Fox….Fox….Foxx….Ah!, Fox!
Let’s see….is this post about Megan Fox, Current Flavor of the Moment?….no….but, we know how the Internet gets hits, eh?
So is it maybe about 20th Century Fox? (no, chickelit, not The Doors song either!) Nope…
Well, Ron writes about baseball…maybe it’s about Jimmie Foxx, great player of the ’30’s? Nope, again….
Ah, it’s about THIS fox, the Desert Fox, Erwin Rommel! Almost! It’s about his most famous campaign, the 3 year long war between Rommel’s Germans and their Italian allies versus, mainly, the British and their Commonwealth forces, and the subject of my most absurd game example of Board Game Gargantuaness, Campaign For North Africa. The Map!
5 connected maps, each 2×3 feet….The rules are 48 pages long….for The Land Game. You add the Air and Logistics Rules and that’s another 44 pages. Each side has about 24 pages of charts just for them, not to mention the 16 pages of Common Charts & Tables. But, hey, let’s look at that one shall we? “41.39 Mining Harbor by Plane Table” “58.5 Abstract Truck Loss Chart” “52.8 Poisoning and Sweetening Wells Table” Eyeball it yourself!
You keep track of the ammo, gas and water usage of every unit in the entire theater! You role for maintenance for every aircraft in North Africa! Needless to say, I can’t say this game gets “played.” But as a monument to folly, it’s hard to beat in boardgame history.
Let’s close by going back to foxes and let Bogey take us out!
Ambiance 
chickelit said,
March 7, 2011 at 6:01 pm
At least you didn’t spell fox the German way as “Fuchs” or some homonymic variant thereof ’cause that would really attract the wrong element!
That reminds me of those old Fokker warplanes!
mockturtle said,
March 7, 2011 at 7:49 pm
How could you forget Redd Foxx??
Icepick said,
March 7, 2011 at 9:50 pm
I imagine that this would be more doable as a computer game.
Ron said,
March 7, 2011 at 9:56 pm
A computer would help…but there are better designed games of this also…some by the same designer!
Icepick said,
March 8, 2011 at 1:29 am
some by the same designer!
Well, practice makes perfect.
wj said,
March 8, 2011 at 11:09 am
If we are just trying to generate more search engine hits, we could take up using Title Tags more creatively. I mean, the comments pages include the name of the posting, but the home page just says “Ambiance” (see the top line there on your browser). If we want people to find us with search engines, we could think about a good 70 character (including spaces) description of what we are all about.
Then again, maybe we should be happy to remain an elite group. ;-)
karen said,
March 10, 2011 at 11:47 am
I’m part of an ~elite group~???! Then, don’t touch a thing!
Ron, you are a nut and a genius. Example: “The rules are 48 pages long”. Unbelievable!! Eeeeek- you add the air rules… you are nuts!!! I have practically zer- 0 attention span- i’d never make it beyond pg two.
My son, OTOH- you 2 could be related:0).
Ps- Vivica Fox?
Ron said,
March 10, 2011 at 12:11 pm
Karen, I haven’t even mentioned that awesome spectacle of a game which has been published in chunks since 1973…Europa! If you bought all of the games connecting this thing together…it would cost over $1000!
It’s too much even for me…and I have big parts of this too! (but not even 1/2!)