Azhanti and Snapshot

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An awesome game day as 2023 winds to a close. My usual vintage game opponent stopped by for an afternoon of GDW goodness with Snapshot and Azhanti High Lightning, both set in the Traveller universe. I haven't actually played the RPG despite owning it for decades, but my opponent had played it back in the day. I'm toying with the notion of getting a small campaign going one day. We'll see.

Snapshot

We have mutiny scenario with AS playing the mutineers and myself playing the crewmembers. I set up on the bridge with a powerful captain and his trusty stinger animal companion positioned outside the bridge. The scum mutineers lurked in their staterooms arming and ready to rush forward, but are unfortunately blocked by a loyal crewmember, who impeded the mutineer’s progress, unfortunately dying in the attempt. As the scum mutineers rush towards the bridge, the trusty companion things them all to death, except for one last mutineer who tries to infiltrate the bridge from the ship's locker and was met by the brave captain who with his pistol shot the mutineer full of holes, thus securing the ship.

Here's the end of the game:

Snapshot end

Fast game, fairly intuitive with only a couple of rules issues.

Azhanti High Lightning

Next up: Azhanti High Lightning, a game which has piqued my curiosity since I became aware of it. Sadly, I am a little less enthused than I wanted to be, primarily due to scale issues with the map. 1.5 meter resolution is simply not plausible to me. It doesn't make sense. It should be at least double that, if not 5 meter squares.

In any case, we pounded on the rules for a while to figure out how the action steps worked, which is also a bit wonky. I get what they were trying to do, but I'm not convinced they got to a plausible solution. We did manage to get through about 4 turns, with no clear winner, and we're intent on getting back to the table in the future. Traveller material is likely to go into rotation, it's in our interest area.

Here's the setup for the Hanger scenario:

Azhanti High Lightning start

After about 4 turns, this is where we ended up, with one fighter destroyed, but no clear winner.

Azhanti High Lightning end

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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.