Board Wargames
Incursion Grunt APE Miniatures — Review
Incursion is Grindhouse Games’ upcoming weird war board/miniatures game set in an alternate World War Two universe. They have posted a nice description of the game. Others have described it as a blend of Space Hulk and Wolfenstein 3D or, in other words, a dungeon crawl type game set in the bowls of a Gibraltar-based German research lab. Details on the game itself are still rather slim but some of the miniatures are now available for order. We got the full set of Allied APE suits and a German Sturmzombie. Read the rest of this entry »
Starmada: The Admiralty Edition — Review
Starmada is one of the oldest sets of sci-fi spaceship combat rules. Majestic Twelve Games released its latest version, The Admiralty Edition, in January 2008. The Starmada products are all available as full-color PDF publications. The Core Rulebook is 80 pages and contains, well, the core rules for the Starmada game system. This includes an introduction, the main rules, advanced rules, starship construction system, six scenarios, a rules index, and lastly a blank two-ship data card. The book layout is well done with plentiful illustrations and the quality of the editing and writing is high. Read the rest of this entry »
The Best Games Not Yet Published, 2009
With the New Year upon us it is time, once again, for our annual look at the games we are most anxiously awaiting in 2009. Our 2008 prognostications did pretty well so we thought we would keep the tradition going. As always, there is no guarantee any of these titles will be published in 2009, nor that they will be any good if they are, but we are optimistic. Read the rest of this entry »
Federation Commander: Distant Kingdoms — Review
Federation Commander: Distant Kingdoms is a new expansion for Amarillo Design Bureau’s Federation Commander tactical sci-fi board wargame. Similar to their previous expansions Distant Kingdoms comes in an 8 1/2″ x 11″ format with a color cardstock wrapper. Inside are two mounted map boards featuring small (5 hex) and large (7 hex) gas giants, 40 1″ and 108 1/2″ full-color counters, sixteen laminated ship cards (including two large battleship cards), and finally a sixteen page rulebook. Read the rest of this entry »
Federation Commander Draft Rules — Now Available
Amarillo Design Bureau now has the Federation Commander Reference Rulebook Draft 3 available in its online store. It is a new Federation Commander rulebook that incorporates all of the errata. The Draft 3 version,
contains all of the rules from all of the products, laid out end to end in rule number order. It does not contain ship descriptions or scenarios. All published rules updates/changes (errata, addenda, whatever) are included, but these items (marked with a star) are the end of the sub-rule they apply to. The original rules text remains as it was, with the rules update added to the end rather than being “written through” the text.
A proper new, integrated, version will be available in stores in March 2009. It will be titled, Federation Commander Reference Rulebook (5th Edition).
A Wave of New Naval Warfare Games
Well it has been well over a year-and-half since we did our first naval wargaming review in our A Tsunami of Naval Warfare Games article. At the time we were surprised at the number of new naval titles that had been released. Even more surprising is that the trend has continued.
A couple more card games were released. GMT Games released Pacific Typhoon, a simple card game for 3-7 players (it plays better with more players rather than less) that covers naval combat in the Pacific in World War Two. In a unique twist each player plays both the Allied and Japanese sides. This allows for lots of backstabbing as players vie for leverage to help ‘their’ side win. A new publisher, DVG Games, released Modern Naval Battles – Global Warfare. This is an update to the original 1989 game and includes the material in that game’s two expansions. MNB-GW covers naval warfare during the Cold War, Falkland Islands War, and Post-2000 era. Neither of these games are a simulation but both are interesting, fun games. Read the rest of this entry »
Check Your 6! — Video
Skirmish Campaigns released a WW2 air combat board/miniatures game, called Check Your 6!, about a year ago. I have never played the game before but they have a great intro video for the game that covers the basics of play. I wish more companies would do this sort of thing.
Silent War — Review
The Armchair General has a short, but useful, review of Silent War. Silent War is Compass Games’ solitaire WW2 board wargame on Allied submarine warfare in the Pacific. The game features individual missions as well as a grand campaign. The game is very good overall and has very nice components. It is reminiscent of Avalon Hill’s classic B-17 Queen of the Skies. If you like WW2 naval games or are looking for a good solitaire game it is worth checking out.
The Wargamer has an even more in-depth review of Silent War.
Also keep a look out for Steel Wolves in 2009. Steel Wolves is the Silent War system taken to the U-Boat war in the Atlantic.
[Updated: 14AUG08]
New Tide of Iron Expansions
Fantasy Flight Games announced two new upcoming expansions for their WW2 tactical combat board wargame Tide of Iron. First is Normandy: Operation Overlord Expansion that adds the battle for the beaches to the ToI system. Second is Tide of Iron: Designer Series, which is a hardcover scenario pack that provides 20 historical scenarios including one epic scenario that requires two copies of ToI.
It is good to see FFG expand ToI more in the european theatre before taking it off to other fronts. Both expansions should be available in late 2008.
Heroes of Stalingrad — Video
Matrix Games posted some videos of the upcoming computer wargame Heroes of Stalingrad based on Lock ‘n Load Games’ Lock n Load WW2 board wargame. Overall the game looks interesting and appears to be even more of a direct port of the board wargame than we initially thought. Hopefully the AI will be good enough for a challenge.
The View from the Turret 
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