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Wargames with Odd or Special Units
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I love chrome in wargames, but I mostly favour the kind of chrome that actually has some sort of in-game impact. This is often effected in wargames with strange or singular units that have a specific purpose. This list also includes those games that have units that have a trivial impact on the game, but adds at least a little to the game experience. To qualify, the game's odd units should be a particular exception. For a contrary example, Divine Right, one of my favourite games, is heavily made up of "strange" units. As a result, strange becomes mundane, thus Divine Right doesn't qualify. Neither do the Fedaykin or the Sardaukar units in the brilliant game Dune because they're relatively plentiful for special units. The ones below are the only ones I could think of off the cuff. I just know that there are dozens of wargames with the rare weird little unit amongst a tapestry of standard-category pieces. For example, I have a vague recollection of a police unit for Lichtenstein that only offered token resistance in some monster WW2 Europe game, but I can't recall exactly which one.
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Posted Fri Mar 21, 2008 6:47 am
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If you look really careful at the image you'll see the unit I'm referring to a little left and up from the centre of the countersheet. The "ST" with a silhouette of an unprotected human and the factors of 0.1.2 -- that's the Special Talent mentioned in Heinlein's novel of the same name. This unit is able to detect Arachnid tunnel construction out to a range of five spaces, if I recall correctly.
Neat unit, very vulnerable and very useful, just like in the book. The Arachnids always want to kill this unit and the Terrans really need to keep it alive.
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You can spot this unit on the countersheet at the bottom (as oriented) and to the right, just next to the Beachhead (BH) counter. It's a British 1-2 unit, with a Ghurka Kukri in the unit type box. That's the Chindit unit, and it can be used to great effect against the Japanese by cutting off supply, just like it was historically. The second time I played EotRS with the same opponent, he was so throughly exasperated by this innocuous looking little unit that he expended vast BRPs to mount a Chindit extermination campaign. He succeeded too, but at a hideous cost. At that point he didn't care, he just didn't want the damn thing flitting around Burma mucking with his plans.
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You'll have to look very closely for this one. There's a German unit, third row from the bottom, just left of centre. It's a 2-3, and there's bird wings in the unit type box. That's a Luftwaffe Infantry unit, referred to as "Luftwaffe Field Divisions" in history texts. These were used on the Eastern front to protect airfields from the Russians, and were generally poorly trained and equipped. Certainly in the game this unit is one of the poorest that the Germans have in their OOB. It has no special abilities, but I always was amused by its inclusion.
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4.
Board Game: 1776
[Average Rating:6.39 Overall Rank:1177]
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Very bottom, left hand side, you'll see four counters with an "I" in the unit type box. These are Indian tribes that fought on the side of the British. They merely add colour to the game and have no special abilities, other than being removed as casualties before the Tory Militia or British Regulars.
I had always thought that they deserved rules that allowed them to ambush the American Militia or Continental Army.
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5.
Board Game: War at Sea 2
[Average Rating:6.39 Unranked]
[Average Rating:6.39 Unranked]
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Bottom right of the light blue units you'll find the Italian Frogmen. What a weird little thing to add to the game, but to occasional great effect. In one game of Yahtzee at Sea I managed to lose the HMS Duke of York by frogman attack, which completely changed the balance of power in the Med. Dammit.
Frogmen may seem like sort-of-limited U-boats, but I seem to remember that you could also attack ships in port with them.
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Centre right of the countersheet are three Imperial (yellow) units labelled "Resolution," "Peacemaker," and "Planetary Stabilizer." These are the most powerful pieces in the game on the Imperial side. The first two, with a special gas and hypnosis rays can lock the Loyalty track for a planet's population. When one of the two are in orbit, rebellion is not possible for that planet's populace. The third sister vessel "stabilizes" a planet by causing its core to stop rotating, which causes the crust to fly off along with the civilizations on that planet. Niiiice.
As an aside, just above the three are two "Suicide Squads." These are simply units that automatically eliminate all Rebel characters in an environ. Wicked.
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The camel unit. Counts as mechanized for combined arms in an attack.
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The infamous Naughty Jennie counter. If a Confederate unit moves into the space they lose a number of turns equal to the unit's strength. If Robert E Lee enters the space you roll a 6 sided dice to see if Lee dies of a heart attack!
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The game designer has his own counter.
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The game designer's grandfather. If he dies in battle... no game designer and no game.
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The Leichtenstien unit is in the left center of this sheet.I beleave it also has a special rule that if a soviet unit is adjacent to it you role a die to see if it surrenders and the (prince or whoever) flees to his ranch in Texas or it fights to the death.
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Beware the mighty MINE DOG!!
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Leftmost piece in the fourth row: an infantry unit! What's that doing in this game? Of course, the bottle of Vino in the row above it needs no explanation.
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15.
Board Game: DAK2
[Average Rating:8.31 Overall Rank:504]
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10th Armata Mobile Bordello
From the rulebook:
Quote:
6.2s The Bordello. (Historically Occurred). The 10 Armata Mobile Bordello (24 women)was a unit captured at Beda Fomm. It appears here only to show the luxury with which Italian officers lived in during the initial campaign. Use any desired Mobile Bordello Rule. :-)
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There's one unusual unit in this game - top left on the pic is Adolf Hitler himself. A rather inefrfectual 6-0 leader unit..
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As a war, it was a good one - quickly over. As a game it was really boring, all one sided and not much to challenge the player. So... how about adding in the Iraqi Death Ray unit, or even Godzilla himself?
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Visible middle bottom of this pic is the one bit of frivolity in an otherwise gruellingly detailed game - the Dragon. Apparently there was a UFO in other versions too, but mine only has the Dragon.
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There is a single Hittite Scout unit in this game, whose sole purpose is to find the fords across the Orontes river.
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Posted Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:59 pm
How about having the 'articles' from "the General" magazines that provided yet some MORE kinds of 'oddball' Units? Anyone got these?
You managed to take Leningrad ? 
