HAMTAG: Top 5 War Games From 2010-Present Bonding With Board Games

Join Greg (Sorry I left out your name in the introduction), Judd and Bart, the Half As Much Twice As Good (HAMTAG) crew as they discuss their Top 5 War Games from 2010 to present.

[@turks1966]

No complaints here with what you talk about, just hearing a discussion about war games is a joy to hear, keep up the great work guys. :)

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Thanks Eric.

[@Underdog77]

Just wanted to say how much I like the Bonding with Board Games channel, and I particularly like the HAMTAG segments. You guys give great reviews, look like you really have fun with it, and look like you'd all be fun to play games with.

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Thanks Underdog77. If you're ever in the Wichita area let us know.

[@TrevorJust]

So needed to be a top 15. Criminally missing from the list. US Civil War, Churchill, Julius Caesar, Navajo Wars, Field Commander: Napoleon, Pericles, Gettysburg, We Must Tell The Emperor & Plan Orange to name a few... What a great decade thus far, and fantastic list gentlemen

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Thanks Trevor. Part of the fun for me is sifting it down to just 5 and it keeps things snappy.

[@flycasual2976]

Ya, Julius Caesar is a bloody masterpiece. In my top 10 of all time.

[@elcarto22]

Judd, thanks for your plugs of my map for Worthy's Gettysburg 150, which is also based on the 'Hold the Line' series. They'll be using my map for the second edition if it gets enough prepubs. Also, Tiny Battles/Hollandspiel publishes both the 'Horse and Musket' and their 'Table Battles' series based on 'W1815' - and, for starving artists like me with crafty skills but little money, they have them all in P&P versions!

[@andrewmcdonald1166]

Always a nice treat to see there is a new HAMTAG video, another entertaining show as always. It should be interesting to see how the lists from the different decades compare.

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Thanks Andrew. I agree it will be interesting.

[@farmermaggott]

You guys are the absolute best...yet another fantastic video...thanks!

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Thanks Anthony!

[@charlesrowan1978]

Great to see all three of you> Thanks for vids.

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Thank you Rowan

[@e-4airman124]

thanks been awhile glad your back

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Thank you.

[@paulcomben5378]

Great entertainment, and really interesting to see so many choices beyond the standard hex and counter fare.

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Thanks Paul

[@rodnarok5699]

Happy HAMTAG New Year, brothers! Good to see you all looking healthy and having fun! Bart seemed especially jolly (hic)! ;) As ever, great video and an inspiration to look into games I passed by (1989) or had never heard of (Festung Europa). I'm looking forward to future installments in this "Best of the Decade" series. Rock on, fellas! PS: Greg-->TAMHAG-->Za-Zang! Funny stuff, man.

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Boom! Thanks Phillips it’s a fun show. I’m almost always talkative and in good spirits...see what I did there? Check out the Scotch Test Dummies show for further proof.

[@Panzersonor1967]

"TAMHAG" Greg is hilarious! You guys are the best. Need some HAMTAG tshirts!

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Hmmm...If I can get some time I may work on that.

[@e-4airman124]

Once in a while I wish you would show the game boards and accessories with games.

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

I understand. Maybe after I retire from the day job

[@overtured]

Great list! Around 4 from my list, mixed from all 3 of you. Nice!

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Thanks for watching Rafael.

[@redblackmonkey]

Caveat! This needs to be updated at the end of the decade! I have as feeling the next couple years will bring us some outstanding war games!

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Great point

[@paintballinrn]

Great as usual, My top 5 and mainly because these are ones I've actually played that fit the requirement. Normandy '44, really enjoy this one hope to play more of simonitch's games. Washington's War. Loved We the people and upgraded to this one and love it even more. Company of Heroes; got this one because of Bert's recommendation and enjoy it a lot, its a nice low complexity platoon level game. Liberty of Death. My first go at COIN and my friends enjoyed it a lot as well. Doolittle raid; Got this off p500 and it was one of my first solo games that I could really get into. Keep up the good work guys.

[@Caratacus1]

Great vid guys thanks you gave me some ideas for my next game. Just FYI Judd it's pronounced 'Way-Vell'. He was an interesting character, pulling off one of the great campaigns of all time when his thirty thousand men attacked and destroyed the Italian 10th Army of a hundred thousand men plus. A sensitive man, he liked poetry for example, but that didn't stop him standing up to Churchill with some home truths about some of Churchill's wilder ideas. Inevitably he was sacked because of it :D

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Thanks Super. Great comment.

[@michaelmelen9062]

I had to pause this while I put on a hat. Great video, as always!

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Bam! Thanks Melen

[@jimkrohn8330]

HAMTAG! Thanks, Judd, you're the best. Stop by any time!

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Hey Jim. This is Bart. I've been doing some live shows with designers and such. Would you be interested in being a guest?

[@jimkrohn8330]

Sure. I would be happy too. Warning - I'm sloppy on checking Facebook. Message me so that we can exchange other ways to communicate also.

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Same with me on FB. I’ll send a message via BGG

[@Darthvegeta8000]

@Bonding With Board Games: for Quest of the Rudis, the 2nd kickstarter saw the expansions. It got finished but shortly after the KS the creator himself regretfully passed away. Friend and family I believe finished the KS shipping and stuff though. It's a good game but prone to rules discussion and need a bit of rulesrewriting. The creator was quite responsive though. Regretfully a cleanup and further expansion of the system is highly unlikely to happen... for obvious reasons. Glad to see you giving some well deserved tribute to this game in any case!!!

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Jim is still alive and I just talked with him via Email. The owner of the company that put out Quest for the Rudis did pass away and was fairly young. I just ordered all the expansion decks available on Jim's web page. A bit pricey but I love this game and wanted to make sure I had as much content as possible. More on those cards when they come in.

[@juddvance7721]

A note on that Washington's War strategy that I neglected to add: my opponent opened up with Continental Mutiny card, so that handful of 1's screwed me over. I brought Arnold and Lincoln on board and then moved Washington out to Detroit to clobber that unit. Fortunately, my opponent had Ben Franklin and just like that the French meter is up to 5. I was doing what Washington did at Trenton: I fought a strategically meaningless, but winnable battle whose victory carried beyond the battlefield.

[@andraslibal]

I played 1989 Dawn of Freedom - I like Twilight Struggle I play it on the board and on steam as well - 1989 is like Twilight Struggle but with a sense of inevitability hanging over each country, once it scores and becomes free, it is free ... the power struggles add a nice interesting dynamic to it that is new compared to TS. Also it has a personal touch for me as I grew up in communism and I lived through these events as a child, and I know some of the characters mentioned I heard Tokes Laszlo preach (he is one of the cards in this game). It is a smaller part of the world and a shorter period of the cold war but it has more detail and intricacy to it.

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Great comment Andras. Thanks you.

[@adamcfmacdonald]

Agree on A Few Acres. The game gets unnecessary (and unfair) dismissal.

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

It’s simply a box of fun.

[@pallas100]

Hamtag Rocks!

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

👍

[@tomknight1759]

Another great video. Any chance for you all doing a WWI show for 2018? All the best,

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

I doubt it. I’m very weak there. Chief

[@juddvance7721]

Ditto here. I mentioned Red Poppies in a video. Paths of Glory, although it is a bad sim. If you want really good recommendations, check with user hedererp on BGG. The dude's passion is WWI. I checked with him when I was looking into trading for The Lamps are Going Out.

[@tomknight1759]

Here is what we KNOW: Greg likes Wings for the Baron and Kaiser's Pirates; Bart I THINK liked the Memoir '44 WWI game; and YOU like Dawn Patrol, will most LIKELY approve of MH's Wilson game on Treaty of Versailles, and Gilbert Collins gave a POSITIVE review of The Lamps are Going out. Perhaps throw in Pandemic for the Spanish Flu epidemic, and from all this, perhaps, a video COULD be produced.

[@juddvance7721]

Yeah, Paul didn't have very good things to say about Lamps. Said it was a good game, but WWI it ain't: units move way too fast for what the technology would allow and Soviet OOB is so far off it makes Austria-Hungary more powerful than they were. I took a pass on it. I have Castle Risk if I want fun, simple, and non-historical (Kind of like Diplomacy, although I hate that game). But in the end, my list would be so bad, it wouldn't be worth the time to film or watch. Just not interested enough in the topic enough to pursue many games on it.

[@tomknight1759]

Ok, Ok, I hear you. I guess I will have to retreat to my fallback position: a live game of Hamtag playing Here I Stand! :)

[@freddieyu]

Wow..lots of crossover with my chocies! I have the Band of Brothers family, Conflict of Heroes Family, Sekigahara the Unification of Japan, Hands in the Sea / A Few Acres of Snow (similar system), and the Birth of America Series (1775 is my fave). Just a comment with Time of Crisis. It has 1 key difference as a deckbuilder, and that is you can CHOOSE the cards for your next hand and that mitigates the luck of the draw. You can't use those cards again though until you re shuffle your discard pile back to your draw deck.

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Interesting mechanism

[@reptar33]

Is Washington:screaming in the sea still available? I can't find it.

[@juddvance8104]

You got to know where to look...

[@reptar33]

Any hints? lol

[@michaelmelen9062]

All right. Judd has just caused a great pain in my wallet. Funagain Games is having a Valentine's Day sale (so less pain than usual), and I took the Mark Herman plunge. "Washington's War" and "For the People" are headed my way. Can't wait!

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Boom! You went all in Michael.

[@michaelrinella6384]

If this was a bar, I'd buy bacon shots for everyone! Hamtag!

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Just a nice Ardbeg 10 for Bart please.

[@g0dplay]

I support the video idea... Best player aids, or best done rulebooks!

[@essayons7]

So now I have to find copies of Rebel Raiders and Horse and Musket - you guys are a bad influence! :-)

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Bad HAMTAG bad.

[@juddvance8104]

Rebel Raiders is on BGG Marketplace for about $25 and is pretty easy to get in trades. I just did 3 weeks ago. Horse & Musket will be a bit tougher. At this point, it's retail. There is a 2nd game out in the series now.

[@edmundbloxam2714]

Also, what it is with those tiny bottles of water? Apart from the fact, why do bottles of water that tiny even exist, HOW IS THE CHIEF CONSTANTLY DRINKING FROM IT. I wanna get some some of that eternal water source.

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Lol...you should see my fishes and loaves gaming night.

[@Aranubis]

The spiritual successor of Hold the Line is called Horse and Musket, published by Hollandspiele. There are already 2 Volumes a third will follow.

[@juddvance8104]

I think I recognize your name: you are the guy I mention who made all of those fan-created scenarios for Frederick's War, correct?

[@Aranubis]

yes, i sent you once some of my scenarios. Thanks for mentioning the game and my stuff in your video.

[@juddvance8104]

No problem. You did amazing work. Heck, you even did some spiffy stuff on my Vassal module and that one is one of my all-time favorites.

[@Aranubis]

If anyone is interested: www.vassalengine.org/wiki/Module:Hold_the_Line:_Bella_Gerant_Alii It doesn't include all custom battles, but a good number.

[@vonholdinghausen6886]

Love Love Love :)

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Thanks Holdinghausen

[@juddvance7721]

After being in 3 videos, Greg's influence was too much to overcome and I traded for Rebel Raiders last month.

[@acolyteoforcus7353]

Love the Dream Theater shirt Judd

[@juddvance8104]

Sweet! About 2 weeks before they were in Wichita celebrating the 25th anniversary of "Images and Words" by going to every city they toured at back in 1992. They did a 3 hour show that included the entire Images and Words record and their encore song was "A Change of Seasons" (all 24 minutes of it). Mike Mangini did a drum solo that still makes me shake.

[@checkrazor76]

Hot damn, HAMTAG !!!

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Booyah!

[@DeerHunter308]

Hit the like but, now I know why Scott rolls his eyes.

[@gregschmittgens1262]

Why? And who is Scott?

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Martin is a super Scotch God fan of the Scotch Test Dummies. Scott is my CoHost and ribs me for my oversized game collection on air. bart

[@gregschmittgens1262]

He rolls his eyes at your games and you still record with him!?!

[@flycasual2976]

HAMTAG!!!

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

HAMTAG!!!!!

[@douglaspearson1647]

A couple of games I enjoy that were not mentioned are the No Retreat: African & Italian Front. I also disagree with Judd but I really enjoy Fire In The Lake. I find it a more a Political War game and educational for the feel of what was going on.

[@juddvance8104]

Did I even mention FitL in this video?

[@douglaspearson1647]

Past Videos

[@juddvance7721]

I don't disagree that it is a Political War game and educational. I think it's the only game that allows you to look at the interaction of the factions involved, which is what Great One set out to do.

[@douglaspearson1647]

I guess I got the wrong impression

[@MisterChris1978]

HAMTAG!!!!!!!!!! WOOT! WOOT!

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

HAMTAG!!!!!!!!

[@LORDJAVI131]

HAMTAG!!

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

HAMTAG!!!!!

[@bradford2177]

HAMTAG!

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

HAMTAG!!!!

[@tptangenivy28]

Boom!!!

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Ahh...whisky language. Bam!

[@thomassanderson7927]

Isn't Washingtons War a re skin of We the People so not really post 2010

[@gregschmittgens1262]

That's a valid argument IMO. But the changes to WW (primarily discarding event cards for PC manipulation and die-roll combat, with event card modifiers, instead of battle deck combat) make it a different game. At least different enough for this list.

[@juddvance8104]

Tore down the combat rules and completely re-wrote them. Changed the victory conditions. Changed the means by which the French join. Changed French naval rules. Added more forts. Changed the ratings on the generals and some of the cards in the deck along with the combat card rules and the "purchase an opponents discard" rule. It's a different game, although the foundation is the same.

[@thomassanderson7927]

Judd Vance so thats no then ☺

[@ErwinLau]

Rewatched

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Excellent

[@jameshalleluyah8133]

Risk Legacy I'm naming a place Otisburg! kzbin.info/www/bejne/oaKnYaOnebR0qs0

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Sounds like a fun town to party!!!!

[@jimsmith7445]

Great HAMTAG guys....love the dark shirts like a team... Cool... LOVE the camp shirts, Greg! Keep up these HAMTAGS... by the generations... I'm totally into this.

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Thanks Jim.

[@thegrogshed]

TAMHAG!!

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

No!!!!!! Lol.

[@jimsmith7445]

OK... what a list of games I've almost never heard of. Must be me! Kind of hard to believe that there are NO DVG games (Warfighter, Field Commander Napoleon, Apache Leader), or Columbia Games (block games) on the list. Chief... I would have thought that "The Great War" or Linenowa might have made your list.. NO? Well... those games were a surprise... with the exception of the #1 COIN game ( I have that one).

[@juddvance8104]

I'm not a big fan of DVG. I have sold/traded most of them. Columbia only put out 5 that qualifies. Julius Caesar did make my top 10. The other 4 aren't that highly regarded - not like their epic classics, like Hammer, Eastfront, Rommel, and Napoleon (by the way: Napoleon is a 1974 design, so I didn't include the 4th edition).

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

Top 5 from 2010- present means by default the list will be pretty exclusive. What’s your list Jim? The ones you mentioned?