Wargames
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 »
Battlefleet Gothic — Overview
Battlefleet Gothic is Games Workshop’s sci-fi space combat game set in the world of Warhammer 40,000. It is a Specialist Games title and, like Epic Armadgeddon, is often overlooked by gamers. BFG is overall a very well done set of ship combat rules. It is fast playing and mostly well balanced (with the exception of the Eldar that most players feel are over powered). You can easily control up to a dozen ships on a side yet the game is still interesting with just a couple ships in play. The miniatures are generally well done, with the primary Imperial and Chaos ships available in plastic, and easy to paint. If you have an interest in sci-fi ship combat and you have not looked at BFG you should. To make this easy GW now has the rules available as a free download or you can still purchase the printed books (the box set does not seem to be available anymore).
BFG continues to have a lot of online support. There is the official web-zine Warp Rift and the Port Maw forums are good places to start. In addition, the World’s End Radio podcast provided some recent coverage of BFG. Episode #9 – All Ahead FAIL has a nice overview of the game (forward to 52min to get right to the BFG material). The following Episode #10 – Seeing Stars has a look at some of the advanced rules as well as the various fleets available (jump to 34min in to get right to it).
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 »
Sabol Designs Combat Mat
Sabol Designs has produced an interesting product. The Combat Mat is a game mat for use with miniature games. What is different about it is that instead of being made of cloth or even a texturized rubber as other game mats are it is essentially a huge photograph. They currently have two versions including ‘plains’ and ‘sand’. The mat is 6’x4′ in size and rolls up for storage/transport. It has a rubberized back to keep it from moving around but the top is smooth. At less than $60 it is certainly a unique alternative to Games Workshop’s new Realm of Battle Gameboard.
The Miniature Mayhem blog has more photos of the mat along with a video.
Firestorm-Bagration Delayed
Battlefront’s new campaign game for Flames of War is going to be delayed until late February 2009. Firestorm is an interesting idea. It is sort of an Axis and Allies-looking game set on the Eastern front in WW2 during Operation Bagration (the 1944 Soviet offensive in Byelorussia). Its main purpose is to be a campaign game for FoW that will generate individual games of FoW. What is not clear is whether or not the game can be played stand-alone or not. Either way it is good news for German and Russian FoW players.
[Updated: 11JAN09]
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).
Jutland — Released
Storm Eagle Studios released its long awaited computer naval wargame Jutland. Jutland is based on their Distant Guns engine. The game comes in two versions: standard and pro. Pro provides a scenario editor. There is a demo available for download and there is also an online tutorial.
Storm Eagle Studios is proud to present the sequel to it’s 2006 Wargame of The Year Distant Guns!
JUTLAND covers the 1916 Noth Sea Naval actions between Germany, England, and France.
Featuring an astounding 900+ historically accurate, highly detailed 3D ship models, Jutland delivers the most realistic, True Physics Ballistics ever released in a commercial wargame.
JUTLAND features as easily accessable user interface that allows the novice game to quickly dive into the game. For the seasoned vertern, it also provides access to advanced features and detail that will satisfy the most demanding Admiral of the Fleet!
Landmark 15mm Buildings — Review
It has been awhile since we first looked at some pre-painted 15mm building choices. Unfortunately, Battlefront has still not released any northwest European buildings in their Battlefield in a Box line. Luckily we recently discovered the 15mm buildings from Landmark. They are very nicely done resin-cast pre-painted buildings. They have a feel closer to china or ceramic as opposed to the more plastic feel of other resin buildings (I think this is due more to the crisp casting than the actual material). The castings are extremely crisp and clean and the painting is also very clean and well done. So much so that they almost look too nice on the table! They certainly give a pre-battle feel to the tabletop. Read the rest of this entry »
AT-43 — New Scenario
Rackham released a new AT-43 scenario, Traffic Jam. It uses two of the game maps and has some interesting weather effects.
The View from the Turret 
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