Posts made by frimmel

@Teflon2017 said in A Tale of Two Questions:

Okay, thank you Krieghund for the Speedy reply. Because you care (which is greatly appreciated), I would like to go a little bit deeper into the some of the thoughts that I have about the rulebook.

with respect to question one, is there a consistent application of this characteristic of the units that were in battle with respect to the attacking units? I read elsewhere in this BotB topic section that attacking units have to pay a token both in Phase 2 and phase 3 to conduct the battle and then to be able to move into the defeated hex. Of course, at the start of the rules for movement sect on pg 18, it would have been very helpful to mention that units that attacked in phase 2 must pay an “additional” token to move into the empty hex. It is not inherently obvious to the reader as one’s mind tends to shift gears when you start talking about a new phase. Since 90% of the rules are almost 180 degrees from standard axis and allies combat, the differences should have addressed much as possible as that is your most likely target audience. for example, should we assume there is a requirement for each of the units that participated in a Ph 2 combat to be required to move into the defeated hex, or can they pretty much activate for movement wherever they want to go even though they just won a battle?..which is always considered a significant happening in any of the games. Is there even a requirement for at least one unit to move into the defeated territory? none of this is clearly laid out in the rulebooklet.

Regarding question 2, I appreciate the frank direction to point to the page in the rulebook. unfortunately, the wording there is just as incomplete as in so many other places. Since the supply token battle strip only has 1 image, it immediately creates confusion in the mind of the player who is looking at the other battle strips which make designating multiple qtys of unit types possible depending on how many are in battle. if only having one image on the supply strip is because it is only intended for it to be hit once on each pass of the count…then say so! The examples provided on pg 15 for hit counts leave out the most important example which is how to address multiple hits on hexes with multiple Supply tokens. Example shows only one Supply token in the targeted hex. This is why the gentleman in the topic about hit counts on page 4 of this section had to provide several examples for you to adjudicate (found the article after I made this first post). Many Thanks…

I mentioned this in the other question. You have read things into the rules that are not in the rules. You have applied rules from other Axis and Allies games to this game and gotten confused when the game state did not make sense for resolving the rules that followed. No where does it say to move units into the hex you are attacking. You decided to do that and then became confused with the rules that were based on not doing that.

In D-Day, Guadalcanal, and Battle of the Bulge DO NOT bring rules from other Axis and Allies games in and DO NOT fall back on the way those games resolve things for things you have difficulty with in the rules. You will be wrong.

@Eisenhower said in Easy game?:

Re: Axis & Allies Battle of the Bulge FAQ

i heard that axis and allies d day is the easist game. Is battle of the bulge also a very easy game for beginners?

Well it will be easier in the sense of not having rules baggage from other Axis and Allies games to foul up the reading of the rules. It is not easier if you have no wargame experience as it uses several concepts from more traditional hex and chit games.

The Allies have a non-traditional objective in this game in that they are managing a retreat instead of trying to take and conquer ground. This has always seemed to be difficult for players to get their heads around.

It is a very good game though and hits a nice middle ground between beer & pretzels sorts of things and the previously mentioned hex and chit games.

@Teflon2017 said in Supply tokens:

Sea Dog,

Please reference my response to the two questions topic where I highlight the realization that my frustrations are with the inadequacies of the rulebook and the fact that it does not make it clear in the phase 2 instructions that attacking units do not move into the hex they are attacking rather they shoot across the line.

@Teflon2017 You seem to be having the same problem I’ve seen over and over again with this, D-Day, and Guadalcanal. You want to bring rules from other Axis and Allies games into this game. You wanted to do something the rulebook does not tell you to do. The rules do not say to move the units into the hex you are attacking. Your inclination to think attacking worked like other Axis and Allies games then made you look at the rules that followed from an incorrect premise as to the game state. That is your failing in reading the rules not a failing of the rules.

This game is many years out of print. I suspect the chance is much better than non-zero there might not be anyone working at the company who even knows they printed this game let alone can help you with the rules. Your best place for help is here.

@Whackamatt said in Movement question: does the Front Line Marker affect movement?:

Second question:

I assume trucks during the movement phase can’t cross the Front Line Marker? Is this true? Otherwise the same question above would apply to trucks loaded with reinforcements. Could it move to Verviers in the above photo as well, or does it have to stop movement at Monschou due to the FLM even though its not in an enemy Zone of Control?

A bit late to the thread but your trucks can move across the front line. You must stop moving when entering an enemy city (designated by being on the enemy side of the front line,) or an enemy zone of control. A tank may “blitz” which allows it to move one additional hex after it normally must stop.

Dealing with just the hexes in the photo the tanks in the hex with the five supply tokens have four potential hexes they can move into without needing a blitz and three (four counting the one primarily off screen next to the US tank and artillery if it is empty of enemy units) with a blitz.

@Dauvio:

I rather have a A&A space game.

Give this a try: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/star-wars-rebellion/

@DessertFox599:

I would love a north Africa game. Better than this!

My own preference would be for something like that or any other BOTB or Guadalcanal type game.

We did this by keeping the play time fast, and by removing some rules for which the costs in complexity and learning the game outweighed their benefits in fun, balance, and simulation.

This is the one I find to be the most interesting. What rules fit this bill?

Looks like you’ve covered all the things that come to mind for me.

@Midnight_Reaper:

Personally, I’m in wait and see mode. Time will tell.

-Midnight_Reaper

Yep. Not enough information at this time to make a call.

@Zhukov44:

Haven’t seen the new movie yet, but the Clone Wars television cartoon featured some of the best Star Wars storytelling of recent years, especially the season 5 Darth Maul arc.  Star Wars Rebels is watchable but not quite as good, though moving towards climax now with Thrawn as the main antagonist.  Chopper is probably my all-time favorite Star Wars character.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiTmxpb-7xw

I think Rebels is every bit as good as Clone Wars. I haven’t caught any of the new season yet but I’m eager for it to hit blu-ray. The Rebels creators get Star Wars a lot more than our recent film creators do.

@calvinhobbesliker:

It seems that the US only gets 20 infantry pieces, but the setup and reinforcement charts have a total of 22 American infantry. In addition, all the countries seem to have lots of extra artillery pieces that will never come into play. Am I missing something in the rules, or are these artillery pieces just extra? I understand the extra German infantry and tanks and extra American tanks since stacks with chips may split up, but the American and German artillery and the British tanks and artillery are all separate in the setup/reinforcement charts and so would not need extras.

You have a “normal” set. The pieces supplied do not exactly match the charts and setup. As noted you’ll have two infantry removed from the board well before you get to their spot on the chart.

We’ve been fielding this question for quite some time: https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=8366.0

@CWO:

@frimmel:

This new film is a complete and total pile of crap. Awful movie. Really awful Star Wars.

I’ll be seeing the new film with some friends sometime in early 2018 – and frankly, based on what I thought of its Episode VII predecessor, what frimmel said is pretty much what I’m expecting.  The original trilogy remains, to me, the best of the series.  All three of its films are “the best” in their own unique ways: A New Hope because it was the groundbreaker, and because if there’s one film of the series that can stand alone for all of Star Wars, it’s that one; The Empire Strikes Back because of its effective and unexpected dark tone and serious substance; and Return of the Jedi because it was (as one ILM staffer described it) the “Ph.D. degree” of the original trilogy (after the original Bachelor’s and Masters degrees of the first two films) which wrapped up the saga in a satisfying way, and which showed that the series had attained its full level of confidence and craft, both in terms of storytelling and special effects.

I found Episode VII to be a confusing and unengaging mess.  I felt that I was watching not just a reboot of A New Hope but a bad reboot.  (That was also my reaction to the Hobbit movie trilogy in relation to the LotR movie trilogy.)  I couldn’t take the Episode VII heroes seriously, and even worse I couldn’t take the villains seriously.  In the original trilogy, the Imperials were sinister in a cold, serious, believable way; in Episode VII, the new bad guys struck me as being over-the-top hysterical shriekers.  In the original trilogy, Darth Vader was a towering (literally and figuratively) villain; his successor in Episode VII struck me as being an angst-ridden minor villain who’s consciously trying to be evil rather than actually being evil.  I kind of agree with a reviewer at the time who wrote that Episode VII makes Episodes I, II and III of the prequel trilogy look like “a noble failure” rather than the more uncharitable things they were called when they first came out.

I disliked this one more than Force Awakens and generally think Force Awakens was pretty awful. I think a great number of things wrong with this movie chiefly Luke and the unnecessary subplot that goes nowhere start with the mess created by Force Awakens. That whole side-quest felt like they just had to find something for Finn and the short frumpy girl in coveralls to do. I don’t go to the movies to see short frumpy girls in coveralls being trite.

Setting aside Anakin (who I will remind you is a seventeen year old boy raised by monks) and his comments on sand the girl there and the scenery there in the much maligned AOTC are at least worth looking at. Frumpy girl in front of the green screen riding cgi rabbit-horses… not so much.

This film is so obviously a course correction or attempt to tie off some of the loose ends and focus the story a bit that it makes Force Awakens look even worse. The less charitable side of that coin though is this director has just initiated a peeing contest with JJ. I don’t see how that can turn out well.

This new film is a complete and total pile of crap. Awful movie. Really awful Star Wars.

@Baron:

I was amazed this afternoon, a few 19 years old girls asked me what was an Aircraft Carrier during a test.
I had to show a picture so they can classify it amongst warships.

Do you believe it?

I always thought that Aircraft Carrier was the iconic warship.

If you have to choose one warship type, what would you choose so the average Joe or Jane can know it for sure?

They were able to look up from their phones long enough to ask?

@General:

I’m probably reading too much into the writers’ intent but Michael’s conflicting personality battle could be reflective of identity politics of today. There are expectations for what people of color should believe in and in some cases how to behave (and how to be perceived) and the same can apply to women. In this case you have a woman of color, who has two layers of identity to navigate through.

I doubt it is anything so grandiose. She is first and foremost an affirmative action hire. They didn’t hire the actor who best embodied the character they wanted. They’ve tried to mash the actor they wanted with the sort of character they wanted and just got a mess.

The character is just a mish mash of misunderstood character traits from other characters. Since JJ Trek there is an utter misunderstanding of Vulcans. They are not passionate creatures that use logic to justify the emotional outburst they are having. The current writers misunderstand Spock and journey he has taken over TOS, TNG, and the films not JJ Trek. The entire script is poorly written.

As the first officer of a Federation starship you are expected not to mutiny in order to shoot first at another vessel. This is not a terrible burden to live up to for anyone. That character doesn’t get to recover from that or set foot on the bridge of a starship as anything except a passenger ever again. Total failure of premise from the outset with this show.

@LHoffman:

@frimmel:

Lens Flares (no, really.)

Way too many of these. Usually for no reason at all. There wasn’t even light present to make it happen, they just threw them in because that is apparently what Star Trek looks like now.

The lighting choices were a mess in that first hour. It was very difficult to watch before you even get to the story.

If you hate the design aesthetic of JJ Trek along with the film-making sensibility that came with it you’l hate this.

Aside from how it is bad Trek this thing is unwatchable. The Klingon ship is an eye sore. Lens Flares (no, really.) Shaky-cam. Spinning cam. Dutch angles and editing that leads to a rocking boat sensation. This thing is unwatchable before you get to it being bad Trek.

If you want Trek as it would be directed by Michael Bay ST:Discovery is for you.

I liked Michele Yeoh but I always like her.

Good find. I loved the comment about having found a new answer to what game to pick when Death challenges you to play a game for your soul.

I’ve only one game with the new expansion and enjoyed the new tactics decks and combat. Need more time with the new missions and such. Decent expansion form a shaking up the gameplay standpoint.

@LHoffman:

@frimmel:

He likely traded altitude for velocity which would allow him to stay in the air longer but that was a bit poorly handled. Most of the timing synced up fairly well except for that.

You can do that maybe once before your energy is bled out. I was trying to get my head around how Farrier lost his engine at what looked like less than 2000 AGL then a couple cuts later maneuvers to shoot down a Ju87 or Bf 109 and then still has the altitude to make a landing farther down the beach. This was a little confusing but I think I need to see it again to understand.

He was shown switching to a reserve tank at one point though but that seemed to come on top of lots of scenes with the prop not turning. This was the only place I think the editing was sub-par.

@Der:

I saw Dunkirk tonight - it was pretty good, not great. One problem was that I had a hard time understanding the British accents - my wife and I were only catching about 1/2 of what they said. Then the scenes that I expected to be epic were kind of underwhelming - I saw about 7 or 8 rescue boats in any one scene, not hundreds. Men were lined up on the beach by the hundreds, not thousands. CGI would have helped a lot there. Some scenes were drawn out way too long, like the Spitfire pilot that ran out of gas seemed to glide forever - my wife and I finally chuckled “What? He’s STILL gliding?” Another strange thing was that no Germans were shown (other than their machines) until the very last scene and even then they were out of focus. Was this to make them more scary and inhuman? Maybe. Then all the soldiers were really hard to tell apart - I kept thinking “Is that the one guy? No - I think that’s the other guy.” Then to make it even harder everyone got coated in black oil. It was still pretty good� - I’ve seen worse…it was worth paying for to support the genre.� �

He likely traded altitude for velocity which would allow him to stay in the air longer but that was a bit poorly handled. Most of the timing synced up fairly well except for that.

Caught “Dunkirk” yesterday and it is a solid/good war picture. The issue for me is its biggest strength is also it’s biggest weakness. It is a rather tight picture with a small primary cast. So you follow a few guys through various spans of time which the film handles editing together very well without turning the picture into straight up flashbacks and “Groundhog Day” sorts of repeats.

But this closeness also doesn’t always convey the particular scale that is being dealt with or the broader events.

Very tense movie with terrific flying sequences. Way too much shaky-cam though especially given that it is already on the water. Solid film.

The system is called “Command and Colors.” https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Command_and_Colors_System

None of the games are particularly cheap although not particularly expensive for games with lots of pieces either. They all come in around the MSRP of Memoir. Your best bet is to try and find the first version of Battlecry on eBay.

I just did a quick search and there is a used Memoir set up for $45 with free shipping and the used Battlecry were all in that same range with shipping. You should expect this sort of thing to run you in the $35 to $70 range.

This time of the year you should be able to scrounge that up in less than a week of mowing lawns.

@Imperious:

I’ve seen one woman with a tattoo that was elevated in hotness by the tattoo. Usually the tattoo drags her down.

Was it a tramp stamp on her lower back by chance? If so you would find her a a bar nearly every night.

No, it wasn’t. She had a “curly cue” sort of thing on the top outside of her foot. It was tasteful and I remember largely because my reaction to it was such a surprise and very much atypical. She was already very attractive though.

I’m going to go with “Not.” I’ve seen one woman with a tattoo that was elevated in hotness by the tattoo. Usually the tattoo drags her down. The pin-up goes on the plane not the plane on the pin-up.