Reviews
Warhammer 40,000 5th Edition Preview/Review
The gents over at the D6 Generation podcast join up with Yakface, Jon Regul, of DakkaDakka to give you a preview/review of Warhammer 40,000 5th Edition. They provide over 90 minutes of commentary based not only on a look at the rules but also the play of two games of WH40K using the new 5th edition rules. They provide excellent information on the major changes in the new edition over 4th edition. This is a must listen for all Warhammer 40K fans!
Also see more here and another review.
Line of Fire #2 — Review
Lock ‘N Load Games just released the latest edition of their house PDF-magazine, Line of Fire #2. They did not quite make the quarterly deadline but close enough. LNL is selling Line of Fire #2 for a couple dollars cheaper ($14.99) than Line of Fire #1 but the issue is a bit shorter than the first. Read the rest of this entry »
Federation Commander: Briefing #1 — Review
Federation Commander: Briefing #1 is Amarillo Design Bureau’s latest expansion to their Federation Commander starship combat games. Briefing #1 is basically a scenario set with some miscellaneous material thrown in. It is a 64-page black and white book with color card stock cover. The layout is typical FedCom. Read the rest of this entry »
AT-43 — Karmans Review
You have probably noticed that our AT-43 coverage of the Karmans has been very light. We just decided to skip them and wait to see what comes next for AT-43. But we found a nice review of the Karmans Army Book on the Samurai Gunslinger blog.
World at War: Gamer’s Guide — Review
Lock ‘n Load Publishing released a Gamer’s Guide for its World at War Cold War-era tactical combat board wargame. It is a 37 page 8 1/2″ x 11″ softbound, black and white magazine. The cover is of heavy glossy stock. The Guide is attractively laid out with plenty of shots of the game in play and a few stock photos sprinkled in. The layout template takes up a lot of space and the guide could probably have been published in only 18 pages but would have seemed a bit more crowded. The lack of color is disappointing especially for the shots of the game in action but everything is clear and readable. Read the rest of this entry »
Tactica Aeronautica — Review
Tactica Aeronautica is the first expansion to Forge World’s Aeronautica Imperialis sci-fi, air combat, miniatures game. It is a hardback book similar to the original AI rulebook. Tactica Aeronautica is 127 pages with integrated color.
Tactica Aeronautica’s first section covers new aircraft and includes the background and game stats in the same format as the original AI book. The new aircraft included are: Marauder variants (Colossus bomber and Vigilant surveillance ship); Ork Bommers (Bomma and Blasta-Bomma); Tau Remora Drone Fighter, Tiger Shark AX-2-2 mothership, and DX-13 aerial mine; and the Chaos Harbinger bomber. There are also a couple pages of aircraft upgrades for each race and a complete squadron list that includes point values for all of the aircraft from both products including the available upgrade options. Datasheets are provided for the new aircraft as well as some variants of older aircraft (for example the Vulture gets 11 new weapon loads). Read the rest of this entry »
Federation Commander: Line of Battle — Review
Amarillo Design Bureau just released Line of Battle a new expansion for Federation Commander. It is a follow-up to their Battleships Attack product and contains nine extra 8 1/2″ x 11″ battleship cards for all the races, an additional map panel (open space), three new scenarios that feature battleships, and lastly, a short bit on tactics. The included cards are for the: Federation Battleship, Klingon B10 Battleship, Romulan King Condor Battleship, Kzinti Battleship, Gorn ‘Godzilla’ Battleship, Neo-Tholian Battleship, Seltorian Battlewagon, Hydran Monarch Battleship, and the Lyran Cave Lion Battleship.
This is a nice expansion for anyone interested in using battleships in Federation Commander. The scenarios are also interesting but we wish they had come up with something a bit more novel to include than just another map panel.
A related product is their Border Box #6 that contains nine battleship miniatures and one starbase miniature. Of course the miniatures are all available individually as well.
World at War: Death of the 1st Panzer — Review
World at War: Death of the 1st Panzer is the first expansion to Lock ‘n Load’s Cold War era World at War: Eisenbach Gap wargame. The expansion ships in a ziplock and introduces new forces, scenarios, and a map to the game.
Death of the 1st Panzer is a straightforward expansion and provides the units for West German panzer units. In this case the 1st Panzer is essentially two mechanized infantry companies and two panzer companies with some attachments. Other new units included are the Soviet T-12 ATG and the ASU-85. The counters are of the same design as WaW:EG but are printed on thicker stock. They are still on the thin side but not unusually so. Read the rest of this entry »
World at War: Eisenbach Gap — Review
World at War: Eisenbach Gap is Lock ‘n Load Publishing’s latest game. It is a Cold War era platoon-level board wargame. The unit scale is platoon and each hex represents 150m. While the game depicts fictional scenarios, Eisenbach Germany was a real point of possible contention during the Cold War. In addition, Eisenbach Gap is the first game in the World at War series so we will see additional titles using the same system in the future. The game ships in a full-size game box with 128 die-cut 5/8″ counters, mounted 17″ x 22″ map, two players’ aid cards, 4 dice, and a 16-page rulebook. Probably the first thing you will notice is the counters. They are very attractive and have an almost bewildering array of numbers on them. Unfortunately they are also some of the thinest cardboard counters you will find in any wargame. They are essentially the thickness of two pieces of card stock. The biggest issue with the thinness is that it makes the counters rather difficult to pick up even with tweezers. Hopefully Lock ‘n Load will produce thicker counters for future WaW titles. [Note: Oddly, an extra set of counters I ordered direct from LnL were on thicker stock.] The map is nice and similar in thickness to the ASL Starter Kit maps or roughly the thickness of your average wargame counter. The map is very attractive in an antiseptic sort of way — Like the time period being portrayed, it has a sort of retro feel to it. The rulebook is well laid out and a fairly useful reference during play. The player aid cards are handy but leave a lot of information out. You will need to make your own notes to ease play. Read the rest of this entry »
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 »
The View from the Turret 
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