Thanks for mentioning battle lines, picked it up immediately upon learning it’s just a card game that takes half an hour to play. Getting older, none of my friends like heavy board games at all except me, but do enjoy simple games that take an hour at most.
The main reason I like Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) is that the rules are more logical, better organized, and easier to learn. (Admittedly, I'm comparing them against Squad Leader and all of its sequels, not just SL itself.) But the ASL starter kits are only 16 pages of rules each, so don't let complexity scare you away from ASL. Warm regards, Rick.
The best way to learn ASL is to play someone willing to teach it. I can recommend the VASL community on Vassal for this. If you know SL you have a good starting point, that is actually better than SK experience IMO.
I bought the original (Purple Box) SL and all of its expansions new, as they were first released. In its continuing quest for "realism", the series descended into a quagmire of rules, to the extend that none of my war gaming friends would play it and I finally sold everything at a convention. These days it's solitaire only for me.
@@richardklug822 Hi Richard. I totally agree. My friend and I never bought the first edition of these game, we bought the second or third edition. Why? Because Avalon Hill would print errata in the back of the book, if they found a mistake in the rule. We wanted the corrected rules. But let us say a question arises about infantry attacking a tank. The rule we are looking for might be in the original Squad Leader. But where? Infantry and tanks are covered in several scenarios, so in might be in one part of the book or another. It might be in Cross of Iron (the tank expansion). If so where? There are 12 scenarios, so several rule sections where that rule might be. In might be in Yanks (the revised infantry rules). Again, 12 scenarios, so potentially the rules we are looking for might be in several different sections of the Yanks rules. OR it might be in the errata printed at the end of any of those three books! It became VERY, VERY difficult to find a rule. All that was fixed in Advanced Squad Leader. The rules have been made more logical. The rules have a huge table of contents. Each section has a small table of contents. There is an index which I believe is over 50 pages long. And the rules are wonderfully cross indexed. Each rules section comes with a divider / help card, which lays out how things are done (and often links to the rule section). Because the rules are more logical I have to look them up less often, and when I do, 95% of the time I can find the rule I want quickly. Once I tried ASL, I tossed all of my Squad Leader components (except the maps), and just played ASL. Warm regards, Rick.
Just started dipping my toes into Volume 1 of ASLSK. Didn't think I'd like this level of detail, but I am enjoying it and appreciate the logical learning path provided by the system.
My favorite wargame is Corsair Leader from DVG games. You are commanding a squadron of aircraft through 2-4 missions a day for a one time skirmish or a short/medium or long campaign. You decide what pilots, aircraft and load out will be used. Keeping track of stress to both pilots and airplanes and ordinance as you go. The whole of the PTO is covered.
Just found u guys… very nice presentation, setup, effects, graphics, etc. Top notch! I wish I could get into war games but no one wants to play with me! I’ve had Conflict of Heroes AtB on my shelf for years! as well as the following (I’d be curious to know if you’ve had any experience with these and what your thoughts were… If you have the time or opportunity to answer, no problem - War of the Ring - Sekigahara - Hitler’s Reich - Bayonets and tomahawks - Hearts and Minds, Vietnam 1965 to 1975 - Friedrich - Time of crisis ALL UNPLAYED 😢
Great list guys! While I’ve played 7 of these Space Empires 4X with expansions is far and away my fav (though curious if this didn’t meet y’all’s criteria when one of y’all mentioning as a fav in 2022). If y’all ever get the chance to try I highly suggest I giving Company of Heroes 2nd Edition a go when it releases next year. Having played on TTS I truly see it becoming my number 1 game of all time but will have to play the physical copy first.
Nice touch Panzer Armee Afrika, great game. Squad leader, the classic, pity about not playing the Cross of Iron, the armor rule are great. Not to dismiss the "light" games, but Undaunted, looks interesting. Great work, gentlemen.
I absolutely love Undaunted Normandy. Played two scenarios and immediately bought North Africa the next day & picked up Stalingrad 2nd hand shortly after. Deck building with clever mechanics. You'll often look at a scenario and think "this will be over in 10 minutes as I only need to move my Riflemen 2 places to win and then an hour later, you're suppressed by a machine gun nest, your deck is so thick the cards you need aren't coming up often enough and your opponent is adding useless fog of war cards to your already overladen deck and it's all gone horribly wrong. Give it a try, the whole series is amazing.
Great list! Especially happy to see SL on it. I played it and all the follow-up modules. Yes, the rules were complex, but you could ignore some and still play. I especially liked that one module got into the early war years such as French vs German and Finns vs Soviets.
Thanks for an interesting video. My number one war game is still RAF The Battle of Britain. I have the West End Games edition and the Decision Games edition. Take care
That is one that has absolutely been on my (Nato's) radar. I think I even downloaded the rules at one point and read them, but I don't remember ever playing a game of it. What do you like best about it?
Yes, me too. Fortunately Renegade has the combined experience of 45 years of playtesting to go off of. What elements are you looking to shine through the most?
SL scratched a tactical itch that abstract D&D combat didn't give me at the time. I'm more of an operational wargamer now, but it might be time to revisit this.@@LegendaryTactics
Interesting vid. Thanks for uploading. One possible improvement you could make is to mention what player count each game plays best at and if there are solo variants.
I really like the list, there are definitely a few titles I need to check out! I was surprised to see Blitzkrieg as opposed to Caesar! on the list; why do you prefer Blitzkrieg?
@@LegendaryTactics You should, it's a good combat game that has a lot of player interaction and resource management not just tactics. I'm setting up some leagues btw check the forums on BGG.
@@LegendaryTactics It's my favorite, super fun negotiation, alliances and betrayal especially if you play Aedui, a lot punchier with devastating moves and because the map is smaller, every location is fought for since everyone is fighting for Allies as everyones win conditions are tied to them, makes it a lot more interesting/exciting and interactive. It also doesn't have some of the rally loop that the other COINs get stuck in
I liked Squad Leader and Cross of Iron. After that it just seemed to be getting more and more bogged down with the expanding rules. Things like bicycle troops. Advanced SL changed the basic system a bit too much, in my opinion, making it unnecessarily complex even for the simplest gameplay. Even AH made a little joke about it in their magazine. They had a "guess the game" from seeing a rules example. The SL example was the rules for cigarette lighters. Hope I remembered that correctly.
@@DaneWodenssen I agree. The core rules for ASL are straight forward. But ASL has rules for gliders, night fighting, star shells, fighting in sewers, motor bikes, ski troops, etc. etc. The starter kids ignore those edge cases and give you the infantry rules in 16 pages. (I do miss the sniper rules tho.) Warm regards, Rick.
When I think of lighter wargames, the name Tetsuya Nakamura always comes to my mind. He has a knack for distilling down to 20 pages of rules what other wargame designers on the same topic take 30 or more pages of rules. And his designs are nothing less than brilliant. As to heavier games, I lean more towards Dean Essig, Mark Herman, John Butterfield and Mark Simonitch, although Butterfield seems equally adept at designing lighter games that are quite enjoyable, too. (Take a look at GMT's SpaceCorp, SPI's Voyage of the B.S.M. Pandora - and its sequel coming out from GMT in 2024.) My very, utmost, absolute-favorite war game of all time is Dean Essig's Last Blitzkrieg. I think it's his magnum opus.
Didn't expect to see Panzer Armee Afrika on the list, it's a game I've owned twice in the (distant) past and while it was fun in its day I think there are better North African campaign games. Having a random selection of Allied units unable to move each turn seemed a pretty blunt way of simulating British command issues. On board with Root and Fire in the Lake, if you like lighter COIN-style games the recent Gest of Robin Hood is well worth a look. I have played Squad Leader a few times in the past (and have a dusty copy on my shelf, Cross of Iron too) and like Undaunted, but for tactical WW2 I can't look past Combat Commander which I absolutely love.
Watching this I feel like Goldilocks, I guess my sweetspot are games that are more truly ( or more traditionally) wargames and are meatier than these light ones, but not necessarily as heavy as these heavy ones! 😀
Advanced Squad Leader by far, then next Russia Besieged, The African Campaign, Bitter Woods and Turning Point Stalingrad for me, real war games for hard core wargamers.
@@LegendaryTactics Sure are and I have plenty of opponents around in region and on-line. Good stuff, I play other games as well like Vikings, War of the Rings and Star Wars Rebellion, all fine challenges. ASL is my main love though, I have designed a bunch of scenarios over the year, some published by MMP, some were in Dispatches. Good gaming is still happening in my world, especially as I'm retired now, gaming is mainly what I do. Wonderful hobby still.
You might have mentioned that these were board games you were promoting. I also notice that there were no naval games which is a shame. Prior to a MIL attack I had a game called Jutland which allowed you to re-enact the pivotal battle of WW1 that guaranteed the German defeat. Playable at 3 levels it included a search scenario to determine how the fleets met. I have about 3 others but that was a board-ish game with the ships represented by cardboard counters.
Yes, we should clarify that they are board games, but didn't think of it as that is mostly what we cover. My colleague Flash had Jutland at one point, but it was lost somewhere along the way. I think we played it once or twice, but it has been years...
In other oportunity i bring you mi list of the Avalon Hill best games for my. I believe are the best and heavy ones. In adition, I like wargames more simples like "Undaunted" or "2GM Tactics" or "Tides of Iron" and I love "Warfighter" because is a coperative game!!!. Thanks!
It's really more a fight between concepts, particular avenues to dominance, with animals slapped onto them for presentation. The factions could be completely divorced from any animal theme and the game itself would still be completely the same. Some of the animals are apt choice for their faction, some (most, really) aren't - I don't particularly associate cats with being industrious, for example, but industry is the Marquise de Cats' approach. You could use the exact same meeple shape for everyone but with different colors, but it'd feel much drier, practically abstract.
I know Cole Wehrle said he was inspired by COIN to do Root - and yes, it is assymetric (like almost all wargames) ... but Root is NOT based on the COIN system. There's absolutely no mechanics in common between the COIN system and Root. FWIW ... I actually think Root is the better game (compared to the COIN games I've tried). ... the reason being that it's way too easy in COIN to see that a player has a potential to win on the next propaganda card and then kick that player all the way back to square 1 ... with the result that COIN games are often decided by the timing of the last card. In Root, on the other hand, there's almost no way to take VP away from a player (Eyrie being an exception) so you can actually maneuver yourself into a position where it's too late to stop you when it's discovered you can win soon.
@@LegendaryTactics Games played in 2023 Heavy (Far better than light) 1. The Devils Cauldron 2. The Dark Valley 3. Valley of Tears 4. On to Richmond 5. DAK 2 Lighter 1. WAW 85 2. Sword of Israel 3. Napoleon 20
According to the vid it's "notoriously hard to teach", but compared to the average boardgame and especially the average wargame I don't think that's a fair assessment. You do need to play a few turns to grasp what's going on, it's hard to impart understanding just by explaining the rules, but 10 minutes on the general rules and 5 minutes each per faction to explain the essentials are probably enough to start playing. That's really just 15 minutes that you're busy with each player, and that's not a lot at all. If you read everything out from the manual it'll take a lot longer, but that's not a good approach. Do the minimum needed to get everyone playing, play 2-3 turns and then start over for real and you should be good 9 times out of 10. Similarly it isn't light in the sense that it's not just a few simple mechanics, but I wouldn't categorize it as higher than mid either. Your available choices on any given turn are too limited for that, and while you do try to optimize somewhat for upcoming turns it's not like you have to painstakingly lay out a grand strategy over multiple turns either.
My thoughts ...it's BlitzKREEG.....pronounced BlitzKREEG....We can't blame your Canadian accent this time because you pronounced everything else correctly.
I like how they did the honorable mentions by showing how they are NOT letting the other choose them.
Shhhh... And we would've gotten away with it if it wasn't for you, kid...
What is this blitz "Craig" that you speak of.
Gooten morgan. As you can tell, our German accents are terrible. :) The Canadian accent is just too strong, eh?
@@LegendaryTacticshahahahaha, reminds me of the movie Fury, when the American soldier steals an egg from a German girl and says “donkey!”
@@DonRoyalX😢y😅r😢😢dtcrttn
😢f😮vv by my❤
Another great vid! 👍
Thank you so much! And thanks for watching!!
Thanks for mentioning battle lines, picked it up immediately upon learning it’s just a card game that takes half an hour to play. Getting older, none of my friends like heavy board games at all except me, but do enjoy simple games that take an hour at most.
I have yet to play it with someone who didn't like it. Even without ever having played it, it feels familiar for some reason.
@@LegendaryTactics Probably from the card game "war" that you played as a kid with simple deck of cards. At least this game reminded me of that.
The main reason I like Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) is that the rules are more logical, better organized, and easier to learn. (Admittedly, I'm comparing them against Squad Leader and all of its sequels, not just SL itself.)
But the ASL starter kits are only 16 pages of rules each, so don't let complexity scare you away from ASL.
Warm regards, Rick.
Yes, I've been eyeing the Multi Man Games' ASL Starter kits. It is a smart way to access the game, especially if you have SL experience
The best way to learn ASL is to play someone willing to teach it. I can recommend the VASL community on Vassal for this. If you know SL you have a good starting point, that is actually better than SK experience IMO.
I bought the original (Purple Box) SL and all of its expansions new, as they were first released. In its continuing quest for "realism", the series descended into a quagmire of rules, to the extend that none of my war gaming friends would play it and I finally sold everything at a convention. These days it's solitaire only for me.
@@richardklug822
Hi Richard.
I totally agree.
My friend and I never bought the first edition of these game, we bought the second or third edition. Why? Because Avalon Hill would print errata in the back of the book, if they found a mistake in the rule. We wanted the corrected rules.
But let us say a question arises about infantry attacking a tank. The rule we are looking for might be in the original Squad Leader. But where? Infantry and tanks are covered in several scenarios, so in might be in one part of the book or another. It might be in Cross of Iron (the tank expansion). If so where? There are 12 scenarios, so several rule sections where that rule might be. In might be in Yanks (the revised infantry rules). Again, 12 scenarios, so potentially the rules we are looking for might be in several different sections of the Yanks rules. OR it might be in the errata printed at the end of any of those three books!
It became VERY, VERY difficult to find a rule.
All that was fixed in Advanced Squad Leader.
The rules have been made more logical. The rules have a huge table of contents. Each section has a small table of contents. There is an index which I believe is over 50 pages long. And the rules are wonderfully cross indexed. Each rules section comes with a divider / help card, which lays out how things are done (and often links to the rule section). Because the rules are more logical I have to look them up less often, and when I do, 95% of the time I can find the rule I want quickly.
Once I tried ASL, I tossed all of my Squad Leader components (except the maps), and just played ASL.
Warm regards, Rick.
Just started dipping my toes into Volume 1 of ASLSK. Didn't think I'd like this level of detail, but I am enjoying it and appreciate the logical learning path provided by the system.
Wonderful lists! Excellent job, guys!
Thank you so much! And thanks for watching!
My favorite wargame is Corsair Leader from DVG games. You are commanding a squadron of aircraft through 2-4 missions a day for a one time skirmish or a short/medium or long campaign. You decide what pilots, aircraft and load out will be used. Keeping track of stress to both pilots and airplanes and ordinance as you go. The whole of the PTO is covered.
I own Thunderbolt Apache Leader, which uses a similar system. You're right, it is a great system! I am hoping to feature it on the channel soon!
CL took the system to a new level.
Just found u guys… very nice presentation, setup, effects, graphics, etc. Top notch!
I wish I could get into war games but no one wants to play with me!
I’ve had Conflict of Heroes AtB on my shelf for years! as well as the following (I’d be curious to know if you’ve had any experience with these and what your thoughts were… If you have the time or opportunity to answer, no problem
- War of the Ring
- Sekigahara
- Hitler’s Reich
- Bayonets and tomahawks
- Hearts and Minds, Vietnam 1965 to 1975
- Friedrich
- Time of crisis
ALL UNPLAYED 😢
Great list guys! While I’ve played 7 of these Space Empires 4X with expansions is far and away my fav (though curious if this didn’t meet y’all’s criteria when one of y’all mentioning as a fav in 2022). If y’all ever get the chance to try I highly suggest I giving Company of Heroes 2nd Edition a go when it releases next year. Having played on TTS I truly see it becoming my number 1 game of all time but will have to play the physical copy first.
I have heard great things! We played a lot of the RTS video game back in the day...
Nice touch Panzer Armee Afrika, great game. Squad leader, the classic, pity about not playing the Cross of Iron, the armor rule are great. Not to dismiss the "light" games, but Undaunted, looks interesting. Great work, gentlemen.
Thank you for your kind words! And for watching!
I absolutely love Undaunted Normandy.
Played two scenarios and immediately bought North Africa the next day & picked up Stalingrad 2nd hand shortly after.
Deck building with clever mechanics. You'll often look at a scenario and think "this will be over in 10 minutes as I only need to move my Riflemen 2 places to win and then an hour later, you're suppressed by a machine gun nest, your deck is so thick the cards you need aren't coming up often enough and your opponent is adding useless fog of war cards to your already overladen deck and it's all gone horribly wrong.
Give it a try, the whole series is amazing.
Great list! Especially happy to see SL on it. I played it and all the follow-up modules. Yes, the rules were complex, but you could ignore some and still play. I especially liked that one module got into the early war years such as French vs German and Finns vs Soviets.
Thanks for an interesting video.
My number one war game is still RAF The Battle of Britain. I have the West End Games edition and the Decision Games edition.
Take care
That is one that has absolutely been on my (Nato's) radar. I think I even downloaded the rules at one point and read them, but I don't remember ever playing a game of it. What do you like best about it?
I love all those games. Combat Commander Europe didn't even make an honourable mention... Cheers from. Australia.
I am very interested in what Renegade does with Squad Leader coming up. I played a lot of the OG in the 80's.
Yes, me too. Fortunately Renegade has the combined experience of 45 years of playtesting to go off of. What elements are you looking to shine through the most?
SL scratched a tactical itch that abstract D&D combat didn't give me at the time. I'm more of an operational wargamer now, but it might be time to revisit this.@@LegendaryTactics
Once again, great lists guys.
Squad leader was what we cut our teeth on back in the 70s
By all means explore all the expansions!!
Yes, I'd like to! Cross of Iron, in particular, seems interesting to me
Happy that I own at least one of the games-Panzerarmee Afrika (but I own the original).
Ah, the original SPI version? Nice! I imagine that one is pretty rare!
My favorite board game was sort of a light heavy game called Hitler's War by AH. A strategic look a the ETO that was actually playable. And fun!
That's one that really intrigues me. Flash had it when he was a kid, but it disappeared. I would love to feature it on the channel.
Great lists. Now I want to play some wargames.
And so you should! Go forth, and wargame-ify!
* Disclaimer: This video made possible by the kindness of Gastel.
I thought I recognized a few of those games.
Interesting vid. Thanks for uploading. One possible improvement you could make is to mention what player count each game plays best at and if there are solo variants.
Good call! It makes a difference in who will want to pick it up for sure.
Squad leader is still on production?
Advanced Squad Leader is still in print with Multi Man Games, but I don't know of any publisher that is publishing Squad Leader
My current top 5:
1. Infinity
2. Malifaux
3. SAGA
4. Advanced Squad leader
5. Bushido - GCT studious
I really like the list, there are definitely a few titles I need to check out! I was surprised to see Blitzkrieg as opposed to Caesar! on the list; why do you prefer Blitzkrieg?
For the simple reason that while Nato and Cax have played Caesar, I have not yet.
What about Circadians Chaos Order?
It looks intriguing, but we haven't played it yet...
@@LegendaryTactics You should, it's a good combat game that has a lot of player interaction and resource management not just tactics. I'm setting up some leagues btw check the forums on BGG.
Where would the command and colors series fall…heavy or light?
For me (Nato), definitely light!
Love Falling Sky 🔥🔥
That's the one COIN game I haven't gotten into that much. I like it, but don't love it. What do you like best about it?
@@LegendaryTactics It's my favorite, super fun negotiation, alliances and betrayal especially if you play Aedui, a lot punchier with devastating moves and because the map is smaller, every location is fought for since everyone is fighting for Allies as everyones win conditions are tied to them, makes it a lot more interesting/exciting and interactive. It also doesn't have some of the rally loop that the other COINs get stuck in
I liked Squad Leader and Cross of Iron. After that it just seemed to be getting more and more bogged down with the expanding rules. Things like bicycle troops.
Advanced SL changed the basic system a bit too much, in my opinion, making it unnecessarily complex even for the simplest gameplay.
Even AH made a little joke about it in their magazine. They had a "guess the game" from seeing a rules example. The SL example was the rules for cigarette lighters. Hope I remembered that correctly.
I'll have to look for that joke - I've been reading through a lot of those issues as I'm researching the next chapter of The History of Avalon Hill
Squad Leader Starter kits, would be the best way to go, lighter than ASL but just as fun and self contained
@@DaneWodenssen
I agree.
The core rules for ASL are straight forward. But ASL has rules for gliders, night fighting, star shells, fighting in sewers, motor bikes, ski troops, etc. etc. The starter kids ignore those edge cases and give you the infantry rules in 16 pages. (I do miss the sniper rules tho.)
Warm regards, Rick.
The ones you play are the best
True!
When I think of lighter wargames, the name Tetsuya Nakamura always comes to my mind. He has a knack for distilling down to 20 pages of rules what other wargame designers on the same topic take 30 or more pages of rules. And his designs are nothing less than brilliant. As to heavier games, I lean more towards Dean Essig, Mark Herman, John Butterfield and Mark Simonitch, although Butterfield seems equally adept at designing lighter games that are quite enjoyable, too. (Take a look at GMT's SpaceCorp, SPI's
Voyage of the B.S.M. Pandora - and its sequel coming out from GMT in 2024.) My very, utmost, absolute-favorite war game of all time is Dean Essig's Last Blitzkrieg. I think it's his magnum opus.
Didn't expect to see Panzer Armee Afrika on the list, it's a game I've owned twice in the (distant) past and while it was fun in its day I think there are better North African campaign games. Having a random selection of Allied units unable to move each turn seemed a pretty blunt way of simulating British command issues. On board with Root and Fire in the Lake, if you like lighter COIN-style games the recent Gest of Robin Hood is well worth a look. I have played Squad Leader a few times in the past (and have a dusty copy on my shelf, Cross of Iron too) and like Undaunted, but for tactical WW2 I can't look past Combat Commander which I absolutely love.
Nice choice!!
Watching this I feel like Goldilocks, I guess my sweetspot are games that are more truly ( or more traditionally) wargames and are meatier than these light ones, but not necessarily as heavy as these heavy ones! 😀
It's sometimes a tough balance to get right, but the right theme can help!
Advanced Squad Leader by far, then next Russia Besieged, The African Campaign, Bitter Woods and Turning Point Stalingrad for me, real war games for hard core wargamers.
Oh yeah! Those are the heavy ones - if you can stay on top of the rules, they're incredible games
@@LegendaryTactics Sure are and I have plenty of opponents around in region and on-line. Good stuff, I play other games as well like Vikings, War of the Rings and Star Wars Rebellion, all fine challenges. ASL is my main love though, I have designed a bunch of scenarios over the year, some published by MMP, some were in Dispatches. Good gaming is still happening in my world, especially as I'm retired now, gaming is mainly what I do. Wonderful hobby still.
I will add War of the ring.
Yes, we are giving that one a try this summer! It's really neat!
Good luck with the Fellowship, they need to get lucky with cards to have a good chance at a win, militarily, they are up against it. Great game.
Take Aim Designs makes great light wargames.
Root is very much a war game.
But it's so cute!
You might have mentioned that these were board games you were promoting. I also notice that there were no naval games which is a shame. Prior to a MIL attack I had a game called Jutland which allowed you to re-enact the pivotal battle of WW1 that guaranteed the German defeat. Playable at 3 levels it included a search scenario to determine how the fleets met. I have about 3 others but that was a board-ish game with the ships represented by cardboard counters.
Yes, we should clarify that they are board games, but didn't think of it as that is mostly what we cover. My colleague Flash had Jutland at one point, but it was lost somewhere along the way. I think we played it once or twice, but it has been years...
In other oportunity i bring you mi list of the Avalon Hill best games for my. I believe are the best and heavy ones. In adition, I like wargames more simples like "Undaunted" or "2GM Tactics" or "Tides of Iron" and I love "Warfighter" because is a coperative game!!!. Thanks!
Maria for light wargames!
Great!
And its predecessor (which I prefer over Maria) - is Friedrich, from Histogame in 2004.
Root loses me on theme. Animal fights?!?
Yeah, the theme js a bit flimsy that way, but rather than making it with boring human factions, it does have more table presence as it is
It's really more a fight between concepts, particular avenues to dominance, with animals slapped onto them for presentation. The factions could be completely divorced from any animal theme and the game itself would still be completely the same. Some of the animals are apt choice for their faction, some (most, really) aren't - I don't particularly associate cats with being industrious, for example, but industry is the Marquise de Cats' approach. You could use the exact same meeple shape for everyone but with different colors, but it'd feel much drier, practically abstract.
Heavy all the way and tactical take the most brain power. Starfleet Battles!
Interesting! I haven't played that one yet!
Squad Leader was the only good one shown. What about Panzer Leader, Bismark, and Submarine?
I know Cole Wehrle said he was inspired by COIN to do Root - and yes, it is assymetric (like almost all wargames) ... but Root is NOT based on the COIN system.
There's absolutely no mechanics in common between the COIN system and Root.
FWIW ... I actually think Root is the better game (compared to the COIN games I've tried). ... the reason being that it's way too easy in COIN to see that a player has a potential to win on the next propaganda card and then kick that player all the way back to square 1 ... with the result that COIN games are often decided by the timing of the last card.
In Root, on the other hand, there's almost no way to take VP away from a player (Eyrie being an exception) so you can actually maneuver yourself into a position where it's too late to stop you when it's discovered you can win soon.
There are definitely more differences than similarities.
Interesting but I cant say I agree with any of this.
Any top 10 list will generate plenty of debate - what would your list be for 5 lighter and 5 heavier wargames?
@@LegendaryTactics
Games played in 2023
Heavy (Far better than light)
1. The Devils Cauldron
2. The Dark Valley
3. Valley of Tears
4. On to Richmond
5. DAK 2
Lighter
1. WAW 85
2. Sword of Israel
3. Napoleon 20
Root is a wargame but it most certainly is not light.
But the little animals are so...cute!
It's the friendliest and cutest wargame you'll find!
According to the vid it's "notoriously hard to teach", but compared to the average boardgame and especially the average wargame I don't think that's a fair assessment. You do need to play a few turns to grasp what's going on, it's hard to impart understanding just by explaining the rules, but 10 minutes on the general rules and 5 minutes each per faction to explain the essentials are probably enough to start playing. That's really just 15 minutes that you're busy with each player, and that's not a lot at all. If you read everything out from the manual it'll take a lot longer, but that's not a good approach. Do the minimum needed to get everyone playing, play 2-3 turns and then start over for real and you should be good 9 times out of 10. Similarly it isn't light in the sense that it's not just a few simple mechanics, but I wouldn't categorize it as higher than mid either. Your available choices on any given turn are too limited for that, and while you do try to optimize somewhat for upcoming turns it's not like you have to painstakingly lay out a grand strategy over multiple turns either.
Blitzcraig 💀
Definition: buying an overwhelming amount of items on craigslist in an unusually quick way.
My thoughts ...it's BlitzKREEG.....pronounced BlitzKREEG....We can't blame your Canadian accent this time because you pronounced everything else correctly.
Perhaps we can blame the Germans for THEIR accent this time.
Cthulhu Death May Die
lol, "Blitzcraig", need to pronounce the game right.
True. I'd like to blame our accent, but that mispronunciation is all on us... :)