What are some of the best wargame components you've seen? What was it you liked about them? What artwork worked well, or didn't work at all? What cards did you like and what counters were perfect? What's the best map you played on? What's the worst? How big are components when factoring your purchase decisions?
Your thoughts below!
By: Brant
Redmond A. Simonsen
ReplyDeleteRedmond A. Simonsen
Redmond A. Simonsen
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When Battaille du Moscowa first came out, the counters artwork just blew all the Napoleonic fans away.
ReplyDeleteThat and thedetailed game play made this almost a cult game. Quickly surpassed Wellington's Victory, even though that had national advertising thru Strategy and Tactics magazine.
this one?
ReplyDeletehttp://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/15274/la-bataille-de-la-moscowa
Although I will probably be flamed by the old-school grogs for saying this, I always liked the components from the Milton Bradley Master Game line...most notably Broadsides and Boarding Parties, Conquest of the Empire, and Shogun. The components on these games were one of the key things that got my friends interested in playing wargames of greater complexity than Battleship or Risk.
ReplyDeleteOne of the nicest looking maps I've ever used was the one from AH FLight Leader. Of course, ground contours, river paths, etc are pretty much irrelvant in a game of air combat, so this gives the board artist a great deal of creative freedom.
One of the nicest functional maps was the one from Storm Over Arnhem that used areas. Nice graphics, well organized and you didn't have to deal with stacked units.
I also have a fondness for the Raid on St. Nazaire board because it really bridged the gap by using great looking artwork with linked areas, (even if that forced a level of abstract movement / LOS that fell away from a purist POV).
How big a factor are components? Very much so. I can't stand NATO symbols and much prefer counters that use graphic / soldier icons (paradoxically NATO counters was the reason I didn't end up playing SoA very much, even though I loved the board).
Another game component that I think ending up working though was difficult to get used to was the "battle board" from Patton's Best. It took a while, but once you figure out that your tank is always in the middle, you appreciate the idea of visual radius.
Yours in gaming,
Jack Nastyface