Table Battles Review

For anyone who hasn't seen it yet, my review of Hollandspiel's new game Table Battles is available at Grogheads. The summary: A surprising game that plays quickly and presents a wealth of subtle play and interesting decisions. It doesn't look like a wargame, but this grog says it is.

Wilderness Empires

Summer 1754 - The British have seriously concentrated their forces!

A couple of weeks ago Worthington Publishing ran a warehouse clearance sale, offering Wilderness Empires for $25. I'd looked at this game in the past but always felt it might be too simple to hold my interest. For $25 though, given my interest in the period it seemed worth a shot. It seemed like a nice compromise - a game with enough period focus to interest me, but also simple enough to engage my non-wargamer wife.

Gettysburg: The Tide Turns

It certainly looks pretty

After seeing a lot of buzz online about it, I decided to give Slitherine's new ACW game, Gettysburg: The Tide Turns a try. The ACW is one of my first loves in terms of history and wargaming. I've taken vacations centered around visiting ACW battlefields. The game itself has a very Kriegsspiel like look. At a mere $9.99, what's not to like?

1632

I've just finished Eric Flint's novel 1632, something I'd put off for years. I have a love-hate relationship with alt-history fiction. When it's really good I enjoy it a great deal. When it's bad, it makes me crazy. To avoid being driven crazy by what might be bad alt-history set in one of my favorite historical periods, I've studiously avoided this series for quite a long time.

This is not bad alt-history.

First, from a historical perspective, Flint knows his history. The period is depicted very well. There's decided bias toward certain factions in the Thirty Years War but it's a bias that I happen to agree (rather strongly) with, so it didn't bother me. It is also rather strongly pro-American common man (and woman), an attitude that might not be terribly popular in a lot of circles these days given the recent election.

Playing Pub Battles Brandywine

My wife and I played our first game of Pub Battles: Brandywine last weekend. She took the Continentals and I took the British. This was only Terri's third time playing a wargame, so I had a bit of a quandary as to which side would be best for her. In the end I though being the defender would be a bit easier, despite having to shift front to handle Cornwallis' attack.

Action at Dego: JTS Campaign Marengo

French approach to Dego, initial positions

Not much boardgaming this weekend, as I've been consumed with PBEM turns and solo computer gaming. Much of the latter has been due to this game, the newly released Campaign Marengo from John Tiller Software.

Scourge of War Waterloo - Sandbox Play

Marching my division across the Belgian countryside toward our objective, a small town

After playing The Last Success  much of yesterday, I finished the evening with a session of Scourge of War: Waterloo to have a slightly different Napoleonic experience.

Tank on Tank: West Front

I've been playing a ton of Battles of Normandy the past several weeks, interspersed with the occasional turn of Campaign Series: Middle East. I really need to suck it up and post some more about both games.

Sticks and Stones from Tiny Battle Publishing

Today I had a chance to try a game of Sticks and Stones from Tiny Battle Publishing. Tiny Battle is a new wargame publisher specializing in print-on-demand and print and play games. They're a sister company to Flying Pig Games, and one of the benefits of this is that Tiny Battle publishes games from designer (and owner of Flying Pig Games) Mark H. Walker.

A US Company Team sets up to defend Gersbach

Lock n' Load Tactical Series: Heroes of the Pacific

My review of Lock n' Load Heroes of the Pacific is up now at Grogheads. The skinny: a great WW2 tactical game that really captures the feel of the fighting in the Pacific. Read the article for details!

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

Lock 'n Load: Heroes of Stalingrad

A confession: I bought this game when it was released, played the tutorials and the first scenario of the German campaign and decided I didn't like it. I haven't touched it since. I keep hearing good things about it, though. I also didn't want the money to go to waste. So last night I fired it up to give it another try.

Briefing for the second mission of the German campaign

Combat Mission Red Thunder: First Impressions

I spent some time last night and a lot of time today on multiplayer stuff with Steel Beasts Pro PE. So I'm just getting a chance to play with the shiny new release of Combat Mission: Red Thunder, Battlefront's new CMx2 engine release concerning late WW2 East Front warfare. I decided to start with the tutorial campaign to get acquainted with the new features of this release. Also, I haven't played much with Soviet formations at this level and wanted to get some experience with their very different doctrine.

The improved mission briefing screen that we first saw in CMFI makes a welcome return