Battle of Midway Starter Set - Overview

 A little while ago I did a "preview" of the new Blood Red Skies Battle of Midway Starter Set - it goes into some detail  here if you are interested.

Today the postie delivered the real thing, so here is my first impression \ unboxing. I started to write an in depth and "warts and all" review, but realised to do it any justice I will have to split it into several parts, so this is just going to be a quick overview of the contents.

And there's quite a lot in this box.........

You get 12 model fighters - six each of A6M2 Zeroes and F4F Wildcats, plus associated "Advantage Bases " (stands for the uninitiated).

A rules booklet

A set of plastic measuring implements and game markers

2 Quick Reference sheets

6 Aircraft stat cards - Zero, Kate, Val, Wildcat, Dauntless & Devastator

15 Trait cards

17 Doctrine cards

19 Theatre cards

12 Dice

Three punchboards of ship target markers, pilot skill disks, clouds, game tokens etc

All in all a pretty decent starter set for Blood Red Skies, which I have to say is still my favourite WW2 dogfight game. 

If you fancy getting in to Blood Red Skies, or want to expand your collection into the Pacific, this really is an auto buy.

Anyway that will do as an overview. The Midway starter set should be available in shops from today at an rrp of £56.00, or direct from the warlord website. https://store.warlordgames.com/collections/blood-red-skies

 

SPQR Revised Edition or "Show some Passion, you Lazy......"

I'm going to need an analogy for my relationship with SPQR from Warlord Games.

Sometimes in football (soccer for The Cousins) your team signs a new player, usually a striker. Great things are expected from them. The crowd are initially very enthusiastic about the new signing. He looks the part. Then after a few matches it seems something isn't right. The striker is not delivering, not putting the effort in, is lazy or just doesn't care. The crowd's initial enthusiasm turns to bewilderment and then to exasperation, and sometimes to downright hostility.

That was me with SPQR. My thoughts on this were posted up after they were first published and the disillusionment was at it's height here  https://twtrb.blogspot.com/2019/08/spqr-warlord-do-it-again.html

Originally much touted by Warlord as a great new Ancient "Warband" scale game (30-50 ish figs a side). This was pitched right into Two Fat Lardie territory and looked like it could deliver. Beautiful book, excellent artwork. First glance showed a character progression system, campaigns, the works.  What could go wrong?

Then the elephant in the room - the rules were shite (sorry, that is my considered view). They were not bad - they simply didn't work. After a couple of games it became clear these were unplayable. They lacked any integration between the individuals and units, there was no tactical thought, there.... ok look these were bloody awful and the list of things that didn't work in the rules will take longer to explain than I would care to waste. Probably the worse set of rules I've ever seen chucked at the public. Playtesting??? there are a list of playtesters and frankly they should hang their head in shame. I suspect these are Warlord staff who messed about but didn't actually point out the problems because they were in house and didn't want to rock the boat, or were playing a different game. In addition to the crap rules there were some almost unbeatable combinations - Gauls with a certain combination of large units and heroes would destroy everything they contacted without fail. The only solution was something like an equally stupid \ gimmick build of massed archers who if they won the initiative would just annihilate anything they can see. Neither of these made for good games. SPQR was so bad I think I said they were insulting to the customers and not fit for sale. I got permabanned from the Warlord SPQR Facebook group for saying something along those lines.

So now Warlord have reluctantly recognised there were issues, and have produced a "revised" version. This was originally going to be available free to the poor suckers (like me!) who had bought the original. They changed this so it was available for free with a purchase of a box set from their Ancients line. I bit.

OK I have to admit I bit reluctantly. Warlord are getting a rep for just chucking out stuff that looks good but really is riddled with errors and typos. I'm not sure if this is a quality control issue or something deeper and related to the way they manage their projects and development. Either way it is getting to be a regular thing - Cruel Seas was an example, and SPQR was probably the worse case, but Victory at Sea also seems to have some big issues around a lack of proofreading, particularly in the "Fleet Lists" section - the rules do seem much more "nailed down" to be fair. 

Anyway back to SPQR (Revised). What has changed? Actually not a lot, but that which has changed  will impact on the game in a big way and for the better. Gone is the mind numbingly stupid "everyone fights in melee" to be replaced with only those in contact fight. This neatly fixes the issues previously with Heroes being able to fight at the point of a wedge and never take any risks until everyone else was dead. It also makes smaller units more viable. This is a good start. Gone are most of the bonuses that made large units unstoppable (or at least I think they are). Gone too is the "Parry" system, which allowed units or individuals to parry a number of attacks each turn, now replaced with a much easier to manage reroll system - though again you get to force rerolls irrespective of the direction of attack, so stabbing someone in the back still has no benefits, even when he is already busy fighting someone to his front. I'm not sure if this works or not, or rather if it is much of an improvement. I quite liked the mechanic that allowed a "pool" of shield parries and maybe just a tweak here may have been better?? Then again that was hard to keep track of, but this is very simple - big shields reroll all failed armour saves, little ones reroll 1s. Also the weapon "reach" idea has been reworked to make short spears a bit more useful and the whole idea of "reach" seems more coherent. Mostly. 

There has also been some tweaks to the points system, but as usual with Warlord some errors (?) have crept through. Just how many of these there are is open to debate - did Warlord actually intend for some equipment to be cheaper to buy for one faction than others? It's possible, but Occam's Razor points to a visit by Mr Cock Up.

So are they any good? Will the crowd like them? Back to my football analogy. Sometimes a Manager sees a player is struggling for motivation and kicks them off to Boston United on loan, where much to everyone's surprise they rediscover their motivation and return with a surer touch and become the seasons top scorer, receiving the plaudits and well deserved adoration from the home fans. Will this happen with SPQR (R)? Not sure. It will take some games to decide this, but I must admit I think there may be a spark of interest returning. Maybe they could be the new Marco Van Basten - who knows??

https://www.theguardian.com/football/football-league-blog/2015/feb/24/adam-boyd-marco-van-basten-hartlepool

Blood Red Skies Retrospective

Blood Red Skies (BRS) has been out for a couple of months. Written by "veteran" games designer Andy Chambers and available from Warlord Games. Now the bloom of enthusiasm has worn off, I thought it worth having a warts and all look at the game.

So what do you get for your £40 RRP?

Assuming you have bought or are looking at buying the starter set you get quite a lot. Six Spitfires, six Me109Es, bases, skill disks, cards, dice, rules, scenarios, measuring sticks, cloud and bomber templates and counters. You also get three rule books - basic rules, Advanced Rules and Scenarios.  Its all well made, the card parts particularly are excellent quality and look the business. There is a nice Art Decor theme to the graphics which ties it all together well.  The models are pre-coloured - brown for the Brits, grey for Germans, and they come with some stickers for national emblems which are clearly there for six year-olds but add little or nothing to the more experienced war gamer. I think Warlord hope to sell the game as playable out of the box, with no painting or assembly needed, possibly hoping to get it into non war gaming players?

There are some annoying issues however.

The models are prone to warping - particularly the Spitfires wings. This can be fixed with a quick dip in hot water to straighten them, and is nothing unusual with plastic models. The problem is there seems to be a tendency for that to be repeated, and sometimes it is quite serious. I don't think I would be keen on having to regularly dip painted models in hot water. The 109 is also a strange model in that it seems to be a "generic" 109 with some features of different versions. There is a more detailed look at them on an earlier post.  The models also seem to be a little under 1:200 scale - no idea why as the resin masters I saw were spot on so clearly a production issue (China I presume). They are in the "gaming piece" rather than "model" end of the scale - but serviceable non the less and they paint up really well.

Then there's the "cool" measuring template. It looks quite nice, but about thirty seconds into your first game you realise that when you use it you have to place the model on top of the template then remove the template -  it is a bit of a faff on. Later it becomes apparent that for some reason the actual measuring scale is wrong at the far end of the scale - I can only assume the original got re-scaled somewhere along the line. This isn't a problem if both players use the same tool, but as soon as someone starts to use a tape measure it becomes one because they go further! There are also a couple of typos (we all make mistooks) and some of the wording and diagrams seem less clear than they could be, leading to some confusion when playing. This last is causing some comment from ex X Wing players who are used to a much more precise style of rules writing than the historical guys.

The "Advantage" bases are pretty nice too. These are a clever pivoting base that is used to represent status on the table - reducing the need for counters and therefore table clutter, and after several months of playing mine still retain the necessary "click" that makes them work. I have heard some people don't like them, but if they bother you that much you could just use counters.

The Basic rules work well, and certainly will hit the casual gamer target audience. The Advanced Rules introduce card play which adds an additional level of game play and detail that will give more interest and longevity. The six Scenarios are designed to guide the player through the concepts in easy steps - which they mostly do, although I must admit the bomber escort scenario is one that could have used a bit more polishing as the interaction between the rules for multi engine aircraft and loaded bombers seems to confuse some people.

The rules are slick and give a fast game that does not, as someone else said rather cruelly but with some truth about another set of WW2 dogfight rules, feel like "Penguins on roller skates". The "Advantage" system manages to give a fast flowing and fluid game in 2D that represents the essence of a swirling dogfight in 3D, situation constantly changing. Initiative means even a poor pilot can get the drop on an Ace if he is set up right, but Pilot Skill is everything when you get into a dogfight, which is as it should be, and even a marginal skill advantage can really turn the tables.  Gunnery is easy to understand and again flows well, and the adoption of the "Boom Chit" as a morale \ fuel \ ammunition count system for air games is both novel and interesting. The card play is interesting too,  a bit clunky at times but adds a real extra dimension to the game.

There has been some criticism about the balance of the starter set, with the 109s being overpowered by the Spitfires, but I think this is a learning curve issue - basically the Spitfire gets the "Tight Turn" trait card, which is easy to use and because you have one per plane you are pretty much golden in a straight turn fight. The 109 has Great Climb and Great Dive. These are harder to get the most out of, particularly Great Dive, but once players understand Great Climb, and use it as often as they can, then the 109 really starts to compete - which is another way of saying "don't turn fight a Spitfire in a 109", which seems spot on to me.

The other criticism levelled with some validity is the choice of planes in the initial release. In addition to the 109E and Spitfire MkII Warlord have released a Yak 1, A6M5 Zero, and a P51D - all available in Squadron boxes of 6 with all the cards etc you need to play them and colour coded - another nod at "out of the box" and casual gamers. For the historical gamers this choice really causes problems as the Zero is the late version and the P51D is way out of sync with the others as far as service dates goes. Warlord are working on new releases, but having set their standards at pre coloured plastic there is a significant delay before any new releases - Wave 2 is Fw190, Hurricane, Me110 and Mosquito, but no official release date has yet been announced other than some time this year.

So is it worth it?

In my opinion , Oh YES. Possibly the most innovative set of rules out there for years. They're far from perfect and still need some polish - odd rough edge smoothed off, but I suspect BRS is going to be around for quite some time if Warlord get the support for it right.

First Salvo - Russo-Japanese Naval rules try out

I mentioned a couple of posts ago how I got mugged in Memory Lane by Dave Manley and his White Bear Red Sun (WBRS) campaign for the Russo-Japanese War at Sea. Dave is very much the doyen of British Naval Wargaming (at least in my eyes) so I tend to view anything he produces with a certain reverence. He's also a thoroughly nice chap.

WBRS is bundled with Dave's "Broadside and Salvo" (B&S) fast play rules. After my first reading I was a bit sceptical because B&S were clearly very fast play and missed many of the elements I had come to know and love from my previous pre-Dreadnought rules sets. Long tables and calculations to establish if your 6" of Krupp armour was superior to 9" of Harvey steel, and just how much better or worse are those 1898 10" guns compared to the 11" of 1899? This is all gone, replaced with a simple broad classification - so all Battleships are Battleships and all have the same factor, and speed, and there are no multiple fire arcs or even turning circles - Madness! how can this work?

The combat system is also very recognisable as a DBM style modified opposed roll \ compare result system. I was prepared to look for another rule set and just use the campaign system, but I thought in fairness we could at least give it a try, so last night that's what we did. I set up an imaginary meeting between a squadron of Russian Battleships supported by some Protected Cruisers and Destroyers, and faced them off with a slightly smaller squadron of Japanese Battleships with Armoured Cruisers and Destroyers in support. And we "Had at it!"

And we were very pleased with the result. It turns out that binning all that minutiae allows the players to concentrate on the important tactical stuff and have fun without too much book keeping. OK it is nowhere near as much fun as Fred Janes' gunnery system but then I can't ever see myself going that far for any game (not to mention the logistical and Health & Safety implications of walking around with long pointy sticks!)

So here we are with our quickly thrown together scenario. A Russian Battleship Squadron with Protected Cruiser and Destroyer support against a Japanese Fleet of what we hope was comparable strength - the Russians had one Battleship more but the Japanese had Armoured Cruisers rather than Protected Cruisers.

Initially this went well for the Russians, who scored some early hits on the Japanese Flag and drove their Destroyers off at the cost of one Protected Cruiser (the squadron Flag) crippled by a torpedo. Then, as if scripted , the Russian luck ran out. The Flagship was heavily hit and started to burn as coincidentally the rest of the fleet had some awful command results.

Still burning, the Russian Flag hauled out of line to try and get the fires under control, and the Japanese tried another torpedo attack. You will notice in this pic there is no sign of the Russian Destroyers or Protected Cruisers. The Destroyers had missed the attack signal and were as a result still steaming AWAY from the main action, while the Protected Cruisers were still out of range to do anything and their poor Command dice, made worse as their Admiral tried to find a boat to transfer him to another ship in the squadron meant they would remain ineffective.

Insult was then added to injury as the now leading Russian Battleship came under concentrated fire from both Japanese Cruisers and Battleships and was silenced. With two of their four capital ships now out of action the Russians turned for home and we called the game there.

We were very happy with the rules, and they are a lot more nuanced than they first appear, with the added advantage they play fast. So assuming the order comes from Navwar and I get it painted we will be Heading East in the New Year to play out the drama of 1904.

Building an Impetus Army Part 3 - Ecce Romani

 or “What have the Romans ever done for us?”

The Early Imperial Roman Army is something of a classic. The hard core of the army are the Legionaries. These are the benchmark Heavy Infantry in Impetus, and they represent the Romans at their most basic, a simple and horribly efficient meat grinder. You feed the opposition in at the front and mincemeat comes out at the rear. You need to take a minimum of four units, and a theoretical maximum of twenty. At a basic cost of 28pts each they’re not cheap, and you can upgrade them to A class if you really want to push the point home.  The trick is to ensure you keep these efficient killers in fighting condition and get them into contact at the appropriate point. The rest of the army exists to funnel the opponent into the blades, or protect them from pesky things like cavalry and skirmishers. 

To do this you have two different supporting arms, both of which are worth getting. Firstly there is the Cavalry. Roman Cavalry is not very special. There is nothing wrong with them, it’s just that they’re a bit err, Meh. They can have some average medium cavalry, and a couple of javelin armed light horse. You don’t get enough of either to make them a main fighting arm, and the opposition are usually either better or more numerous, or both. That is in many ways fortunate in that it makes you concentrate on doing the main thing, staying uncommitted and keeping the opposition cavalry off the Legionaries until they’re in position to do their thing. 

The other troops you need are your light infantry. You get some Auxilia infantry, and a few skirmishers. The Auxilia are a bit of a puzzle in some ways, particularly to new players, as they look a little bit like weak Legion, and they don’t have a missile weapon unlike most other light infantry. They do have a high initial combat factor and also the handy ability to negate the Impetus bonus of warband. They’re also very good at clearing woods – something the Legionaries are pretty poor at, and you really should take at least a couple of units. You also need some skirmishers. These can harry opposition heavy infantry as the Legions move up, or screen the Legions from enemy missile troops.  

Proportionally I think you need enough Auxilia to intersperse them between your Legionaries, so 4 Legions will require 3 Auxilia, 5 Legions 4 Auxilia, That allows you to intersperse an Auxilia between each Legion if you are fighting Warband, or to mass them to fight enemy light troops in bad terrain or operate as a mass on a flank if your opponent does not. Half as many skirmishers as Legions is more than enough to act as a skirmish screen. Your Cavalry force needs to be large enough to hold it's own, or rather not get overrun too early, so one or two medium Cavalry and two light Cavalry are probably enough.

So where does that leave us?

4 Legions @ 28pts each = 112
3 Auxilia @ 23pts each = 69
2 Funditores (Skirmish slingers) @ 14pts each = 28
2 Equites Alares Medium Cavalry @ 23pts each = 46
2 Mauri Javelin armed Light Cavalry  @ 21pts each = 42

Total so far is 297, so plenty to play with if we are planning a 400 point Army.  Romans have an Average or Good Command Structure, for 12 or 20 points, and you will need some Generals too. How many Generals and how good they are is up to you, but at least two. There's a big debate to be had as to the merits of three smaller Commands over two larger ones, but the Romans seem to be able to make 2 work as long as you are careful with the cavalry, so you can split the cavalry into one Command and the Infantry into the other, which is a straight 60/40 split so within the list building constraints. The Romans don't rely on flamboyant or high risk tactics, so they don't really need high value Generals - two Fair, or even Poor Generals will manage, but you do probably need some help from The Gods so maximise on 3 Rolls of Destiny (re-rolls) at 5 pts each.

So here is the a suggested Roman Army based on the above ideas. It's solid, conventional, and efficient.

Average Command Rating
3 Rolls of Destiny

Commander in Chief (Poor)
4 Legions
3 Auxilia
2 Slingers
Total Break 20, Breaks on 10

Cavalry Command (Poor)
2 Medium Cavalry
2 Light Cavalry
Total Break 8 Breaks on 4

Army Break Total 28 Breaks on 14
Total points 344

Your opponent will only guarantee a win if he breaks the main Infantry Command, or the Cavalry and a chunk of the Legion. If you are cagey with your Cavalry he will find the latter hard to do, and if he breaks the Legion its Game Over anyway.

That leaves you 56 points to play with. The Romans get a lot of support options, and plenty of Allies too. The Allies are a bit risky as they have to deploy as a Command themselves, so at 400 points I would tend to avoid them. You could upgrade you Legions to Veteran for 11 points each. Veteram Legions are superb, but if you are fighting enemy Warband you will probably not be doing much other than walking steadily forward so the extra training and experience is probably wasted. Other options are to add a couple of Archer units, or maybe some Light Artillery.

Weaknesses - deep heavy infantry - here I mean good quality Hoplites or Pikes deployed as large units. In Impetus large units maintain their fighting power longer than normal ones, so Legions are in danger if fighting 1-1, however those Large Units are sacrificing width for fighting power, so can usually be outflanked and then surrounded - another good use for your Auxilia.

Charging cavalry can sometimes bowl the Legions over, but they are rare and will certainly be outnumbered.

So that's it - a possible Roman Army for Impetus - next, what to buy and where? 

Building an Impetus Army - Just in case Santa got the note!

I've been asked a couple of times by the guys in the shop about playing Impetus and choosing your armies, so I thought this would make an interesting post topic (I hope you agree!). What follows is a list of things I think you should think about before you start.

1. Scale
OK I know this seems stupid but "some" people (looking at you Mark) seem to forget that you really need an opponent. Make sure whatever you are buying is in the same scale as the local gaming group, unless you are ploughing a lonely solo furrow, it really helps if your toys are the same scale as your likely opponent. In my area this means 28mm for preference. There are several advantages here. 28mm is easily available, and although the individual figure cost is higher than 15mm and 20mm, you will use fewer figures per unit, so 28mm also tends to be cheaper. Lastly , if you are of "a certain age" they're still big enough to see :-)

2. Cost
The next thing you need to have in your mind is budget. Historical wargaming is not expensive compared to the Fantasy \ Sci Fi stuff around at the moment, and if you are used to paying GW'esque prices this is probably not such a problem. That said do a little bit of a costing per figure to give you a rough idea, and if its looking too rich, maybe think again as if you cant hit the playing points level, you probably wont get to play.... As a general rule historical infantry are about £1-£1.50 each in metal, cavalry between £3-£5. Plastics are cheaper

3. Time
One thing non historical gamers sometimes are surprised by is the size of historical armies. There are a few that can be built at low figure counts, but most are going to be 100+ infantry and at least a couple of dozen cavalry. That can be a significant painting time commitment.  Impetus isn't a "boutique" game with a few figures and simple rules. Building an Impetus army is a much bigger and challenging project. Of course it is worth the effort, but it is a lot of effort and will take you months not weeks to complete.

So that's part 1. If you are still interested I will look at what you should think about when choosing an actual army.

Cheers!

Come and Av a Go if you think you're Ard Enough?

Rob came up to me a week or so ago in Asgard Games and pressed a set of rules into my hands asking me to read them, maybe I’d be interested in trying them out???

I’ve pretty much “been around the block” several times as a wargamer and instantly recognised the mild desperation tinged with hope that you get when someone is really wanting to play a game system but can’t convince his fellows to get involved. It happens to us all. What I should have said was “Thanks Rob but I’m just so busy with other projects I can’t take on another” and it would have had the added bonus of being true. However I am a soft hearted sort really so accepted the proffered rules on the understanding I would read them and return them.

I’m not wholly sure if my intention was to read them, or maybe just wait a week or two and then return them, but read them I did.

The rules are called Aggro, produced by Ainsty and are a semi skirmish set in the mid to late 70s around the theme of football gang violence.

This is a bit of an issue for me personally. I’m old enough to have been there when the real thing was happening – going to the match with my Dad, and can remember being escorted by the Police out of Fleethams after watching the mighty Hartlepool United beat “the Scum” (aka Darlington AFC). Nowadays football violence is something we thankfully seem to have grown out of, but then it was a major issue. Given this I was pretty much prejudiced against Aggro from the start.

So I was pleasantly surprised when I did get a half hour spare and decided to read them. The rules are well written, with some really interesting aspects and mechanisms. They’re card activated and all combat is card driven, all using a standard deck of playing cards. There are rules for gang building and a rudimentary campaign system, all in all pretty good and well worth the price of a tenner. If this is your thing, or you are looking for an interesting non dice mechanism then Aggro may well be worth "having a go" at.

Will I play them ? – probably not. I can’t see myself investing the time and money for what would be another “boutique” game. I’m also 100% sure the setting is not attractive to me either. Given the popularity of fantasy \ Si Fi sports games – BloodBowl, DeathBall & now GuildBall the authors may well have been better shifting the setting to a post match brawl between rival gangs of fans for those types of games – the rules are robust enough to handle it, and would give that extra edge to any fantasy sports game.

So sorry Rob, not this time, but thanks anyway to Rob & Ainsty for a nice set of rules and associated figures. Now I’m off to find my bobble hat and rattle.

RTFM - Musing on rules

I've realised I have been guilty of falling into games unprepared. By that I mean over the last year or so I have been caught up in the enthusiasm of a new rules set, skimmed the rules while rushing headlong to get the toys painted, and arrived at the table with much fanfare to find the games halting and not as successful as I had hoped. 

A prime example I played a game of Dux Britanarrium last week at the Hartlepool Club. It was our first try out, and at the end I thought it went OK - but just OK. The truth was we had missed large bits of rules we skimmed over in our enthusiasm, and as a result both our enjoyment and enthusiasm suffered - what should have been a good gaming session was just OK.

That got me musing, because it is not the first time it has happened. So I decided to have another game, this time just to try out the mechanisms, and whenever there was any doubt to read the rules carefully.

So I set up a game between Dave & John with me manning the rule book - a full battle rather than a raid so we could concentrate on the rules rather than rushing around in the chaos and tempo that raiding scenarios involve, and we got stuck in. Actually before that I READ THE RULES again just to refresh my memory, and read the rules as things happened to make sure we were getting it right.

It took a while, but we learned rather a lot. One thing I learned was just how good and well thought through Dux actually is, Our skimming and fumbling had meant we had missed some of the more subtle bits in there, and at the end we also had much better understanding and dare I say it, fun. Last night wasn't an OK gaming session, it was a good gaming session. I'm sure the others felt it too.

Moral of the story RTFM!

One last rambling thought. For the last few years I had heard of the Two Fat Lardies rules but had never really tried them. They were for me pigeon holed in the same niche as some Peter Pig rules - nice mechanisms but too light hearted and tongue in cheek to be thought of as "serious" sets of rules - the Carry on Wargaming style of naming, and indeed the whole company name and pie and pint logo thing helped reinforce that. I was (and am) a fan of some of the older PeterPig rules but the layout, presentation and general impressions were always of an amateur production - one man and his photocopier (which to be fair is pretty much what they were at the time). I had subconsciously  expected the same from TFL. The other side of the coin was the WRG style written in almost legalistic precision (Barkerese). Like them or loath them you had to take them seriously and read them carefully.

Taking the plunge with Chain of Command educated me otherwise.  I think it also showed a step up in ambition for the TFLs. Here they had a product that was in their view (and mine as it happened) superior to the market leader (Bolt Action) in almost every way, but it still lagged behind BA in popularity. I don't want to get into the whole "why" one rules set is better than the other, or what drives popularity, but having looked at both, Chain should have beaten BA hands down in my opinion, and it didn't. 

Like Chain, Dux is a well put together and very nuanced set of rules (at least as far as I can say that after 3-4 games), and the resulting game is interesting and enjoyable. It deserves a bit more respect, to be treated more seriously, but I think my initial expectations that the TFL "brand" is a little frivolous had coloured my view. I wonder if the happy go lucky branding that TFL have used in the past is now starting to bite them back a little?  I hope not, because if Dux and Chain are any indication, TFL are producing some of the most interesting, thought provoking and, yes fun, rules I have seen in quite a while, with production quality to match. Long may they continue