Brand New Game For 'Real' Gamers ...

[350kilotons]

Alessio Cavatore (GW Deasign Studio - credits include Lord of the Rings - Strategy Battle Game, Warhammer 40,000 5th Edition, Warhammer 40,000 Assault On Black Reach and Mordheim) has released a game based on chess called Shuuro. Available in the UK from Wargames Inc (coincidentally my local games shop run by a good mate of mine) it sounds really good. I spoke with Alessio last Thursday about it and it seems to be a great blend of modern wargaming and chess. I'll be buying one and if you're in the neighborhood pop by and have a chat.

[olblue]

Rob Bage!

[TwiiK]

is it HD?

[350kilotons]

no, it's in RL.

[solarkid]

RL is better than 1080p, for those who don't know.

[InProgress]

Lies, i tell you! Lies!

[Kristopher_Lee]

TREE FITY KEELOTUNS ROX!!


Won't be in the neighborhood anytime soon so do one up for me.

[350kilotons]

Only because I follow your example, Kris. I'll be playing Alessio in a week's time so I'll tell you all how I beat the game's designer ... err ... how it went.

[350kilotons]

Ok, so I got to get an early game against Alessio 'The Annihilator' Cavatore last Friday. After getting the stock into the shop Alessio bought us all cake and Dave (Wargames Inc manager) cracked open the demo copy. Initial impressions are great. You get a 12x12 board that folds down into quarters, 2 bags of plastic chess pieces (big bags), 8 terrain blocks and 2d6, along with a multi-lingual rulebook. The board also has a regular chess board printed on the reverse side if you want to go 'old school'. The rules of Shuuro take up a page and a half, the other half page has some variant gametypes, including a 200 point game played with 2 terrain blocks on a quarter of the board.

You get 800 points to buy your force (we played with the example force in the book) and the regular chess deployment comes in at about 600 points. You dice to set up the terrain, then dice to see who deploys first, deploying each piece in turn, starting with the obligatory king. You can get enough forces to deploy into the third row, but only the Royal pieces (King, Knight, Bishop etc) can deploy on the back row. You then dice to see who goes first and play chess. There's no castling and pawns deployed on the third row cannot make the normal double initial move but that's all.

Unfortunately for me, I suck at chess. I know how each piece moves, but that's about it. As a result, I inadvertantly cheated (took a pawn with my bishop, handily changing squares from black to white to do so) and when Alessio encouraged me to use the bish in question (I just left him on the white square) I took one of his pawns and scuppered an attacking move he was making. All this availed me nought as Alessio handily won, but it was a bloody game with me taking 90% of his pieces and him taking 99% of mine.

It's a fantastic game, it makes chess fun without destroying what chess is. The planned expansion, Turanga, is a 4 player 2v2 variant where you can't actually talk to your team-mate during the game (like Bridge). It's available in the UK from Wargames Inc, who are the UK distributers. £30 is the introductory price, but it's really cool and worth more in my opinion. You guys in the US can get it from Diamond Comics or from Dave, I imagine.

Thanks for letting me bend your ears about this, I hope you get yourselves copies and join the Shuuro revolution!!

[Kristopher_Lee]

Sounds fun. I like chess personally and find that some of the "chess-like" alternatives mock the genuine strategy game that it is and turn it into a cheeseball strategy. But this sounds cool.