With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy, our troops in Afghanistan prove they’ve retained their sense of humor with the following,
‘“YOU MAY BE A TALIBAN IF…”
1. You refine heroin for a living, but you have a moral objection to beer.
2. You own a $3,000 machine gun and $5,000 rocket launcher, but you can’t afford shoes.
3. You have more wives than teeth.
4. You wipe your butt with your bare left hand, but consider bacon “unclean.”
5. You think vests come in two styles: bullet-proof and suicide.
6. You can’t think of anyone you HAVEN’T declared Jihad against.
7. You consider television dangerous, but routinely carry explosives in your clothing.
8. You were amazed to discover that cell phones have uses other than setting off roadside bombs.
9. You’ve ever uttered the phrase, “I love what you’ve done with your cave.”
10. You have nothing against women and think every man should own at least Two.
11. You bathe at least monthly whether necessary or not.
12. You’ve ever had a crush on your neighbor’s goat.
Fans of the miniatures/board game Battle Lore and the older computer game Fantasy General will appreciate Fantasy Wars, a new turn-based strategy game from Atari. I really enjoyed it and have spent way too many hours playing.
In the game, you assume command of one of three armies—Human, Orc, or Elf—and battle your way through a series of interconnected scenarios. The action is strictly turn based. You click on a unit and then tell it where to move and fight. When one unit has finished moving, you go on to the next. When all have completed their actions, the turn ends and the computer plays.
That leaves plenty of time to think about what you’re doing—a welcome break from the frenetic clicking real time games that seem to be in vogue.
Like BattleLore and Fantasy General, movement is done on a hex grid, with one unit occupying each hex. From a distance, the units appear as single figures on the screen, but as you zoom in, you can see the individual soldiers. That makes it appealing to the miniatures gamer in me. Each unit of course has different abilities, and as is standard for these games, you can upgrade units and abilites as you earn money by accomplishing tasks
During the game, units performed realistically (can you even use that term with a fantasy game?). Defensive positions matter; terrain affects both combat and movement. One nice touch is that when a missile unit is placed behind a melee unit, it can provide defensive support. That encourages the realistic positioning of archers.
A tactic that works for me: Move archers into range of the enemy and pound them. Them advance the cheap foot troops to wear it down. Finally, when it’s about to break, send in the cavalry or heroes to mop up.
I found the game play to be very satisfying (and addicting). It’s one of those games where I always wanted to play “just one more turn.”
The graphics are a major upgrade from Fantasy General, and were more than adequate for my tastes. They aren’t what you’d call hyper realistic, but I am more concerned with game play anyway.
Fantasy Wars is played point and click interface. After watching the tutorial, I was able to play without thinking at all about the actual mechanics. If there’s one complaint I have about the game, however, it’s that it was slow to respond to mouse clicks. I often had to click several times before getting a unit to do something.
If you watch this video of an elephant painting a self-portrait, you’ll realize that its only a matter of time and effort before we can get them to paint out wargames miniatures.
A video of the German medieval rock band Schelmish playing Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire with bagpipes and other medieval instruments. Good lord. The Man In Black surely is spinning in his grave.
Miniature Wargaming is part of the "adventure games" hobby, which includes r ole p laying and board games. Wargamers recreate battles on the tabletop with toy soldiers, like a more complicated game of chess. Models range in height from 6mm to 28mm tall, with 15mm and 25mm being the most popular. There also is a growing interest in toy soldiers and military models, such as the 1/32 and 1/35 scale plastic soldiers from Conte, and Marx.
The most popular miniature wargames are fantasy and science fiction based, such as Warhammer, Warhammer 40K, Warmachine and The Lord of the Rings. World War II games such as Flames of War and Axis and Allies are new favorites. Other favorite historical periods include Napoleonics, the American Civil War, and ancients, such as Romans or Greeks. Other gamers enjoy miniature naval wargames, recreating battles like Trafalgar, Jutland and the Coral Sea.
Hobbyists research historical periods and paint their tiny soldiers in accurate uniforms. Others develop "historically realistic" rules sets or build scale battlefield terrain using model railroad techniques.
For pictures, visit the gallery.
Some of the bigger hobby companies are Games Workshop, which produces Warhammer, Wargames Foundry and Old Glory Miniatures. Wizards of the Coast produces several lines of pre-painted miniatures games, such as the Star Wars and Dungeons and Dragons miniatures games, and a historical game with pre-painted miniatures: The new Axis and Allies game. Wizkids produces a fantasy collectable miniatures game, such as the Mage Knight and Heroclick fantasy games, the science fiction games MechWarrior and Rocketmen, as well as the quasi-historical Pirates of the Spanish Main.
