Arclight's REAL war photos version of Barba*Rossa

Yeah, perhaps this is like as interesting as a pile of poo or less, whatever. As soon as I heard of this special release I thought of the Fortress, but I'm not frequently here so I didn't post it directly. And right now my life sucks so bad that your fellatioscope would both explode and implode at the same time if it was applied to the fuckers I've had to mess with this last year. And yeah, it IS related to this post, because when my life starts sucking real bad, I often turn to doing a lot of webbing because by some reason or another it makes me feel better when everything else is lousy. So when I wanted to hear what Barnes had said about FFG DQ, I stumbled in here again like a foul-shot duck and figured that hey, this might interest the occasional fattier.

Barba*Rossa is, shortly, a Dominion clone from the japanese card game publisher Arclight. The difference is 1) no random setup 2) you don't buy victory cards: instead certain action cards generate "attack power" which you use to conquer cities, which is just another pile of cards, but hey, they have a name each. That's basically the only way to gain points. 3) most action cards are "army cards", which you don't return do your draw deck, but instead deploy to keep on your front line. Infantry, grenade launchers, tanks and stuff, and these can be used (tapped) each turn to generate more attack points. and 4) You can keep one card per turn before you draw more. This sounds like just a shitty rule, but it actually makes the game a lot more interesting, because that results in that each turn can be performed in many more ways.

What's amazing is the theme. Arclight has put out other Dominion clones with japanese anime babe art, and Barba*Rossa isn't an exception, only here it's more like hot anime broads than cute anime girls. Like, a lot of cleavage, even more panty shots and some "if you look carefully, she doesn't even have underwear". And if that wasn't enough, you're actually the German army, invading Russia, conquering Sevastopol and Minsk and finally Moscow. So what you've got are is a complicated Dominion version with scantily clad nazi anime chicks waging war in Russia. Which is weird enough to be pretty awesome.

Now, a lot of people (including me) felt the erotic art was out of place, because the game is actually great but what you do doesn't have shit to do with erotic babes. So Arclight decided to let the designer have his say, and they're now releasing a limited edititon with real photos from the War, instead of anime art. I've seen it, and it's all black-and-white shots of tanks and infantry and batallions and whatever.

Now, the theme gets a lot less whacky and a lot more serious with gritty war photos on all cards, and I guess that some people will be like "this jokes ain't no funny anymore", but I figured that this might be something certain fatties would be interested in, so I figured I could post something about it. The game itself is a good one, it has a lot more theme than Dominion, still the same buy cards and stuff but you actually build an army. Not fighting each other, though.

At about the same time they're releasing a sequel to the basic set, (El Alamein) I've read the rules and it sounds even better. This time, the British army will get cards each time you attack an African city, and if you pull the wrong event card (drawn when you attempt to take a city) whatever cards have ended up in that deck will attack all players before the next turn starts. Sounds pretty good. Pity there are no plans for a photo version of this, though.

The game will like NEVER be released outside of Japan, so if you want this photo-version, it's in December or never, I guess. I don't think it's too hard to order some copies from Japan, and there are pasteups for all cards on BGG for those who want.

For what it's worth. Check out an example at www.arclight.co.jp/ag/br/ (top pic is El Alamein, scroll down for the photo version.)

Thanks for these 15 minutes it took me to whip this down, I felt a little less lousy. Back to my life which I wish I could apply a nuke on. Oh, a nuke on Sweden would be nice, too. Really.

No, honestly.

The way those Nazi chicks are dressed -- it's damn obvious how ill-prepared the Germans were for a Russian winter.

For all intents and purposes they've moved from chocolate to vanilla.
Both sets are so incredibly mainstream, so incredibly safe that there's nothing to set the game apart from the remainder of the culture. I appreciate there's a selling value to the chicks, but you'd think someone in Japan would be able to break out of the anime straitjacket and produce a more unique, recognizable look that could provide some branding on the product. The public-domain photos likely took a weekend to assemble, so at least this alternative was cheap.

The West isn't a whole lot better of course, but anime is this super-deep channel in the East.

S.

Well, at least the game will be easier to break out on a con, I figure. I'm probably getting rid of my anime chick set, though I haven't decided on that yet.

(There are a few in Japan who break out from the anime straightjacket – Japon Brand does that. The Arclight line, however, heavily relies on using famous amateur artists.)

Two nukes wasn't enough.