Expansion review — Tank Duel: North Africa & Tank Pack #1

With any new, intended series of games, you’re never sure you’ll get past volume 1: it all depends on what the good folks out there think of your first offering. But it didn’t take long for GMT and designer Mike Bertucelli to realize that their fun tank battle opus Tank Duel had legs—or tracks, as it were. Now come two expansions released together, with the promise of several more to come.

NORTH AFRICA

Welcome to the place any tanker doesn’t want to be: the scorching heat of North Africa, where sand and sun conspire with the enemy to smother any and all of your belligerent intentions.

NEW TANKS

You want tanks? We got tanks.

North Africa ships with 16 double-sided tank boards that feature all-new machines, from the Italian M13/40 and Semovente, to the British Valentine and M3 Grant (armed with two guns!). Also thrown into the mix are the open-top German Marder II and the agile eight-wheeled armored car, the 8-rad. That’s a lot of cool, new vehicles to duke it out with.

Two minor gripes here.

1. The aforementioned Marder and Semovente tank boards are misprinted—the Move and Fire levels are not where they should be on the left hand track. Not a big deal and you can easily fix that yourself; one way is to print out the stickers GMT provide on their website.
2. The back printing here was done differently from the base game, with new tanks flipping left-right, whereas the old tanks flipped up-down. It’s possibly the ultimate nitpick, but I’m a consistency nerd. Plus it seems I’m always flipping tank boards the wrong way now, no matter what I decide to do.

NEW RULES

The new rules take up half of the North Africa rulebook, with entries covering new terrain card sets (more sand than you can lose a stick in), new weather conditions (dust everywhere, with sandstorms that’ll slow down tanks and stop infantry altogether), heat haze and fatigue (higher cover but lower morale), minefields (clear with a recon vehicle or enter at your own risk), night combat (bring your flares, or use the enemy’s muzzle flashes), multiple guns, small guns, and open-top vehicles.
GMT also overhauled the rules that pertain to anti-tank guns and infantry. Now anti-tank guns sometimes deploy hidden, can only fire at targets spotted by a friendly vehicle, and can use a Flank card to indicate they’re shooting into the side armor of their prey. In the case of infantry, the new rules create an actual battle between soldiers and metal monsters, whereas infantry acted more like a die roll modifier in the previous ruleset.
And yes, Robata rules have been been updated to take all of that new stuff in stride.

I quite enjoy the new rules, especially the weather conditions, which work well together to create a proper desert feeling for the new scenarios. The new battle cards also dovetail nicely into this—and I don’t mind switching them out as required—but in many cases, I found myself replacing a bunch of cards with exact duplicates, minus the desert theme (the name and illustration of the cover element) and the infantry symbols that represent the forces in action (so you’ll get British instead of Soviet, for instance). If you’re like me, you’ll play a bunch of North Africa scenarios in a row anyway, so you can leave those desert cards in there for the duration. But if you like to bounce back and forth between theaters, “cosmetic” card replacement might get a little annoying.

NEW SCENARIOS

North Africa offers 11 new battles (three more than the base game!), five of which are proper historical scenarios, plus one hypothetical, with a set Order of Battle—while the original box only featured two of those. The other five scenarios use a “create your own matchup” prompt.
The new fights offer a nice variety of situations and problems to solve, some with infantry involvement, others without, and are built to progressively introduce new game elements. Scenarios 1 and 2 include vehicle dust and heat/haze rules, scenario 4 throws minefiels into the mix, and so on.
Also, all of the new scenarios can be played with Robata. Solo wargamers rejoice!

There’s one element I mentioned in my review of the base game and I’ll stick to my guns here: the matchup thing doesn’t really work for me, mainly because it’s too loose and vague for my taste. In fact, North Africa seems to take a step back: whereas the base game gave us a table of suggested tank matchups, the expansion just recommends using vehicles “with similar armor or penetration values, or vehicles from similar years.” It does go further, suggesting players balance those matchups with different crew qualities, anti-tank guns and multiple tanks to one side; but without something like point values attached to those scenario-building elements, the enterprise feels too much like guesswork to me.
I want balanced scenarios that task me with digging myself out of a hole (or maintaining an apparently advantageous position), or else very clear guidelines to ensure we’re not just building a death trap for one of the players. In short, I’d really like a scenario generator, or at the very least a sturdy matchup generator—and the designer has hinted online at exactly that, coming with the next expansion (Normandy, right?). If I had that, I’d be delighted to roll the bones and go, “Alright, a pair of KV-85s!”

Some of the helpful new markers provided in North Africa

  

TANK PACK #1

I enjoy the two different expansion formats: one a full-fledged box full of stuff, the other a bunch of scenarios and tanks shipped in a ziplock bag.
Tank Pack #1 belongs to that second category.

NEW TANKS

Eight new double-sided tank boards await, featuring the Churchill, the KV-1 and the really fast Puma, to name but a few. Together with the base game and the North Africa expansion, that brings the total of tank boards to a whopping 40! They can all fit in one of the game boxes if you want, but you’ll stick nothing else in there. Also, watch out for back pains.

RULES & NEW SCENARIOS

The booklet included in this package only features a handful of the rules necessary to use the new tanks. Interestingly enough, they are numbered according to the actual rulebooks for ease of cross-reference. (So the rule for small guns, even though it’s the very first rule in this booklet, bears the number 5.4.)

The rest is all new battles! Six of them to be exact, all of which are historical and sport dedicated Orders of Battle. (Yay!) We’re having great fun fighting our way through them, although scenario 6—Knight’s Cross—seemed like a foregone conclusion as to the victor: barring a couple of lucky shots, we just didn’t see what the Soviets could do.

A warning about the new scenarios. The front of the booklet states that some of the scenarios require ownership of the North Africa expansion, whereas in fact five (out of six) of them do require the expansion. So if you’re getting just this Tank Pack and not North Africa, be aware that you’ll only be able to play one of the six scenarios contained herein.
(Sure, you can replace scenario-specific tanks with hardware you already have in your inventory, but that sort of defeats my above point about set Orders of Battle…)

PARTING SHOTS

If you enjoyed Tank Duel, you’ll love North Africa and Tank Pack #1. It’s more of the same action-packed goodness the original game had to offer, with a great new setting and plenty of new toys to keep the lead flying.

 

  

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A Year of Boardgaming, 2021 Edition

  

For me, 2021 ended on December 19, when I suffered a sports-related accident that resulted in a myriad of bumps and bruises, plus a serious concussion. (As of this writing I still haven't recovered; in fact, writing this—over several short sessions spanning a handful of days—is a doctor-ordered exercise aimed at retraining my brain vis-à-vis computer screens.)

The rest of the year was a literal blur.

This not only impacted my entire plans for the holidays (farewell home-improvement projects) but also the rest of my winter activities (adieu ski season), not to mention getting back to work.

Boardgaming was also thrown out the window. (A week after the accident, I attempted a game of Comancheria—a medium-complexity affair which I'd played before—and couldn't manage it at all. I had to wait almost another week before my mind could stomach a re-read of the rules.) As as result, some of my self-imposed challenges and late-December gaming days (entire days, I'm telling you) were lost in the wake of the ambulance that carried me, unconscious, to my friendly neighborhood hospital.

And writing about boardgames as the year was coming to a close? Forget it.

So here we are, almost done with the first month of the new year, and me droning on about what I played during 2021. Reminder: I'm just counting physical boardgames, and none of my digital plays.

Mainly because of the ongoing pandemic, but also a bit due to my accident, 2021 turned out to be my worst boardgaming effort since 2006.

GAMES

I played 87 different titles (down from 101 in 2020, an ominous trend), for a total of 356 plays (down from 384—when I used to routinely hit way more than 500 plays in a single year!). I spent 399 hours poring over mapboards in 2020, versus 450 hours in 2020: another sinking metric. Still, that's a bit over 16 full days devoted to boardgaming bliss. Could have been worse, I guess.

Out of those 87 titles, 49 were new to me (up from 42 in 2020—I suppose I felt a bit more adventurous). 

Here are the 10 games I played the most in 2021:

1. Wing Leader (28 plays)

        Second year in a row where Wing Leader earns the top spot in this recap; this WWII air combat game just won't let go of me. And since one of my wargaming buddies and I are replaying the entire war using the game's scenarios, I'm far from done with it. (Our aircraft are just starting to get radios installed...)

2. Arkham Horror: The Card Game (20 plays)

        A card-based cooperative game of absolute horror and creeping insanity, with artwork that will both amaze you and keep you up at night.

3. GIPF (20 plays)

        I hadn't played this classic abstract in many moons, and it felt great to get back into it. The GF and I intend to (re)work our way through the entire series.

4. Friday (16 plays)

        Really clever and challenging (and fast!) solo game, from a designer I usually don't favor.

5. Pandemic Legacy, Season 0 (15 plays)

        By far the least enjoyable of the series. We finished the campaign, but we were glad to be rid of it.

6. Can't Stop (13 plays)

        My youngest daughter discovered this thrilling push-your-luck dice game, hence its resurgence.

7. Black Sonata (12 plays)

        I can't say enough good things about this solo, hidden-movement game. Genius is no hyperbole here.

8. MicroMacro: Crime City (11 plays)

        I never thought I'd enjoy this simple, visual crime detection game, but it ended up in third place on my list of Top 10 games of 2021. Pure fun.

9. Combat Commander: Europe (9 plays)

        Only NINE plays of my favorite game in 2021? What a travesty.

10. Hallertau (9 plays)

        My favorite game of 2021, and one of Uwe Rosenberg's best. About farming, it goes without saying.

PEOPLE

During 2021, I explored the boardgaming world—mainly from my home—alongside 13 different players, down from 36 in 2020 (and 55 the year before). This is catastrophic.

Still, here are the 10 people with whom I played the most last year:

1. Suzie D. (132 plays)

2. Jean-Luc S. (66 plays)

3. François P. (49 plays)

4. Ophélie K. L. (21 plays)

5. William L. (13 plays)

6. Gustavo A. (6 plays)

7. Daniel S. (3 plays)

8. Doris L. (3 plays—my mom, for crying out loud)

9. Héloïse K. L. (2 plays)

10. Diego R. (2 plays) 

To give you an idea, a typical year would have me play about 15 games with the person in 10th place... The situation is starting to feel pretty bleak.

But the GF is hanging on to the top spot, and for the fifth consecutive year. (Which of course makes sense during a pandemic, considering we live under the same roof.) And three of the kids are on the list this year—only Béatrice is missing! 

LOCATIONS

The number of different places where I played boardgames tumbled from 17 in 2019, to 12 in 2020, to only eight in 2021. And that included FaceTime as an alternate home location (with mirror boards duplicating the moves of remote opponents), as well as my frikkin' car—during a particularly long traffic jam due to a harrowing crash on the freeway.

Yes, I always have some kind of game on me.

69% of my gaming was done at home, 20% over FaceTime, and then some games here and there at friends' places when the lull in the pandemic made that somewhat safe. 

Quite a shit year. And I'm not holding out much hope for 2022.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS

I broke my decade-long streak for my yearly H-index: it went down by 1, to 9. 

(In this context, my H-index is the number (h) of games which I've played a number (h) of times.)

I narrowly failed to accomplish my 10x10 challenge in 2021 (play 10 games 10 times each): I was only missing one play of Combat Commander and one play of Hallertau, both of which would have been stupid easy to pull off were it not for that concussion thingy. So that challenge stays at 10x10 for 2022.

I did clear my other two challenges: 50 solo plays, and 75 wargame plays. This means the 2022 editions are going up to 55 solo plays and 80 wargame plays, respectively.

My favorite game, Combat Commander, currently stands at 454 plays. By now it feels like I've been saying "almost 500 plays!" for years, and I hope that changes soon. I seriously doubt I'll crack that mythical number by year's end, despite my ongoing project to replay the entire second world war through Combat Commander scenarios. One more reason to look forward to the stormy pandemic skies finally clearing up, so I can sit down with my usual opponents on a regular basis.

I launched 2021 with a play of the heavy Clinic, and closed it out with the very light Wits & Wagers (fighting through the concussion-induced fog and confusion). Hey, at least I was able to play *something*.

So what am I looking forward to in the coming year?
I was pretty enthusiastic last time around, anxious to play the new Kanban (brilliant design), Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps! (a steaming turd of a game and my biggest disappointment of the year), Bonfire (an instant classic), Caesar: Rome vs Gaul (enjoyed my single play of this, but need to play more), Imperial Struggle (same!), Dominant Species: Marine (fine but ultimately not for me), plus Stellar Horizons (sadly unplayed, and I don't even have the concussion to blame for that).

In 2022, I'm awaiting delivery of three Kickstarter games: Weather Machine (from the always brilliant Lacerda), Free At Last (Civil Rights movement in the 1960s), and Dutch Resistance (solo Netherlands underground during WWII). Also on the docket, the much delayed 303 Squadron (Polish fighters during the Battle of Britain), Horseless Carriage by Splotter, Alexander Pfister's Boonlake, and Messina 1347 (now that the excellent Praga has put Vladimir Suchy on my radar).

Rounding out the wishlist, a bountiful harvest from GMT Games: Into the Woods (finally gonna try that ACW system, just because this covers the battle of Shiloh), Charioteer (one more racing game!), Mr. President ('cause I'm lucky to have a table that's big enough for that monster) and Red Dust Rebellion (Sci-Fi COIN game set on Mars? I'm in...).

I'll also be spending considerable time further playtesting a prototype of mine; more on that later.

Happy gaming!

 

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My Top 10 Boardgames Published in 2021

  

Here's a look at my 10 favorite games published in 2021.

(Or else made available in North America so late in 2020 that there was no way to really play them before the calendar flipped.)

#10

THE CREW: MISSION DEEP SEA (designed by Thomas Sing, published by Kosmos)

Last year, I included the original The Crew in my Top 10 as well. It was an unheard-of cooperative trick-taking game and a damn brilliant design. The new incarnation is just as brilliant, but less of a revelation than its predecessor.

This time around, player are exploring the ocean depths—another pasted-on theme. No matter: the new tasks players must accomplish on each of the 50 missions are even more varied and exciting than in the previous volume. 

#9

IMPERIUM: CLASSICS/LEGENDS (designed by Nigel Buckle & David Turczi, published by Osprey Games)
Imperium is one of the games on this list that prove that deck-building games still have legs, and that their core mechanism hasn't been fully mined yet.

Each civilization begins with its own starting deck, nation deck and development deck, which create a completely fresh "civ building" experience from game to game. Not only do different civs function differently (some of them wildly so, like the Arthurians), but repeat games with the same civ will unfold along new paths and at different speeds, thanks to the luck of the draw.

The stand-alone sister games function as an expansion for each other, and offer a menu of 16 different civilations to pit against one another. Bonus points for fitting materials from both games into a single box once you ditch the ill-conceived insert.

(You can read my flash review here.)

#8

UNFATHOMABLE (designed by Tony Fanchi, published by Fantasy Flight)

A reskin of Battlestar Galactica set in the monster-infested world of H.P. Lovecraft.

To be fair, this is more than a reskin: Fanchi took everything that rubbed me the wrong way in the original hidden-traitor game and sanded it down to a smooth finish. More theme & dread, more characters, and—perhaps most of all—freedom from a licensed franchise all make for a better game that will be allowed to grow organically.

(You can read my flash review here.)

#7

ATLANTIC CHASE (designed by Jeremy White, published by GMT Games)

Solo wargames are not a rarity by any stretch. But when Jerry White gives you one, you know you're holding something special. (The game can also accommodate two players, by the way.)

Not only does Atlantic Chase feature some of the most inventive game mechanics I've encountered in the entire year, but it also makes learning over 100 pages of rules like it's nothing. Seriously. So if you're intrigued by a WWII naval game that makes you wonder where exactly your ships are along their trajectory (and forget about the enemy's...), jump right in. The water's just fine.

(You can read my full review here.)

#6

BONFIRE (designed by Stefan Feld, published by H@ll Games and Pegasus Spiele)
Can't have a year without a Feld design in my Top 10, can we?

It's a strange theme with gnomes and magical bonfires (that need to be lit, of course!), but it's also very clever in how it requires players to generate their own action tokens and then make the most of them.

Point salad? You bet. But maybe one of the tastiest of those salads you'll ever try.

(You can read my flash review here.)

#5

PRAGA CAPUT REGNI (designed by Vladimir Suchy, published by Rio Grande Games)
Praga looks like an old-school action selection game, but the action wheel at the heart of the whole system drives the show like nothing you've seen before. And how many games out there tempt you into building the famous Charles Bridge—with eggs?

(You can read my flash review here.)

#4

LOST RUINS OF ARNAK (designed by Min & Elwen, published by Czech Games Edition)

Another deck builder? Why, yes. With worker placement thrown on top? That's right.

Arnak is not the only game to bridge that mechanism gap this year (Dune: Imperium also did something interesting in that department), but it's the one I keep coming back to. It's like an adventure movie I can't get enough of.

(You can read my flash review here.)

#3

MICROMACRO: CRIME CITY (designed by Johannes Sich, published by Pegasus Spiele)

For a while I gave up on boardgaming's most prestigious award, Germany's very own Spiel des Jahres: over the years, the jury has gone from praising complex games (that kind I like!) to rewarding simple family games I rarely play anymore. For some reason, in 2020 I decided that from now on I would always buy and try the winners of the SdJ, if only for the encyclopedic knowledge—"Yes, I've played it, I know how it works." Oh boy.

MicroMacro: Crime City is nothing short of genius, both in its simplicity and in the pure fun it generates.

(You can read my flash review here.)

#2

COMMANDS & COLORS: SAMURAI BATTLES (designed by Richard Borg, published by GMT Games)

Yes, one more entry in the C&C line of wargames. This time we're fighing in medieval Japan! And the system is an absolute delight, with Dragon cards alongside Command cards, allowing warriors to perform all manners of feats, plus an honor system to frighten the most seasoned combattant. (Make SURE you don't retreat, of there'll be hell to pay.)

And with 40 scenarios included in the base game, this is by far the most generous C&C game yet.

#1

HALLERTAU (designed by Uwe Rosenberg, published by Lookout Games)

Yes, that Rosenberg, of Agricola fame. And yes, another farming game.

This one feels all at once different from the others that came before, and somehow familiar in a "distant relative" kind of way. You're still sowing and harvesting and raising and slaughtering, but both the worker placement and the spending mechanisms are new and intriguing.

It's a beast of a game for sure, but ultimately simpler than the size of the box might suggest. One of my favorite Rosenberg designs, and there have been several.

(You can read flash review here.)

DISAPPOINTMENTS
I define "disappointments" as games I expected a lot from, and which failed to deliver.

And there were quite a few of those in 2021. Here are the "top" three.

Holy crap was this one a bust. I was sort of hoping for an update of the old Aliens: This Time It's War game published back in 1989 by Leading Edge Games, but it turned out to be an absolute disaster. The minis are very nice (but require Warhammer-level assembly labor), and that's about it. Super bland gameplay, boring missions, and a general why-should-I-give-a-shit aftertaste.

Game over indeed.

For some reason I expected to have a blast playing this Richard Garfield design about vampires running around, biting humans and needing to get back to the castle before sunrise. Meh. I mean, the game works and it's kind of entertaining, but there's nothing special here. After a handful of games I feel like leaving it to its eternal rest.

Clank! does this much better, and from the same publisher, to boot.

I'm a huge Martin Wallace fan, but these past few years it seems he's done nothing remarkable—and Rocketmen is sadly no exception.

It's not just an ordinary game: it's an actively bad one. On your turn, you can either throw rocket parts in your stockpile, or launch a mission and see how far you get. That's it.

I scrubbed the game after only one play. This ain't getting anyone to the moon—or anywhere else for that matter.

(I'm glad I only ordered the base game, and none of the deluxe pimped-out components/accessories the publisher is trying to peddle out there.)

Last year, my third disappointement was also a space-themed game. I'm starting to think there might be some kind of low-orbit curse hanging over me...

STRAGGLERS
Let's end on a high note with three games that would have made the list had I encountered them back in the year when they were published.

A 30-minute, Shakespeare-themed solo design with hidden movement mechanics all driven by a genius system of cards—with holes in them!—that absolutely blew my mind. You have to try it to believe it.

(You can read my flash review here.)

Another solo wargame. (Can you say pandemic?) Here, adversaries are drawn from three different cups, depending on the situation. But circumstances will move some pieces from cup to cup, so the dreaded enemies you thought you had all the time in the world to prepare for might show up early after all.

Hey, it's the 9th century, you're Charlemagne, and you have to get a grip on Europe before things boil over. Just get to it.

Last year I listed the first game in the series (Antietam) as a straggler, so this year it's Shiloh's turn. (Maybe I'll get to play the next volume in the series the year it comes out. Maybe.)

Fun game, fair simulation, great American Civil War feel; a little fiddly but frankly not that much, and maybe a little long compared to its sister game. Still a keeper, and one I wish I'd played earlier.

(Yeah, yeah, there was also a magazine game that used the same system, but it turned out to be pretty weak, so I'm happy not to consider it part of the canon. Pun intended.)

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