The Bomb Hot

The "Fleet" series of games by Victory Games have rules for tatical nukes. Hitler's War has a neat little Mushroom Cloud counter. I think one of the NATO games had nukes.

But my favorite is "Twilight 2000" even though it isn't a board game. It is set after a nuclear exchange between the US and USSR. You are a member of a US ARmy unit in Poland.

The Shadowfist CCG has two types of nukes available. The Jammers have the Nuked! card, which lets you destroy an opponent's feng shui site, though sometimes you fail and hit another player's site instead, possibly your own. And the Architects of the Flesh have a Neutron Bomb card, which kills every character in play.

Gotta love the flavor text in Shadowfist:

from Neutron Bomb, "... mondo death toll with no property value depreciation."

You want a game that features nukes? Recall that in OGRE/G.E.V. every single attack is a nuclear shell or missile. Sadly that loses some of the "wow" factor since there is no real lasting effect other than a dead unit on the receiving end.

Also from the twilight world of the '70s microgame was "Robots", which had a nuke you could burrow under the factory ship of your opponent using a mole chassis. Not a key feature, but it would win the game for you if you could pull it off.

From what I recall of Supremacy back in the day the most valuable feature of nukes was using them for ransom in a "Dr. Evil" sort of way as soon as the 11th mushroom sprouted.

STOP TALKING ABOUT SHADOWFIST! Jeez, are you guys on the Z-Man games payroll? It's like DRAGON DICE all over again!

OGRE...yeah, it's all nukes...but not really. Great game, regardless.

Monster's Menace America has a nuke and it is really satifying to use it!

Never has been a really cool postapoc. boardgame. I miss the Reagan era, life isn't interesting if there isn't a threat of instant vaporization...or at least the need to dig a deep hole in your backyard with 100 cans of puppy chow. Cause fuck it, you ain't going out like that.

As always nice article.

A very long stretch of the bow with Dune.

Barnes,

Zev is a great guy, but he abandoned Shadowfist a couple of years ago in favor of jumping on the Euro bandwagon. The only thing keeping Shadowfist on life support right now is a small fanatical fanbase and Shadowfist Games, the guys who acquired the rights from Z-Man Games.

War on Terror banned in the UK? Have I missed something?

Worst Nukes in a game - Starcrft. A nuke causes 2 dead units, big deal.

I was totally the same way growing up (and still kinda am), always coming up with "apocalypse plans" for when shit really goes down. What stores to loot for extra supplies first, where to head, how to defend certain positions from zombies/mutants/governments, learning about how to DIY anything I could. Being a paranoid weirdo has it's downsides I suppose, but no way am I going out like a sucker if there is anything I can do about it.

The first game I ever played with nukes was AH's Kriegspiel. The game itself sucked the big one, but it had nukes! I'd never played a game before with that option (this was early 70's). Many years later, my brother came home on leave with a copy of Yaquinto's Ultimatum. The scenario we played left the Earth a glowing mushroom forest. Pure gaming satisfaction!

The old wargame forefather Tactics II had an "atomic bomb" optional rule, which was more in line with what Douglas MacArthur thought of the good old a-bomb.

--Mike L.

Nuke war brings back some great memories. SUPREMACY: THE GAME OF SUPERPOWERS is still the the game that could have been great for me. But it was so broken it was sad. We never lasted more than a couple of turns before the nukes started flying. I still regret selling my copy of Supremacy even if I never played the game again.

Barnes,
What's your beef with Z-Man. I must have missed something earlier this year did Zev screw your girl friend or something or is it some financial thing that the average gamer wouldn't know about. Ok, I know he's coming out with Agricola and other Euro titles but even the beloved FFG has Euro titles. So rather than being passive agressive with your Z-man bashing can you let me know what's the problem with Z-man.

The Mushroom Cloud of Supremacy is the coolest gaming piece ever. Blows any of those stupid meeples away.

I'd like to find a trashed copy of Supremacy to loot the Mushies to help pimp out my copy of War on Terror.

Speaking of which...War on Terror deserves as proper Ameritrashy makeover. I appreciate the generic bits, but, well, I want some better bits.

I'm open to suggestions on how to best pimp out WoT, you know, as if FFG had produced it.

Perhaps this is worth a forum post somewhere...

How can you call Risk 2210 quite crappy? Yes, it's risk, but it's also a relatively quick affair with lots of action. Furthermore the moon and water territories combined with the blocked off nuclear wastelands make for a quite interesting board. And the fact that it's Risk makes it a good gateway game. People know the basics, but get a more interesting and shorter game than vanilla Risk.

I agree. 2210 is not a bad game. Its got great atmosphere and lots of killing.

Also I am *all About* pimping WoT. Bare minimum, you need some airsoft guns in the box so you can shoot your friends when they get out of hand (I'm looking at you Dan Baden)

Seriously though. What pieces could you cannabilize from other games?

Steve"EvilEmpire"Avery

What's your beef with Z-Man.

No beef at all...I was just teasing Shell and co. for pimping SHADOWFIST over in the CCG forum and referencing Robert and I's "suspicious" promotion of DRAGON DICE last year. And there was that whole conspiracy theory goofiness about them being in bed with BGG. Z-Man puts out some good games- PROPHECY, END OF THE TRIUMVIRATE, DUEL IN THE DARK, etc. I think he was actually talking about doing something with a bunch of plastic this year.

How can you call Risk 2210 quite crappy?

I agree with everything you sad Mads B....but I still think the game is, in fact, quite crappy. I think it's just really boring and every time I've played it I found myself wishing that I was playing FORTRESS AMERICA, SHOGUN, AXIS AND ALLIES, or any other game that represents a step or two above RISK on the evolutionary chain. STAR WARS OT RISK blows it away.

That's a great idea about using the mushroom clouds in WoT.

It wouldn't be a thread about Ameritrash without a mushroom cloud would it? Man, I'm just coming down off the high of playing War on Terror with a secre-tek game group last night. That is the best multiplayer wargame ever. Besides Dragonlords.

It's like round two - I fill all of North America up with Terrorists, wipe out all the civilians, and then drop the nuke right into central Africa. Barnes goes terrorist and spends almost a billion dollars recruiting terrorist cells.

A couple turns later I'm nuked out of the middle east and now I'm a terrorist. Wearing the Evil Balaclava of course.

Great stuff.

Disclaimer: This is not a "session report".

You guys just gae me a great idea for a mod to Fortress America. The invaders could use nukes to take out cities and their defenders. The downside is that this city is no longer available for victory purposes. The Americans could do the same thing (you bastards) with the penalty of giving up an automatic victory city to the invaders. Will this tactical strike be worth it to nock out a formidable army? Block terrain? Lose the morality war? Now you've got me thinking. I'll need to secure some plastic mushroom clouds first though...no other materiel better captures the endgame of humanity better than plastic and it's half life of 400,00 years.

Thanks for clearing up the Z-man thing. I was starting to get afraid Zev had more skeletons in closet than the whole Agricola thing. He’s accepted an invite to Trashfest 2008 in May to show off Prophecy and his next Trashy prototype or game. I figure if we can show him a better time at Trashfest than he had at Euroquest he’ll continue putting out some Ameritrash Games rather than getting sucked into the whole Essen Eurogame thing.

Well done KingPut- he seems like a nice guy and I'm sure he'll have a good time.

That game PANDEMIC he's doing looks pretty cool...any advance word, anybody?

Played Pandemic a couple of years ago. Adore it. Want one desperately. Superb co-op game.

You left one game off the list which may be the only game I've not been able to buy. Nuclear Annihiliation. Comes with zillions of hand molded plaster nuclear clouds and a board size that puts Eagle to shame. I cannot find a copy for love or money.

I mentioned at the end of the article...Malloc, Robert, and I were bidding on one sometime last year that showed up on Ebay. Probably terrible, but it looks awesome.

A friend of mine organised a game based on the nuclear arms race of the 1950s and 60s. Building the weapon systems to deliver the babies, devising doctrines, etc.

Somewhere down the game he went to both teams telling them the other had launched a first strike. Now how's your response...

Guys been so busy building a deterrence and all they hadn't actually considered using them. Tough choice

Efficiency and progress are ours once more
now that we have the neutron bomb
it's nice and quick and clean and gets things done Away with excess enemy but no less value to property...

Cool article Michael. I just got around to reading it now. I especially like your Dune digression - I have to say thanks again for turning me onto the books btw.
dvs

I'm not sure what is so incredibly cool about nukes, but I've always thought they were just sooo cool. It's probably one of the reasons I ended up in the NRE program at GA Tech. Some of the most A-Trashy games I can think of have those sweet weapons of mass destruction in there somewhere. (I'm actually surprised Talisman Timescape didn't have any nukes)

Instead of buying Supremacy for just the mushroom clouds, go pick up some dresser drawer knobs from Home Depot or wherever and paint them all glowy cool like.