Analog Games

So I knocked out an introductory game of Star Wars Armada today.  My thoughts thus far: ++ I like the scale and resolution of the game.  Each ship, individually, hits a sweet spot for complexity.  They are more complex than the standard fleet battle games(Firestorm Armada, Full Thrust, Starmada) while at the same time avoiding the other end of the complexity scale(Star Fleet Battles, Federation Commander).  The size of starships vs. the Squadrons of fighters is a nice touch too. ++ Speaking of correct resolution it reminds me of Lightning Strike .  Part of this is the aforementioned resolution, but the Squadrons vs. Capital ships pinged in the same way.  This is a good thing as Lightning Stike is awesome, but unloved. ++ The clunkiness of the command structure and the movement system gave the larger ships an "inertia" that the smaller ships lacked.  This felt appropriate and thematic. ++ Much like X-Wing and in direct comparison to Infinity, the game doesn't fr

While the Rhino is done, Joe asked if Xerxes himself could count as a model for the Paintine and I've agreed.  That brings our total entries into this contest to 4.  Others are still more then welcome to enter until the end of the month. Gaming wise, the locals have decided to take a break from Shadowfist with some board games.  It's been great to play Manila again and a bit funny that even with the worse version I have people love the production value.  It's also been interesting to see how people react to it, "It's just a dice rolling game there is nothing else there" has been the weirdest bit of criticism. I also had the opportunity to try out Quartermaster General.  I need to play it a few more times before coming to a conclusion.  It has potential in how each faction subtly plays a different game - the Japanese player complaining about Americans being able to outproduce him massively by endgame was interesting.  It may have a few issues too, the g