F:AT Thursday - Podcasts and Wargames

This F:AT Thursday was mostly devoted to Matt and Josh doing the vocal work for the upcoming F:AT Cast. It's been close to a year since they put one out so it was cool to see them back at it.

They tried to get me to do a segment/rant for them but I don't think it turned out too well. Wasn't near as funny as I would have hoped. Perhaps Al will have mercy on me and just leave it on the cutting room floor where it belongs.

We then broke out Cyclades again but as I've talked about that in the very recent past I will just say that I have a great time whenever I play it. Matt came out of nowhere for the sneak military win and shut the door of victory right in the face of Engineer Al. A great dramatic finish.

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There has been some talk recently of war games on The Fort and in Matt Thrower's recent article for Shut Up and Sit Down. They were my first true love in board gaming and remain some of my favorites. Axis and Allies, Squad Leader, Paths of Glory, and many more. I have spent hours upon hours reveling in these games.

But why war games rather than say a game about farming?

You ask a self described war gamer that question and you'll get different answers. 

They will tell you it's about history and it is. I hate to equate any type of board game with learning as if it were a lesson in school. Let us say rather that they can illuminate and enlighten you on aspects of famous battles you weren't aware of before. Most people have heard of the hedgerows in connection with Normandy but play a war game about the battles after D-day and you will see why that area was hated by the Allied soldiers and how it kept them bogged down much longer than was expected.

But history is not the reason.

They might tell you that war games are much more open than other types of games and they are. Freedom to pursue the strategy you choose is one of the primary draws. The rules will tell you how to move but not where to move, how to attack but not where or with what units to attack, how to acquire resources but not what to spend them on. In other types of games it often occurs that the players modify their strategy to suit the rules. In good war games, a good strategy and a little luck will win regardless of the rule specifics.

But freedom of choice is not the reason.

You might have a war gamer tell you that war games are immersive and have a narrative that emerges through the playing of the game and they are right. The uninitiated see a game with a play time of 12 hours and flinch. How, they wonder, could anybody sit and play a single game that long? A war gamer knows that a game can grab you, suck you in and 12 or more hours can go by in the blink of an eye. I asked my step daughter, who loves to read, if she had ever been so "into" a book that everything else faded away and nothing but the story remained then look up to find that what was morning was now afternoon? When she agreed she had, I told her a good game is like that.

But losing oneself in the story is not the reason.

The real reason, the one few will admit to but the one I think that drives the interest in these games more than any other, is that it is FUN to play "Army". Since we were children we loved to pretend we were soldiers on the battlefield. To be great generals with legions of soldiers jumping to our command. Winning glory, honor, and victory!

And best of all, as Private Rivera says in the great war movie "A Walk in the Sun"...

Nobody dies.