Gumbinnen - August 20, 1914 : A Review of East Prussia '14

A little over 100 years ago, the advancing troops of the Russian 1st Army met Maximilian von Prittwitz's 8.Armee at the town of Gumbinnen in East Prussia. It was the first German offensive of the the war in the east. Strategically, the battle was a German defeat. Tactically the Russians certainly didn't shine, but they held long enough, and did enough damage to the German XVII Corps to make von Prittzwitz lose his nerve and retreat. His corps commanders did not generally agree that they had been beaten.

Courtesy of the new World War I Campaigns game from John Tiller Software. East Prussia '14, I'm going to try my hand at managing a better outcome for 8.Armee.

8.Armee positions the morning of August 20th, 1914. IArmeekorps and XVII.Armeekorps are already in contact

Thunder in the Korea Strait

Despite owning both of the NWS Steam and Iron games, I've never tried the campaign portion of either. I guess I wasn't sure I understood enough about naval warfare of the era to do a campaign justice. All of the focus on WWI this month rekindled my interest in the era, and that combined with picking up a game about the naval campaign of the Spanish American War prompted me to revisit these fine simulations.

The cruiser squadron at the heart of my force in the Bay of Korea. CL Hashidate took a torpedo hit during a skirmish with Russian destroyers.

GenCon 2014

Anyone that knows me well will tell you that one thing I'm not fond of is large crowds of other humans. So it's a bit of a miracle that I've attended not just one, but two gaming conventions this year: Origins and GenCon.  Admittedly, GenCon is easy since its right here in Indianapolis, but it's also the larger by far of the two.

Unlike Origins I only spent a day at GenCon, but came away with several games and some pictures.

Come on in...