Tuesday, April 1, 2008

War Games

I love history. I really love ancient history. When channel surfing if you show me a guy with a sword running another guy with a sword through the belly...I'm in. I recently stumbled upon a great show on the HD Theater channel called Battleground: The Art of War. The show isn't new -- it first aired in 2005 back when I lived in the gloomy world of SD. So for me, this was brand new and really, really, neat.


Here's a write up with a quick video on the Alexander the Great edition which highlighted his final battle against the Persians. I have now watched all three episodes (I have no idea if they made more) but the other two were Waterloo and the Battle of the Bulge.

I think Gaugamela (Alexander) runs again this Saturday so if you haven't seen it, check it out. Great stuff. If watching these shows doesn't get you at least mildly interested in playing a wargame, nothing will.

Sticking with the war theme, I have a couple of board games en route that I can't wait to play.

The first is from Simmons Games called Napoleon's Triumph and the other of Men of Iron, a small scale wargame from famed designer Richard Berg. The picture up top is from Men of Iron while NT is the one here to the left. Have you ever seen any old movie when generals are looming over a map with what appear to be block shaped game pieces representing the armies? That's what NT looks like. I think that's cool. Yeah, I'm odd. I know.
Life can't all be baseballs and 3-pointers.