This weekend was quite busy for the St. Louis Blues, as they traded away three players in two different deals. First Eric Brewer, the team's captain and senior Defenseman, was sent to Tampa Bay for a burger and fries... I mean, for a third round draft pick (the burger) and a prospect I had never heard of before (the fries). That being said, I can understand this deal. Barring a major miracle, the Blues won't make the playoffs. This is going to cost the team money, as management was so convinced the team would make the playoffs that they sold a bunch of season tickets for 50% up front, 50% when the team clinches the playoffs. Oops! So trading Brewer for an unsigned prospect and a pick will save ~$1.5 million, which will help off-set the lost ticket revenue. And Brewer was a free agent at the end of the season, and the Blues probably weren't going to sign him. And Brewer had a no-trade clause, so any trade had to be with a team that he pre-approved, which limits choices. All told, a depressing but probably fair trade.
Erik Johnson and Jay McClement getting traded, though, that one came pretty much out of nowhere. Granted, Erik's name had started to get batted around in trade rumors because it was becoming increasingly obvious that he wasn't progressing as well as you would expect an overall #1 pick to develop. While he will probably turn into a super stud in Colorado and make team management look like a bunch of morons, getting Chris Stewart in return is actually quite a nice swap. Stewart is a very energetic power forward who has tons of potential, and the Blues had absolutely no offensive depth before the trade, while they have defensive depth, so I can kind of see it. Still, this is the kind of trade that in three years will make Doug Armstrong look like either a genius or a flaming moron, depending on how well each player continues to develop. I don't really know much about Kevin Shottenkirk, the other player the Blues acquired, but he was a 1st round pick a few years back and is an offensive Defenseman, which the Blues don't have a lot of in the system. The kids over at The Hockey News are panning this one pretty heavily, but it really does look like a value for value trade, at least at this point.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Saturday, February 05, 2011
The Downside of Netflix
I have been using Netflix for over two years now, and it is pretty great. Most of the time. In general, their service is great value and I really enjoy using the website to find new films, as their suggestion system works quite well once you've rated over 100 films. Recently, though, I've hit a quandary. See, I've current got the 3rd disc from the 2nd season of Avatar: The Last Airbender sitting at home. It's been sitting here for over 3 weeks. I just don't really feel like watching it. I watched one of the five episodes on the disc about a week ago, and... it just sits here. At some point I'll feel like watching the rest of it, but how much money will I spend on monthly charges until that happens? I don't want to send it back, though, because that would feel like failure. So instead I pay a monthly fee to let this disc sit here and mock me with its presence.
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
World at War: Eisenbach Gap
This time through the random game from my collection is World at War: Eisenbach Gap. This game is a fairly recent wargame design from small publisher Lock 'N Load Publishing. It is an "alternate history" game purporting a Warsaw Pact invasion of West Germany in May 1985. World at War is actually a series of games, each with expansion packs, but Eisenbach Gap is the first game in the series. The series is platoon level, with each counter representing either a platoon of infantry or a platoon of Armored Fighting Vehicles (whether tanks, or armored personnel carriers, or some other vehicle, whether thin-skinned or armored). This game comes with six scenarios, and I recently played through the first two of them to remind myself how the game plays
Each scenario grants each side, either Americans or Soviets, with a set number of forces, from one or more units. The units are either placed on the board per scenario setup rules, or they are brought in from a board edge on the first turn. The board itself does not represent any actual location in Germany, but is intended to be a generic representation of West German terrain. This is important because the same board is used in every scenario, but the variety comes from the fact that you usually are not using the entire game board. Most scenarios restrict game play to specific sections of the board. For example, in the play picture below, the rulebook has been placed over the section that is not in use for the scenario, meaning roughly half of the board was not used. This helps provide some variety in terrain from scenario to scenario, but it also means that once you have played a few of the scenarios the board starts to get quite familiar. A modular board setup would have been nice, and there is an expansion for the series that provides that, but in this game we've got only the one board.
On each turn, initiative is determined through drawing counters from a cup. At the beginning of each game, you place the activation counters from each unit involved in the scenario, plus the "end turn" markers in a cup. Then one of the players draws a counter to see which unit activates next. If a unit's counter is drawn, all of the platoons in that unit get to activate if so desired. If an "end turn" marker is drawn it is placed to the side until all such markers are drawn from the cup, at which point the turn ends. This provides randomness to the initiative, such that you never know who is going to go next. There is even a chance that one side, or even both sides, won't activate at all in a turn, though the odds of nobody activating is low, and the rules don't allow a unit to miss two turns in a row. I really like this turn mechanic, and it provides a nice differentiating factor between the American and Soviet forces. The Americans pretty much are always outnumbered, but they have better C3I capabilities so they get two activation counters per unit, while the Soviets only get one. Thus, it is possible in a turn for the Americans to activate twice. Thus, while they have fewer units, they can do more with them. Well, if the right counters are drawn from the cup, that is!
Combat is pretty simple. Ranged combat has each unit rolling a certain number of dice, trying to roll a certain number or higher. For example, a Soviet T-65 tank firing an armor piercing round rolls three dice and hits on a four or higher. Armored targets, and soft targets in cover, roll one or more dice to try to "save" each hit from enemy fire. Thus, both sides get to roll dice, which is always fun. If you have ever played any of the Warhammer miniatures games you know exactly how the save mechanic works. While it is a bit "gamey," it does lead to lots of tense dice rolling, and it is always fun when the enemy scores a bunch of hits on one of your units but you roll really well and make all your saves and don't actually take any damage. There are three damage states for a unit. The first hit makes a unit "disrupted," which limits their ability to take offensive actions but can be removed with a successful morale check. A disrupted unit that takes a hit is "reduced," which means you flip the counter to its other side, which has weaker guns (reflecting that a few vehicles or men in the platoon have been eliminated). A third hit eliminates a unit from the game. While disruption effects can be removed, once a unit is reduced it stays that way the rest of the game (unless it is eliminated, of course).
There are a few more aspects to the game, but that is the core of the rules. The game plays fairly quickly, and I enjoy playing it. The scenarios in this game usually consist of hordes of Soviets attacking badly outnumbered American forces, but the makeup of the scenarios usually ensures a tightly-fought contest with the victor not being decided until the scenario is near or in its final turn. Once you learn how to read the counters (which admittedly have a lot of numbers on them) the game moves well and shouldn't take more than two hours to play through. This is a game I plan on keeping in my collection for a long time to come.
Each scenario grants each side, either Americans or Soviets, with a set number of forces, from one or more units. The units are either placed on the board per scenario setup rules, or they are brought in from a board edge on the first turn. The board itself does not represent any actual location in Germany, but is intended to be a generic representation of West German terrain. This is important because the same board is used in every scenario, but the variety comes from the fact that you usually are not using the entire game board. Most scenarios restrict game play to specific sections of the board. For example, in the play picture below, the rulebook has been placed over the section that is not in use for the scenario, meaning roughly half of the board was not used. This helps provide some variety in terrain from scenario to scenario, but it also means that once you have played a few of the scenarios the board starts to get quite familiar. A modular board setup would have been nice, and there is an expansion for the series that provides that, but in this game we've got only the one board.
This is the situation at the end of the first turn in the second scenario. The Soviets have moved their forces near the hill by the largest town on the map, but they have already taken some losses from American TOW missiles (hence the "wreck" market in the lower right). The white cards are artillery cards I printed from a file uploaded to the games page at boardgamegeek.
On each turn, initiative is determined through drawing counters from a cup. At the beginning of each game, you place the activation counters from each unit involved in the scenario, plus the "end turn" markers in a cup. Then one of the players draws a counter to see which unit activates next. If a unit's counter is drawn, all of the platoons in that unit get to activate if so desired. If an "end turn" marker is drawn it is placed to the side until all such markers are drawn from the cup, at which point the turn ends. This provides randomness to the initiative, such that you never know who is going to go next. There is even a chance that one side, or even both sides, won't activate at all in a turn, though the odds of nobody activating is low, and the rules don't allow a unit to miss two turns in a row. I really like this turn mechanic, and it provides a nice differentiating factor between the American and Soviet forces. The Americans pretty much are always outnumbered, but they have better C3I capabilities so they get two activation counters per unit, while the Soviets only get one. Thus, it is possible in a turn for the Americans to activate twice. Thus, while they have fewer units, they can do more with them. Well, if the right counters are drawn from the cup, that is!
Combat is pretty simple. Ranged combat has each unit rolling a certain number of dice, trying to roll a certain number or higher. For example, a Soviet T-65 tank firing an armor piercing round rolls three dice and hits on a four or higher. Armored targets, and soft targets in cover, roll one or more dice to try to "save" each hit from enemy fire. Thus, both sides get to roll dice, which is always fun. If you have ever played any of the Warhammer miniatures games you know exactly how the save mechanic works. While it is a bit "gamey," it does lead to lots of tense dice rolling, and it is always fun when the enemy scores a bunch of hits on one of your units but you roll really well and make all your saves and don't actually take any damage. There are three damage states for a unit. The first hit makes a unit "disrupted," which limits their ability to take offensive actions but can be removed with a successful morale check. A disrupted unit that takes a hit is "reduced," which means you flip the counter to its other side, which has weaker guns (reflecting that a few vehicles or men in the platoon have been eliminated). A third hit eliminates a unit from the game. While disruption effects can be removed, once a unit is reduced it stays that way the rest of the game (unless it is eliminated, of course).
There are a few more aspects to the game, but that is the core of the rules. The game plays fairly quickly, and I enjoy playing it. The scenarios in this game usually consist of hordes of Soviets attacking badly outnumbered American forces, but the makeup of the scenarios usually ensures a tightly-fought contest with the victor not being decided until the scenario is near or in its final turn. Once you learn how to read the counters (which admittedly have a lot of numbers on them) the game moves well and shouldn't take more than two hours to play through. This is a game I plan on keeping in my collection for a long time to come.
Dragon Age
Right before Christmas I purchased a PS3. One of the big reasons for doing so was that I really wanted a device that would allow me to stream films from Netflix right to my TV, which the PS3 does. In addition, the PS3 is also a Blu-Ray player, and that would be useful, as well. Granted, it is a video game system at heart, so I couldn't get no games for it. I picked up three games for it within a week of getting the console, but roughly six weeks later I have still only played one of them, Dragon Age: Origins.
I think this might be the best electronic role-playing game I have ever played. One sign of how much I like it is that I have over 50 hours logged in my first play through (still not done with it yet), and I already want to play it again with a different character to see what changes that results in. See, the game allows the player a lot of freedom to make different decisions, such as where to go, what to do, who to allow in your group,etc. Yes, you will always be working on the overall quest that the game revolves around (in that way it is different from the Elder Scrolls series, where you can happily ignore the underlying plot and just do your own thing) but the results of your conversations with various people and decisions you make can have a noticeable impact on how the story evolves.
And, you know, you get to stab monsters, which is pretty fun. Let's not forget about that.
I think this might be the best electronic role-playing game I have ever played. One sign of how much I like it is that I have over 50 hours logged in my first play through (still not done with it yet), and I already want to play it again with a different character to see what changes that results in. See, the game allows the player a lot of freedom to make different decisions, such as where to go, what to do, who to allow in your group,etc. Yes, you will always be working on the overall quest that the game revolves around (in that way it is different from the Elder Scrolls series, where you can happily ignore the underlying plot and just do your own thing) but the results of your conversations with various people and decisions you make can have a noticeable impact on how the story evolves.
And, you know, you get to stab monsters, which is pretty fun. Let's not forget about that.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Another One Bites the Dust
So Jeff Cooper has shut down AC St. Louis. Just about everything this guy did in 2010 made MLS look really smart for rejecting his application for a team. He folded St. Louis Athletica in the middle of the season and now folded AC St. Louis after only one season. So, basically, the guy that wanted to build that new park in Illinois costing hundreds of millions of dollars can't even collect funding to keep a 2nd-tier pro team running? The guy that organized the group that almost killed the top USL division can't even keep his own team going. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry.
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