Digital or physical?

Command & Colors: The Great War from the Plastic Soldier Company. It’s a Kickstarter game that I backed in 2015 and since delivery has pretty much sat neglected ever since. For no particular reason that I can button down. Its even found its way from the Battleshed into the house, which is normally the preserve of my current board games of choice. Its as if it snuck in and just sits there, with its appealing cover art just hoping to be picked. Pick me! Pick me!

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If I remember, I did have some issues removing some of the miniatures from some rather brittle sprues which ended up with a few broken bayonets. That, I understand was rectified by PSC in later production runs. But still, I just don’t know why I haven’t fully played this yet.

So it was interesting to receive an email flyer from PSC promoting the ‘digital’ version of the game from HexWar Games and available from Steam:

This had me head scratching bit. I’m a glutton for downloading Steam games – they’re wizardly marketeers as far as I’m concerned – but a digital version of a physical game that I have sitting in front of me as I type this? 

It’s a bit of a quandary. If I tried the digital version, would it inspire me to play the physical one more often? Or vice versa? But why pay again to play a game you already have? You can play solo and it’ll teach you the rules, says the my inner digital gamer. So? I can do that too, says my inner tabletop gamer. You can see where this is going. And I’m not even going to start thinking about the marketing pros and cons of digital versions of tabletop games. That could be a long debate. The physical game is back on my gaming radar at least. I really must run a full game soon. No excuses.

As an aside, a couple of new wargaming bloggers on the scene you may be interested in:

Studio gaarew: John is a member of the Falkirk club, an experienced gamer and an accomplished miniature painter. Just take a look at his About Me section and then ogle at his painting photos. And he somehow he finds the time to be a Privateer Press Ganger ('gaarew') for the Falkirk area too!

Tabletop Gaming Den: Ian is a gamer I've rolled a few dice with from time to time. He's trying his hand at this whole blogging malarkey, so please be gentle with him! Check out his About Me too. He may even lure me back to some WWII gaming this year!

Anyway, it’s nearly the weekend and I’ve got work to do in the Battleshed...