Soviet Dark as Night

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Battle for Hue has been taking up all of my free time last few weeks (along with some medical stuff and keeping up at work), so I thought I’d put a fast, easy game on the table for a change. As it turns out, this was about as fast and easy as it gets.

Card 15 Advance Southern: Roll political all three, advance 2 on political track.

Card 21: Advance Southern: all 3 rolls against southern fail.

Card 6 Advance Southern: all rolls fail.

Card 7 Southern enters Moscow, game over, Crushing Defeat.

I should have played a Reserve Offensive, but didn’t think about while I was marveling at my horribly bad rolling. Besides, I like to reserve the reserves for later in the game when there is more at stake, like potentially a victory.

My goal was a political win for this game. Instead, I got handed about as fast a defeat as possible in the game.

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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.