Armored Brigade, the real-time tactical sandbox which covers a vast swath of Cold War gone hot possibilities, has received its first add on content. It's called Nation Pack: Italy-Yugoslavia, and as the name suggests, it adds two unique new nations to the game. I won't go too far into describing the base game, since Robert did a good job of that here. Suffice to say, this a 2D RTS that will feel familiar to anyone who has played Close Combat or Combat Mission. 

What really sets the game apart is its vast scope. The game covers theoretical war in Europe between the years of 1965 and 1991. Accurate army rosters are available for 7 different nations in the base game, with this add-on increasing the count to 9. The other significant feature of the game is how it generates battlefields. Rather than having hand crafted maps or randomly generated ones, the game ships with several gigantic, accurate maps of various interesting locales in Europe. Individual maps are then generated from this by simply drawing a box of your desired size on that big map, and there you go, a new place to fight over. Combat can scale from company sized skirmishes to brigade sized brawls. This is the beauty of the game, it can be stretched and squeezed to give you exactly the sort of battle you want. 

Infantry squad knocks out a T-55 after losing their ride into town.

This new nation pack extends that sandbox even further by giving you two new nations to play with and a new map that covers 61 square kilometers of the Italian-Yugoslavian border. The two nations combined add over 250 new units to the game. That's a lot of new toys to play with! Now, I'm no aficionado of the Italian and Yugoslavian military makeup in this era (or any, really), so I'll link to the official description here which has a nice summary of the strategic thinking in those nations during the Cold War. The short version is, these nations were not the titans of the world, fielding first rate tanks and elite infantry. These are the oddballs, nations that had no desire to fight WW3 to begin with, nor did they have the resources to match the big boys if they wanted to. I've loved playing these sorts of secondary powers in every wargame since I got Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin as a kid. It's always fascinating to dig around in the OOB and see what kinds of units are available, and then figuring out how to fight a battle with what you've got. Here I was especially interested in some of the earliest formations, which include plenty of WW2 leftovers. I know lots of people are clamoring for the game to be expanded into a full on WW2 game, but here you can at least get a taste. 

Now, let's look at the new map a bit, as it offers a great variety of terrain to fight over. There are constricting mountain valleys, wide open plains, urban zones, coastal areas, and lots of rivers to cross. I have not fully explored the map yet, of course, but every battle so far has been on a tactically interesting battlefield. Where the map really shines is when you combine it with the new campaign generator.

The one great shortcoming of Armored Brigade (besides the lack of multiplayer) is that the game does not come with any campaigns and only a handful of scenarios. Those scenarios are mostly tutorials, and after playing around with them you are left with only one-off battles that you generate. While the battles you can generate are excellent, and created exactly the way you want, they are still just one off battles with no narrative or larger stakes to consider. That has all be changed with the free update launching alongside this nation pack, which adds a dynamic campaign generator to Armored Brigade, even if you don't have the DLC. 

Each green box represents a potential battlefield for the campaign. It can be much shorter, of course, or feature much larger battlefields.

This campaign generator is analogous to the single battle generator in that it is very flexible and easy to use. You just click on the map to indicate the general track you want the campaign to take, tweak the settings and scope as you please, and away you go. Each campaign starts off with a meeting engagement, and then the winner will advance and the loser retreat. As the battle moves towards one end of the campaign track or the other, the defender will be able to get more supply points and be able to build fixed defenses like pillboxes and such. If the momentum of the battle shifts and the fighting passes back over old ground, the destruction of the previous fights will be evident. This can change the landscape of a battlefield that is fought over several times, creating an immersive narrative for the player. Losses also carry over from one battle to the next. The player will receive a certain amount of supply points after each battle, and these can be used to repair and refit units lost in the fighting. 

This is a feature that the game desperately needed, and I'm happy to see it added as a free update. Really the only thing that I didn't like about the base game was that the battles never felt like they carried much weight, since they were just randomly generated one-off affairs. Now you can have a narrative arc, with real consequences for your losses and poor (or brilliant) decisions in battle. I haven't had enough time with the game to play out any epic campaigns just yet, but I imagine many players will be firing up a titanic US vs USSR campaign that spans the length of the Germany map. The especially cool thing is that everyone's campaign will be unique!

So, if you have been enjoying Armored Brigade so far, this is an easy recommendation. The two new nations add some extra variety to what is available in the base game, and the new map is excellent. If you were on the fence about Armored Brigade, the free update including the campaign generator has given it a lot more value, and I suggest that you take another look. I imagine we will be seeing several nation packs similar to this one over the next couple of years, and I look forward to trying them out. In a sandbox of a game like this, you can never have too many toys or too much sand.

Armored Brigade and the Italy-Yugoslavia Nation Pack are available directly from Matrix/Slitherine.

- Joe Beard

Armored Brigade

By

Matrix/Slitherine

  

 
 Armored Brigade is out and wargamers around the world are thankful during this season of thanks. It is an adult sized toy chest filled with wargaming goodness for those of us who enjoy gaming a fictional World War III. The forces that you have at your fingertips never really fought each other. A lot of the actual weapons did fight each other, but mostly they were in the hands of different troops. Many of the Middle East conflicts had these same weapons in use. The sheer scope of this game is pretty amazing. I will have quite a few links at the end of the review because this game has had more buzz about it than any game for a good long time.

 The first thing you need to know about the game is that it comes with fifteen scenarios. This game is the ultimate sandbox for wargaming the last years of the 20th century in parts of Europe. The player has a tremendous amount of variables to use in making his various scenarios. From what I have read there will be DLCs with more player ready scenarios and possibly campaigns. The second thing you need to know is that this was a free download game for a long time. What you need to know about this is that this game in its core resembles the free game. In reality the game has come a long way since then. You can see by the list below what is actually included for the player to use in their scenarios. Below that you will see the seven nations that are included with the game.

 

  

 This will be my take on the AI. Yes, it may make mistakes that some (remember that word some) human players might not make. However, the idea that is floated about is that all human players will play better than any game's AI is completely wrong. A human player can sometimes be a terrible player of a game, be it chess, wargames, or poker. The only things that a human player does sometimes that an AI almost never does are these:

1. A human player sometimes makes some incredibly foolish, or if you will stupid, moves that take you by surprise. If an AI is not done right it will make stupid moves, but they will be logical stupid moves not illogical.

2. A human player will sometimes game the system by using bad or incomplete rules to win a game by completely non-historical or insane means. What I mean by this is games that allow a regiment of AA to take a city the size of Moscow. 

 The AI in Armored Brigade is done well enough to keep the average wargamer on his toes. It will not (no AI will) be competitive to a gamer who plays one game sixteen hours a day for a month or two. I will say if that is your life, you are not a wargamer, just a person in need of a new hobby or something. Most of us have only limited time to play our wargames. If we are lucky we might get in up to four or five straight hours in a week. I also suspect that many are like myself and play different games pretty much each gaming session we can cram in, meaning that most of us do not play enough of one game to find the AI's pattern in them. Are there games out there with bad AIs, yes. Is this one of them, no. The defense rests.

 So, the salient parts of the game are this. It is single player only (gasp from the audience). On the other hand, I have seen it posted in articles that as low as 10% of all gamers play multiplayer. It comes with only fifteen preset scenarios. I would have liked to see more, and maybe at least one campaign added. I am not a fan of the DLC model that computer games are heading in. I do understand the higher costs companies are dealing with and why the DLC model is probably necessary. However, that does not mean I have to like it.

Farthest Out Zoom

 On the plus side you have a robust AI. The mission generator is one of the best as far as ease and amount of variables a player can use for his scenarios. I do believe by all the buzz that we will be able to choose from a large amount of player made scenarios. Matrix/Slitherine has developed or been involved with a lot of videos to explain most of the game's rules etc. With these, any player who has any questions can get playing in no time, although I did find the game to be intuitive and started playing right away. The scope of the weaponry and troops goes from 1965-1991. With this game you have a very large sandbox for battles in the late 20th century in a lot of Europe. The maps can vary from extremely large to very small to represent any size combat that you want. As a player, you can send orders to different parts of your own force to help with micromanagement. As for the AI on your side please see above. If you are a micromanager, the game allows you to play that way also. It is an RTS, but I wish we would come up with a different moniker. RTS always leaves a bad taste in my mouth and brings visions of Command and Conquer to mind. Maybe we can call these games wargames played in realtime, WPIR instead. Visually the game is a wargame sort of in the mold of the Close Combat series of games. You can zoom in very far, but you will not see tanks done in 3D. You will see very well done top down views of tanks etc. One great addition is that of dummy objectives. This is a neat addition to the game.

Closest Zoom

 My esteemed colleague on the blog would like to see the following added:
Snipers
Engineers
Paratroopers

 So in wrapping up I am happy to endorse the game to anyone who wants my opinion. The only thing I can really knock the game for is not coming with enough scenarios or a campaign.

Game Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWONTj0P_JU

How to move units:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvccWnk0T6o&feature=youtu.be

AB developer interview:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4268634

This is a link to the manual:

http://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/PDF/Armored%20Brigade%20manual%20EBOOK.pdf

DDR faction video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfX7YUxJRxs

Here is a write up about night time operations:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4538198

Robert

In the frigid depths of the North Atlantic, a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine glides silently beneath the waves. The Cold War has gone hot, and you are at the helm of a vessel that will make all the difference in how it plays out. That is the scenario presented when you fire up a campaign of Cold Waters, the newest nautical experience from Killerfish Games. The developers of turn-based WW2 naval combat titles Atlantic Fleet and Pacific Fleet, have switched gears by releasing a real-time submarine focused title set during the Cold War. 

Cold Waters occupies a happy medium on the sim-arcade spectrum, with all the appropriate bells and whistles you would expect in submarine simulation, presented in a streamlined and easily controlled manner. If you're like me, and most of your submarine skippering abilities were taught via Tom Clancy novels, you will feel right at home here. After playing through the series of interactive tutorial missions, you will understand all the mechanics of commanding your sub. The controls in Cold Waters are very easy to grasp. The sub is maneuvered using the keyboard (WASD to steer, surrounding keys to control throttle and ballast), and firing weapons is as simple as clicking on the map in the desired direction/range. There is also a solid primer on sub combat tactics in the in-game manual that you will probably want to review. Despite the informative tutorial, if you don't have much experience with post-WW2 submarine tactics, the school of hard knocks will likely dish out a few more lessons in short order. 

After completing the tutorials, your next stop will either be one of the preset scenarios or the dynamic campaign. The scenarios offer some good variety, starting with a simple 1v1 sub engagement, then increasing in complexity and difficulty until you are staring down entire enemy battle fleets. I tried out a couple of these to get started, but the bread and butter of the game is definitely the dynamic campaign.


Cold Waters offers two different time periods for the campaign. You can play in either 1984 or 1968. I mostly have played in the 1984 setting, since you get far more toys to play with and the combat is generally faster paced. For now, you can only play as NATO. In both settings you will have several different sub classes to choose from, all the classics are here. Once the campaign begins, you are presented with a series of news bulletins laying out the circumstances that lead up to war. This style of news bulletin will continue to pop up throughout the course of the campaign, keeping you up to date on the state of the conflict. Your successes and/or failures will directly influence these events over the course of the war. 

The campaign map also shows the state of the war, with icons indicating Soviet progress against NATO forces on the continent. A variety of other icons representing ships, aircraft, subs, and even satellites travel around in real time. Keeping track of all of this is a bit of a mini-game in itself, as you click on the map to have your sub travel at slow or fast speed to your chosen destination. Let an enemy air patrol spot your sub and you can expect an enemy attack sub to make a beeline in your direction.

Your movements on this map will be based on the missions you are assigned throughout the campaign. Most will have you moving to intercept or hunt down various enemy vessels. A more exotic assignment might have you dropping off commandos for a daring raid deep in enemy territory. Friendly reconnaissance units will occasionally reveal enemy positions and movements, and then you must use your judgement, and the intelligence from the mission briefing, to rendezvous your sub with its prey. One drawback with the game was that this screen can leave you feeling a bit like you are fighting the war all alone. Your lonely sub ventures out repeatedly to strike at the enemy, but no other friendlies seem to be in the fight at all. This leaves the conflict feeling a bit less "dynamic" than it might be if you could actually see the battle that is supposedly raging in the North Atlantic.

Once an engagement begins, we get to the meat of the game. Your viewpoint for the game is mostly from a third-person camera orbiting your sub or another object such as a torpedo. The only first-person view you will find here is when gazing through the periscope. If you are looking for the claustrophobic immersion you might remember from Silent Hunter III, you won't find it here. That said, I know I spent most of my time in Silent Hunter using the external camera anyway, but the omission does detract a bit from the immersion factor. Other items you will find on the screen include a tactical map and a multi-tab information panel. The map shows all the various contacts you may be seeing, and some detailed information about your sub and whatever item you have targeted. You can also pull up a full-screen map when needed. Over on the information panel you will find just about everything else you need. A panel for managing weapons, one for damage, one for water conditions, and one for sonar contacts. 

I found that most missions played out in three phases, which I dub the hunt, the attack, and the chase. 

During the hunt you will be stalking silently, listening for contacts and working to get them fully identified. In some missions you are there to destroy everything in sight, but oftentimes you will have a particular target that must be taken out or the mission will fail. Getting a positive ID of your target before engaging is a must, since you may only get one shot at it. During this time it is also smart to plan out your entire attack and exit strategy. Failure to plan ahead will regularly result in a poor performance once the action gets going.

Once you have your target and plan of attack, it's time to pull the trigger. Torpedoes and missiles are fired by simply selecting the weapon tube, configuring a few settings for the weapon, and then clicking on the map where you want it to go. Once that first shot is released, things get a lot more hectic. The enemy will now be actively closing on your position, but you will want to stick around long enough to confirm your target's destruction or let loose another volley if needed. 

Gradually the attack will shift into the chase in most circumstances. At the very least you will usually have enemy ASW aircraft dropping sonar buoys, then torpedoes and depth charges if they get a bead on you. Once you become the hunted, the tension really ramps up. You've succeeded in your mission , but now you have to get your crew out of the area alive. This stage is where I lost my sub 90% of the time.

After the mission, whether it was a success or failure, you will go back to the world map. You will soon get new orders, but may need to retreat back to your home port for repairs. The more success you have, the better the war goes, and vice versa. Eventually one side will emerge victorious, though I have yet to survive long enough to see that. 

Overall, the actual combat always left me satisfied. As you start out playing the game, each battle will usually leave you with some kind of lesson you can apply to future encounters. This is always a good sign in any game where death can come suddenly. Usually that death was your own fault, but it isn't a failure as long as you learn from it.

The graphics of Cold Waters work quite nicely. The various sub and ship models are detailed, and the water in particular looks great. The sound effects are also generally good, but one distinct feature is lacking in the audio department, there are no voiced lines at all. Reports of new contacts or weapon discharges are presented only as a line of text. The developers have promised to rectify this with an update, so I look forward to seeing how that adds to the experience.  The game loads up extremely fast and I did not encounter any major bugs or glitches. There were a couple of UI issues which have already been resolved in a patch.

Cold Waters is a submarine sim that I think will please many gamers interested in the topic. However, I know there is a crowd out there hoping for something a bit more hardcore, and this game may not be for them. Some of the finer points of sub combat are left out, for example, the towed sonar array on your sub is completely abstracted. Cold Waters is all about getting you into the action rapidly and often. Once in the thick of things, even the relatively simple mechanics will keep any player quite busy. Between maneuvering the sub, tracking enemy contacts, dodging torpedoes, and managing repair priorities, you will have white knuckles in no time.

What makes me enjoy and want to recommend Cold Waters is how it gives you a sense of being in The Hunt for Red October or similar fiction. Sometimes a scenario will play out simply, with you firing a weapon, destroying the target at range, and then skulking off into the sea. However, other times the battle can turn into a chaotic mess, with your sub maneuvering right next to an enemy sub, looking to get a perfect shot off while dodging torpedoes. In these moments the game really shines, as the simple controls let you stay hooked into the action. 

Killerfish Games are already busy improving the game, with a couple of patches out that have fixed several minor issues and added a couple of quality of life features. They promise to eventually add in voiced lines and a matching set of Soviet scenarios and campaigns. Extensive modding support is also on the agenda, so those looking for a more hardcore experience may need only wait for a mod or two to change things up.

At $40, I think Cold Waters is reasonably priced for being such a niche game. There simply aren't many games like this out there, and this is a very solid title with some more improvements on the way. I give it a strong recommendation for anyone looking for a fun submarine combat sim.

- Joe Beard

Official Site: http://killerfishgames.com/games/cold-waters

Cold Waters is available on Steam for PC and Mac

I'm coming to you from a classified location, somewhere under the frigid waters of the North Atlantic. The Cold War has gone hot, but there's nothing warm about this particular theater of operations. Cold Waters, the just released title from Killerfish Games, has you as the captain aboard one of several different submarines, lurking about looking for prey in a dynamic full scale war environment. 

I did not get a review copy until the day of the game release, and I have not had enough game time to reach a final verdict before setting off on a full-fledged family road trip tomorrow. So I thought I would at least give some first impressions on the game since I know a lot of people are interested in it. Such games as this are few and far between, but there is definitely an audience out there looking for their next chance to fire off a few torpedoes into unsuspecting vessels.

So, is this a technical simulation requiring hours of study to even know what is going on (I'm looking at you Dangerous Waters) or is it an arcade style combat game focused on blowing stuff up? Cold Waters manages to tick all of the naval lingo boxes you could hope for, while being startlingly simple to jump right in to. This will probably make it ideal for most players looking for some Cold War naval action, while perhaps not meshing with a few gamers on the extremes of that spectrum.

The sub battles can sometimes turn into real knife-fights.

On the one hand, to play the game effectively you will need to understand and manage active/passive sonar, what cavitating is (and what depths/speeds it occurs at), steering your sub using speed/rudders/flaps/ballast at the same time, weapon loadout, planning your attack as well as your escape, dealing with upwards of a half-dozen or more torpedoes in the water simultaneously (yours and theirs), and how to use the thermal layer to your advantage.  

On the other hand, the game is played entirely with a third-person view of your sub. Looking about in the crystal clear waters, you will be able to watch enemy torpedoes coming in as you try to dodge them. This can feel a bit like cheating at times, since you can even jump the camera to one of your wire-guided torpedoes and steer it into an enemy sub. That said, the situation often becomes complex enough that you need all the help you can get. Targeting and firing your torpedoes feels a bit too simple compared to the likes of Silent Hunter 3 and its kin, since you simply look at the map and click where you want the torpedo to go. However, you do still need to be pointing in the correct direction to fire off the shot. You can also jam your tubes if you try firing while maneuvering too sharply.

I'll save a more detailed discussion for my full review, but my current thinking is that if the above paragraphs didn't dissuade you, and you are looking for some sub simming action, then Cold Waters is definitely worth taking a close look at. The missions and campaigns quickly get you into the action, but then you will usually need some real strategy and planning to accomplish your goals and live to tell the tale. That escaping alive part is really the crux of the game. More than a few times I got my crew killed by firing off my weaponry, then lingering about since I had not thought that far ahead. Anti-submarine aircraft are usually swarming above, just waiting for you to reveal yourself, and then the hunt is on. Run too hard and you may run smack-dab into an enemy sub that was patiently waiting for you in silence. Once the enemy torpedoes start closing in, the tension level ramps up to white-knuckle levels. 

Look for my full review and a gameplay video in about a week.


- Joe Beard

Official Website: http://killerfishgames.com/games/cold-waters

Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm Players Edition & Reforged DLC Review





I purchased Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm not long after it was first released. Though I'm not normally into modern warfare, I am massively into the WEGO mechanic. For those unfamiliar with this term, I'll explain. For years, most wargames followed the IGO/UGO mechanic, mainly because [pre digital wargames] IGO/UGO was the only way to be able to play a wargame between two players. Though some games did vary it a bit with initiative and impulses, on the whole one player moved/fired etc and then the other player would do likewise, hence I GO - U GO.  

However, wargames on a computer opened up whole new possibilities when it came down to wargame mechanics. So, we saw wargames played out in 'realtime' where the clock kept going and players (or yourself and the AI) simultaneously made their move; games like Close Combat followed this path. Also you still had wargames using the old IGO/UGO mechanic right up to this day.  In fact, it's still the most used mechanic. Then, along came Combat Mission with its WEGO mechanic. Here you and your opponent, be it another player or the AI, plot your moves and once happy and you've both clicked for the next turn the game would then, like a movie clip, play out in front of you for 1 minute as you watch, biting your finger nails, your pixeltruppen follow your plotted moves.

I fell in love with this mechanic there and then. I loved the tension it creates, plus in Combat Mission you could replay the turn as often as you like from all angles, so you'd never miss out on any action, unlike realtime games where you could miss out on all sorts as you're dealing with something across the map. So from then on, any game using the WEGO mechanic instantly gets my attention. IGO/UGO at lower scales feels a bit forced, REALTIME too fast and can end up a clickfest, where as WEGO fits the bill perfectly. This is why I purchased Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm. A purchase I certainly don't regret.

Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm is set during the Nineteen Eighties and the Cold War has gone HOT! The game is kind of a sequel, but more a major upgrade of a previous game called Flashpoint Germany, a wargame published by Matrix back in 2005 (whose scenarios became Red Storms DLC. See later in the review). The game features 20+ scenarios, in which you can play as either the NATO side, whose forces consist of USA, UK and West German, or play as the WARSAW pact  commander Soviet forces. Plus there are four campaigns, that's right FOUR campaigns, giving you the chance to play as one of the NATO nations or as the Soviets. In the campaign you have a 'core' force which gets carried over from one mission to the next, getting repaired and replenished between each scenario. You also get 20+ maps of central Europe, mainly focused on Germany and based on real world data.

 As mentioned at the beginning, the turn mechanic is WEGO with a very clever twist. The turn length all depends on your nations command, control and communication ratings which can be affected by electronic warfare and casualties. This is called your command loop and a major feature of the game is to get in your enemy's command loop, which means you can react more quickly, as you get the chance to issue more orders than the enemy.

NATO has the upper hand from the get go here. So, for instance, you as the NATO player have a 12 minute loop; this means twelve minutes of game time will move forward until you get the chance to issue orders again. Now, at the same time, the WARSAW pact player may have a 30 minute command loop and so has to wait thirty minutes. This means the NATO player has had two opportunities to move before the WARSAW pact player gets his second chance. As I'm sure you can see, over the many hours a scenario usually plays out in, this can have a massive effect on the outcome. Nail biting stuff!

The game has an extensive TOE for all sides based on their real life eighties counterparts. Add in dynamic weather, counter battery fire, air strikes, helicopters, mines, fortifications, obstacles, recon units, active FOW and NBC unit capability. Now why have NBC capability? I'll tell you why, not only does it have chemical weapons, there are also tactical NUKES!! That's right Nukes! Sounds like overkill..well I'll tell you this, the first time I nuked I still lost!!

I found the UI to be very good indeed. The player has lots of info at his fingertips and issuing orders is straight forward. The game has lots of player options that can affect the actual game and its difficulty or let you change the colour of things, like fire lines and unit highlight box etc etc. It's all well thought out and you can see the devs have really given some thought about the UI and what different players may want and so have given you the tools to change certain things to fit your taste. In fact, going further, the game is also mod friendly and if you check the forums you'll find lots of mods and user made scenarios out there, even ones set during WW2 or the swinging sixties! At the end of a scenario you get an AAR which breaks down how each unit performed, as well as issuing out awards to those units that stood out during the battle. I love this kind of immersion\chrome.

Now I loved the game and not that long ago to coincide with the release of its DLC a huge update came out upgrading the game to 'The Players Edition'. This update improved all aspects of the game and is the version you'll purchase if you buy the game today (It's actually just had another major update which adds a host of new features for instance a new Intel Map screen). Now I do have some quibbles with the game. I've always been suspicious of how units can spot and shoot each other across city hexes, plus I find at times Infantry could be a bit more difficult to kill, though it's a lot better in this respect than many other wargames out there where infantry are just endless canon fodder. Some of the issues raised in the forums will, the developers say, be ironed out in the next game/expansion in the series, Southern Front. Southern Front will, as the title suggests, cover the fighting further south. There is also talk of a WW2 game (yes please) at some point in the future.

I truly feel Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm will go down in wargame history as a classic of its time. I have no hesitation recommending it to all wargamers. So go read the forums and make that purchase!

As mentioned further back Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm has a daddy and the daddy was called Flashpoint Germany. Red Storm is bigger and better than its father but the scenarios its daddy packed where just too good not to upgrade with all the bells and whistles Red Storm can bring to the table. So to rectify this along comes Flashpoint Campaigns: Germany Reforged

The expansion includes 17 new scenarios plus 43 different variations with the original Flashpoint Germany maps totally redone for Red Storm. Not only do you get the four maps from Flashpoint Germany, you also get a brand new, extra large, map 'Eiterberg' - it's nearly twice as big as all other maps, so the player can create some huge battles.

If you love Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm then buying the expansion Flashpoint Campaigns: Germany Reforged is a no brainer.
  

13 DAYS

THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

FROM ULTRA PRO via JOLLY ROGER GAMES

I would love to be able to write this review without referring to Twilight Struggle, but as the designers themselves heralded it as Twilight Struggle [hereafter TS] in 45 minutes that's not going to be likely.

There are plenty of other reasons too.  Victory determined by who has gained most Prestige at game end, a Defcon track and the possibility of a player losing by triggering nuclear war; playing a hand of cards each turn and each card playable for either its events or placing influence; an abstract board to represent the areas to be influenced.  The Cuban Missile Crisis - one card in TS : a whole game in 13 Days. Nuff said - mini-TS or TS-lite?  Thankfully, it's better and worse than that.

To start with, it has a much smaller footprint.  The board is a mere 11 x 16 inches and though a map of the world hides mutedly in the background, the superimposed, large, rectangular boxes where the fight for influence takes place transforms the experience into a much more abstract form, especially  as three of the boxes aren't countries, but Television, United Nations and Alliances.  Calling these battlegrounds [however metaphorically true that might be] stretches my ability to sink myself into the atmosphere.

To be honest, atmosphere is what I think the board lacks and in that respect is much inferior to TS, but, like most CDGs, the cards are the main creators of the ambience.  In this case, a deck of 39 Strategy cards, 13 Agenda cards and one card titled Personal Letter [in effect the classic Advantage card which gives a bonus of one cube, when played alongside a Strategy card] which the US player possesses at the beginning of the game.  The Strategy cards are the key ones being illustrated with photos taken from the period, some of which I distinctly remember from T.V. news broadcasts and newspapers of the time, such as the meeting between JFK and Kruschev and most disturbing of all the shot of the ship carrying the said "Cuban Missiles".

By comparison the Agenda cards are disappointingly bland with either icons from the Defcon track or representations of faded map pictures.  Overall the quality of all the cards is adequate, but of a distinct thinness that does need sleeving, especially if, as a quick-playing game, it does get many plays.

The rest of the contents are a set of 17 small wooden cubes for each player in their respective colours of blue and red to mark influence in the battlegrounds, six wooden discs to chart Defcon status,  a yellow disc to mark the score on the  Prestige Track and a black disc to mark the turn and finally six small cardboard flag counters to be used each turn to indicate each player's Agendas drawn.

The rules are a small booklet of 9 pages for the rules themselves and 12 pages of a complete play through of a whole game.  That can be achieved as the game lasts a mere 3 Rounds with 4 card plays in each Round.  Yes, that's it; 12 Strategy cards are played by each side in the game.  In this respect, it is TS very, very, very lite!  But, more about those Strategy cards later.

Below is a picture of the board set up at the beginning of the game.

It shows the playing board with the 9 Battlegrounds: 3 Political [green], 3 Military [orange] and 3 World Opinion [purple] and the Defcon track [seen in greater detail below].

Unlike TS, the Defcon track has three columns to indicate how placing influence in the battlegrounds affects the respective Political, Military and World Opinion status.

The bottom of the Defcon track is printed with the starting positions of each players 3 coloured discs and if the resolution was good enough you'd see that they all start in the Defcon 3 zone.  Things have already hotted up before the 13 Days start.  If any single disc is still in the Defcon 1 zone in Phase 7 : Check Nuclear War that player loses, but what's worse a player can also lose, if all three of his/her discs are in the Defcon 2 zone in Phase 7 : Check Nuclear War.  This is a game that is very easy to lose, as each Round all discs move up one square on the table and every time you place cubes in one of the Battlegrounds on the map the relevant marker on the Defcon track moves up the number of cubes placed minus 1.  So, place three influence and you shoot up two squares on the appropriate track..

For me this is one of the best and well crafted mechanisms in the game.  It places you on the horns of a huge dilemma.  A major way to gain Prestige to win the game is from tallying the difference between the number of each player's cubes in a Battleground or the difference between the number of spaces of each player's discs on the Defcon track.  You have to place cubes in order to gain winning Prestige, but at the same time you are pushing yourself up the Defcon track towards potential defeat!  Lovely twist.

However, there is another twist that relates to the three Agenda cards [yellow-backed] each player draws at the beginning of each Turn.

just two of the Agenda cards

First the player uses his/her flags to mark on the board the  areas the three Agendas relate to, but only one of those three will be secretly chosen by each player and only the chosen ones will score Prestige points.  Again this feature of the game is a major one; it signals where a player's interests may be focused for this turn and allows for some degree of bluffing to try to misdirect your opponent from your target agenda.  Also, it is perfectly possible that your opponent ends the Round having been the more successful in fulfilling the conditions of the Agenda card and so gains the Prestige points instead of you.  Best of all you have to take that decision before you know what five Strategy cards you will be using to implement your choice.

This may not be to everyone's liking.  I can imagine some gamers, especially those who prefer absolute control to the vagaries of fate, would have preferred to make their choice of which Agenda card to be their chosen goal after seeing what cards they had to work with.  For myself, I love having to craft a plan out of what the draw has dealt me and in that respect 13 Days seems closest here to what I enjoy in TS.

three of the leading protagonists in the drama of history

First of all, in the deck of 39 strategy cards, each player has 13 in his colour and there are 13 United Nations cards.  With so few cards played, every single one is crucial and many of the dilemmas familiar in TS will be yours in 13 Days.  Each card has an Event and the number of cubes you can place or remove. These work in identical fashion to the War cards in TS.  If you play a card that is of your own colour, you have the choice of playing the Event or placing or removing from one Battleground on the map up to the number of influence cubes shown on the card.  If it is a United Nations card, you have exactly the same choice.  But if the card has your opponent's Event on it, your opponent has the choice of playing the Event [notice he/she can decline to play the Event] and then you place or remove up to the number of Influence cubes.

If you have been doing your maths, five Strategy cards drawn each turn and four played, what happens to the fifth card each turn?   This is the last of the important, innovative elements in the design.  That last card is placed face down in the Aftermath Location at the bottom of the board and provides the final whammy at game end.  The six cards are a final additional Prestige scoring - if the card is a Russian red one,  the number of cubes on it are added to the Russian player's score, if a blue  American card the number of cubes on it are added to the American player's Prestige, if a United Nations card nobody gets any Prestige points. 

You're probably thinking why on earth would a player not put a card of his colour in the Aftermath pile.  Well, it's a bit like the Space Race in TS, perhaps you had a card with an opponent's Event that at a critical point you just did not dare to play.  What can you do with it?   Bury it in the Aftermath pile and cross your fingers.

Obviously the decisions are more limited because, if you do not choose to play the card for its Event, there are only two things you can do either [1] add your cubes to a Battleground  or [2] remove them from a Battleground and there will be many occasions when you must simply take that negative choice of taking them away.  Why? Because it is the only way you can move one of your Defcon markers down the track and away from possible defeat!  However, you will find the action allowed by many of the Events to be especially useful, as they often modify basic rules in advantageous ways.

Before giving you my conclusions on this game, I need to mention the last item in the game box, namely the historical booklet which provides a concise  picture of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the significance of Berlin, Italy and Turkey which explains why all three are battlegrounds in the game, as well as a good explanation of the history behind all the Strategy cards.  For such a small game, this is an elegant addition and one I much appreciated.

So, fewer choices, fewer cards, fewer Rounds than TS, but always, always difficult, critical decisions and enjoyable absorbing play.  It may be a fairly quick game to play, but it is no filler, as I first thought it might be before I played the game.  Every game has been tense with all our attention focused unremittingly on the situation on the board.  Every card play is like a subtle fencing match with genuine opportunities for misdirecting your opponent

I have no hesitation in urging you get this in your collection.  It is an excellent design and exciting gaming experience that I know I shall play over and over again.

To find your nearest retailer in the UK or Europe who stocks 13 Days please click HERE

13 Days: Cuban Missile Crises

Kickstarter Campaign

RRP £34.99

Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm AAR by Michael Capobianco