New Game Day

Woo hoo!

This was a pretty good day gaming-wise in several respects. First and foremost, I finally got to show up at a meeting of the Jersey Area Gamers, which is a group of old grognards like me who play mostly older wargames. I’ve literally been trying to make it to a meeting for months, and events kept conspiring to keep me from making it.

It was also New Game Day, and in honor thereof I played two games I’d never played before. The first was Major Battles and Campaigns of General George S Patton, which was published by Research Games in 1974. I had never heard of the game or the company before, but we played the Bulge scenario, using figures from Axis & Allies rather than the cardboard counters that came with the game, which are rather ugly, even (especially?) for 1974.

I, as the Germans, had to prevent the Americans from relieving the town of Bastogne. It’s a point-to-point game with card-based movement (the number of movement points available to you in a turn is determined by the flip of two cards), and the true squeeze is in being able to concentrate your forces in the right places with the very limited number of movement points you have for that turn. I lost (although if I had managed to force the Americans to retreat in one critical battle, I might have pulled it out), but I found the game itself to be very interesting. It’s a quick game – we finished the Bulge scenario in about an hour and a half. Certainly I’d give it another go, especially now that I have a feel for the flow of the movement mechanics.

We also played the card game of Battleship, which I had never seen before. It was a very quick game, but I can see how one could get lost in playing it in rapid-fire for a whole afternoon.

All in all, a fun afternoon, even if I did have to beg out early. I’m just glad that I finally made an appearance at the club. I had a great time, and I hope I get to make it to many more meetings in the future.