PLANET RUSH

Designed by Reiner Knizia

Published by Victory Point Games

The basic premise is that you are one of five corporations vying to build structures on the planet, Zenobia.  The one who contributes most will gain ownership of the planet.  If that brief description rings faint bells or stirs vague memories, don't be surprised.  Planet Rush is essentially a simpler remake of Reiner Knizia's Tower of Babel.  Indeed, Alan Emrich has already labeled it the Designer's Cut, as it seems that the briefer rule set that we get in Planet Rush was the original preferred design.

So, definitely a light Euro made even lighter, but, I have to say, not a Euro quality production.  The rules booklet is a bare 8 pages made out of two sheets of slightly smaller than A4 size paper, folded in half and stapled down the middle.  This really looks more like a DTP package.  It is full colour [though mainly blue] and semi-glossy, but the outer spine of the rulebook was already starting to look slightly cracked when I opened the package.  The "board" is made up by laying out the eight, very thin cards that represent the potential structures to be built and each player receives  a larger mat of equally thin card on which to record his/her score and a set of small wooden cubes in the player's designated colour.  Each player also gets an individual Faction Negotiation card.

The game set out for the maximum 5 players.

The cards that represent the four different types of material with which to build these planetary structures are clear, bold and of standard size, but they too will need the benefit of sleeving to make them durable for repeated play sessions.  Surprisingly the solidest pieces are the bonus markers and the rather nice launch pad and rocket that mark the Active player. 

Though the artwork is good and conveys the S/F theme appropriately, that is the only way in which the theme is represented in the game.  The rules and gameplay add nothing at all to the theme.   Seeing that the artwork on the player mats shows that the so-called corporations are owned by five different galactic races, I'd hoped that at least there might be some minor special rule for each ... but alas, no.

One of the 5 player mats - essentially a personal score board

That the game already exists in a slightly more complex form does tend to spell out that the background is fairly immaterial.  In its first incarnation, players were trying to construct the 7 Wonders of The World [with a potential eighth Wonder - the Tower of Babel - hence the original game title].  As stated in my opening paragraph, here we are trying to build planetary structures.  It could just as easily be five car manufactures aiming to contribute most to the design of eight cars or five railroad companies working to lay the tracks for eight new railroads in the Wild West.  Many Euros do tend to have bolt-on themes, but this does seem an extreme example. 

Game play is very straightforward.  In the Build Phase,  the current Active Player, receives the Launch pad and Rocket and has the choice of one of two actions.  Either the Active Player draws a Resource card or nominates one section of a building to be built by placing the Rocket on the corresponding section of the building card and announcing how many Resources are needed and what type they are.

Here are the four Resources:

Materials, Research, Power and Robotics.

This latter choice of Action is really the heart and key interest of the game and I'll shortly examine that in some depth.  Should all the sections of a structure be completed in the Build Phase, then that building is scored.

The second phase of each turn is the Resources Phase when each player draws one Resource card.

The game continues until all the sections of 7 out of the 8 possible structures have been completed and a final bonus scoring is then conducted.

So, back to a detailed look at the only [slightly]complex part of the game : THE BUILD PHASE and the choice to offer a section of building  for construction.

The Active Player chooses and places the Rocket on the section to be potentially completed.  He/she announces the number of Resources needed, depending on how many circles there are on that section and the type of Resource, which is also marked on the card.

And here is the dinky space Rocket sitting on its Launch Pad, ready to blast off

to mark the next section potentially to be built!

For example, the Power Station is made up of two sections: one needs 6 Green Research cards and the other section needs 4 blue Power cards to build.

The next step is that all the other players [but not the Active player] secretly choose how many cards of that Resource they want to bid.  A player can include Resource cards different from the one nominated, but I can see no point whatsoever in doing so, as such a bid has to be automatically rejected.  The only other card that can be usefully included in a bid is a player's Faction Negotiation card. 

The Active player then decides which of the bids to accept.  In choosing which bids, there are some restrictions.  Most important is that the number of cards must be exactly the number needed. So, if 7 are needed, a bid of 5 and a bid of 4 could not be accepted as there would be 2 cards more than was needed.  Whereas, a bid of 5 and a bid of 2 would work fine as a choice. 

However, the Active player can always include cards from his/her own hand. So, using the same example. If 7 cards were needed and the bids were 5 and 4, the Active player could accept the 5 bid and add two cards of the correct Resource type from their hand or accept the 4 bid and add three cards of the correct Resource type from their hand.  [Always assuming the Active player has the necessary number of appropriate Resource cards in their current hand.]

Of course, even if there were appropriate bids that add up to the right number of cards, the Active player can always choose to reject one or more bids and use their own cards instead.   

The other restriction is that if several of the players have included their Faction Negotiation card in their bid, the Active player can never accept more than one such bid.

Having decided which to accept, what happens next? 

Well, first of all, for a bid without a Faction Negotiation card included, the Bidding player puts one cube of his/her colour for each Resource bid on the building section. 

However, if a bid with a Faction Negotiation card included is accepted, then the Active player must put the corresponding number of his/her own cubes on the building section and the Bidding player is awarded the Bonus marker from the relevant building section. 

Finally, if the Active player didn't accept any bids that contain a Faction Negotiation card, then the Active player gets to claim the Bonus marker.

During the game, there are only two ways to score Victory Points:

[1] There are three types of Bonus marker that can be acquired in the way that I've described above and players score different numbers of Victory Points according to the type and number that they collect, as the game progresses.

[2] When all the sections of a building have been completed, that building is scored.  This is done by flipping the building card over to the back where there are five circles containing VP numbers.  The player with most cubes on the building places one of them in the highest scoring circle on the back of the card and so on down. 

A neat idea is that the fourth and fifth circles don't score you any VP points, but if there is a fourth or fifth player who has placed cubes on that building you still need to place one of their cubes in the circles that score zero points.  This is because they will count in the final scoring at the end of the game.  All other cubes on the structure are now returned to each player they belong to.

In total, to build all of the 7 structures, 22 cards of each colour will need to be played.  There is also an 8th structure called The Alien Ruins, which consists of a single section of eight circles.  This can only be built using a type of Resource that is no longer needed to build a section of any of the other seven structures. e.g. if all the sections that needed the red Robotics resource have been built, then the current Active player could nominate the Alien Ruins to be built with 8 red Robotics resources.

When seven of the eight structures have been built the game ends and the Final Scoring takes place.  If a player has a cube on all seven structures he/she scores 15 Victory pts, on six structures 10 Victory pts and on five structures 5 Victory pts.  If you've built on only four or fewer structures - tough - you score nothing!

So, folks that's it.  I have gone through the crucial bidding mechanic in depth, because virtually the whole game centres on that one major element.  It does work well.  There is interesting interplay between what cards you hold, what sections have so far been built, what players have scored so far, whose bids to accept or not [beware the payback from not accepting someone's bid, when they reject yours.], which building and which section to put up for construction.

But, it is very much a one mechanic game and very much a light filler.  It is quick to play and quick and easy to pick up the few rules.  For me, it's the type of game that gets played at the club while people wait to see how many turn up before moving on to heavier fare or else serves as a light family game - 'cept that I can see certain family members' personalities affecting which bids get accepted!!

My other concern is the very insubstantial nature of most of the components.  At the moment I haven't been able to find it sold outside the States, though I assume that will happen.  But for the moment, $32.99 plus the not inconsiderable postage/import costs is a high price for what you're getting.  VPG make many excellent games [see my review of Espana 20 vol 2], among them many solo games, but Planet Rush is not one I'd "move in a rapid fashion" to get. [There, I managed - sort of -  to avoid the awful pun!]

Demolishing the Myth

by 

Valeriy Zamulin

translated by

Stuart Britton

 Kursk it brings to mind nebelwerfers and Stalin's organs screaming, but most of all the oily pall of burning tanks. That one sentence sent to Koba, "the tigers are burning", was supposed to have summed it up. The only question is, did it really happen? Was the Panzerwaffen destroyed on July 12th 1943 at Prokhorovka, or are the earlier histories all wrong, and the true history is very different. 'Demolishing the Myth' looks to answer that question.

 Kursk is probably the second most written about battle following Waterloo. The tank battle at Prokhorovka has been stated many times to be the largest tank battle in history. Unfortunately, due to Soviet propaganda and other untruths, it has been very hard for historians to peel back the layers and find the truth about Kursk. The actual battle of Prokhorovka has been wrapped even tighter in an impenetrable fog than the rest of the Kursk battle. Long known as the 'death ride' of the panzers, Prokhorovka was really much smaller in scale than was imagined. Only in some Soviet dreams was the ground littered with burned out panzers. That is not to say that the fighting was not bitter and to the death, as was all the fighting in the Kursk salient. I want to stress that point. Just because we now know that Dubno in 1941 saw the greatest amount of tanks in one battle, with approximately 5,000 Soviet and 1,000 German tanks, it does not mean that the battle of Prokhorovka was any less important or earth shattering in its consequences or the lives of its veterans.

 "Demolishing the Myth' is a book that was first released in Russian and written by Valeriy Zamulin. It was translated into English by Stuart Britton. Zamulin was a staff member of the Prokhorovka state museum, and has immersed himself deeply in the battle of July 12th. This is a book about that day, and the tremendous conflict that took place there. The book shows more light on the Soviet side, but is sweeping enough to keep you informed about what was happening on both sides of the war. There is some background given on the Soviet main force in the battle, the 5th Guards tank army, and its leader Pavel Rotmistrov. The reason for the battle of Kursk, the German plan, and the days from July 5th to the 11th are gone into, is to give the reader a good foundation of the facts leading to the clash on July 12th. The book itself is over six hundred pages long, and is well supplied with photos from the war. It also has a set of color photos taken to show how the battlefield looks today. The author has also liberally supplied the reader with tactical maps of the engagement. The book continues with an overview of the end of the battle of Kursk. One of the book's greatest assets is the numerous Soviet after battle assessments, and their conclusions on why the 5th Guards tank army was given a bloody nose by the SS panzer grenadier divisions. The hour by hour description of the battle is top notch. The book also comes with a complete Soviet and German order of battle and copious notes. The author brings up the fact, but does not belabor the point, that it is possible that an attack by the 5th Guards tank army should have happened at another site, and not straight into the SS panzer grenadiers. The possibility of using this large force in a flank attack would have brought the German attack to a stand still without the commiserate loss of vehicles and soldiers.

 The author also uses personal accounts to try and put the reader into the contestants' shoes. All in all, the book gives all the whys, and not just the facts of what happened. 

 There have been numerous books written about the battle of Kursk. There are some with a Soviet slant and others that have a German one. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the ability of authors to view the official and non-official reports of the battle, we are now much better informed as to what really did take place. Helion and Company is to be heartily thanked and congratulated on this book. The information alone is worth the price, let alone the top notch physical components of the book. There are so many books on the market about Kursk that one cannot at this time say "this is the one book you need to understand Kursk", however I can state categorically that 'Demolishing the Myth' deserves a spot on your shelf.


 Robert


Author: Valeriy Zamulin
Translator: Stuart Britton
Publisher: Helion and Company
Distributor: Casemate Publishing
Date of Review: 10/23/2016

                                

The White Sniper Simo Häyhä

by

Tapio A.M. Sarelinen

  " I did what I was told to do, as well as I could. There would be no Finland unless everyone else had done the same" Simo Häyhä.


  We have had a number of books and movies recently about the exploits of snipers. None of the others even come close to Simo Häyhä. His record of 542 confirmed kills is head and shoulders above the rest, mainly because he used his own M28-30 rifle with only iron sites. If given a fifty caliber sniper rifle and a state of the art scope, he might have been able to shoot out Stalin's left eye from the Finnish border. The other fact that makes his kill record unbelievable is the fact that he was only in action ninety-eight days during the Russo-Finnish or Winter war. His daily average of kills was an astonishing 5.53. All of these facts are simply amazing. As the book points out, an American study found that 7,000 rifle shots were needed in WWI to achieve a combat kill. During the Vietnam War, this had risen to 25,000. Compare this to a professionally trained sniper who needs just 1.3 shots for a kill.

 Finland is one of those European countries that we take for granted.  Oh sure, we know where it is on a map, but the country's history, and especially its military history, is a blank page to many. Finland, much like Switzerland, is a country that no one thinks of when military ardor is thought of. The truth is the Swiss were the greatest mercenaries for a few hundred years of European history. Finland's martial history, while not as far reaching as the Swiss, is just as decorated either fighting for or against Swedish kings or Russian czars. The Winter War was Stalin's attempt to emulate Hitler. Stalin wanted to take some land from Finland, and he made sure the Finns understood "it was an offer they couldn't refuse". Much to Stalin's delight the Finns did refuse. So now Uncle Joe could show the world what the Red Army could do. The Russian bear attacked Finland assuming that after some fighting and a little objection from the free world, the Finns would roll over and play dead. Well, Finland showed what the Red Army could do; it could bleed, and profusely at that. Finland's heroic fight against its titanic neighbor was the center of the worlds attention in the winter of 1939. The British government was actually considering attacking the Soviet Union over the aggression. Imagine how different WWII could have been if that happened. All eyes were glued on plucky little Finland. In the end Russia won, of course, but the Red Army's dismal performance was one of the reasons that Hitler turned his rapacious eyes to the east.

 So now that we have some background information  we turn back to second lieutenant Häyhä. He was born on December 17, 1905. Unfortunately, he did not make it to one hundred years, dying on April 1, 2002 (if you weren't aware the Finns are a long lived race). He was conscripted into the Finnish Army in late 1925 and served fifteen months in different bicycle battalions. He then served a few weeks in the summer of 1938 and underwent sniper training. He was in Finland's civil Guard when his marksmanship came to his superiors' attention. He won numerous awards and championships with both a rifle and a machine gun. He was a hunter and trapper from childhood in Finland's vast forests. This he put to good use in the war. The Russians tried to kill him several times and even put a price on his head. Häyhä's luck ran out on March 6, 1940. He was hit in the face and head with an exploding bullet. The Winter War would have been over in just a few more days. He had to undergo twenty-six operations through his life due to the wound; the left side of his jaw was missing. He did go onto live a long and productive life as a farmer and continued his hunting for many years. 

 The book's author is a career officer in the Finnish Army. His expertise is in sniping and he has taught the skill for two decades to the new breed of Finnish warriors. The first part of the book is devoted to the life of Simo Häyhä, before and after the war. The second half goes into the secrets of Häyhä's success, his rifle, and using his techniques. The appendices are four in number and include a list of the top snipers in the world from 1939 to 2005.

 The book is what we have come to expect from Casemate. It is well made and is liberally supplied with photos, maps, and some diagrams.

 A question to the readers, what is a Molotov cocktail?


 Robert

Book: The White Sniper Simo Häyhä
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
Review Date: 10/23/2016

  Expeditions Vikings Preview

      

 Logic Artists, who brought us Expeditions Conquistador (soon to be reviewed on the blog) in 2013, now heads north to Scandinavia. It is a turn based RPG driven by a story line. Your father has just died in a raid to the west. He went 'a viking' to find treasure and fame in new lands. This game has much more of an RPG element than I expected. Not that I am not used to turn based RPGs, it's just that I wasn't expecting it to go down to the level of an inventory where you would have to equip yourself with arms and armor. The games are trying to catch both RPG players and strategy players in their base.

  It starts out with your typical character creation screen. You can play with your character's beard for a few hours until it is just right, or go the path of pre-selected character, as I did. There are skill trees for you to flesh out your character. You can choose to have a human tank of warrior muscle or a rogue like archer who has good leadership qualities, or a combination of both.

        

                               

 The first part of the game is to clear up any other challengers to you taking your father's place as head of the clan. You start at his arval, your father's funeral feast. You have your mother, brother, and certain other clan leaders to talk to, or warriors vying with you for the clan. The story line and actual dialogue is right out of a Viking novel. Your position and the trials you have to undergo are all very believable for the time and setting. 

  The first trial you have to face is a holmgang, literally " to go to a small island". This is a stylized duel between two persons over a slight or as in this case over leadership. You can start right away to be sneaky and use snares, etc. or to choose to do a stand up fight. Contrary to popular belief the Norse loved trickery and sneakiness. A leader who was not versed in their arts would not have gone far. One Viking chieftain, believing he had found Rome and wanted to capture it, was actually at a city on Italy's coast decided on this gambit. He had his followers tell the people in the town that their leader had died, but that he had turned Christian before passing and wanted to have a mass for the dead and a burial in holy ground. The city people agreed and let all of the Vikings in with the casket of their 'dead' leader. They were quite surprised to see the coffin open and be presented with an armed mass of raiders in their midst. Viking tales are full of such trickery. Vikings also loved puns. It is probably from them where we get the idea to nickname large men 'tiny' etc. 

 Battle takes place on the map with a superimposed hexes. You have the typical mechanic of each member of your force having points to use for either movement or attacking, or a combination of both. The battle is won when one side or the other is completely destroyed. 

 This is a very fun game. the battles are nail biters, and they also have some additions that you do not normally find. Some terrain is block-able to arrows, while other hexes have the chance to ensnare or trip up your warrior during movement. The game really does have a Viking vibe to it. You do believe you are leading your character in the 8th century Scandinavia. It does not have a cookie cutter feel, where you could just as well have a tank or AA battery in one of the hexes instead of one of your followers. Fans of strategy and RPGs should be looking forward to its release in the future.


 Robert


Game: Expeditions Vikings
Publisher: Logic Artists
Preview: 10/23/2016
 

Children of a Dead Earth

By

Q Switched productions

  Time to put your thinking caps on, children; this game will have those neurons and synapses popping. This game puts the 'sim' back into simulation. It is hardcore and you will fail missions, but just like any good 'bad habit' it will have you coming back for more and more. To explain a little, the game does not make space a flat two dimensional map. You are not able to click on a dot in space and right click and move your spaceship there. You have to match trajectories and speed of other ships in orbit, etc. You also have to do this with three dimensional thinking. This is a hard game, and it is a blast. It will take time to learn and more time to master. That is not to say that the tutorials are bad, they are actually very good. It is the amount of information and the breadth of it that is a bit daunting. 

  The different start up options are: Campaign, Sandbox, Options, Ship Design, Info Links.

  The Info Links are like the rest of the game. As you proceed through the campaign, more and more of the the different parts of the game are able to be used by the player. Most of the Info Links are locked, as are some ship types and even some options in Sandbox.

   This is an early shot of the campaign game. I was having a bit of a problem in the beginning wrapping my head around the different ways to move your spaceship. For those of you like me, press on and give this sim more of your time. It will definitely be worth it in the end.

   Sandbox mode has a ton of different options for your space battles and ships, etc. 

  The different things that you can use in sandbox are: Level Presets, Celestial Bodies, Enemy Behavior Balanced to Ranged with ten possibilities in all, Allied Craft, Enemy Craft, Weapons in use, Payloads in use.

                                    

   Ship design is where you can play to your heart's content. The different weapon systems etc. are a micro-managers dream. Ships look like what real spaceships will probably look like. Do not look for tie fighters or star destroyers here. They all look somewhat alike and are very utilitarian looking.

  You get the help of the 'tactical officer' once your ship enters combat, if you need it that is.

 The game is about the earth going dead from man and other reasons. Humans have then turned to populating the universe to continue the species. In the campaign game you are playing on the side of the 'Republic of Free People', and the enemy is the 'United Sol Trade Alliance'.

   By hovering the mouse over your ship, you can see all of the interior of your new creations. You have to turn broadsides sometimes to get shots at your enemies, much like in naval battles. You can also target different systems on your opponent's ship. You can kill his propulsion and leave him floating, or target his weapons for your safety and leave him at your mercy or not.

  The game itself is well worth the effort someone like me will have to put into it. This game will test your mettle and IQ, but when you finally get it right and see your enemy destroyed it is all worth it. This is the ultimate playground for hard core simmers who are in need of a spaceship fix. 

 My apologies to the developers and to you, the readers. I meant to add a screen shot of how you move your spaceship and then forgot. You steer it using the three colored dots, moving them back and forth with your mouse after clicking on them. Radial movement is the green dot, tangential movement is the red dot, and out of plane is the blue dot.


 Robert 


Game: Children of a Dead Earth 
Developer: Q Switched Productions, LLC
Steam Release Date: 9/23/2016
Review Date: 10/22/2016

Thomas Gunn Newsletter

  Dear All

 Welcome to October's release of our superb 1/30 scale WW2 wooden aircraft, all of which take over 60 hours to complete. This month we have news of 3 aircraft which are available now and 2 aircraft which are coming soon, all our aircraft are produced in limited quantities and can be paid for upfront or over several months on a payment plan if this is your preferred option. 

 WOW 093 The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang  was a single seat fighter/fighter bomber utilised by the USAAF and RAF during WW2.  Initially the Mustang was designed as a response for a requirement by the RAF for additional fighter aircraft and first flew on 26th October 1940, 102 days after the contract was first signed by the British purchasing commission. The Mustang was initially powered by the Allinson V-1710 engine but this
lacked the necessary high altitude  performance required by the RAF and the engine was substituted for the Rolls Royce Merlin. This modification transformed the Mustang into a first class aircraft capable of taking on any of the Luftwaffe's fighters. From 1943 the USAAF used Mustangs to escort the 8th Air Force in their bombing raids over Germany whilst the 9th Air Force used Mustangs as Fighter Bombers, in a combination that helped achieve air superiority in the European campaign by 1944. Mustangs were also used with great effect in North Africa, Italy the Mediterranean and the Pacific to help turn the tide of war in the Allies favour. Our version of the Mustang is one flown by  Captain Charles Weaver an American ace with several awards to his name including the Distinguished Flying Cross, The Air Medal and the French Croix de Guerre. Limited to 12 pieces worldwide, the US army sentry figure pictured in the attachments comes free with this model.

 The FW190 is known as one of the iconic aircraft of WW2, designed by Kurt Wolff in the 1930's it along with the Messerschmitt Bf 109 became the backbone of the Luftwaffe's fighter force during WW2.  Powered by a BMW 801twin row radial engine the FW 190 was capable of lifting heavier loads than the BF 109 allowing it to be utilised in several different roles including, fighter, fighter bomber and ground attack aircraft. The FW 190 made its first appearance over France in 1941 and proved superior to the RAF's MK V Spitfire in all aspects except turn radius. The FW 190 maintained this superiority until the introduction of the Spitfire MK 1X in November 1942. By 1944 Long Nosed variants of the F version of the FW 190 were entering service and this aircraft finally gave the Luftwaffe the parity it needed to address Allied superiority, unfortunately for the Luftwaffe it arrived too late in the war to have any real effect. WOW 099 'Black 3' was built in 1942 at the AGO factory in Ocherlesben and allocated to the fighter bomber wing of JG 5 Eismeer. Based at Herdla outside Bergen before being moved to Petsamo in Finland. It was then flown by Sgt Hans Gunther Kleemann on several missions. However in October '43 Kleemann bailed out of Black 3, after running out of fuel in a snowstorm west of Kongsfjord. Kleemann survived his landing and eventually made his way back to his base 2 days later, Black 3 was left for over 40 years where it had crashed In 1986 the wreck was recovered by the Norwegians and restored over a lengthy period in Norway and the USA, being the subject of 2 rebuilds! She now stands in the Norwegian Armed Forces Museum in Norway and is one of only 2 surviving FW 190 A 3's in the world.
                   

 Our second FW 190 WOW 100 is a Desert version 'Yellow 3' and was flown by Oblt. Erich Rudorffer whilst stationed with 6.JG 2. Rudorffer was the 7th most successful Luftwaffe ace of the war with 222 victories claimed in over 1000 missions, he was a gifted pilot who served on all combat fronts, he was lucky to survive the war despite being shot down 16 times and having to take to his parachute 9 times! He is credited with 10 heavy Allied bombers, 58
Sturmovik's and 60 Allied fighters on the Western Front during a career which netted him the Knights Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords plus a German Cross in Gold. After the war Rudorffer flew DC-3's in Australia before going to work for Pan Am and the German Civil Aviation Service, he died this year in April aged 98 years old. Both FW 190's come with LUFT 008 Footballer ground crew figure Fritz Walter as a freebie.
 

 All the above aircraft are priced at $650 which includes free shipping worldwide and are limited to 12 pieces each, they can be purchased via our website www.tomgunn.co.uk or by dropping me an email. For those of you wishing to purchase more than one aircraft a discount on shipping will apply.

 I have pleasure in attaching pictures of our all new B 17 'My Devotion' and a Horsa glider from D-Day which will be making an appearance soon. If you are interested in reserving either of these pieces please send me an email as we only have 5 of each on offer at this moment in time. The guide price for the B17 will be $1500 and the Horsa (which is also an extremely large model) will be $1200 approx plus postage and packing as of yet to be determined.