Wallenstein - In Stores Now Hot

Awesome. I've held off on Shogun for years, I may need to spring for this.

Hmm. I wonder if there is a market for this with the release of Shogun? Maybe there is, just seems like a answer that didn't have a question.

WHAT?! Where did this come from?

This is one of my absolute favorite games and after Settlers, probably my first German game. A buddy bought it and we had to download english rules for what all the cards did. If this is really for Dec, this may get my board game chirstmas list slot.

Oh, and Shogun has some better rules for things - but the map is WAY better in Wallenstein. Much broader. In Shogun, I feel like the length allows for more safe spots and turtling.

I wondered about this several weeks back.

I'm very interested in Shogun, but have abstained to see how this shakes out. Currently, I'm leaning towards Shogun solely because the look of it reminds me of playing a KOEI game on the SNES. If this turns out to be the better of the two, I'm in.

There is absolutely NO shaking in shogun. ;)

On another pass, Chapel makes a good point. Is there a need for two games this similar? Are the expansions the same for each?

I own Shogun, but I'd rather trade it for this. The map is more interesting, the subject matter more relevant and I actually prefer the old approach to events: hopefully a new edition will allow players to use either system.

Man...I own the German version of this. I'd love to have English cards. They should sell a small upgrade kit.

I like Shogun but Wallenstein is, overall, the better game. I do like some of the elements of bidding for turn order/special powers in Shogun, but much prefer the way Events play out and REALLY prefer the map of Wally. Shogun's map is a turtler's dream. In Wallenstein, you really can't lock yourself away somewhere, you're pretty much vulnerable all the time at least somewhere.

...what Ken said. I kept my Wallenstein, and snub Shogun whenever possible. If only because of the map. Frankly, bidding for turn order is just a complication that slows down the game.

Ok, so next question.

Anyone know if this new Wallenstein will be upgraded in anyway? Be it components, features from shogun, whatever.

As far as I know this is a straight re-print with no changes. However, information is still a bit sketchy.

A separate English card set would be a real plus but Queen would probably charge $30 for it and ship it in something the size of an FFG square box. ;)

See, I was a fucking greedyguts bastard and sold my WALLENSTEIN for over a hundred bucks when SHOGUN came out. "Ho ho" thought I..."I'll never need WALLENSTEIN with this new version of the same game!" Wrong. SHOGUN is good, but WALLENSTEIN is _great_. It is essentially the same game, but the maps make a big difference. And I like the Germanic theme a lot better than Feudal Japan, which along with pirates is likely my least favorite theme.

I'm buying this one. It's one of the best games, period.

Alright...am I crazy or was I having to defend Wallenstein as being one of the great games awhile back? Maybe I'm nuts and imagined the whole thing. Anyway, yeah, Wally's on the list of games that if I ever sell it, it means I'm done with boardgaming.

I played this once. It was OK. I guess I missed something.

Odd, as I thought the consensus was Shogun had the better map. Seems more balanced to me anyway.
Cant remember the difference in how events worked. I like ther bidding for turn order myself.

Shogun's map has the same issue with EVERY other conquest-based game set in Japan. Since Japan is long and narrow, it leads to a "tunnel" syndrome where it's easy to put your back against the wall for protection. Those who can't end up sandwiched somewhere in the middle and rip each other to shreds. It happens in "Senji" and more famously in "Samurai Swords."

Someone provided a file of English versions of all the cards a few years back. I printed them off, cut them carefully, and glued them all to original cards - they looked bloody great, couldn't believe it was me that did it.

I just got Shogun in trade. Reviews are mixed. Everyone assumes that the map encourages turtling, but it's not really clear that this is the case, or there appear to be anti-turtling strategies. Blah blah blah I just need to play it. If the Shogun map is a problem I'm surprised someone hasn't made a hybrid map using the Wallenstein layout.

I thought the Shogun map was more ballanced then wallies - there are less corners.
From memory the map was specifically designed to address turtling.

Wallenstein is one of my all-time favourite games. It has a great topic, which fits the game mechanics (devastation of countries, the chaotic combat system, the food shortages, etc). I like the wargame aspect as well, fighting is difficult, but it can create a great dynamic game, if everybody is doing it.

Good thing that they're re-publishing it, I don't even think an expansion would be necessary, certainly not to 'fix' the base game. Whoever wants to get a game going, spielbyweb has a great implementation and we played a few F:AT games a while ago. It's also a good way to get familiar with Wally. The only thing lacking is the cube tower, but it is the next best thing, if you cannot get a real game going. Anyone interested in playing it on spielbyweb? -> http://www.spielbyweb.com/

I haven't played Wallenstein, but about the map: Wallie's has an edge all the way around where you can't get bitten in the ass, so players could turtle away in a corner, whereas areas in Shogun are almost always somewhat vulnerable from attacks by the sea, no?

What kind of crazy revisionism is going on here? Wallenstein? I thought this was reviled here, or at best ignored. Slow, ponderous, repetitive, but with a wacky gimmick.

I owned it back in the day (did the whole paste-up thing) and played it a few times (IRL and on spielbyweb). Seemed like something you play a couple times to see how "clever" it is and then shelve it forever.

To be frank, my last play of Shogun about a year ago left me underwhelmed and I have little intention to play this old/new iteration.

The cube tower was novel and moderately entertaining. Everything else about Wallenstein was boring Euro crap. I won't play it again.

Somebody want to tell me what, exactly, is so overwhelmingly Euro about Wallenstein? You feed and tax your people...and raise armies, and kill stuff. Sometimes your people get pissed about being taxed, and drafted to fight in your wars, and rise up and bite you on the ass. If you're 'good' to them, they'll even support you when troops come marching across the border. All of that is pretty thematic.

If it used dice for its combat resolution, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. So the tower is a different randomizer and the game uses cubes because of this randomizer. Anything else?

Feeding and taxing people is not AmeriTrash, but it is a large part of Wallenstein. And the combat isn't direct, like my dudes attack your dudes. No, we all go to the cube tower, along with some brown peasant cubes, and see what falls out.

Feeding and taxing the populace in concert with a war effort may not be Ameritrash...it's more on keel with the little sim elements that get tossed in some war games. (NOTE: I am not calling Wallenstein a war game in any shape, form or fashion.)

So...that part of the combat is direct, but if I nudge some dudes to the edge of my territory, you nudge your dudes to the end of mine, we roll some bones and see how many die on each side...that is...different, somehow?

I like the tax/revolt stuff, that's pretty cool. I dislike the weird effect where you drop 2 of your guys in and 8 come out in a minor/unimportant battle, and then in a major one the reverse happens. There aren't enough battles. Clever in theory (bad luck now = good luck later), but frustrating in practice. Part of that is that there is no arc. I think the "story" is that you're fighting 2 years of the 30 Years War, and it feels like that: two arbitrary years, no proper buildup and no proper resolution.

I dunno, just ponderous and slow, as you have to fuss over getting the sequencing right (as it does matter) but then so much chaos ensues that it feels like you might as well not bother. Maybe that's the key, just wing it and then it's fun.

Yeah, see, those are direct criticisms I can respect...maybe not agree with, but can totally see and respect.

The whole "Meh, it's too EURO-Y" one was throwing me for a loop. There are little thematic touches and a nice chunk of controlled chaos. Pretty far from the whole "I bid three Ducats to select the role of Plantation Owner this turn" method of gaming.

Hmm. I've always found Wallenstein's theme more interesting. Didn't know the map in Shogun is such a big problem. Because as far as I know Wallenstein is gonna be reprinted with the original rules NOT the Shogun rules, therefore bidding for turn order will stay. Actually at TOS far more people are in favour of Shogun because of the turn order mechanics.

For those who played both - which is the lesser of the two "evils"?

I like them both, don't get me wrong. I will gladly play Shogun or Wallenstein--any time.

Given the choice between the two, I like the events and the map better in Wally. But I do like the turn order/special powers in Shogun. Edge goes to Wallenstein, but only just--and all because of the map, honestly.

Glad to see this is finally getting released. I wish Queen would put out an upgrade pack, like Ares is doing for War of the Ring, with the English cards and the stuff you need to do the bidding/powers for turn order.

I could have sworn the SHOGUN and WALLY maps were the same from a graph theory perspective. I'll have to look into this to confirm it.

WALLY is a great German game. If you are an AT diehard and think SETTLERS sucks, then you won't like WALLY. If you can get behind the controlled chaos of SETTLERS, ie, randomness you can try to "fix" over the course of the game, then WALLY is awesome. I love the pre-planned battles, sometimes you just get hosed. Sometimes you are thinking Osterreich, and Saschen is where they get ya. Sometimes you just oops into five points, and there's nothing they can do about it.

Nope, I stand corrected. I laid out the WALLENSTEIN map in OMNIGRAFFLE here.

Blue lines are connections within a region, and green lines connect region to region. That funky one at the bottom is Tirol, which connects only to Karnten in its own region (Österreich), but connects to two in neighboring Bayern. I can look at these connects-to-only-one-of-its-own territories to tell they are distinct.

WALLENSTEIN has two: Tirol 1:2 and Lausitz 1:4.

The SHOGUN "Sun" map has three: Tajima 1:4, Harima 1:6, Shima 1:1.

The SHOGUN "Moon" map has TEN: Tajima 1:3, Mimasaka 1:3, Shima 1:2, Sanuki 1:3, Awa-Boso 1:1, Hitachi 1:2, Wakasa 1:3, Owaru 1:2, Totomi 1:3, and Kai 1:4!

Like all things I solve using graph theory, this makes me simultaneously proud and sad.

I don't understand why someone didn't take the Wallenstein map and Shogunify it and put the file online somewhere. And then I looked up and saw Jeb's cool comparison. Jeb is now my hero for doing this.