Board Game Purge – Phase I

Is it too late for the obligatory “2016 – A Year in Review” or “2017 Hobby Goals” posts?

Anyway, following on from last years D6 Consolidation Move post I finally packed up the load of board and magazine games that I was sending to Noble Knight. Here’s what 88 lbs. of cardboard and paper looks like.

D6 Consolidation Move

A few months ago my dealings with some personal grief manifested itself in rearranging a portion of our basement to include moving the gaming table and a cabinet or two. In trying to keep up with my new “less is more” philosophy, this was followed up by a rather large purge of board games, and a less dramatic cleansing of some terrain and miniatures. It ended up being very cathartic for me, and I’m pleased with the results.

Here’s an IKEA BESTÅ cabinet that now holds all of my board games with a little room for some GMT additions that I have pre-ordered. The majority of the space is taken up by my ASL collection. It gets about zero playtime, but I can’t seem to let it go. According to professional organizer Marie Kondo, you should hold items in your hands and keep them only if they spark joy. ASL maps spark joy in me…

Another IKEA BESTÅ for the bulk of my finished miniatures. There are 10 slide out trays (which have unfortunately been discontinued) that I’ve placed self adhesive magnetic sheets in as most of my minis have metal bottoms of one type or another. The board game blow out also allowed me to replace some of the wooden shelves with glass ones for display.

I’ve been trying to populate these with small vignettes, but it’s still a work in progress. I will probably add some lighting in the future.

This IKEA BILLY bookcase has been around a really long time, but it’s still holding up – as long as it’s well secured to the wall. The bottom half stores my terrain and basing supplies and the upper shelves hold my reference and rule books.

Wait for it…more IKEA! My heritage is mostly Swedish, so please be patient. The ALEX drawers hold linear terrain, e.g., rivers and roads while the short BESTÅ contains mostly 28mm WWII vehicles and some one-off items. The relocation of these was one of the driving factors for the revamp, apart from my psychosis. The ALEX unit used to reside under the gaming table and the BESTÅ was across the room in a corner by the kid’s play area, so both were difficult to access. They now are in the open and in close proximity to the game table so, win.

The least affected area was the terrain closet. I’m getting rid of a large container of Geo-Hex (which apparently is being produced again) as it goes largely unused.

As a finishing touch I moved the game table out from against the wall. So far this has worked out great as we now have 360º access, where as before one short edge was against the wall making it difficult to play certain scenarios. The placement has left ample room to walk around the perimeter, and I don’t feel that the table dominates the space even though it is a large piece of furniture.

I’m thankful I went through this exercise as it really has made the space more useful. I always find purging to be helpful as well but I have more work to do in that arena, namely:

1. I have an unhealthy obsession with terrain and have multiple types of roads and rivers that I need to let go.
2. While not ridiculous, my X-Wing collection makes me sad. I should have stuck to a starter box.
3. I have WWII aircraft in multiple scales. As I prefer small dogfights, I think 1/200 may be the way to go.
4. In my endless quest to create the perfect flight stand for CY6!, I have ended up with a pile of garbage. I need to pick a design and move on.
5. Even on an endless timeline, I’ll never paint my 10mm Battle of Five Armies stuff.
6. Speaking of fantasy, there’s no need to have a box full of Reaper Bones when I don’t play any fantasy games.

One area where I do feel like I have a handle on things is my historical miniatures. Maybe I’m in denial, but I don’t feel like I have an unmanageable amount of unpainted lead/resin in this category. Maybe I should actually count it…

Anyway, enough rambling. All I can do is what we all do – learn from my mistakes, move on and try to improve. I’ll leave you with some wisdom from Atom Smasher who does it better than I.

Combat Commander AFV Counters

The June release of Battle Pack 5: Fall of the West for GMT’s Combat Commander introduced experimental AFV rules that utilize existing infantry and support weapon counters to represent vehicles.  Thanks to Kozure at Board Game Geek, players now have the option of printing large AFV counters and a vehicle tracking sheet. The AFV counters may be used on the map during play while the infantry/weapons counters reside on the tracking sheet, greatly reducing clutter. I printed both of my sheets on card stock and ran them through the laminator.

D-Day at Omaha Beach – Unboxing Review

The reprinting of Decision Games D-Day at Omaha Beach was recently released and my pre-order arrived last week. D-Day at Omaha Beach is a solitaire game that allows the player to control the forces of the US 1st and 29th Divisions as they attempt to secure a viable beachhead on the Normandy shore.

Contents:

The 12″ x 9″ X 2″ box contains 2 sheets of 176 counters each, one 34″ x 22″ map sheet, 4 player aid cards, 55 event cards, one 32 page rulebook, one 8 page example of play book, one 16 page historical background book, and 4 ziplock storage bags.

Component Impressions:

The counters

The 352 color counters are well designed and, with the exception of the Wilderstandnest designations, very legible. Particularly I found the contrast of the white text on the green background of the American units to work well. The stock that the counters are on is rather thin, however where some may see this as a flaw I prefer this type of stock as it better facilitates clipping and, to some extent, storage.

The map sheet and cards

I find the map sheet and the cards to be of very good quality. As with the counters, the text and symbols on the event cards are well executed and easy to read. While also somewhat thin I also find this advantageous as I will be sleeving the cards (see: Prepping for Play). The map sheet is printed on very good stock and while the cacophony of symbols and colors may seem overwhelmingly busy, it is my understanding that they become very intuitive during play. Additionally DG has provided ziplock bags for component storage – always a welcome addition, even if they will be repurposed.

The player aid sheets

Of all the components, I find these to be the weak link. Although well laid out and intuitive, the stock they are printed on is disappointingly thin. More than likely these will be run through the laminator.

The booklets

At a quick glance, this is where the components really shine. Although not indexed the rulebook is very well organized and easily referenced from the table of contents. The examples of play is printed in full color and has a counter and card reference on the front, a terrain effects chart on the back, and 6 pages of examples. The historical background booklet titled “Their Greatest Day: From Disaster to Victory on Omaha Beach” is printed in full color as well, and seems to be an excerpt from World at War magazine. I will provide more feedback on these booklets as I examine them in greater detail (see: Prepping for Play).

Overall, I am pleased with the quality of this reprint and especially looking forward to diving in to the historical background and rulebook. Additionally I am grateful that DG provided a large enough box to hold a GMT counter tray.

Box

Counters

Mapsheet and Cards

Booklets

Player Aid Sheets

UP NEXT: Prepping for Play

ASL Errata

This weekend I spent some time applying all of the available sticky errata to my ASL rulebook. Doubtful that much of it will ever come into play, but I’m glad I took the effort to finish it.