Bulge Off '23 | Round 3 | Sweet 16 Round | Battle of the Bulge Wargame Boardgame

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks to everyone who has voted so far! Sweet 16 Voting Match Ups are on the Channel Community Page: www.youtube.com/@ZillaBlitz/community Happy New Year!

[@whovian223]

Happy new year to you too! This has been fun.

[@ZillaBlitz]

Happy New Year, Dave! I'm glad you're enjoying it. I am too. :)

[@coyi51]

Going well thus far with some surprises along the way. Purchased The Deadly Woods before Christmas, but not got around to playing yet. 1944 from Worthington a personal favourite, off to vote now. Great fun, many thanks.

[@ZillaBlitz]

This round is turning out some big leads so far, I'm really interested to see how things progress as the field narrows. :)

[@leonjoffe6380]

And a happy new year to you Zilla. Thx for your great videos

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks, Leon! Let's have a great 2024. :)

[@ParkeraNZ]

Really do enjoy this series mate, and cheers for the shout out. Happy New Year!

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks, Parkera, Happy New Year!

[@rayvargas9383]

Avalon hill games are timeless. The new games are good but AH the classics

[@ZillaBlitz]

I'm excited to explore Bulge '81 now, and that's a takeaway for me from the tournament and seeing how well it's been doing. :)

[@myfriendscat]

This is fun and enlightening.

[@ZillaBlitz]

I'm glad you're enjoying it, me too. :)

[@Usually_Insane]

Happy new year!

[@ZillaBlitz]

Happy New Year Usually Insane!

[@thecustardprophet8434]

I don't know many of these games (other than those you've featured) but love this type of video!

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks! It's been fun to try something different. Final 4 out on Sunday. :)

[@ThymeKeeper]

Always a good video when I get a mention :). I was really surprised about Battles for the Ardennes, but Ardennes Ii is getting a lot of good press right now. Sometimes the classic has the advantage and sometimes the recent title that people are talking about.

[@ZillaBlitz]

That matchup really did surprise me too. I think the fact that Ardennes II is an upgraded Ardennes is probably helping it too.

3:18 Although Ardennes II is quite new the SCS system has a lot of fans, especially because it is so accessible. So folks might vote for it just because of sympathy for the system (including myself 😄).

[@ZillaBlitz]

Yes, this makes sense, great point. I also think people might like the original Ardennes and are lumping the two games together, which makes sense too.

[@mikereiling7]

I'm really enjoying the Bulge Off. Hoping for a D-Day off, maybe someday?

[@ZillaBlitz]

That would be a fun one, and the June timing would be perfect.

[@PoultergeistBoardGames]

This Bulge Off has made me go out and get Ardennes II. I’m really enjoying this series and hope to see you do others. Would love to see a DVG Leader tourney, just imagine Spruance Leader vs. U-Boat Leader and Phantom Leader vs. Hornet Leader

[@ZillaBlitz]

Oh, I hope you enjoy Ardennes II! A DVG Leader tourney would be very interesting, not sure I could afford it though. :)

[@andrewheim9481]

Happy New Year!!!!!!

[@ZillaBlitz]

Happy New Year, Andrew!

[@WARdROBEPlaysWWII]

Last blitzkrieg will beat time for trumpets - Vegas is calling it now

[@ZillaBlitz]

Ha! We shall see! :)

[@patrickols]

I think that yes sometimes nostalgia may play a role in some of the choices it may not be the only thing at play in some of these choices. I do understand that I am older, probably older than a lot of people watching the channel, I am just a few clicks away from 60 😊 and I do enjoy some of the newer games i would say the ratio of my playing is roughly 70% older to 30% newer. There is a beauty and perfection to the old Avalon Hill games that is sometime lacking in the new ones. The new ones have the benefit of time and previous experience the old AH games just played so easily, they were almost perfect even if in reality they were not. I suppose that doesn’t make a lot of sense but I do feel that many of the newer games miss something from the older ones that many players notice.

[@ZillaBlitz]

I'm looking forward to digging in to some older games in 2024. I can see clear improvements made to wargames in many ways, but there is something to be said for the simplicity of older games. It's a fascinating topic.

[@vinceA3748]

Some surprises for sure. Love this series so far. Would love to see a Kursk Off and D-Day Off as well. I've learned to take BGG ratings with a grain of salt, when it comes to wargames. Bulge 81 is rated below 7, which makes those ratings very suspect to me. I always dig into the ratings comments to see why players don't like them. Sometimes their reasoning is beyond baffling. lol

[@ZillaBlitz]

I'd heard that BGG ratings are unreliable for wargames and this really has driven home the point for me. Not that they can't be helpful, mind you, but like you say, looking behind the numbers can likely tell a lot about what people are thinking. I could see older games getting hammered just for how out-of-date they look.

[@robertmoffitt1336]

Happy New Year ZB! 🎉🎊

[@ZillaBlitz]

Happy New Year to you too, Robert!

[@MountainClear]

Must be a million games on Waterloo lol…would be a classic fight… would be interested to see this after the bulge..

[@ZillaBlitz]

Napoleonics is a huge hole in my wargaming experience so far. What Waterloo game should I start with?

[@MountainClear]

That’s a good question….. so many to pick from… maybe start with just a few counters - Waterloo 20 (20 counters or less hahaha), then move up to the mid range with Hexasim Fallen Eagles and to round off look at the monster that is La Bataille Mont St Jean… and then there’s the 100s of games in between. Like the Bulge, so many options, several new ones each year… what do they say - old titles never die they just fade away lol..

[@thomassamson1432]

Fun series keep it up; putting my money on Ardennes '44 to take it all

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks! Next episode should be up this coming weekend, maybe a touch earlier. :)

[@michaelwelker8759]

Gettysburg sweet 16 would shine

[@ZillaBlitz]

Gettysburg would be fun to do, yes. Are there that many good games?

[@douglaspearson4853]

Do you think the reason for some of the older games doing so well is you have Old Grogs like me voting mor than the new blood? also some could be voting an old played the 1 game. Either way it still fun. I am willing to bet the one that wins I have never played. To let you knpw I don't vote unless I have played both games. So far I have not run into that sisuation so I feel it would be unfair for me to vote.

[@ZillaBlitz]

It's a good question, almost makes me want to do some exit interviews to hear people's thinking. Having said that, in this round the newer games are doing extremely well, relatively speaking. I'm surprised by how much fun it's been to watch things transpire. I'm extremely curious about the next round, going from 8 games to 4 games will be fun to watch.

[@bgm-1961]

Finally had an opportunity to watch... am enjoying the series so far... BUT, my main reason for commenting is over the topic regarding your audience's assessment vs the BGG ratings. More specifically, to comment about the place which BGG holds in the wargaming community as an online platform. You mentioned the going advice about taking BGG's wargame ratings with a grain of salt. And when looking at how your audience apparently isn't jiving with expectations set by BGG's ratings, it makes me wonder where (the engaged majority of) your audience "resides" online. ... I've been a casual wargamer for about 20 years. By "casual", I mean that wargaming is only one of my boardgaming interests. I spend just as much time playing games from other genres as I do wargames. But still, I have a sizable wargame collection. Thus, I spend all of my online time on BGG (where you're very popular, BTW)! By now, you've surmised that CSW is going to enter this conversation, so here we go... ... "Back in the day", I joined and tried to hang out on CSW for almost a year. For reasons best left for another conversation, I abandoned CSW to stay with BGG for all my boardgaming needs to include wargames. BUT, it's my perception that even today, the so-called "true" wargaming grognards all hangout on CSW while - to put it bluntly - thumb their noses at BGG. Hence the quip about not taking BGG's wargames seriously, because as the wisdom goes, all the "serious" wargamers are on CSW while the wargame "pretenders" are on BGG. (A bit of paraphrasing there as indicated by the air quotes, but you get the gist). ... So, getting back to the point, I wonder if most of your [engaged] audience are those wargamers who hang out on CSW and not BGG, hence might explain why their assessment of these games doesn't match BGG's ratings?

[@ZillaBlitz]

That's an interesting line of thought, for sure. Having said that, the 3 games that I seeded the highest based largely on BGG ratings are still in the tournament and doing very well. But that doesn't necessarily invalidate your point, both things could be true. :)

[@bgm-1961]

@@ZillaBlitz Very true, indeed! Thanks for responding.

[@Phalanx11]

I predict Bulge '81 will win. Played it ad nauseum! An excellent game.

[@ZillaBlitz]

It's doing very well so far, next match-up against Ardennes II will be quite interesting I think.

[@Phalanx11]

@@ZillaBlitz Thats the game my buddy Zak Attack went balls to the wall to the Meuse and I surrounded his whole army. He forgot about supply.

[@f12mnb]

It maybe that the older games have a broader base of support because more people have played it.

[@ZillaBlitz]

I definitely think a broad player base is playing a factor in how games are faring. As we get close to the end, that might not be much of a factor, as it's looking like our Final 4 will all come from larger publishers.

[@KnightofAges]

Many BoardGameGeek players are younger. That kinda skews the ratings towards newer games, since they don't know the older ones.

[@ZillaBlitz]

Yeah, that could be. I'm not sure I understand how the ratings are formed and end up the way they do.

[@thegrogshed]

I don't think there will be many close results in this next round. The winning margins might be quite big.

[@ZillaBlitz]

It's looking like you might be right, some pretty big gaps so far.

[@ronaldnickelson2130]

Make it a double-elimination contest?

[@ZillaBlitz]

That'd be fun, but with 20 games I think it'd end up taking quite a bit more time and videos. :)

[@BrianMarcus-nz7cs]

Oh this is excellent entertainment , next best b bulge why not try Non hex and counter bulge games,,,blitz, interested,,,,, btw try Colombia games , Napoleon block wargame that a good start for the waterloo bulge off suggested earlier,,,,, hallo ✍️⚡👍

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying it. There are (well, were) two area movement games in the competition, and I wanted to stick to historical conflict games, so that eliminated more casual tabletop games covering the Bulge. I'm not sure I'll be doing a Waterloo series like this soon, it was more to find 1 or 2 games to pick up for myself at the moment. Maybe in the future, though. :)

[@ericneff9908]

I just don't understand the love for Dean Essig's BCS series. I've played two of them and thought the design was terrible and barely playable. I must be missing something.

[@ZillaBlitz]

Not everything resonates with everyone. I've played a few games that have gotten high praise and just felt flat to me as well.

[@johnloy9331]

Realistically a lot of people voting on games they really don't know much about .

[@ZillaBlitz]

Probably, for sure? Hard to tell definitively, but views to votes is 9 to 1 on the first video and about 5 to 1 on the 2nd, so a lot of people watching who have decided for whatever reasons to abstain from voting. A number of comments from people mentioning that they are only voting on a sub-section of the match-ups because they don't know the games.

[@Michel_Vanaken]

The "attention to details" in Deadly Woods... Sorry, but I have to disagree. Some places have very strange names, especially if you live not far from them and speak French and/or German. The system is good, but the game needs a second edition.

[@ZillaBlitz]

Interesting, thanks for sharing. :)