District Commander: Binh Dinh out now!

District Commander Binh Dinh is out today from Hollandspiele!

https://hollandspiele.com/products/district-commander-binh-dinh

The second volume is District Commander Binh Dinh, set in the jungles of Vietnam circa 1969. This is a period of transition that sees Government forces shifting their focus from pitched battles to providing population security and pacification. Mr. Train gives each player very different tools – here, we have rules for Agent Orange, the Phoenix Program, and the Ho Chi Minh Trail, among others – with which to pursue a sometimes shifting set of operational goals in a highly-customizable sandbox.

• 17″ x 22″ mapsheet
• 264 counters
• 2 Display Sheets
• 1 Player Aid
• 16-page Series Rulebook
• 8-page Module Rulebook
• 10 Strategy Cards

BGG link: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/300175/district-commander-binh-dinh

Introductory price marked down to $45.00, down from $50.00 !

In fact, Hollandspiele have all of my titles with them on a discount now… District Commander Maracas is $45, Scheldt Campaign is $40, and Ukrainian Crisis/Little War is also $40. So didi mau over there and complete your collection!

Nights of Fire: video review

Liz Davidson of “Beyond Solitaire” does a short review of Nights of Fire.

She really liked the theme and the challenging nature of the desperate situation, but would have liked a closer connection to the events relating to the physical locations on the board and thought the final turns of the game (as the Insurgent’s options and numbers dwindle) dragged a bit. Fair enough. But on balance, she liked it!

District Commander Maracas: two videos

 

Over in Youtubeland, Andy Mesa posts two videos about getting to know District Commander Maracas. They set up a scenario and play through one turn of the game, so you can hear a lot of explanation of the game’s mechanics. They are new to the game, so it took a little while.

Thanks for doing this guys!

One thing that one of the players mentioned (sorry, I am not sure which one was Andy) was that they would have been a lot happier if the Insurgent counters (which spend much of their time face down) had been on blocks instead, so as to not have to be flipping them up to check them all the time. It’s true that this would have been great, but Hollandspiele is simply unable to source and mail games with blocks economically. Mighty Boards was able to do this with Nights of Fire of course, and they look great, but as a European company with higher margins they could do this without another thought.

It’s no great task to get a printout of the counter sheet onto a sticker sheet and sticker up a bunch of blank wooden blocks. Except that you have to make that sticker sheet, and have some wooden blocks lying around that you know you’re not going to use for anything else.

Another workaround is to get something you can use as counter clips, plastic bases that clamp on to the bottom of a counter so they can stand up. These exist and are available, because I’ve seen them in games like Battletech and even thrifted games, from which I’ve gleaned a bag or two. The Game Crafter makes these in different colours, at 19 cents or less each… and for a game like District Commander you would not need more than 50 of them at a given time, generally.

blue one chosen to show detail.

 

 

https://www.thegamecrafter.com/parts/card-stand-black?dept_uri=game-accessories&dept_name=Game%20Accessories

Another even cheaper way to do it would be to take one of the plastic clips that hold reports together (I’m having real trouble with vocabulary today), in a width that would let it stand up, and cut it into pieces to fit the counters… I tried this but it wasn’t the best solution.

The problem with this, though, just as it would be with wooden blocks is that missions in this game are performed by stacks of units… so you would have to be quite careful about how you grouped these together within each area, to make it obvious what is part of what stack.

The Influential Fifteen

photo: Henle House.

In one of the better “that was the decade that was” pieces I’ve seen, over at The Players Aid blog, Grant Kleinheinz has posted his list and impressions of the 15 most influential board wargames he has played in the last decade.

https://theplayersaid.com/2020/01/07/15-most-influential-wargames-of-the-decade-2010-2019

Winter Thunder gets a shout-out, as do two of the COIN series games!

In other news, I had some unstructured time off at the end of December, so in between watching a lot of TV and movies with my wife I got some testing and development work done on Civil Power and Strongman. Getting quite pleased with them!

Compass Games recently announced that the release date for the Brief Border Wars quad will be February 14, 2020. Sneak preview of the game’s cards above. So look out for that!

EDITED TO ADD

Not to be outdone, Rocky Mountain Navy posted his top picks for influential wargames of the 2010s and picked Nights of Fire as advancing the state of “waro” games (or “weuro” games, as I have also seen it).

https://rockymountainnavy.wordpress.com/2020/01/09/rockymountainnavys-influential-wargame-from-to-2010s-h-t-to-playersaidblog-for-the-idea