How I Became a Board Gamer

Confession: I was not born a board gamer. I became one. Here’s how.

BoardGameGeek War Game Top 60: #60-51

The best ideas are often those of others. For example, Dave from the Dude! Take Your Turn blog came up with this neat series to write about the top 100 games on BoardGameGeek – just some thoughts what the game is about, if he has played it and if so, what that was like, and if not, if he would give it a shot. You can find the starting post for the games #100-91 here. If you want to go straight for the crème de la crème, here are the top ten games on BGG, and if you still don’t have enough after 100 games, Dave has already started diving into the games #200-101, which I also read religiously.
These posts have been tremendous conversation starters about a variety of board games. Therefore, I asked Dave if I could borrow his idea and apply it to the BoardGameGeek war games list. He graciously agreed, and here we are! Here are the ground rules of this series:

How to Win at Friedrich as Prussia (Three Basic Tips, #2)

Two years ago, I wrote a little post called Three Basic Tips for Twilight Struggle. I hope it helped a few new or intermediate players of Twilight Struggle (Ananda Gupta/Jason Matthews, GMT Games) to improve their strategy. Intricate strategy advice can be overwhelming for a beginner, but everyone can remember and apply three tips! As the post was quite well-received, I’ll make an (irregular) series out of it – „Three Basic Tips“.
I have borrowed the idea from someone else: My friend F. and I did not only play board games, but also pick-up soccer. In one game we were up against a much better team and had conceded ten goals in the first half already. F. rallied us during half-time saying, „Guys, it’s just three simple things“ – and when we stuck to the three things he then told us, our performance improved markedly (conceding only two more goals).
Today, the game which I will try to help you win is Friedrich (Richard Sivél, Histogame). This euro-wargame hybrid set in the Seven Years‘ War is one of my overall most-played games, and I especially like it for its seamless blend of strategic, operational, and tactical decisions. Therefore, the three tips will refer to your strategic posture, its operational implementation, and the tactical restraint needed to prevail. As Friedrich is a strongly asymmetric game, this post will only deal with one of the four roles – that of Friedrich’s Prussia. For new players that might be the biggest challenge to face off against three opponents at once, but it’s also the most fun and rewarding to pull it off successfully.

Farewell 2018 – Historical Board Games

We come to maybe the most noble category: Historical board games. Isn’t that what this blog is all about? As usual, the “rules” are simple: The list is based on my personal gaming in 2018, regardless when the game was published. I give a top three and crown one game the winner.