Armchair Dragoons Forums
Wargaming => The Modern World => Topic started by: bayonetbrant on November 04, 2020, 02:43:05 PM
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Got a copy in the mail the other day. Going to have pics for #UnboxingDay for sure, but looking forward to playing it and writing some about it.
It's a conflict I've been interested in for a long time, but no good games on it anywhere.
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Well, it's designed by Ben Madison so it must be good. 8)
And since it's White Dog Games you'll get those really thick, nice counters! :bigthumb:
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Looks interesting, and, as you say, not many games about that conflict, if any! They do a Dien Bien Phu game which I've been looking at as well.
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Dr. Bruce Geryk wrote a great review for The White Tribe over at Quarter to Three (https://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2019/02/11/the-unexpected-nuance-of-white-tribe-and-its-racist-rump-colonial-regime/) last year. He liked it very much. Looking forward to your views on the game.
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Starting to play through it
https://www.armchairdragoons.com/feature/the-white-tribe-playthru/
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Nice start. :) I'm curious to see what future decisions you'll need to make and your thoughts about how those decisions play out in the game.
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Nice start. :) I'm curious to see what future decisions you'll need to make and your thoughts about how those decisions play out in the game.
there's a little more thought/analysis in the second one b/c I have little more to analyze by then
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I've got two of Madison's games: Don't Tread on Me and The Mission. Both are very unique experiences. I feel like I've got more meaningful decisions in DTOM than in The Mission, but I've enjoyed both.
What I've learned from both games is that Madison can create some rather good and unique games that include decent, but not great, player aids. I've found much better aids on BGG for both games. Having not played White Tribe, I can't comment on how good the included player aids are versus the ones on BGG, but the one for The Mission substantially increased setup time and play time for me. It also helped me remember rules that I occasionally forgot.
Once you've got your first game under your belt, I'd take a look at what folks on BGG have created. They may help speed up your game play quite a bit.
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I haven't really felt like gameplay has slowed down all that much. I've had to flip around for a couple of charts, but by and large it's been pretty happy with how well everything is laid out and explained. There is some flipping around in the rulebook just to make sure that I do each step correctly, but I think that's more because I'm still learning the game than because there's anything wrong with the rules.
There are just a lot of situational checks that need to happen, and I'm narrating through them in the article even when they don't need to happen just to make sure I don't miss anything
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There's a lot of moving parts in a Ben Madison game. It's easy to miss something in a turn and all the player aids in the world won't help with that. 8)
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Tried to find a video of that Monty Python sketch, 'The Most Awful Family in Britain,' but can't. Specifically because of the "Mum! Mum! Why is Rhodesia called Rhodesia?" :2funny:
Also, nice dice tower. Mine kind of sucks. Where did you pick that one up?
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Specifically because of the "Mum! Mum! Why is Rhodesia called Rhodesia?" :2funny:
it's not like you didn't cut it into about 8 different episodes of the GrogCast back when you were the producer
Also, nice dice tower. Mine kind of sucks. Where did you pick that one up?
2006, BuckeyeGameFest, with the credit voucher I got for volunteering to work the registration booth for a few hours. Ron Charity Hobbies out of Cleveland had some for sale and I snagged one. Best one I've every had. I had 3-4 others that haven't lasted near as long as this one.
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I bought a Broken Token one on the cheap, so it's small and often a die will get caught in it and not come out. I had to put a thin layer of felt on each shelf because it was so bloody loud, but the dice still would get stuck occasionally even before I did that, so that's not the reason. I have little room in my game space right now - I have a die rolling tray that takes up way too much real estate so I've been considering a good dice tower.
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I bought a Broken Token one on the cheap, so it's small and often a die will get caught in it and not come out. I had to put a thin layer of felt on each shelf because it was so bloody loud, but the dice still would get stuck occasionally even before I did that, so that's not the reason. I have little room in my game space right now - I have a die rolling tray that takes up way too much real estate so I've been considering a good dice tower.
Build one. It's not that hard.
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Specifically because of the "Mum! Mum! Why is Rhodesia called Rhodesia?" :2funny:
it's not like you didn't cut it into about 8 different episodes of the GrogCast back when you were the producer
You exaggerate, I'm sure. I might have done that once. :D
Build one. It's not that hard.
I have no tools to do so, nor the know-how. :(
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Doesn't have to be fancy. Cardboard and tape will work if your short of materials and time.
You can get plans online fer free.
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BC, here's an easy one to make and should hold together better than cardboard.
https://www.instructables.com/Making-a-Formboard-Dice-Tower/
(https://content.instructables.com/ORIG/FMD/59GH/F2FRVBE6/FMD59GHF2FRVBE6.jpg?auto=webp&frame=1&fit=bounds&md=2bf72ff13e2cbd8fa5c2185ffa25d6e2)
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^ pretty cool, Barth. Thanks! :bigthumb:
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Yer welcome. :)
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BC, here's an easy one to make and should hold together better than cardboard.
https://www.instructables.com/Making-a-Formboard-Dice-Tower/
Excellent! Let me second BanzaiCat's hearty appreciation. :2thumbs:
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:bigthumb:
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Now, I not only want to build one, I want to make it look like a WW2 German bunker. :nerd:
Sorry for hijacking your thread, Brant. Unless I'm not. ;)
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BC, here's an easy one to make and should hold together better than cardboard.
https://www.instructables.com/Making-a-Formboard-Dice-Tower/
Now I know what I'm doing this weekend.
Life is not exciting here.
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Equal levels of excitement here as I dug out some extra foam board, rules, razors, and hot glue. The spray paint is currently drying on it as I type.
I will say that if you're going to paint it, dollar store foam board may not be the best idea as the spray paint seems to have caused some of the paper to separate from the foam core. I squeezed a little hot glue into it, so I think things will be okay. Certainly okay enough for a dice tower I made in an hour out of scraps.
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Wow! I hadn't thought I was starting a craze.... :o :bigthumb:
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Patented?
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You certainly started something... I'm now debating looking up plans for building a wooden one. And I don't even really care that much for dice towers!
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You certainly started something... I'm now debating looking up plans for building a wooden one. And I don't even really care that much for dice towers!
You could use the same plans for a wooden one. Just use nails or screws instead of toothpicks.
But glue felt to every shelf or it will be really noisy.
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I could use those plans. Well... The term I is likely slightly inappropriate here as I'd likely have my brother who does a decent amount of wood working (the wood turning stuff he does is unbelievably good) do most the work for me.
Regardless, I've got a cheap foam board one now.
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I was going to build this over the weekend too, but by the time I explained what I needed to the better half I received permission to buy one. Go figure. :D
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Now I know what I'm doing this weekend.
Life is not exciting here.
And I did!
(https://i.imgur.com/fs8JhAB.jpg)
It looks pretty good in the picture there. Yes, I totally ignored the instructions. Note to self: the bottom baffle needs to be at the back to deflect the dice forwards. And separate your already-cut parts from your supplies---I had to re-cut a side because I used it to make the front and the bottom lip.
And yes, I am why we can't have nice things.
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Awesome! :rockon:
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:2thumbs:
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more playthru articles
https://www.armchairdragoons.com/feature/the-white-tribe-playthrough-part-2/
https://www.armchairdragoons.com/articles/aars/the-white-tribe-playthrough-part-3/
https://www.armchairdragoons.com/articles/aars/the-white-tribe-playthrough-part-4/
https://www.armchairdragoons.com/articles/aars/the-white-tribe-playthru-part-5/
Honestly, I've lost some love for this one as it's gone on.
While some of the decisions are meaningful, the intensity really hasn't been there throughout and it hasn't felt like it's really building up to anything too crazy.
I don't know if I just got lucky with some early breaks, or there was a bad annual event setup initially that worked out in my favor, or what.
I haven't felt like I've been at a loss for managing the military side of the game at all, and that's just left a political/policy game in its wake that is really important to the game as a whole, but seems to have dominated what I'm playing and that's not really what I was hoping for.
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Your final thoughts there have kind of been my experience with The Mission. Having played it a number of times now, I find I'm either in a really tough spot where there are some decisions to be made or I'm just walking all over the game. Having not played The White Tribe, I can't comment on what's going on with your game. In The Mission, it's almost always that I just got very lucky with the dice.
That's not to say there aren't meaningful decisions to be made. There are, but there just aren't usually very many to make (outside of the obvious ones). In comparison to another Madison design, I find I get to make more impactful decisions in Don't Tread on Me. Dice and random chit pulls still drive most of what happens, but I still feel like I'm making decisions that have an impact on the game.
Despite often being very, very controlled by the dice instead of any real decisions that I've made, I still find The Mission oddly interesting and I'm honestly not sure why. I'm pretty sure I'll trade it off at some point in time, but I'm not quite ready to do that yet.
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I'm not fully giving up on this one yet. I'm going to play it to completion, b/c there are a few BIG events yet to appear in the game.
I really, really like all the trappings of the game - there's a lot of good "UI" design here, like the random events being packaged as newspaper headlines. But there seems to be a lot of times that you're doing a check on a certain turn for something that only has a 1-in-6 chance of happening, and after the 8th time you've checked for it and it's only happened once, you start to wonder why you're doing it every turn...
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Are you still in your first play through? If so, I found with both The Mission and Don't Tread on Me that going through the rules after my first full game led to my discovering a few seemingly minor things that led to big changes in my next game.
Alarmingly, I find that happens more and more often lately... A friend and I started playing Supply Lines of the American Revolution: The Southern Strategy. It wasn't until we were in our third game that we realized the Crown could win by holding 10 cities and forts. How we missed that rule is beyond me (I mean the rule book could be better written, it's not bad, but it's not great, but missing one of the victory conditions can't be blamed on that). Regardless, the game got much, much better once we caught that.
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It's been a bit... curious to see how things ultimately panned out for you with this game.
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It's been a bit... curious to see how things ultimately panned out for you with this game.
I got 2 of the turns written this week, but we had other things going on here, plus I was down w/ food poisoning for a few days
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https://www.armchairdragoons.com/articles/aars/the-white-tribe-playthrough-part-6/
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Alrighty - so it's wrapped up and over
https://www.armchairdragoons.com/articles/aars/the-white-tribe-playthrough-part-7-the-end/
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I'm new to Ben Madison's designs but am seeing the appeal.
I played a full game of Gorbachev a couple of weekends ago and I imagine its system is close to The White Tribe. I then set up and played a few turns of Jeff Davis, which had a lot of similarities to Gorbachev, so I'm guessing there's a pattern here. ;D
Nice work, Brant! :bigthumb:
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At some point in the future, try it again. If it's anything like Don't Tread on Me, your second game will be nothing like your first one.
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I'm going to second Mike's suggestion. My first plays of Don't Tread on Me and The Mission were very different from my subsequent plays.
I also found that using player aids from BGG made The Mission much more enjoyable and streamlined. They didn't exist at the time, so I made the player aids on BGG for DToM. I found the ones that came with the games were functional, but not optimal. Having not played White Tribe, I've no clue if the ones on BGG are an improvement on what's in the box.
Ultimately, White Tribe hasn't made it onto my list to try out as it's just not a historical period that I've got a great interest in, but it is highly rated on BGG, which leads me to think that it's likely worth another go or two.
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I've got The First Jihad, also, so I might look those player aids up myself. Thanks.
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Not entirely certain what prompted it, but Ben Madison got himself permanently banned from BGG. It appears that a review that found the game biased against Muslims (with some scholarly sources being relied upon in the thread) led to the designer defending himself and his game in a manner that the moderators found unbecoming. I didn't see the comments, they were all removed. Regardless, if you end up with questions related to any of his games, you'll likely need to head over to CSW to find him now.
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I'm not surprised. Without getting political, some of Ben's game topics are easy prey for certain people looking for problems where they don't really exist. Sad that BGG would ban him.
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I can't really comment without getting overly political. All I can say is Ben's designs seem thoughtful and respectful; Jeff Davis had a very touchy subject but he approached it with logic, and it made sense in the scheme of the game.
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The ban has been somewhat explained by Octavian on BGG here: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/2636861/very-biased-game/page/2
Seems Ben responded to someone who gave Islamic Jihad a rating of 1 by referring to them as the Islamic Jihad... and apparently that user had the geek badge or whatever indicating they were Muslim.
I did not go wandering into the weeds, but I seem to recall Ben having expressed some anti-Islamic views during a Space Biff podcast or something? I filed that away under This Does Not Affect Me and didn't go beyond reading the brief blurb on some Discord channel or whatever. So perhaps this was building? No idea.
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As a side note, I've been reading that thread as often as I can because some of it gets deleted. I've never realized how heavy-handed the forum moderation is at BGG.
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I wish people would find more important and concrete things to get pissed off about rather than a freakin' cardboard-and-paper board game.
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Yeah, totally agree with you.
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I hadn't heard about Madison getting exiled from BGG, but I have noticed I haven't seen him around commenting, lately, on his game pages.
He also had some trouble a few months back with some Argentinian trolls kvetching about his honest and historically-supportable stances in Mrs. Thatcher's War, as well. It was amusing, as a couple of them seemed completely unaware of their own history.
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That's interesting. If you go to Google Maps and check out some of the businesses on the Falklands, you'll find reviews from Argentinians that are less than respectful of their presence. And then you'll see locals commenting on their comments that basically spout "poor loser" and really don't help the situation, lol.
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I hadn't heard about Madison getting exiled from BGG, but I have noticed I haven't seen him around commenting, lately, on his game pages.
He also had some trouble a few months back with some Argentinian trolls kvetching about his honest and historically-supportable stances in Mrs. Thatcher's War, as well. It was amusing, as a couple of them seemed completely unaware of their own history.
He was posting on ConsimWorld but I don't know if he still is.