowing much about the system, I already know I'll like it, just from that, haha.

The counter art looks sharp, and since this is a stand-alone game, having all the status counters will at least give me some flexibility in buying other expansions (although I guess I won't have I need to play the scenarios in other expansions yet, but I can make up some scenarios).

Next, we have some player aids.   First, a set to help players read the counters/cards:

There is information on both sides of these, and are not duplicated.  We also get a pair of player aid/table cards for the game, with information on the front and back:

Dice are included (d10s):

Finally, we get a bunch of data cards for the units in the game (contents say there are 49 such cards):

There are thick and very nice quality!

Finally, here is a close-up of the front and back of one such card:

You can see quite a number of other sample cards for the various nationalities on GMT's official page for the game, as well.

Without a doubt, this is a great product, with a lot of replay value, and tons of options for playing.  I do not have much knowledge of the game itself, yet, other than reading enough about it to convince myself I would enjoy it enough to order.  But the presentation is fantastic- I can't wait to give it a try.