I’m a nerd, through and through. But I also love sports. Growing up in south Florida in the 80’s, we spent many a hot summer afternoon playing baseball until the rain forced us inside for a while. In Autumn, we spent many a hot south Florida afternoon playing football – until the rain forced us in for a while. You get it. South Florida was hot. And it rained a lot. I’m sure it still is/does. Not to be thwarted by Mother Nature, we would continue our on field competition at the table top. I’m sure I spent a few days’ worth of hours playing Strat-O-Matic Football. Heck, at one point my friends and I created our own baseball game that consisted of drawing random tiles out of a bag (hits, outs, etc.). We played game after game, compiling stats even. Nerds.
Since I returned to table top gaming a few years back, I’ve been looking for some fun table top sports games to play. I have found, unfortunately, that the cross-pollination between board gamers and sports fans is slight, at best. I guess I have John Madden to thank for that. (Boom! Tinactin! I digress). In the last few months, however, I got hold of two baseball games and one football game. Here’s what I think about them.
1st & Goal – R&R Games, 2-4 Players.
I had seen this game around, but frankly, the cover kind of turned me off. It looks a bit too adolescent to be a serious football game. But after meeting the guys from R&R Games at a convention and hearing their spiel, I decided to take a shot. I’m glad I did. While the game is not stat heavy like I remember Strat-O-Matic, it still provides the thrill of trying to call a play that your opponent is not expecting and watching your defense shut down his play or see your running back break away for a big gain.
The mechanics are pretty simple. There is an offense deck and a defense deck that are shared by the players. You draw a random hand of possible plays and then “call” one of those plays, comparing it to the results on the card your opponent plays. The results indicate which dice are then rolled to gain or lose yards, cause a turnover, or possibly get a penalty. That’s pretty much it. It’s like football smarts, meets the card game War, meets dice chucking. Frankly, for an hour or so of game play, it feels like a solid, surface-deep simulation of a football game. A little strategy and some luck, just like actual football. One of the cool things R&R did is release packs of dice that represent different teams. The dice for those teams are tailored to different strengths and weaknesses, like bad defense with a good passing game, or some other combo. This gives players the ability to choose teams that might fit their coaching personality. In 1985 we would have had our own teams and played a whole season. I sure hope this is happening somewhere right now….
Is 1st & Goal a game that simulates every nuance of football? Not even close, but if you want to sit down and match coaching wits and chuck some dice with a real person (instead of chucking bombs in Madden) then this is a great way to do it. Check it out.
Bottom of the 9th – Dice Hate Me Games – 1-2 Players.
Bottom of The 9th is an excellent simulation of the last half inning of a baseball game. The art is tremendous as well. The player cards come in a foil pack with a fake stick of gum, like the old days. There is a board that looks like a baseball diamond and there are meeple runners to put on the bases when the home team gets a hit. The game play is rather simple in concept, but if you know baseball, then it really is genius. The game is tied and it’s the bottom of the ninth. The away team was the clear favorite to win the game, and if gets into extra innings, there is little doubt they will capture the victory. It’s the home team’s last real chance to win the game. All they need is one run.
The home team picks six players for a lineup. The away team has a starting pitcher and a reliever, just in case. Each player gets two tokens. One token has a high and low side. The other has an inside and outside side. Players start with a stare down. Each secretly chooses the orientation of their two tokens. Then they reveal. If the batter guessed wrong, maybe low and inside, while the pitch was high and outside, then the odds are in the pitcher’s favor that there will be no contact, and probably strike one. That’s the basic idea. Once the stare down occurs, each player rolls a dice or two, and sees if the batter took a strike, a ball, or made contact. If a strike or a ball, then the result is recorded and you do the stare down again. If there is contact before the batter is walked or struck out, then the players simultaneously roll their own six sided die repeatedly until someone rolls a 5 or a 6 and yells out “safe” if you’re the batter, or “out” if you’re the pitcher. This continues until either 3 outs – away team wins, or a run is scored – home team wins.
There are a few more mechanics to the game, but that is pretty much it. Bottom of The 9th plays in about 30 minutes, maybe less. But you’d be hard pressed to find a game that can thematically capture the feeling of baseball in so short a time. Pitcher versus Batter. Mind games, dexterity, luck. It’s all there. The best parts of the game without 3 plus hours of spitting, scratching, and commercials. I really love this game and find myself wanting to platy it as often as any other game I own.
Baseball Highlights: 2045 – Eagle-Gryphon Games, 1-4 Players.
BH: 2045 is a valiant attempt at combining the entertainment needs of nerds and jocks in one game. The premise is, it is 2045 and baseball had run its entertainment course years ago, until they started adding robot and cyborg players into the mix! That’s right, you start with a team of players made up of robots, cyborgs, and naturals (humans that are still somehow able to match skills with their more-than-human competition) – you know, like Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa. Too soon? Anyway, you take your starting deck of players and over the course of a few games, draft new players into your deck (a deckbuilding mechanic) and send the lesser players to rot in the minor leagues. As the teams get stronger, more ridiculous abilities appear. For the most part, robots are great hitters, able to get multiple hits in one at bat. Cyborgs are excellent pitchers. Naturals tend to be jacks of all trades.
Game play consists of opponents taking turns playing a card from their hand of six, each draw tries to answer the text of the other’s card. For instance, player one plays a robot that “threatens” two singles. The opponent then plays a cyborg that cancels one single by a robot player and threatens its own double. That means the first card played ends up being a single (one of them got canceled) and the first player puts a runner on first base. Now it’s the first player’s turn again and they try to play a card that will cancel the second player’s threatened double while threatening another hit of their own. After six cards are played by each opponent, the game ends and the player with the most runs scored wins. Then players use the money value of the cards played to draft free agents into their decks. Then you draw 6 new cards and go again. The idea is you do three games/drafts before starting a best of seven World Series.
I have to say, this game should be more well known than it is. You don’t really have to know much about baseball to play it, but if you do have some knowledge, the game is really thematic. Players have funny names that combine famous real players, for instance, Barry Sosa. The artwork is cool, with stuff like robots having multiple bats in their multiple hands. The drafting of players has a management feel to it and lets you take your generic starting team and give it your stamp. Like lots of cyborgs? Fine. Well, sometimes the naturals tend to counter those, so if your opponent keeps drafting naturals, you might need to diversify and add some different types of players. The game plays relatively quickly (under an hour for the World Series) and really does a great job of marrying table top gaming with sports. I think this game is a gem.
Well, that’s it. I really wish there were more games for sports loving table toppers out there, but I guess the market dictates what games people want. For now I will continue my quest and be thankful that these three games exist. Try them out and let me know what you think. Also, what other sports table top games do you like that are already out there?
Thanks for reading, and keep on nerding on.
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