Soviet Dawn - Eastern Front occupies Moscow

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Got in a fast game of Soviet Dawn, going for the military win nowadays. Political win I've managed several times. This game went half way through the Dark deck, ending on card 13 with an Eastern Front advance into Moscow, a military defeat.

Score, count cards not in discard pile: 23, Strategic Defeat.

Some notes:

  • Played bukharin option.

  • Early reorg roll yielded armored trains, providing +1 for one offensive per turn, very useful after Mannerheim was activated.

  • Did not use any reserve offensives! Big blunder, could have surely managed a marginal defeat with score 22.

Not employing reserves was the biggest blunder of the game.

Here's a question on the rules: if an event card allows removing a front during that turn, does the front need to be in the further box at the start of the turn when the card is drawn, or can the front removal apply at the end of the turn if the front is driven to its last box? Regardless of any official ruling, an end-of-turn application should provide a slight advantage, and might be fun to use an optional rule in any case.

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What to play next?

Deciding what to play next is always a tough call when faced with a closet full of games, all of which were purchased with intent to play. Here's one I'm dealing with the decision.

  • Something New: this means both something new to me and a game which has been published recently, within the last two or three years.
  • Something Classic: I've acquired a number of games properly considered "classic" which haven't yet been played. The current example would be PanzerGruppe Guderian.
  • Something Again: mastery requires constant practice, which means playing games many, many times to allow nuance to appear.
  • Something Vietnam: as I'm on a Vietnam binge. I don't have all the Vietnam games ever published, but I can say that I have a lot of them, and probably more than most people.
  • Something Obscure: as it's fun to poke around in the dustier corners of game design.
  • Something Different: break away from the same old publishers and try a game from one of the new kids on the block. Or, conversely, dip into legacy with a classic tried and true.
  • Something Light: once in a while it's nice to actually finish a game all the way through in one sitting, in an hour or two.
  • Something Heavy: if possible, it's nice to set up something big and complicated which can be left out for days or weeks or even months, for a leisurely stroll through a very large or long game.

There are surely many more ways to choose, but the above method keeps me busy enough, helps me get both breadth and depth into my play, and provides me with a sense of progress.

The odd man out

When there is an odd man out:

  • Have a solo game ready to play.
  • Keep score or advise on a game in progress.
  • Referee a game in progress.