Charlie Don't Surf

Last night I finally managed to get a game in of Charlie Don't Surf. For a first outing it was a lot of fun ( I played the role of the umpire).

However there were a few thoughts that came up when playing or trying to play.

The first is that the rulebook is a bit of a muddle when first playing the game and trying to work your way around it for certain aspects or abilities of your troops.
The playsheets help but I think it would be an idea to also have a summery section of how the game deck starts and when you add cards in (all this is in the book but each bit is under its own section which means you have to have read the book cover to cover and remember where something is mentioned etc).
The second aspect is that the wording is sometimes not that clear on intent. Which is fine with an umpire but could cause some issues.

Once the game gets going it does tend to flow however and doesn't feel like it takes forever to resolve something.

The scenario we played was from the expansion and was the Great Rice Hunt. This proved a lot of fun but we needed a bit more cover. Was interesting to see how players that are used to only using army lists and having what they want, handled the situation.
The blinds added another dimension to the game as well. However due to where both sides had opted to deploy they actually ran straight into each other so there wasn't much opportunity for sneaky manoeuvring. This led the game in the direction of a very messy firefight.

The end result was an overwhelming victory to the VC forces both with a military and a political victory. If the game had carried on it might have swung in the favour of the US forces for a military victory.

Either way was a fun first game with plenty of mistakes made. Next game should be interesting as I know the rules a bit better now and can introduce further aspects.

No pictures again this week (mainly because the terrain is not fully finished so wouldn't make for a good look photo).