Month: January 2008
Victory at Sea: Order of Battle — Review
Order of Battle is the latest expansion for Mongoose Publishing’s Victory at Sea WW2 naval miniatures game. Order of Battle is a 111-page hardcover book. It also includes ten pages of black and white ship counters that can be photocopied and cut out for use instead of miniatures. [Note: You can also order OoB as a downloadable PDF.] Unfortunately, Mongoose continues to have quality issues. I have seen three copies of the book including one ordered direct from Mongoose. Two had significant warping of the cover and crinkled pages at the binding when opened. The one direct from Mongoose is much better but still has a ‘wave’ to the cover when viewed end on. If Mongoose cannot get these issues under control they should simple use soft covers.
Order of Battle provides one page of new rules that mostly makes official what many users had been doing as house rules — Most significantly, observation aircraft are no longer used except for ASW operations. Read the rest of this entry »
AT-43 — News
Rackham has been busy. They have announced a number of new items for AT-43. First off the Karmans get fleshed out pretty quickly this year with a large number of new units including the King Buggy and King Mammoth. The UNA get Shock Troopers and previously unseen Shock TacArms and hero Lieutenant G Epstone in open Death Dealer TacArm armor. Rackham is also releasing a new Firetoad unit. What makes this one unique is not only its new ‘winter’ camouflage paint scheme but it will now come with all weapon options in the box (but no cargo container).
Perhaps the most interesting news of all comes from Rackham’s version of Forgeworld, Fire Industries. They announced the new UNA Fire Wasp buggy. As with all FI products, the Fire Wasp will be an unpainted resin model. Interestingly, the previously announced Therian Golems are now absent from the FI pages.
Rackham released an image of a prototype model of the ‘Steel Giant‘ type three strider. Also seen are army dice in tins similar to what Battlefront has done for Flames of War. On the forums, Jean Bay announced a new campaign box set for AT-43 to be released in the next few months. “This Campaign will be a product boxed set, including scenery, few special miniatures, new gaming tiles, additional rulesbook which cover new tactics options, rules for playing these new miniatures in AT-43, rules for scenery, an optimization for using the existing attachment boxes in the game, rules campaign system, huge set of scenarios and lots more. ”
2008 is looking to be a good year for AT-43! Considering the release schedule for the Karmans, we will almost certainly see a new faction for AT-43 before year’s end.
[Updated: 14FEB08]
[Update 7MAY08: Fire Industries has closed.]
Stars and Stripes Forever — Review
The folks over at Test of Battle Games have released a new expansion for their WW2 miniature rules Test of Battle (aka Command Decision 4). Stars and Stripes Forever covers U.S. forces in the Mediterranean and European theaters from the Torch landings until the fall of Germany. SaSF is a 52 page, soft cover, black and white book. Unlike a lot of game expansion products that feature new rules and units and other game items, SaSF has a very focused purpose. It simply provides the historical TO&E (Tables of Organization and Equipment) for all U.S. forces. This includes great details such as a listing of all infantry and armor divisions and where they served along with detailed ToB-formatted force organizations. Also included are great notes on doctrine as well as a full equipment table with all game information. It also does have one page of additional rules for U.S. reconnaissance troops, armored infantry, and artillery battalion FDCs. Moreover, the book is sprinkled with historical posters from the period often seen on the home front such as “Buy War Bonds” and “Your metal is their might”.
While Stars and Stripes Forever is intended for use with Test of Battle it is an excellent resource for any company/battalion level game and is also a great reference for anyone interested in the U.S. Army during World War Two. Recommended.
Band of Heroes — Review
Lock ‘n Load’s Band of Heroes is a board wargame on World War Two squad-level combat. It has been out over a year now but with new expansions on the way I thought this would be a good time to look back at the original game. The Wargamer has an excellent review of Band of Heroes. I agree with the reviewer’s comments especially those on the rulebook. It works OK for reading through but is terrible as a resource for looking up rules during the game. Also the terrain identification issue has been solved with the Terrain Chart Supplement. The map boards are very well done but they have a very garish hex grid superimposed on them that is very distracting and also makes determining the hex, especially hexside, terrain type tough at times. This hex treatment came under considerable fire after the game’s initial release and LnL released a pack of ‘haloless maps‘ with a much toned down pattern. The maps in the Not One Step Back expansion are of this same haloless design and Swift and Bold does not have any maps. Boardgame Geek has an excellent BoH reference sheet. Version three of the LnL rules are currently in playtest.
The new Line of Fire magazine includes BoH information. LnL also has an excellent 32-page demo of BoH. It includes printable map, counters, reference cards, a scenario, and most of the rulebook so you can try the game out for yourself.
Overall Band of Heroes is an excellent WW2 tactical wargame and with its ongoing expansion is more complete and much easier to digest than even the Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kits and unlike Combat Commander includes vehicles. Recommended.
The Best Games Not Yet Published, 2008
With the New Year upon us we thought it might be interesting to present the games we are most anxiously awaiting in 2008. Our 2007 prognostications did pretty well so we thought we would try it again for 2008. There is no guarantee any of these will be published in 2008, nor that they will be any good if they are, but we are always hopeful.
Read the rest of this entry »
The View from the Turret 
