Modest Microgame Auction, Update #2B
FanmailAPH
TWO NEW ITEMS ADDED!
Lots #1 to 12 in Part A
Lots #13 to 24 in Part B
A mixed lot of smaller games, some very choice true microgames, some odd cult
favorites, and a few folio games snuck in to fill out the lots. Condition
varies from utterly mint to merely good playing copies with bagged counters, so
read a game's description before you decide to plunk down your bids.
Send all replies to Fanma...@aol.com
CURRENT BID STATUS:
Bearhug Publications
1.) Zulu: Rorke's Drift, 1974
raven@ 1/15/99 10:05:05 AM EST $8.00
Game Designers' Workshop:
2.) Asteroid, #412, 1980
raven@ 1/13/99 9:40:27 AM EST $8.00
Mayfair Games
3.) Wake Island, #008, 1981
MNM18605@ 1/13/99 10:52:06 AM EST $11.00
Metagaming
4.) Metahistory #2, The Trojan War, #5202, 1981
raven@ 1/13/99 9:40:27 AM EST $12.00
5.) Microgame #7, Olympica, 1978
fengshui1@ 1/14/99 3:40:01 PM EST $5.00
6.) Microgame #11, Sticks and Stones, # 03-1-011, 1978
dligon@ 1/15/99 5:26:54 PM EST $5.00
7.) MicroGame 14: Annihilator/One World, #, 1979
Minimum Bid: $2.00
8.) MicroGame #21, Starleader Assault, #3121, 1982
WarPlayer@ 1/13/99 9:38:35 PM EST $3.00
9.) Microhistory #1, Rommel's Panzers, #3301, 1980
Minimum Bid: $8.00
10.) Microhistory #2, Ram Speed, #3302, 1980
WarPlayer@ 1/13/99 9:38:35 PM EST $4.00
11.) Microhistory #3, Stalin's Tanks, #3303, 1980
Minimum Bid: $8.00
12.) MicroQuest #3, Grail Quest, #3203, 1980
Minimum Bid: $4.00
13.) MicroQuest #8, Orb Quest, #3208, 1982
Minimum Bid: $5.00
SPI
14.) The Battle of Austerlitz, #3050, 1980
Minimum Bid: $6.00
15.) Cauldron, Battle of Gazala, May 1942, #XCL, 1976
Craig85226@ 1/13/99 8:24:27 AM EST $6.00
16.) Space Capsule #1: The Creature That Ate Sheboygen, #2336, 1979
jrevans@ 1/13/99 10:33:28 AM EST $12.00
17.) Supercharge, Battle of El Alamein, October 1942, #XSC, 1976
Craig85226@ 1/13/99 8:24:27 AM EST $6.00
18.) Moment in Conflict: Tamburlaine the Great, #2506, 1979
Minimum Bid: $12.00
Task Force Games
19.) Cerberus, The Proxima Centauri Campaign, #1003, 1979
raven@ 1/13/99 9:40:27 AM EST $5.00
20.) The Warriors of Batak, #1020, 1982
Minimum Bid: $2.00
TSR Games
21.) They've Invaded Pleasantville, 4005, 1981
raven@ 1/13/99 9:40:27 AM EST $10.00
22.) Vampyre, #4002, 1980
Minimum Bid: $12.00
Tabletop Games/Heritage Models
23.) Ballistic Missile, 1977
raven@ 1/13/99 9:40:27 AM EST $4.00
24.) MTB, 1977
raven@ 1/13/99 9:40:27 AM EST $5.00
Update Text: I've added two new items to the list, #12 and #13, Grail Quest and
Orb Quest for use with The Fantasy Trip. Everything here is still available for
open bid.
-- Andy Hooper
AUCTION PROCEDURES:
* Each update will feature the current status of all games at the beginning of
the post, and the game descriptions and full bid history will be listed below
these rules. In the bid history, the high bid is listed first -- if there are
several offers at the same amount, the one which was sent first will have
precedence, and will be listed first among those offers. Because I've crossed
the 30,000 character barrier again, I have to split the game descriptions and
bid histories into two parts. Part A covers items # 1 to 12, while Part B
covers #13 to #24.
* Bids in one dollar increments, first bid at a given price takes precedence,
all bidders will receive e-mail updates. Regular bids should be for a specific
whole-dollar amount. If the bid on any of these items exceeds $40.00, further
bids must be made in increments of at least $5.00. A bid constitutes a
declaration of intention to buy the item bid upon. Payment is due any time it
is requested after the end of the open bidding period, or upon final acceptance
of a buyout offer
* Conditional or "Automatic" bids will be accepted, but the bidder must set a
ceiling for their bid -- e.g., a bidder could say that they will beat any
advances on an item by $1.00, but set a bid limit of $15.00. Conditional bids
are recommended to those who do not check their e-mail on a daily basis.
* Buyout offers will be considered, but I admit no obligation to accept them,
and a buyout offer should be at least twice the minimum bid, or $10.00,
whichever is more. Bidders who have previously bid on an item with a buyout
pending will be given 24 hours to exceed a buyout offer with a bid at least
$3.00 more before the buyout becomes official. THERE IS NO QUICK-SALE PROCEDURE
IN MY AUCTIONS -- ALL BUYOUT BIDS MUST BE PUBLICIZED FOR 24 HOURS BEFORE THEY
BECOME OFFICIAL!
* Bids from non-US Residents are welcome but: All payment must be made in U.S.
Funds, and: While virtually every overseas buyer wants me to falsify customs
documents so that they don't have to pay duty on their purchases, I don't do
this, and strongly discourage anyone else from doing so. I'm sorry if this
leads to unexpected charges on the other end, but I'm not going to commit a
Federal crime to save someone else money.
* At the end of the open bidding period, all bidders on a given item will be
informed of the current high bid, and given 24 hours to respond with an advance
on that amount. No bids from new bidders will be accepted after the open
bidding period ends. In the closed bidding period updates on new bids will be
sent to all continuing bidders on an item as soon as I receive them. The
24-hour clock resets every time a new bid comes in. Once no one responds in a
24 hour period, the item will go to the current high bidder.
* For bidders who do not have such regular e-mail access, IT IS THEIR
RESPONSIBILITY to make alternative arrangements to communicate with me, but
I'll be happy to accommodate such arrangements as best I can.
* SEND ALL BIDS to fanma...@aol.com. Buyer pays all postage costs, which
ranges from $3.00 to $5.00 per game, although folio and magazine games can
usually be shipped priority mail for $3.00 for up to two pounds. This auction's
open bidding period will begin on January 12th, 1999 and end 3:00 pm Pacific
time, Tuesday, January 26th, 1999.
GAME DESCRIPTIONS AND BID HISTORY:
13.) MicroQuest #8, Orb Quest, #3208, 1982
A sequel of sorts to the various "Death Test" adventures in The Fantasy Trip
series, set on the world of Cidri, but substantially tougher and more
challenging than those earlier quests. Requires Melle and Wizard for play, but
it also features its own tactical map and special counters, which are uncut in
this example. All components are present and near-mint, except the cardboard
box, which has suffered the sort of crushing damage as is largely inevitable
with micros of this age.
Minimum Bid: $5.00
SPI
14.) The Battle of Austerlitz, #3050, 1980
Although this game is in a full-sized one-inch box, the tiny map and modest
counter mix make it seem like a folio at most. The rules system is a unique
melange of ideas from the "Napoleon at War" and "Wellington's Victory" systems,
with a quick turn sequence of rally/move/fight which also features details like
morale modification of combat, strength point loss and disruption as combat
results, and Army Morale levels. The map is so small that the two armies are
severely limited in their room to maneuver, and the French tend to simply crash
into the Austrians like a Zamboni in a frozen wading pool, able to choose the
axis of the attack, but largely powerless to stop it once it starts --
mandatory combat rules, and all. This copy is punched and played, in good
condition.
Minimum Bid: $6.00
15.) Cauldron, Battle of Gazala, May 1942, #XCL, 1976
Folio version of one of the component games of the Battles for North Africa
Quadrigame. The Gazala battles which ended with the fall of Tobruk in June
represented Rommel's greatest achievement, and the worst setback ever suffered
by a British armored force. General Ritchie, commander of the British 8th army,
had the sense to see his general tactical inferiority to the Germans' mobile
forces, and created a formidable series of defensive works and stockpiles of
supply to delay and entangle the Afrika Korps' assault. Yet, Rommel's tanks and
infantry ultimately went right through those defenses and forced a withdrawal
that didn't end until Cairo was visible on the eastern horizon. The standard
rules from the Westwall/North Africa series of games formed the basis of dozens
of further SPI designs, and that system showed itself to be remarkably flexible
for simulating all kinds of 20th century engagements. There are critical
decisions to be made regarding the axis of defense and attack for both sides,
especially after the British player has a chance to decide where to make his
stand. If one wanted to make the game even more interesting, one might create
counters to provide alternate locations for the British strong points known as
"boxes" -- shift them by a hexrow or two, and the whole game changes radically.
This copy is punched and played, with some rules underlined, but is in good
overall condition.
Minimum Bid: $6.00
Craig85226@ 1/13/99 8:24:27 AM EST $6.00
16.) Space Capsule #1: The Creature That Ate Sheboygen, #2336, 1979
Certainly one of the most popular "beer and pretzel" wargames ever produced,
Greg Costikyan's cheerful, abstract game of American cities vs. various Giant
Rubber Monsters has been imitated repeatedly and at much greater complexity,
but never really surpassed. The "Space Capsule" games were SPI's effort to join
the microgame boom, and were really just folio-size games with maps and rule
books folded to fit inside a small plastic bag. And since SPI had access to all
the resources it needed, the only real restriction on their capsule games was
the 100-counter mix, to which many SPI games had conformed to for years. The
result were compact games with low price-tags that didn't play like cheap junk.
In "Sheboygen" one player assumes the role of a city's human defenders, cops,
firemen, national guard units, etc., while the other plays a giant dinosaur,
spider, robot, sea creature, etc., and tries to destroy buildings, eat people,
and so forth. The monster may possess special abilities which are unknown to
the human player, so it may take time to realize that "bullets won't stop 'em!"
This copy is punched, played, sorted and bagged, in very good condition with
some underlining in the rules.
Minimum Bid: $12.00
jrevans@ 1/13/99 10:33:28 AM EST $12.00
17.) Supercharge, Battle of El Alamein, October 1942, #XSC, 1976
Folio version of one of the component games of the Battles for North Africa
Quadrigame, and an early design by the versatile Greg Costikyan. One of those
fateful moments when the Axis actually had a better-than-even chance to win the
war came in went in August, 1942, when only a scratch line of badly-depleted
British formations stood between Rommel and possession of the Suez Canal.
Rommel's' last try came on the 30th of August, by which time the British had
sown deep minefields across their path of advance, and the German assault
bogged down without making much ground. Less than two months later, the new
commander of the British Eighth army, General Bernard Montgomery, had succeeded
in stockpiling such reserves of ammunition and fuel that the German defenses in
Egypt were quite literally hammered to pieces. Translating this reversal of
fortune into game terms has been an enduring challenge to wargame designers.
The best advantage the Axis player has is foreknowledge of the strength of the
Allied attack; unlike Rommel, he knows his line will not hold, and can
therefore begin his delaying actions and fighting withdrawal before defeat is a
certainty. The British player appears to have an overwhelming superiority in
all areas, but one or two bad die rolls on hasty low-odds attacks can stall
their advance -- it's important to choose the units which will lead the way
carefully. This copy is punched and played, with some rules underlined, but is
in good overall condition.
Minimum Bid: $6.00
Craig85226@ 1/13/99 8:24:27 AM EST $6.00
18.) Moment in Conflict: Tamburlaine the Great, #2506, 1979
One of my absolute favorite SPI games. Tamburlaine the Great is a segment of
the original "Great Medieval Battles Quad," simulating the battle of Angorra,
fought in 1402 between the Ottoman Sultan Bayazid I and the Pan-Asian horde
commanded by Timur the Lame, later called Tamburlaine. Some 300 years after the
Crusades, the Ottomans found their roles reversed with the Tartars -- it was
now the Turks who had the heavy, ponderous armored troops, and the Tartars who
used missile troops, and hit-and-run skirmish tactics. The game system is
simple, alternating movement, combat and rally phases, with attacks resolved
with reference to different armor and troop classes. Units suffer increasing
levels of demoralization, from 1 to 4, and disappear if they go past level 4,
but they seldom have that chance, because demoralized units move steadily
toward the rear each turn unless rallied by a leader. Units will typically
leave the board within four turns of being demoralized if they are not stopped,
which presents the players with a serious dilemma: Do they use their leaders
for advantages in combat, or do they use them as a fire brigade running around
the rear area saving units from departing the field? No matter how many times I
play this game, the issue stays in doubt until the last two or three turns.
This copy is in excellent condition, the counters punched, sorted and bagged.
Minimum Bid: $12.00
Task Force Games
19.) Cerberus, The Proxima Centauri Campaign, #1003, 1979
One of the first four games released by Task Force (the acorn from which the
mighty Star Fleet Battles tree eventually grew) depicting the campaign between
Humans and reptilian aliens from Tau Ceti for control of the first habitable
planet discovered outside our solar system. The game system is by Steven V.
Cole, but the game concept is attributed to a Dr. Susan L. Huck -- one imagines
there's an interesting story behind that collaboration. The design seems to
presume a kind of East-West Co-dominion of Earth, reminiscent of Jerry
Pournelle, among others. And it is fair to assume that if we poured a major
portion of the world's resources into reaching another world, we might well
fight to possess it. The map is small, but still depicts the entire planet of
Cerberus. Combat is therefore necessarily of a strategic nature, but there is
some differentiation of unit types to provide a measure of detail. This copy is
near-mint, and I just took it out of the original shrink wrap to inspect that
all components are present and intact.
Minimum Bid: $5.00
raven@ 1/13/99 9:40:27 AM EST $5.00
fengshui1@ 1/14/99 3:40:01 PM EST $5.00
20.) The Warriors of Batak, #1020, 1982
Typical Space Opera stuff from Task Force, designed by Daniel Campagna. The
cover art creates the impression of a design devised by a junior high school
student scribbling on the back of a ring binder during Algebra class, which
survives largely untrammeled through a reading of the rules. Bad humans have
come to the world of Batak to build massive nuclear waste processing
facilities, which the locals understandably resent. They mass troops including
"berserker" cavalry, "moles" "leviathans" and "sleeks", to fight the humans'
engineers, gunboats, Typhoon fighters and sonic cannon. A cheerful little blood
bath, unspoiled by any tedious relationship with reality. This copy is punched
and played, in excellent condition.
Minimum Bid: $2.00
TSR Games
21.) They've Invaded Pleasantville, 4005, 1981
Fans of other board games inspired by science fiction films, like "Bug-Eyed
Monsters" and "Attack of the Mutants" should really give this micro-game a try.
Michael Price's design is highly evocative of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers,
especially the good, first version that starred Kevin McCarthy. One player is
an invading alien force, which infiltrates the town of Pleasantville by
attacking biomechanical devices to the populace -- leaving them surly at best,
blank-eyed and shambling at worst. The other player controls those observant
souls among the townspeople who have noticed something subtly amiss. This
player struggles to convince other townspeople that the aliens have landed --
before it's too late! To defeat the alien invasion, the human player must find
the secret base from which Subcommander Zebu-lon has launched his plot.
Alien-controlled humans can be defeated in combat, and coerced into giving that
location away, and sometimes the biomechanical implants can be recovered, which
substantially helps to convince the rest of the townspeople of the reality of
the invasion. But at the end of every turn, any space occupied by two humans
who are not part of the "active" resistance, may be removed from the board by
the alien player and replaced with controlled counters. In the game's cleverest
twist, these are indistinguishable from the normal counter on the front, but
have a red star on the back to show they've been altered. This copy is punched,
and in fine shape, and includes the original dice.
Minimum Bid: $10.00
raven@ 1/13/99 9:40:27 AM EST $10.00
22.) Vampyre, #4002, 1980
TSR's entry into the microgame field was impressive; all four of their first
micro-releases were very solid games, covering unusual subjects with innovative
mechanics. Philip A. Shreffler's "Vampyre" is based on events in Bram Stoker's
"Dracula", with each of the players assuming the role of one of the
vampire-hunters of the novel -- Van Helsing, Jonathan Harker, Lord Godalming,
Quincey Morris Dr. John Seward and Miss Mina Murray. The hunters are in a race
to find and destroy Dracula's extra coffins, and can cooperate, but only to a
limited degree. In some ways, this little game presages the much more involved
Games Workshop release "The Fury of Dracula", but can be played in about
one-third the time. This copy has had the rules underlines, but the counters
are unpunched, and other components in excellent shape. The only thing I can
say against is that there are marks of old tape adhesive on some portions of
the outer plastic box, which will not affect play.
Minimum Bid: $12.00
Tabletop Games/Heritage Models
23.) Ballistic Missile, 1977
Tabletop/Heritage released a number of de facto microgames in 1977, including
this game, MTB, and Micro Napoleonics and Micro Ancients. They might have been
larger packages on the whole if they had included maps, but Tabletop was trying
to create a kind of hybrid between miniature wargaming and board games,
directing players to move cardboard units across the tabletop by measuring the
actual distance in millimeters. This was a pretty remarkable idea applied to
any subject matter, but it's even more striking to see it applied to the
simulation of strategic nuclear attack. One player is the attacker, sending
missiles, strategic bombers and decoys against enemy installations, while the
other uses radar, and passive and active counter-measures including
antiballistic missiles, to try and avoid the attack. Presumably, players would
then trade roles and compare their relative success. I still can't find any
indication of who the designer was for these items, but being as Heritage was
co-publisher of the game, its always easy to assume that Duke Seiferd had
something to do with it. This copy has been cut out, but the turn record sheets
are unused, and all components look fine.
Minimum Bid: $4.00
raven@ 1/13/99 9:40:27 AM EST $4.00
24.) MTB, 1977
This was one of the first games to explore coastal naval warfare, which has
steadily increased in popularity over the past two decades. Essentially, it's a
set of table top miniature rules, with cardboard counters instead of model
ships. The rules are quite simple, and an experienced gamer should be able to
start playing instantly. The game specifically covers small engagements in the
English channel, with British Motor Gun and Torpedo boats facing German E- and
R-boats, attacking tankers, lighters, trawlers and the like. This copy came to
me still stuffed into the brittle, 20+ year-old shrink-wrap it had been placed
in at the factory, but proved to be missing several of the ship counters, and
all the record sheets had been filled out in pencil. I have taken the liberty
of making color photocopies of the counters and mounting them on very thin
cardstock, so there is now the appropriate roster of units, as well as some
extra ships to play around with. Also, I cleaned up the best of the record
sheets and have made two dozen photocopies of it, so the game is truly ready to
play, now stored in a roomy ziploc, and in very good overall shape.
Minimum Bid: $5.00
raven@ 1/13/99 9:40:27 AM EST $5.00
WarPlayer@ 1/13/99 9:38:35 PM EST $5.00
THAT'S ALL! THANKS FOR READING
-- Andy Hooper