Banish All Their Fears review

[@michaelwelker8759]

Living rules should be out within a month or so if all goes well, errata document will be out within a week

[@chinapoliticsfromtheprovin6133]

Thanks for the overall review and the lengthy and very informative videos that preceded this one in the series. As I recall, the earlier effort by Richard Berg was all that you said, plus the setup time took far too long for the play and overall payoff. I wonder if these battles, at this level, might present the ultimate challenge to depict well. Or is it that the dearth of interest in the period means that we're likely to see more attempts at Yet Another Bulge game, rather than trying to crack the code of these conflicts?

[@calandale]

It's definitely a tough situation to adequately depict, and the low interest has kept it out of the limelight - but the same could have been said of the preceding century, and Mr. Hull managed to do a damned good job on that. I think this is a solid first real attempt at capturing aspects that have been ignored. I hope the system manages to have enough life in it to improve.

[@andrewmulholland6669]

Hi - that was an excellent review, many thanks. Despite the rambling, you manage to convey exactly what I need to know about a potential game purchase. And this is a no. Specifically: a) This new counter design is a graphical catastrophe. Like you, I can barely make out the difference in the troop types, particularly in poor light/at night. I’m 64 and my eyes are not what they were. That’s mainstream for hex and counter players these days, unfortunately. And I like to game late at night. GMT badly needs to U-turn on this. I love Musket and Pike - but would not go near any of their recent releases. So this in itself is a show stopper for me. BTW, towards the end of the video, I was thinking ‘surely he is not going to ignore the effing counter graphics’... b) The red lines on the map. Not a show stopper, but I would rather avoid pipe cleaners if I can. From what you say, this sounds like a form of spatial scripting. A design mistake. Anyway, thanks for this and for all the fine coverage over the years. I’ll shut up now. Andrew

[@brunobaretta5522]

I'm excited to play this and it is a criminally underexplored era and a fascinating era. That said, you are bang on about the consistency of the quality being on the decline. Really makes you wonder - does GMT ever just give someone a rulebook and say "here play this", before publishing it? Seems like a pretty basic fix for a lot of these issues. Maybe that's too simplistic

[@parkerpeters3874]

I agree with you that the rulebook should be clear on gameplay. In the event that it is not clear on a specific case with a GMT military game of moderate to high complexity, I find that roughly 50% of the time it is cleared up by reading the example of play. In the cases where it is not, I often times have a good idea of what the intent of the designer was after the read and can make a pretty good guess. I've come to expect this problem as part of the hobby and have been able to move past it.

[@korposp]

GMT without Rodger MacGowan is not what used to be.

[@calandale]

Yeah - both the counter graphics and the side panels

[@kilgoretrout3973]

44:50 This appears similar to the graphics on the Musket & Pike reprints. They got rid of the infantry, horse, cannon style and went with the formation illustration. I found myself confused about who had artillery capabilities with the new counter graphics. I think I prefer the new look, but it still needs a tweak to get it right.

[@Conflict_Boardgaming]

The beard looks nice Enrico! But the hair is kinda wild!

[@user-fg4br6ck6p]

For me, I’m deeply interested in the era, but this game is a no-go until it’s in the bargain bin. When I was first reading about the design, there were a number of things I didn’t like. I feel it’s the wrong hex scale for a battalion-level game. I’m not sure the command display elucidates anything that couldn’t have been done without adding another layer of complexity. Then, late in the development process, they came out with the maps and I saw the wing boundaries and said “Nope!” And I was even willing to live with the bad counter design. Never mind the errata.

[@canuconde]

A game where the rules are poorly designed and poorly printed, and also the counters are wrong....... is too much for me. I guess the box was fine. Does it close correctly?

[@canuconde]

49:22 Confirmed, closes correctly.

[@calandale]

Yeah - I felt it was relatively important to get out what a mess this thing is. The other reviews out there don't note it at all.

[@steveoh9285]

Very poor development, even for the first game of a series. Some clever ideas are contained, but those rules… ugh. GMT can do, and has done, much better.

[@calandale]

They seem to be really struggling recently.