Italian Wars

,

Tanto Monta: A Story of Disappointment

,
Tanto Monta: A Story of Disappointment

I think it is safe to say that Tanto Monta: The Rise of Ferdinand and Isabella by designer Carlos Diaz Narvaez was my most anticipated game of the year. I adore Here I Stand, and Tanto Monta took that core system and applied it to the years right before Here I Stand begins, which includes the Italian Wars, a topic I am fascinated by. It also decreased the player count from six to four. Getting six people together who are all willing to spend a day playing through the Protestant Reformation is probably the single greatest barrier to playing Here I Stand, so this was really promising. The back of the box promised the same complexity as Here I Stand and a play time of 3-7 hours, which we should always take with a grain of salt but still it looked good for this being an excellent way to get a dose of more Here I Stand more often. It also came out at the perfect time – my copy arrived just in time for a gathering of myself and my fellow We Intend to Move on Your Works partners in crime. The four of us convened in Pierre’s house for me to teach them all Tanto Monta, expecting a day of epic gaming with great friends. To quote a somewhat infamous review of Virgin Queen: it was a fucking disaster.

, ,

Arquebus: Fornovo 1495 by Richard Berg

, ,
Arquebus: Fornovo 1495 by Richard Berg

It’s been a while since I played Men of Iron and I’d been been hankering to try some more Arquebus so I took a break from playing a small mountain of American Civil War hex and counter games for a brief holiday in sixteenth-century Italy. I decided to try the Fornovo scenario for the very boring reason that it was the first battle in the play book and I’m glad I did because this is probably one of the most interesting Men of Iron scenarios I have ever played. It reminded me of everything I really like about Men of Iron, as well as some of the elements of the system that I don’t think work so well. Those wrinkles weren’t enough to stop me from enjoying Fornovo a lot and putting it high on my list of scenarios I want to try again.

, ,

First Impressions: Arquebus – Cerignola 1503

, ,
First Impressions: Arquebus – Cerignola 1503

Coming right off the heels of playing my first game of Blood and Roses I arranged to play fellow member of Team Crossboys Russ Wetli in a game of Arquebus that same day. I had a hurried skim of the rulebook to try and pull-out what elements were different from previous Men of Iron titles, which was thankfully a relatively painless process even without the volume specific rules highlights I was accustomed to from the Tri-Pack. There’s a lot to be said for playing games in a system. It makes it much easier to pick up the next game in the series since you already know about 80% of the rules, but on the other hand it also becomes increasingly easy to mess up that last 20% the more games you learn! This was Russ’s first experience playing Men of Iron and I wanted to be sure I got as much right as possible, and for the most part I think I succeeded. We picked the Battle of Cerignola to play because it was by far the shortest and simplest scenario in the box and neither of us was up for an epic multi-hour clash that evening. I also ensured that he had the full Men of Iron experience by having him play the side that lost the battle historically. Nobody ever promised that Men of Iron would be fair.