I’m primarily a solo gamer and I’ve been catching up with your videos recently. Dude, your videos are great! You are a natural on camera with a great delivery of very detailed reviews. Please keep up the good work. Cheers
my favorite solo remains Fields of fire (gmt games, designed by Ben Hull). It is absolutely on the heavy side, but no other game have made me fell the complexity and the tension of commanding an infantry company. both the volumes has 3 campaign (WWII, Corea, Vietnam) so you can feel the evolution of infantry combat. it requires dedication, but it is an incredible rewarding game.
@@saltlampgaming115 yes, I participated in the playtesting of the new edition and the starter guide and mission help those starting out a lot. it's a game that takes some effort to start, but is very rewarding.
thank you so much for bringing light to lots of games i haven't heard of - ones that lean towards "smaller" political/social happenings that aren't normally touched on in board gaming
Enjoyed the video, thanks a lot. I only play solo so I thought your choices were very interesting. I am quite happy to play complex games two-handed so I also own a lot of games which you didn't cover (OCS, GOSS, GBACW, GCACW), but I also have many of the same games you did cover. I thought perhaps an obivous ommission was DVG's Leader series, which seems to be very popular? I only own B-17 Flying Fortress Leader, which is very good, but there are many many more from DVG. Also perhaps the Valiant Defense series - PavIov's House, Castle Itter, Lanzerath Ridge? I also enjoy quirky games which cover little known battles/conflicts, so I was pleased to see you had Redver's Reverse, which I enjoyed a lot (although the rules were not so great). Anyway, thanks again, a very enjyable video.
Justin I'm so sorry I thought I had replied to this comment. I have had a bit of a brain wave/shift since reading this comment in that I forgot to discuss the merits of playing complex game/game systems solitaire i.e for simulation purposes/learning rules. I think for the purposes of this video I was mainly discussing my thoughts on games/game systems where there is very little for the opposing side to do and as such feels more like a "true" solitaire experience. I've been playing next war Vietnam with the advances rules two handed and having an awesome time but to me this feels more like a simulation than a contest if that makes sense? In regards to the DVG stuff I haven't played any of those games yet but I should've mentioned them for anyone new to the hobby. Thanks for watching and thanks for your comment!
Amazing content. I cannot speak with much expertise but I'm pretty confident you are one of the few Content creators that only does solo war gaming. Frankly many of the games you've been championing here I'm not seeing much content on. I went off the deep end with memoir 44 and have been playing a lot of the 4-8 player games scenarios. With so many parts to handle it's actually great because you kind of have a built-in fog of war and when I draw cards I never look at them until I come back around to the hand which becomes more and more important later in the game as the cards you have left become less valuable and a new card can make a big difference. I just love looking at all the diverse scenarios and understanding the history and trying to play them, and all solo. I can't say I recommend a big Memoir44 set up as it's quite expensive. I've got a good smattering of solo wargames, But I just backed off on coin so that is intensely interesting To catch up on what you've done so far and what will come. I was just at the GMT 50% off sale and passed On Colonial Twilight which I'm now regretting. my interest is in games world war 2 and earlier and Not the ones you like, but A distant plain is now firmly on my radar and I look forward to watching some of your playthrough videos. You have such a great channel already.😊
Meles, I'm really sorry its taken me this long to get back to you I realise this makes me look quite ignorant. Thank you very much for your comment, if I had the room I'd definitely play memoir 44 more often, sadly its not really do able in my flat but glad you are enjoying. Its a great game and I think we can all take something from your comment in regards to solo play of non solo games, that being if you are passionate about the game you'll find a way to make it work. Thanks again for your comment and thanks for watching!
Thanks for your video. I enjoy soloing two-player games (unless they have mechanisms that make soloing impractical) far more than I enjoy playing solitaire games. My main problem with solitaire games is once you find out how to beat the system, it's no longer interesting to me. For example, I experienced this with RAF: The Battle of Britain 1940 (by John Butterfield), and also Carrier Battle: Philippine Sea (by Jon Southard). It's a pity because the systems they have created are quite creative and the historical situations are interesting. AI in board games lacks the ability to learn and adapt to a human player's strategies. Even when I'm soloing a two-player game, once I find out a good strategy for one side, then I will pretty quickly know what to do with the other side in order to foil this strategy. My favourite solo wargame experiences have involved this exploration of strategies in two-player games like those in the GCACW series (e.g. Roads to Gettysburg II), or the Simonitch '4X series (e.g. Holland '44), or the various Blind Swords (and derivative) games from Hermann Luttmann.
Thank you, I enjoyed this presentation, a bit like ASMR for me. Wow, just fascinating to me to see the game D Day at Tarawa, my grandpa was on LST 69 at this invasion and he told stories of lots of bodies to clean up afterwards but before the invasion was attacked by Japanese aircraft the day or two prior because they got a little too close to the island too soon and were spotted. He was on an AA gun crew during the air attack. I wish he were still around so that I could show him how us young whipper snappers make games out of the horrible life ending dangers he and his comrades endured. He ended up with a purple heart later in the war due to the infamous West Loch explosion when some guys were loading an LST a few ships down the row and some careless moron was tossing around mortar ammo crates that went off in spectacular fashion.
15:35 ha ha ! This and the space-in-the-flat issue hit home quite hard. I think the same must be true for a lot of younger UK hex-and-counter wargamers.
Haha yeah my fellow country men are in the midst of a terrible wargaming space crisis and as per with the UK the government are uninterested in bringing light to these issues.
Great video. I was looking at getting into solo wargaming but was unsure where to start. I took your suggestions on the mini/folio games. Cheap and they look like a good entry point for learning the basics of wargaming. Thanks. Subscribed.
Hey Danny, sorry its taken me so long to get back to you. I am awful with checking my notifications, I'm glad this helped inform your decision! how did you get on and which game did you settle on?
Brilliant video. Really enjoyed the style, delivery, reasoning and opinions shared. Subscribed straight afterwards. The Race for Baghdad:2003 is that in print as I can’t find it online?
Thanks Pete that means a lot! I've not been doing this for too long so that's very encouraging. Sadly modern war magazine has finished but I think there should be plenty of copies hanging around. It's listed under a few different titles and its a bit confusing. Are you based in the UK? if so I believe second chance games has a copy in stock. If you are based in America I think you can order it directly from the decision games website. boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/167846/race-baghdad-2003 there's a copy or two on big market as well. Hope you can get a hold of it it's an awesome game.
On games to also consider, I have no preferred era, but for you I'd like to suggest that the almost impossible to obtain - luckily, I own a copy; I mention that simply so you know I have played it - game titled 'Where there is Discord', the Falklands War game. It is an alternative to 'Mrs Thatcher's War'. That said, MTW can be bought by people, whereas WTID can't, so I understand it not being profiled. You mentioned you prefer the Pacific theatre, so 'Fleet Commander Nimitz' - again, own it and all the expansions - is another simply must-have solitaire game to add to your collection. Not the Pacific, but so too is 'Field Commander: Rommel' by DVG, effectively three games for the price of one. But again, sometimes extremely difficult to obtain; I got a copy for US$129, down from US$213, at a time DVG was offering 'Field Commander: Napoleon' for US $172. 'Brave Little Belgium', the German invasion in 1914, is another of my favourites. Stacks more games I could go on about, so a quick few: like you, 'A Distant Plain' is an all-time sentimental favourite; it got me started on the modern era. That said, 'Enemy Action Ardennes', the 1944 Battle of the Bulge, that is a solitaire system well worth investigating, but at US$236, it wasn't cheap to obtain. 'Unconditional Surrender' as well as 'Advanced European Theatre of Operations' can be played solitaire ('Advanced Pacific Theatre of Operations' cannot; but it is also deeply flawed in its portrayal of American assault abilities vis a vis SE Asia, because it ignores the constraints of the allied ship-borne logistics train). 'Don't Tread on Me' or 'Liberty or Death' lead you into the US War of Independence. I wrote up several solitaire play-throughs of 'Star Wars Rebellion', under the nom-de-plume of 'Subudai Khan', a few years ago, profiling a solitaire system devised by Dale Buonocore; Dale's system is very good and I highly recommend it. Of course, bored and need to take some serious time off and solitaire solo, 'Europa Universalis; The Price of Power' has an AI bot; but be warned, it's not a game for the faint-hearted. If you can secure yourself a copy of 'Legion of Honour', treat yourself. As a former cavalry officer, I loved the thematics that game presented and I really enjoyed its solitaire mechanics. I wanted to end by mentioning I saw 'Malta Besieged' profiled by Stuka Joe and that sold me on the game, but generally, once you've played a couple of 'states of siege' style games, you are either a fan or not (I now fit the latter, but I enjoy the solitaire game 'The Confederate Rebellion'). Thanks to Stuka Joe's solitaire card-playing system (the updated version, 'CDG Solo System', from GMT), pretty much any two-player card-driven game can also be played solitaire these days, which expands your options considerably. BTW, loved your Top 10 at the end; good choices. Anyway, hope this helps with spurring comment and interest. I've been wargaming 50 years now.
Comancheria is fairly complex but very procedural. The AI is excellent and once you get the procedure the story starts to shine. That said, unless you play it regularly those procedures are easy to forget! Owned that game for a while a the only thing that got it on the sold list was the time required to play the full campaign. If you can leave it set up I would give it a go.
I really love the theme of the game and I have recently come to an agreement with my girlfriend about leaving some of my games out over night so I'm very keen to try it out. How does it differ form Navajo wars?
@@saltlampgaming115 sorry, I can’t answer the Navajo wars bit, never played it. A couple of nights should do it for Comancheria depending on how long you want to play. I think the box offers up to about 360 mins but for a full campaign I think that ambitious unless you know the system inside and out. Enjoy it though, it’s a cracking game.m
Great website. Own and have played a number of the games you portrayed. I cannot recommend to you enough 'Phase Line Smash'. Once you play it and deconstruct the game, a great many other solitaire games become fairy floss (that fluffy, sugar-based candy beloved of Americans). PLS caused a sensation amongst my military peer group when it was released, due to its reflection of the actual 1991 ground campaign.
Nice! Just wondered, since you enjoyed A Distant Plain, if you like (if you've played it) Labyrinth? Not a COIN game, and is more Macro level being global rather than a specific conflict per se, but it is quite a good game imo. And I think it solo's quite well.
Hey Aiden, I have the digital version but was struggling with the rules, I have had my eye on it for a while as I love the theme and Volko's output is always worth checking out. Once I've played it properly I'll get back to you about my thoughts on the game.
Its an album called Inner Sphere by Voyage Futur - highly recommend it, great music for gaming. You can hear some snippets of it on my COIN video AARs.
I’m primarily a solo gamer and I’ve been catching up with your videos recently. Dude, your videos are great! You are a natural on camera with a great delivery of very detailed reviews.
Please keep up the good work. Cheers
my favorite solo remains Fields of fire (gmt games, designed by Ben Hull). It is absolutely on the heavy side, but no other game have made me fell the complexity and the tension of commanding an infantry company. both the volumes has 3 campaign (WWII, Corea, Vietnam) so you can feel the evolution of infantry combat. it requires dedication, but it is an incredible rewarding game.
I haven't played FoF yet but its firmly on my radar, I think I'll hold off for the reprint as I understand it makes the learning process far easier.
@@saltlampgaming115 yes, I participated in the playtesting of the new edition and the starter guide and mission help those starting out a lot. it's a game that takes some effort to start, but is very rewarding.
Very interesting choices, opinions and advices. Subscribed. Txs for those.
thank you so much for bringing light to lots of games i haven't heard of - ones that lean towards "smaller" political/social happenings that aren't normally touched on in board gaming
Enjoyed the video, thanks a lot. I only play solo so I thought your choices were very interesting. I am quite happy to play complex games two-handed so I also own a lot of games which you didn't cover (OCS, GOSS, GBACW, GCACW), but I also have many of the same games you did cover. I thought perhaps an obivous ommission was DVG's Leader series, which seems to be very popular? I only own B-17 Flying Fortress Leader, which is very good, but there are many many more from DVG. Also perhaps the Valiant Defense series - PavIov's House, Castle Itter, Lanzerath Ridge? I also enjoy quirky games which cover little known battles/conflicts, so I was pleased to see you had Redver's Reverse, which I enjoyed a lot (although the rules were not so great). Anyway, thanks again, a very enjyable video.
Justin I'm so sorry I thought I had replied to this comment. I have had a bit of a brain wave/shift since reading this comment in that I forgot to discuss the merits of playing complex game/game systems solitaire i.e for simulation purposes/learning rules. I think for the purposes of this video I was mainly discussing my thoughts on games/game systems where there is very little for the opposing side to do and as such feels more like a "true" solitaire experience. I've been playing next war Vietnam with the advances rules two handed and having an awesome time but to me this feels more like a simulation than a contest if that makes sense?
In regards to the DVG stuff I haven't played any of those games yet but I should've mentioned them for anyone new to the hobby.
Thanks for watching and thanks for your comment!
Amazing content. I cannot speak with much expertise but I'm pretty confident you are one of the few Content creators that only does solo war gaming. Frankly many of the games you've been championing here I'm not seeing much content on. I went off the deep end with memoir 44 and have been playing a lot of the 4-8 player games scenarios. With so many parts to handle it's actually great because you kind of have a built-in fog of war and when I draw cards I never look at them until I come back around to the hand which becomes more and more important later in the game as the cards you have left become less valuable and a new card can make a big difference. I just love looking at all the diverse scenarios and understanding the history and trying to play them, and all solo. I can't say I recommend a big Memoir44 set up as it's quite expensive. I've got a good smattering of solo wargames, But I just backed off on coin so that is intensely interesting To catch up on what you've done so far and what will come. I was just at the GMT 50% off sale and passed On Colonial Twilight which I'm now regretting. my interest is in games world war 2 and earlier and Not the ones you like, but A distant plain is now firmly on my radar and I look forward to watching some of your playthrough videos. You have such a great channel already.😊
Meles, I'm really sorry its taken me this long to get back to you I realise this makes me look quite ignorant. Thank you very much for your comment, if I had the room I'd definitely play memoir 44 more often, sadly its not really do able in my flat but glad you are enjoying. Its a great game and I think we can all take something from your comment in regards to solo play of non solo games, that being if you are passionate about the game you'll find a way to make it work. Thanks again for your comment and thanks for watching!
Thanks for your video. I enjoy soloing two-player games (unless they have mechanisms that make soloing impractical) far more than I enjoy playing solitaire games. My main problem with solitaire games is once you find out how to beat the system, it's no longer interesting to me. For example, I experienced this with RAF: The Battle of Britain 1940 (by John Butterfield), and also Carrier Battle: Philippine Sea (by Jon Southard). It's a pity because the systems they have created are quite creative and the historical situations are interesting.
AI in board games lacks the ability to learn and adapt to a human player's strategies. Even when I'm soloing a two-player game, once I find out a good strategy for one side, then I will pretty quickly know what to do with the other side in order to foil this strategy. My favourite solo wargame experiences have involved this exploration of strategies in two-player games like those in the GCACW series (e.g. Roads to Gettysburg II), or the Simonitch '4X series (e.g. Holland '44), or the various Blind Swords (and derivative) games from Hermann Luttmann.
Thank you, I enjoyed this presentation, a bit like ASMR for me. Wow, just fascinating to me to see the game D Day at Tarawa, my grandpa was on LST 69 at this invasion and he told stories of lots of bodies to clean up afterwards but before the invasion was attacked by Japanese aircraft the day or two prior because they got a little too close to the island too soon and were spotted. He was on an AA gun crew during the air attack. I wish he were still around so that I could show him how us young whipper snappers make games out of the horrible life ending dangers he and his comrades endured. He ended up with a purple heart later in the war due to the infamous West Loch explosion when some guys were loading an LST a few ships down the row and some careless moron was tossing around mortar ammo crates that went off in spectacular fashion.
15:35 ha ha ! This and the space-in-the-flat issue hit home quite hard. I think the same must be true for a lot of younger UK hex-and-counter wargamers.
Haha yeah my fellow country men are in the midst of a terrible wargaming space crisis and as per with the UK the government are uninterested in bringing light to these issues.
Great video. I was looking at getting into solo wargaming but was unsure where to start. I took your suggestions on the mini/folio games. Cheap and they look like a good entry point for learning the basics of wargaming. Thanks. Subscribed.
Hey Danny, sorry its taken me so long to get back to you. I am awful with checking my notifications, I'm glad this helped inform your decision! how did you get on and which game did you settle on?
Brilliant video. Really enjoyed the style, delivery, reasoning and opinions shared. Subscribed straight afterwards. The Race for Baghdad:2003 is that in print as I can’t find it online?
Thanks Pete that means a lot! I've not been doing this for too long so that's very encouraging.
Sadly modern war magazine has finished but I think there should be plenty of copies hanging around. It's listed under a few different titles and its a bit confusing. Are you based in the UK? if so I believe second chance games has a copy in stock. If you are based in America I think you can order it directly from the decision games website. boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/167846/race-baghdad-2003
there's a copy or two on big market as well. Hope you can get a hold of it it's an awesome game.
On games to also consider, I have no preferred era, but for you I'd like to suggest that the almost impossible to obtain - luckily, I own a copy; I mention that simply so you know I have played it - game titled 'Where there is Discord', the Falklands War game. It is an alternative to 'Mrs Thatcher's War'. That said, MTW can be bought by people, whereas WTID can't, so I understand it not being profiled. You mentioned you prefer the Pacific theatre, so 'Fleet Commander Nimitz' - again, own it and all the expansions - is another simply must-have solitaire game to add to your collection. Not the Pacific, but so too is 'Field Commander: Rommel' by DVG, effectively three games for the price of one. But again, sometimes extremely difficult to obtain; I got a copy for US$129, down from US$213, at a time DVG was offering 'Field Commander: Napoleon' for US $172. 'Brave Little Belgium', the German invasion in 1914, is another of my favourites. Stacks more games I could go on about, so a quick few: like you, 'A Distant Plain' is an all-time sentimental favourite; it got me started on the modern era. That said, 'Enemy Action Ardennes', the 1944 Battle of the Bulge, that is a solitaire system well worth investigating, but at US$236, it wasn't cheap to obtain. 'Unconditional Surrender' as well as 'Advanced European Theatre of Operations' can be played solitaire ('Advanced Pacific Theatre of Operations' cannot; but it is also deeply flawed in its portrayal of American assault abilities vis a vis SE Asia, because it ignores the constraints of the allied ship-borne logistics train). 'Don't Tread on Me' or 'Liberty or Death' lead you into the US War of Independence. I wrote up several solitaire play-throughs of 'Star Wars Rebellion', under the nom-de-plume of 'Subudai Khan', a few years ago, profiling a solitaire system devised by Dale Buonocore; Dale's system is very good and I highly recommend it. Of course, bored and need to take some serious time off and solitaire solo, 'Europa Universalis; The Price of Power' has an AI bot; but be warned, it's not a game for the faint-hearted. If you can secure yourself a copy of 'Legion of Honour', treat yourself. As a former cavalry officer, I loved the thematics that game presented and I really enjoyed its solitaire mechanics. I wanted to end by mentioning I saw 'Malta Besieged' profiled by Stuka Joe and that sold me on the game, but generally, once you've played a couple of 'states of siege' style games, you are either a fan or not (I now fit the latter, but I enjoy the solitaire game 'The Confederate Rebellion'). Thanks to Stuka Joe's solitaire card-playing system (the updated version, 'CDG Solo System', from GMT), pretty much any two-player card-driven game can also be played solitaire these days, which expands your options considerably. BTW, loved your Top 10 at the end; good choices. Anyway, hope this helps with spurring comment and interest. I've been wargaming 50 years now.
Comancheria is fairly complex but very procedural. The AI is excellent and once you get the procedure the story starts to shine. That said, unless you play it regularly those procedures are easy to forget! Owned that game for a while a the only thing that got it on the sold list was the time required to play the full campaign. If you can leave it set up I would give it a go.
I really love the theme of the game and I have recently come to an agreement with my girlfriend about leaving some of my games out over night so I'm very keen to try it out. How does it differ form Navajo wars?
@@saltlampgaming115 sorry, I can’t answer the Navajo wars bit, never played it. A couple of nights should do it for Comancheria depending on how long you want to play. I think the box offers up to about 360 mins but for a full campaign I think that ambitious unless you know the system inside and out. Enjoy it though, it’s a cracking game.m
Great website. Own and have played a number of the games you portrayed. I cannot recommend to you enough 'Phase Line Smash'. Once you play it and deconstruct the game, a great many other solitaire games become fairy floss (that fluffy, sugar-based candy beloved of Americans). PLS caused a sensation amongst my military peer group when it was released, due to its reflection of the actual 1991 ground campaign.
I didn’t see your review in the video but I do like the Zulu game - zulus on the ramparts… great solo game ! And fun if you like the movie!
Hi! I enjoy playing the COIN games multiplayer solo. Have you tried that? Colonial Twilight and FITL are my top favorites.
Nice! Just wondered, since you enjoyed A Distant Plain, if you like (if you've played it) Labyrinth? Not a COIN game, and is more Macro level being global rather than a specific conflict per se, but it is quite a good game imo. And I think it solo's quite well.
Hey Aiden, I have the digital version but was struggling with the rules, I have had my eye on it for a while as I love the theme and Volko's output is always worth checking out. Once I've played it properly I'll get back to you about my thoughts on the game.
Thank you for doing this !!
Thx Mate
Curious what the cassette tape is at the top of the frame
Its an album called Inner Sphere by Voyage Futur - highly recommend it, great music for gaming. You can hear some snippets of it on my COIN video AARs.
@@saltlampgaming115 Cheers mate, always on the lookout for little electronic bandcamp gems like this that aren't vapourwave ha
A shop called last chance,,,,, in England , where, ? London ? or is this fiction? plz