Hexed And Countered

Tag: Basketball

  • March Madness (Avalon Hill) — Playthrough

    March Madness (Avalon Hill) — Playthrough

    To wargamers, Avalon Hill is holy ground — the company that more or less invented the hobby. Less remembered is that they also made a run of excellent sports games, and March Madness, their college basketball title, is one of the better ones. In this playthrough I put it on the table and see how well the old warhorse runs.

    Tempo, matchups, and the upset

    College basketball is the right sport for a board game because it’s built around tempo and matchups — exactly the levers a good design can put in your hands. March Madness lets you control the pace, exploit a mismatch, and sweat the kind of late-game possessions that make the real tournament what it is. It carries that Avalon Hill DNA a wargamer will recognize instantly: clean systems, meaningful choices, and just enough chrome to make it sing.

    Classic and modern sports sims, played through in full. Subscribe for the next tip-off.

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  • Review: Highlight Maker Hoops

    Review: Highlight Maker Hoops

    HIGHLIGHT MAKER HOOPS: Nothin’ but net

    Highlight Maker Hoops

    I’m a big fan of Keith Avallone and PLAAY Games. I have several of Keith’s games, ranging from Second Season Football to History Maker Baseball, Hockey Blast and Red, White & Blue Racing. I love them all so I jumped at the opportunity to pre-order Keith’s latest offering, Highlight Maker Hoops. I am pleased to report that Keith and PLAAY Games have yet another entry in their growing catalog of outstanding games.

    I must admit that there was some trepidation on my part while I (briefly) debated pre-ordering. This was a “highlight” engine and not something that was going to generate a full, or even partial, slate of statistics. Stats are the sine non qua for sports gamers, and I’m no different. However, as I was already fully cognizant of the talent and ingenuity of Mr. Avallone, I felt safe in taking the plunge.

    BOXING OUT

    What’s in the box you might? Well, you get the usual assortment of PLAAY Games goodies, all constructed of their typically solid quality materials.

    Specifically, what you’ll find inside the now-standard colorful PLAAY sleeved box :

    • The always essential, and well-written rules booklet
    • A set of charts for determining the score
    • Two sets of strategy cards
    • A game board with boxes for each team’s lineup and bench, surrounded by the scoring track for each team
    • A double-sided gamer’s aid board with one side for the FAC deck and discards plus three tables and the other side featuring the final minute “minigame” where you can play out the last 60 ticks of the clock using dice and the player cards.
    • A set of player cards covering the final four squads in the most recently completed pro season.
    • A note, hand signed by Keith, with notes about the game. My note, as a pre-order, had tidbits about the use of the strategy cards, which were inadvertently left out of rules booklet. 

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