I had to work saturday, scannning a cast-blast, which always sucks. so no real game-day but my buddy came by in the evening just to hangout.

3 player Arkham, Innsmouth. the game was pissed that we had waited so long to play it, and just poured pure hate onto us the entire time. first 3 investigators to jump into a gate went insane or LiTaS. Whenever a character had a fairly important decision to make...inevitably he made the wrong decision. Ashcan Pete had a OW encounter that allowed him to seal a gate...if he sacrificed himself (devoured). he chose not to, as he was our primary monster killer (with sword of glory and shotgun). of course he then dies in the next OW space, and takes an injury card - Broken Hand! so no more sword of glory or shotgun. yeah, we lost.

Washington's War -
this wasn't my war-gaming buddy, but I dragged him into it anyway. I played the British, and he kept trying to fight toe-to-toe with me. i need to play this again, less movement than hannibal but a much easier play-time to work with. the map feels more constrained than hannibal as well. I might have to try to get a Vassal game of this going. its been a while since i've played vassal anything, i'll be able to focus on 1 2 player game.

Okay, answer me this--how much would a new player coming to Washington's War miss the Event/Ops split on cards?

I.....don't know. right off, not having events on all the cards simplifys things immensely. your decisions are quicker, and you can plan easier. this contributes to the faster play-time compared to Hannibal. generally we had 2-3 events in a 7 card hand. if you have enemy events in hand, you can discard them for a battle bonus, or for neutered 1 Op.

It really depends on what you like CDGs for. if Twilight Struggle is your thing, and you love the interaction of events....then probably you will miss it. if instead you like the events to just give some flavor to your game without alot of overhead then I think it works pretty well. I personally like Hannibal better than Twilight struggle, because of the armies and the less importance placed on event-interplay. Washington's War is another step backwards on event importance.

I rather liked it, but I only played 1 game. Does not replace other CDGs, but supplements the collection.

+faster decisions
+shorter playtime

-easier decisions
-less events overall in the deck
-less events played? possibly


my next step into cdwgs will be to play one that doesn't have a focus on area control. looking at either wilderness war, or wait on Kingdom of Heaven.

lj1983 wrote:


Good news -- it cleared its pre-pub number.

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