Firestorm Planetfall
All I Want for Christmas (2015 edition)…
With the holidays upon us it is time once again for us to look at some goodies. This has been another great year for gaming and there are almost too many high quality releases especially on the miniatures front. Maybe not so surprising, there has been a lot of progress in the same systems as last year.
Below are just a few items you might want to add to your list…if you’ve been nice! ...
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Board Games
- Front Towards Enemy is Multi-Man Publishing’s upcoming tactical Vietnam boardgame. Looks interesting.
- Operation Mercury: The Invasion of Crete is another MMP title. This is in their grand tactical series with seven maps and over 1,000 counters. We’ve always found the battle of Crete an interesting topic.
- Star Wars Armada from Fantasy Flight Games is better than X-Wing in many ways. With the new Star Wars movie out very soon you’ll want to pick this up if you have not already.
- Heroes of Normandie from Devil Pig is 15mm miniature gaming as a board game. If you like WW2 tactical gaming this is a lot of fun. Don’t miss the computer version either. The new Shadows over Normandie adds even more variety. Fight through the hedgerows in just a couple of hours.
- Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth is actually not a bad game. It debuts the new HH plastic minis to boot. Worth a look if you like either. It remains to be seen if the game itself will have the legs of Space Hulk.
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Miniature Games
- Dropzone Commander continues to be an excellent game with great minis. It is almost impossible to beat the plastic starter sets. Hawk Wargames keeps making a great game better. And don’t miss the new 4Ground 10mm buildings either.
- Firestorm: Planetfall from Spartan Games gives a lot of the feel of Dropzone Commander but at a much faster pace and slightly grander scale.
- Dropfleet Commander funded on Kickstarter in a matter of minutes. It will ship in mid 2016 and is essentially a must get for any spaceship combat fan. Hawk’s twist is the game takes place in orbit over a planet instead of deep space. The miniatures look amazing.
- Halo Fleet Battles from Spartan Games is probably the best mass battle spaceship game out there. If you want to see 100 ships slugging it out look no further. The plastic minis are great.
- Deadzone is a unique take on sci-fi skirmish. A couple of Kickstarters have brought (and will bring) nice plastic minis to replace the restic. A new version will make a new game even better in 2016.
- Mercs 2nd Edition. Coming very soon along with the boardgame Mercs Recon. This should give the system a nice reboot.
- Infinity 3rd Edition saw Corvus Belli improve a good set of rules. Lots of new support and upcoming supplements will give players more of a good thing in 2016. We’ll also use this as an opportunity to mention 4Ground’s great new 28mm Jesserai sci-fi building range useful for any sci-fi system.
- Maelstrom’s Edge funded quickly on Kickstarter and should ship very soon. The minis seem ok but the real treat is going to be the rules. From the sound of it this could be THE ruleset for grand skirmish
(~50 figs) sci-fi gaming. Moreover, it has great support with novels and audio books already available. - Beyond the Gates of Antares beat MEdge to the starting gate. It probably has better minis — and now some core sets in plastic — but, while the rules are good (a derivative of Bolt Action), we’ll see if they can stand toe to toe with MEdge or not.
- World War Two gamers are not left out. Both Chain of Command and Bolt Action continue to be excellent skirmish games with great support. And Warlord keeps making great new plastic tanks. And of course 4Ground once again has you covered for buildings and Crescent Root Studio does even better.
- Modern gamers are being well taken cared for as well. Coming soon from TooFatLardies is Fighting Season a modern version of Chain of Command. Available now from Dish Dash are the new Skirmish Sanguin supplements with a new mini range coming soon. Osprey Publishing’s new Black Ops skirmish rules are quite nice as well if you are looking for a quick play set of rules. If you want modern miniatures don’t miss Empress Miniatures’ great 28mm line.
- Team Yankee might be the title we are most excited about. The Cold War is one of our favorite topics and an area that doesn’t get much wargame attention these days. We would have preferred 12mm but the new modern 15mm plastics from Battlefront look great. Battlefront is also releasing a range of modern era terrain as well. There has been a slight delay but we should see the first items in time for the holidays.
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Computer Games
- Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm Player’s Edition is certainly at the top of the list of computer wargames to check out. Excellent Cold War action and now with the new Germany Reforged expansion.
- Combat Mission: Black Sea gives you more modern warfare with the CM engine moving to a hypothetical conflict in the Ukraine. Available now.
- Space Hulk: Ascension will scratch the sci-fi corridor itch. It got a few nice updates this past year.
- XCOM2. Delayed but probably well worth the wait. This will burn away a few hours…ok days…in 2016. An all new version of the venerable sci-fi tactical game.
- Wars and Battles still has perhaps the worst name ever for a wargame but for the iPad it is still one of the best wargames to date. The past year has seen new campaigns added and 2016 will see more.
[Updated: 23NOV15]
April Update
It has been a busy few months with lots of random progress.
Dropzone Commander
I’ve been focusing the most on Dropzone Commander recently. I’ve finished my Scourge, except for some of the new units, and am making steady progress on the PHR. Up next is the UCM. Hawk Wargames continues to impress with their releases. Related items:
- The Frontline Gaming Hi-Tech Mat is very nice.
- 4Ground continues with its great 10mm releases. The latest District 1 Hab block units are much quicker to assemble than the District XII units that take a good 5-10 hours to complete.
The new District 1 units do not have any window frames or headers with which to fiddle. - Craig Gallant on one of the recent D6 Generation podcasts mentioned N-Scale Kato buildings from Japan. Well sure enough Amazon has a bunch of them with free shipping. They are perfect for Dropzone Commander. N scale is 12mm but because DzC units generally represent larger sized vehciles they fit just fine. Moreover the larger N-scale buildings are also quite passable for 15mm gaming. What is amazing about these things is they are priced the same or cheaper than 4Ground but come completely assembled and painted (well colored) — literally ready to go in minutes from the box! They are not weathered in any way and are mostly colored plastic not painted so they have a different look from the Hawk and 4Ground stuff. But they still mix in just fine and those wanting to spend some time on weathering will be well rewarded.
Planetfall
Speaking of 10mm games, Spartan Games’ Firestorm Planetfall miniatures are starting to become generally available including the new Leviathans. Compared to Dropzone Commander the miniatures are probably lacking but the comparison may not necessarily be fair. Spartan has gone for a simpler, chunkier look and the models generally have much more mass than Hawk’s. The surface detail is amazing but they opted for simpler models so you do not get the overall complexity of shape or ultra-fine detail as you do with Hawk. The Planetfall infantry are quite nice and have a unique basing design. But they also seem closer to 12mm but one can argue they are in powered armor so should be larger. Yet there is no doubt they look quite nice and give further uses for those now collecting 10mm terrain.
15mm Sci-Fi
I got distracted by some of the very nice 15mm sci-fi miniatures being done by Khurasan Miniatures. Specifically the new Zantin Reconquest line and the new units for the Nova Respublik Crimson Army. The GOTA line replaces the NAC as my favorite sci-fi 15mm infantry (with the Arc Fleet Heavy Infantry from Critical Mass Games a close second). Also new was the Kickstarter from ACP Games with their new Vanir dropship. They also included a good deal on their existing line of units along with a new Humvee-esque vehicle. Looks like our Gruntz rules will see some action soon.
28mm Sci-Fi and Modern
Not to be left out, I’ve at least been looking at my Deadzone Enforcers sittting on my table needing paint. I’ve made some progress on assembling the new hard plastic Enforcers as well. These are light years better than the restic stuff but still mix in just fine. The Anvil Industry Kickstarter has still not arrived so I was spared that distraction only to have the Beasts of War show off some 28mm modern vehicles from Empress Miniatures. These look really amazing. That motivated me to finish up an old 28mm Antenociti APC that is unfortunately no longer available. Squirrel!
Star Wars: Armada
Last but not least Fantasy Flight Games released Star Wars: Armada after an extended delay due to dock strikes. The game was worth the wait and offers a fun but fast starship combat game. It won’t replace Firestorm Armada but for those who love Star Wars or simply do not want to paint it is certainly a great option. Speaking of painting, while the capital ships in the game come painted just as nicely as the X-Wing miniatures the small fighters are just colored plastic. After seeing Steven MacLauchlan and other folks paint theirs I had to take a crack as well. In just a few hours you have some nicely painted fighters that reward the effort.
- Outpost Zero has some nice battle reports: The Outpost, Gunnery 180, Hyperspace Assault
[Updated: 11APR15]
The View from the Turret 
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