My copy of Battlelore finally arrived last Friday, and I took a few shots up on my Flickr feed. I've gotten to play it three or four times now and I like it quite a bit. I think I probably like it better than Memoir '44, which is saying quite a bit. There are several reasons for that.

This is the first scenario (Agincourt) set up. The camera is on the English side.

1. The Command deck. I feel like the deck allows you to move more units than the Memoir deck. Ordering three units seems the standard, and it's not that uncommon to get to move even more. I like Memoir, but it feels like things in happen in slow motion sometimes - especially when you're playing the Allies and you are trying to deploy up the beach, one or two units at a time.
2. Increased melee importance. I've played the first three scenarios, and the only ranged elements in those are longbows. They work and they can be decisive if used right, but it's very different from Memoir where everything has a range and there's a lot of nattering about with "at that range I can roll one die" lucky stuff.
3. The morale rules. In Memoir you almost never want units bunched up because of the retreat rules. (If you've never played Memoir there are special dice rolled to resolve combat and one die face is a retreat flag. When an attacker rolls dice each flag means the defender has to retreat one hex back toward their side of the board. There are only two hexes to choose from and if they are both blocked the retreat counts as a hit. So you have to be careful to not block a unit's retreat lines with other units.) Battlelore has the same retreat rules, but units adjacent to two other units are Bold. Bold units ignore the first flag rolled, which is great. Even better is that if a bold unit holds their ground they may counterattack right then. So while bunching units can occasionally cause retreat issues the battle back thing is well worth it. A clump of units on a hilltop can cause major headaches for an attacker. As it should.
4. The theme. I probably prefer fantasy over WWII anyway, but Memoir '44 is much more limited than WWII (without the expansions anyway). The basic Memoir is pretty much just D-Day and related campaigns. So you have a beach, and the Germans have some fortified positions and the Allied forces charge up the beach. It's a fine game, but BattleLore has more variety in the first few scenarios.
5. The chrome. It's a minor detail, but the figures with the flags are just cool. I mean Memoir's figures are cool, but I think the BattleLore pennants win.

I'd still love to play more Memoir '44, but I quite like BattleLore. And I haven't even gotten to the advanced scenarios with the Lore Council, Lore Deck, and Creatures yet! (I did play the first scenario with non-human units - the goblinoid forces. I have yet to play the one with dwarves.)

I think there are enough Memoir sets in my local gaming crowd (I know of three sets, counting mine, plus now I have BattleLore) that I may try to host a "Command and Colors" Gaming Day after the Holidays. It will get less turnout than the more casual Game Day, but maybe there's enough interest to support both flavors.

technorati tags:BattleLore, gaming

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There are two areas where I find Amazon's inventory lacking: video games, and board games. I was poking around on Funagain's web site looking for a way to save games I wanted to buy later. They have a Shopping List function, and it turns out that you can make a list public. Thus, I now have a Funagain Wish List. Probably too late for Christmas, but I promise to keep it up to date with stuff I want :-)

It's not like Amazon though - as far as I can tell you just have to have the URL. So I'll post it here for posterity: http://www.funagain.com/control/viewShoppingList?shoppingListId=21220

Huzzah!

technorati tags:gaming, shoping

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All you Wii (and/or Nintendo in general) apologists? Here's a homework exercise. Find me a store in the South Bay area that has a playable Wii kiosk. I'll give you a headstart, Best Buy and Target just have a DVD running with a fake Wii encased in plastic. Toys-R-Us didn't even bother with the fake Wii and just ran the DVD on a LCD monitor.See, I'm curious as to whether Karin will like the Wii, and I have my doubts about the whole crazy remote control thing. So I want to find a place where Karin and I can check out an actual Wii game. I ran across several PS3 demo kiosks today (but didn't care) and every place I went had a 360 kiosk of course. But nobody has playable Wii's. I guess if you're on the fence about the Wii then Nintendo just doesn't want your business :-) Oh and that DVD? It explains how you can put the remote on your head, or on your HIP in order to hula dance. If at this point your brain explodes as you cry "What game is THAT?" - well I can't help you. Apparently it's a game that you can only get if your Wii is secretly just a DVD player.The obvious gap here is that I didn't try a Gamestop or an Electronics Boutique. But my entire time in the industry I got pummeled over how the presence in a boutique store didn't matter - how it was all about Toys-R-Us and Wal-mart. So even if the gaming stores have a playable one I still mark it as a marketing failure. But I'll go check it out, so let me know if that's the trick.So far I've heard several confirmations of the Penny Arcade thesis: It's a great party game system but that's all it's good for. I know of one local couple where one person says it's great fun. It's SUCH fun that she's played it in the office but at home? Still haven't plugged the Wii in. Well I'm sold!

technorati tags:Nintendo, Wii, demo, kiosk

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Christmas is a conundrum for me. I hate the mall all the time, but I make a special point of avoiding it between Thanksgiving and Christmas. There's a lot about Christmas that I really, really love, but there's a lot that I truly effin' hate. And there's probably no better summation of that than Christmas music. You can't quite get in the holiday mood without it, but when it's bad it's so very, very bad. Even touch a store right now (even the grocery store) and you get cancer of the ear just from the saccharine pouring in from every speaker. What to do?

My iPod has 65 tracks in the "Holiday genre", and none of them give me that cavity-inducing sickly sweetness. Here's a playlist - if your holiday tunes are lacking give them a spin. If you've got your own favorite holiday album give it a shoutout down in the comments!

Barenaked Ladies - Barenaked for the Holidays (Amazon)

Dr. Demento - Dr. Demento Presents: Greatest Christmas Novelty CD (Amazon)

They Might Be Giants - Holidayland (Amazon)

Misc - Santastic Holiday Boots 4 Your Stockings (direct download)

Misc - 8 bits of Christmas (direct download)

The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping (I just bought this individual track from iTunes.)

I don't claim these are the best holiday songs ever, these are just the ones that stay on my iPod from year to year. My "Actual Music" playlist omits the "Holiday" genre, so they rest idle until I marshall them for battle when the tree gets decorated the day after Thanksgiving. In particular I just ordered Sarah McLachlan's Wintersong (Amazon) and that will probably get added to the roster as this year's addition. But these are all worth listening to, and honestly? If you can listen to the 8 bits of Christmas and not smile? You can't be my friend anymore. For reals.

As for the grocery store? Hit it with your headphones on and good holiday music blazing. Maybe you'll lose some of that finer high-range hearing but at least you'll avoid the cancer of the ear . . . .

technorati tags:Christmas, holiday, music

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If menus are too antiquated for you, try something more avant-garde with cult favorite, Quicksilver (Mac only). With the “Social Bookmarks” plugin, your bookmarks and tags are just a few keystrokes away. Here’s how to set it up:

Easier access to del.icio.us bookmarks » LifeClever ;-)

This is awesome, very powerful. I find del.icio.us being called "social bookmarking" a bit misleading because I don't really give a damn about the social aspect. But taggable bookmarks are very powerful. I still wobble back and forth between Flock and Firefox as my default browser, but the primary draw to Flock is the fact that the antiquidated "Favorites" hierarchical list is replaced by del.icio.us. Got a link that is worth saving, and it is simultaneously an OS X tip, a Getting Things Done hack, and a software package? You can't file that in all three places in Firefox. But you can tag it with all three tags and store it in del.icio.us forever.

But now, it turns out you can access del.icio.us from Quicksilver. Perfection! Quicksilver is always running anyway, and that makes my del.icio.us tagged store operate just like a folder on my harddrive. Very cool. If you use a Mac, you should use Quicksilver. And if you're using del.icio.us and Quicksilver than this plugin turns them into delicious chocolate and peanut butter. Enjoy!

(If you're a Windows user the full article also has a suggested app for putting a del.icio.us menu in your system tray. Ho-hum, but better than nothing I suppose.)

technorati tags:OS_X, software, Quicksilver, Del.icio.us

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