FROM

FANTASY FLIGHT GAMES

Just a few crucial preliminary points, in case this series is new to you.  Most important is that you will often find this game abbreviated to Descent Act II.  It is, despite its rather eye-watering cost, an Expansion and so owning Act I is essential for playing this game.  If you choose to read on, be warned that I cannot be held responsible for what may lead to an unfortunate hole in your bank balance!

First a little history (which may be skipped over by those who do own Act I).  The Descent lineage of games began with Descent: Journeys in the Dark - a relatively conventional, though excellent, fantasy cooperative quest style game with an active evil games master controlling and seeking to win by thwarting all the efforts of the good guys (I use the latter word as an all embracing gender term). Later came Descent: Legends of the Dark - Act I.  This was a monumental step forward in a similar mould to and from the same people who created Journeys in Middle Earth. (Another favourite of mine.) In other words, the marriage of a table top fantasy game with an app that not only fulfilled the role of dungeon/quest-master, but also controlled many other facets of the game.

Virtually anything, if not absolutely everything, that has been said about Act I can be said about Act II.  Supreme quality - check.  Amazing miniatures - check.  Massive narrative arc -check.  Zillions of tokens - well ok, not as many, because you already have all the ones from Act I, but some new ones.  Lots of cards - check. And so on…

Briefly too, we’re still inhabiting the world of Terrinoth and working cooperatively to accomplish a sequence of quests with the same six heroic characters as in Act I, using at most four out of the six characters in any individual quest.  It is a linear game in its time-line and order of play with each turn divided into a Hero Phase and then a Darkness Phase.

In this next section, I’m going to look at the physical contents of Act II and make some comparisons with Act I.  As is my custom, I’ll point out now that these are often opinions and your taste may differ from mine.  My first statement, however, should (fingers crossed) be agreed on by all.  The boxes that the games come in are well nigh identical, except for colour and title.  Very large, very heavy and looking as if the top section and bottom section have been separated by another box - which is a fairly accurate description of things!

Raising the top section and looking into the top layer, you find the most amazing three packages of miniatures.  

The miniatures in their recessed trays

One of which is absolutely awesome and then some!  The supreme agent of evil - a towering 10 inch (25cm) sculpture of striking detail - all alone in its individual recessed container.  Next to it are six brand new miniatures for each of the six heroes: Brynn, Galaden, Vaerix, Syrus, Kehli and Chance. Then there is a surprise seventh miniature, Indris, which introduces one of the new concepts in this expansion, namely Companions. Indris is the only Companion in Act II.  A Companion is explained as a separate type of figure from either heroes or enemies.  It’s controlled by a hero when they activate, but has an independent sculpt and a double-sided card just like a hero. Does this hint at future expansions with other Companions?  

Just my personal view on the heroic figures - I find them in general more finely sculpted than their matching ones in Act I and this level of detail is equally brought out in the 18 enemies they face off against.  These too are all outstanding, especially the fantastically named Dragon Hybrid Doom Caller with the equally fantastically massive bell that they carry on their backs.  

Dragon Hybrid Doom Caller

...and his mighty bell

As before, all the enemy figures come with bases that have room for coloured inserts so that you can distinguish between them when you have more than one of the same type appearing in a given quest.  For the inserts themselves you’ll need to use the ones from Act I.   

Just a few random views on both the heroes and their opponents.  I love the fact that in Act II, Brynn is swinging her mighty hammer and has exchanged her massive winged helmet (not one of my favourites) for a much neater piece of headgear (a winged tiara?)!  

Brynn and that immense hammer

Chance has, shall we say, stepped from the shadows and no longer sports a mask - an item I did like! - while  Kehli seems a little less chunky and both she and Chance are in even more dynamic poses almost seeming about to launch themselves from their bases. 

Kehli & Chance: a dynamic duo

Perhaps my favourite change is the new figure of Vaerix.  Now he sports not just his mighty spear which is slung on his back, but swings with great power his bell weapon.  

Still, the most significant change must be that Syrus and Indris, the phoenix, are no longer one bonded sculpt, as the short rule book tells us, “As Syrus’s mastery over elemental magic has grown, so has his bond with Indris …(who) can now move independently across the map.”

Syrus & Indris

Confronting them are the new forces of evil in all the glorious detail familiar from the figures in Act I.

Out of these four, all bar the vampiric figure have four copies apiece, while the Doom Caller has two, along with the smaller salamander/dragon.

Moving from the world created in plastic to that in cardboard, there is everything you might expect.  Starting once more with a new set of large double sided cards, one for each hero, you’ll find a similar change and one that, like the figures, I’ve welcomed.  Act I’s cards were for me slightly too cartoonish - these seem slightly more mature, more adult almost.  Each new Hero card features new abilities, increased health and improved statistics and additional Surge abilities.  Indris, though now an independent figure, is still very much bound up with Syrus and so, as a Companion, does not get their own large card, but a smaller playing card sized one.  This cannot be flipped in the way the hero cards can to reveal new attributes, but has a defeated side instead that affects Syrus.  

Brynn's new character card

The two substantial packs of cards cover the many new items be be revealed as the campaign progresses.   Among them are weapons and stacks of skills for our heroes, a variety of light, medium and heavy armour and a new type of card, Legends.  Each Hero has up to three of these Legend cards which may be unlocked based on decisions made or their performance in the various quests.  Though double-sided, you can choose only one side to be used in this current campaign and there are several other features of these cards that make them stand out and differ from previous familiar card use.  Typically the app has a handy tab that can be called up which shows the legends and skills that each hero has unlocked so far and can equip themselves with at the beginning of a quest. Added to all this is an assortment of cards for trinkets and consumable items.

All this information and the rules linked with them is covered in the compact 12 page booklet.  Each Hero is prefaced by a brief piece of atmospheric text and introduces one major new unique feature.  For Syrus, as I've explained, there is Indris as his Companion.  Chance possesses Umbra Tokens to help friends and elude enemies.  Kehli has acquired Contraptions that she can lay about the terrain, while Galaden brings Shroud Tokens in to play.  Over and above these specific Hero-related elements, there's a new status - Confused - that can be laid on their enemies by attacks and abilities, as well as a new feature that benefits enemies - Resistances - that will initially be unknown until they suffer damage from whatever they are resistant to.  Nor should you forget that all the rules and everything presented and unlocked in Act I carry over to Act II.

So, plenty of new twists and turns to add layers of depth to the ongoing saga and finally, of course, there's plenty of new terrain pieces.  Here's a comprehensive look at everything when constructed and for someone not gifted at assembling most things these went together with little problem and in remarkably quick time by a careful attention to the four page guide to construction.

Ladders, columns (in three sizes), a cart, a bridge, a couple of shrines an arch with two choices of bells (one for the Heroes to ring, the other for the Evil Ones!) and lurking at the left rear a statue that figures can physically be located on!  In the centre you can see the range of tokens and another new element: fire.  Rather like barricades in Act I, fire can play its part in adding to the damage caused by Heroes and their enemies alike.  I particularly appreciated the single piece fires that can be attached to other items of furniture.  Anyone for a spot of book burning!

Below you can see an impressionistic creation to allow you to see how some of this might work together.   Pay special attention to the large stone platform some of the forces of evil are standing on.  

This is not just a great item playing a single scenic part.  It can also be inverted to form a walled courtyard and then, at the end of a day's gaming, reverts back to being a very successful container for all the other terrain!

Walled courtyard or storage box!

Without giving away any detail, the beginning quest of Act II is a substantially long introduction and then the campaign settles down to sequences of similar length to Act I.  The system rolls on well polished wheels and, though I've been told the campaign is estimated to be slightly shorter in overall length than Act I, you should be more than satisfied by its length and the whole promises many more hours of game play.  What I find is a final incentive to buy is that all that is unlocked in Act II can potentially make an appearance through the wonders of the app, if you decide to return to Act I again.  

To feed you with the nightmare that awaits should you succumb to this game, here are three final shots to dwell on! 

Finally, I must express great thanks to Asmodee for providing me with this review copy and the opportunity to tread this absorbing path.

 Stargard Solstice

by

Three Crowns Games

 It is 1945 and the Red Army is seeking vengeance for the horrors that were perpetrated in the Motherland. Conversely, the German Army is trying to hold back the red hordes from invading the Fatherland. The Germans are attempting to strike with Operation Solstice (Sonnenwende). Meanwhile, the Soviets are starting their East Pomeranian Campaign. The Germans are scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as manpower and armaments. The Soviets are also low on manpower, but they have plenty of artillery, tanks, and planes to support their offensive.

 This is what Three Crown Games has to say about their game:

"Stargard Solstice starts with one of the last German offensives of 1945, ‘Operation Solstice’. At the beginning Guderian had planned a pincer move to relieve Küstrin, but Hitler wanted to save troops to retake Budapest. This resulted in changing objectives to the relief of Festung Arnswalde and trying to cut the Soviet supply route towards Küstrin. The historical objective for the Soviets was to drive the Germans out of Pomerania and thereby protect their right flank while preparing to take Küstrin and make the final thrust towards Berlin. Stargard Solstice is a game recreating this campaign in Pomerania from 15th February – 6th March, 1945."

 This is what comes with the game:

 A full color A1 map

 16 page rulebook

 286 high quality, 15mm die cut counters

 Front and Back cover with game aids, charts and tables

 Sturdy 100my ZIP-lock bag

Game Turn: 2 days

Hex: about 3 to about 4 km

Units: Battalion to Division

Solitaire Playability: High

Complexity Level: Medium

Players: 2 or more

Playing Time: 3-10 hours

Soviet counters

 The map is a standard size one. It has large hexes and is easy to read. The Turn Record Track and some German and Soviet holding boxes are on it. As far as wargames maps go this is pretty standard. On its plus side is that there is no ambiguity to the terrain in each hex. The counters are also large and easy to read. There is no difficulty in distinguishing between the counters for setup purpose. Their color is pretty standard also, black for SS, gray for Army (Heer), with the Soviet regular troops brown and the guards units being red. Watch out when dealing with the counters. They look like the older ones we are used to, but these want to detach from the sprues in a slight breeze. The Rulebook is in black and white on thick paper. It is printed in double columns and the type is large. The Rulebook is sixteen pages long. The actual rules are only twelve pages and then comes the setup, Optional Rules, Designer Notes, and finally Random Events. There are two cardstock full page Player Aids. These are in full color. Most of the writing is fine, but the Terrain Chart writing is small. What we have here is a fine group of components for a wargame.

German counters

 This is the Sequence of Play:

Air Unit Phase

 Refitted Unit Return Segment

 Grounded Unit Refitting Segment

Random Event Phase

 Random Event Table Roll Segment

Command Phase

 Command Segment

 Movement Segment

 Combat Segment

Supply Phase

Reinforcement Phase

 Reinforcement Segment

 Soviet Replacement Segment

 Volkstrum Deployment Segment

End of Turn Phase

 

German counter with a Hetzer on it

 This is the fourth game in Three Crowns Games WWII Battle Series. Some of the other games in the system are:

Iskra, Tolling of the Bell, Konigsberg 45, Across the Narva 

 The game series has all the rules about everything we grognards expect to see: Fog of War, Command Chits, Regular and Strategic Movement, Rail Movement, Stacking, Reinforcements, Barrage, Retreats, Supply etc.

 So, pretty much if it walks, and looks and plays like a grognards wargame, it is one. This game and all of Three Crown Games games are meat and potatoes for grognards. Nothing too overly fancy with great gameplay. I have always liked the Random Events that they come up with in all of their games I have played. One thing about the game in the Designer Notes is the fact that the OOBs for the game are probably not spot on for the actual battle. It has all of the major units listed but, especially on the German side, it is hard to say for certain. With the destruction of records and the German forces completely falling apart, to assemble a complete OOB without any errors would be practically impossible. 

 The game plays like any wargame about the Eastern front in 1945. As the Soviet player, you are supposed to charge forward and crush everything with your tank tracks. As the German player, you are really emulating Hans Brinker. The only problem is that you only have so many digits to plug the holes. The game adds some chrome with a counter for Rudel among other things.

The Victory Conditions are:

Soviet Sudden Death Victory: If the Soviets have any of the Victory Hexes in Stettin.

German Sudden Death Victory: If the German player can get three attack-capable units off the map through the Landsberg Supply Line.

The normal Victory Conditions are based on the Soviet possession of Victory Point Hexes.

 Thank you, Three Crown Games, for allowing me to review another of your great wargames.

Robert

Three Crowns Games:

War Game Design | Three Crowns Games Production (3cg)

Stargard Solstice:

Stargard Solstice | 3CG (threecrownsgames.com)

Please see my review of their East Prussian Carnage:

East Prussian Carnage: The Tannenberg Campaign 1914 by Three Crowns Games - A Wargamers Needful Things

Fortress Games Talks About Their Games and Themselves

 "Fortress Games was a product of two things: what I thought was a revolutionary board game combo, and…Covid, lol.

Sitting around the house or just walking around the block here in Florida during early 2020 while restaurants, stores, and just about everything else was closed, I decided to dedicate a bunch of time to developing a solitaire game about the 8^th Air Force’s bombing campaign against Germany in WW2. I’d always loved Avalon Hill’s “Luftwaffe” as a kid – preplanning your bombing missions and then executing them – but the game had several fatal (in my opinion) flaws: needing to chart out the missions with a pencil and pad each campaign turn, requiring all Luftwaffe planes of the same type to land at the same time (probably to save bookkeeping time on airborne German fighters), and other issues. There was for me a truly eureka moment on a walk around the block one day when I realized I had the solutions to all those issues and could build a great solitaire game. At the time, I assumed it would be another game for my and my friends’ entertainment.

A brief detour to disclose a little about me – I’ve designed games since I was a young kid. I definitely had a bit of a knack for it: when I was in college in the early 80s the war in El Salvador was in the news every day, so I designed a game about it and put it in the common area of my dorm. For the whole year you’d never walk in there without two kids playing it and others watching and commenting. Based on its success I designed a Vietnam game which was equally popular. With more titles in mind, we contemplated launching a game company to compete with Avalon Hill, SPI, etc. after we graduated but, upon doing a little research, realized that logistical work of starting a game company – lawyers for copyrights, trademarks; vetting artists; finding printers who could print all the game elements including printed and punched counters (good luck on that in 1983) – the whole thing was overwhelming for a bunch of 22 year olds, and we passed.

Fast forward to 2020 – all those things are easy (or easier) thanks to the internet! So, I had designed “8^th Air Force” for my own amusement. In the process, I designed “20^th Air Force” because it was a logical twin game. No one has done a game of the strategic bombing campaign against Japan that culminated in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the “8^th Air Force” game system worked perfectly and the two campaigns were different enough that both games were unique. By the way, both games are seriously fun! I’ve designed dozens of games in my life, and I’ve enjoyed and developed them all to some extent or another, but I’d never designed a game as great as “8^th Air Force” (and “20^th Air Force”, but I give founders credit to “8^th Air Force” because it was the desire to recreate that campaign that created all the concepts). Talking to some friends about it one day I was told why don’t you publish them? After an evening of discussing it I realized that, in 2020, that might actually be doable!

We launched our Kickstarter campaign in September, 2020 and sold $8,700 worth of folio games. While dedicated to delivering quickly and with quality to our customers, I nevertheless considered this likely a hobby of sorts, not a business, but the games got GREAT play reviews. Next thing I knew we completely sold out our inventory, just weeks after the KS campaign was fulfilled! Our customers had to wait weeks for our second, much larger print, and it sold like crazy. I realized I had an actual business.

Our next offerings were “Save Afghanistan, Comrade!” and “Save South Vietnam!” – again twin solitaire folio games, in a Kickstarter campaign which started October, 2021. We learned a lot from our first publications and I would venture that the component quality (game board and counter art, game manual structure, etc.) of these games were leagues superior to our first two offerings. This time we sold $9,000 worth of games and, again, sold out our inventory after the KS – this time I was a little ahead of the game and had restocked my inventory with a handful of games left in stock. A little background on the games, because how could we develop and playtest, etc., two new games that fast? They were already completely done. I designed them, “Save Afghanistan, Comrade!” first, around 2001 and had been playing ever since. I chose these themes because in 2001 I wanted a game about the Soviet war in Afghanistan and there simply was none. Similar to 8^th AF & 20^th AF, when I had designed “Save Afghanistan, Comrade!” and was thoroughly enjoying it, I realized the system leant itself perfectly to the US adventure in Vietnam and designed that game probably in 2002. At that time, I never even considered publishing them for the same reasons my college friends and I never launched in 1983. But after the success of 8^th AF & 20^th AF, especially with what I learned publishing them, it was pretty easy to get a fully designed and play tested game system published. The work was in the art and writing the game manual, but it’s nice to start with a fully developed system.

Finally, the high quality of the artwork in the “Save” game series compared with the “Air Force” series made me a little embarrassed at our first publication. In our defense, we were new and inexperienced when we launched 8^th AF & 20^th AF, and the game play received GREAT reviews and required no errata, but the component quality of these two great games was no longer acceptable. So, our last Kickstarter (January, 2023) was a complete redo of those two games: in shrink-wrapped BOXES not folios, on MOUNTED game boards no cardstock, laser-cut super-high-quality counters, all new game board player aid and counter artwork, and completely redone rulebooks including countless illustrations and illustrated examples. While our first two KS campaigns did about $9k each, this one did $38k, and the sales have been pouring in ever since. By the way, I tried very hard to take care of the original KS backers of 8^th AF & 20^th AF – if you were an original backer you got both games for $59, or $29.50 each. We sell them post-KS from our website for $69 each, or $139 for both. I went over my philosophical approach to our original supporters in an interview I did with the “Lead Pursuit” podcast which I have a link to on our website (click “News”, scroll down to 3/1/2023).

We currently have two more twin solitaire games in the works, but while the first one is very well along (90%, including fully playtested), the second one has lots of work ahead, including lots of playtesting, so it’s hard for me to imagine publication before mid-late next year. Again, we’ll launch them on Kickstarter."

 Thank you very much for this look under the hood, so to speak.

Fortress Games: Fortress Games – The Art of Wargames (fortress-games.net)

Atlantic Chase

The Kriegsmarine Against the Home Fleet 1939-1942

Intercept Volume One

by

GMT Games

 The box cover, I believe, shows the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen breaking out into the North Atlantic during 1941 Operation Rheinubung. This would lead to the sinking of both the H.M.S. Hood and the Bismarck. At first glance, the naval balance between Britain and Germany looks ridiculous. How are the Germans supposed to try and attack the Royal Navy? In 1939, the Germans have two battlecruisers and two battleships being built, with some heavy and light cruisers. In battleships alone, the British Navy had fifteen on hand with another seven being built. It seems on paper that Britain had nothing to worry about. In actuality, the British Navy had to patrol the North Atlantic, Mediterranean Sea, and Southeast Asia. So, it was spread pretty thin, especially after Japan declared war on Britain. Obviously, there was not going to be another Battle of Jutland during the Second World War. All of the German ships would be used in the North Atlantic as commerce raiders. So now let us see what comes in this hefty box. This is a review of the 2nd printing of the game.

The mounted map

 This is what GMT says about the game:

"Atlantic Chase simulates the naval campaigns fought in the North Atlantic between the surface fleets of the Royal Navy and the Kriegsmarine between 1939 and 1942. It utilizes a system of trajectories to model the fog of war that bedeviled the commands during this period. Just as the pins and strings adorning Churchill’s wall represented the course of the ships underway, players arrange trajectory lines across the shared game board, each line representing a task force’s path of travel. Without resorting to dummy blocks, hidden movement, or a double-blind system requiring a referee or computer, players experience the uncertainty endemic to this period of naval warfare. This system also has the benefit of allowing the game to be played solitaire, and to be played quickly.

 

The German player’s task is clear: sever Britain’s lifeline to its overseas colonies and allies.  All hangs on the fate of convoys. Ultimately, success or failure in Atlantic Chase will hinge on the Kriegsmarine’s ability to breakout into the Atlantic and find convoys while frustrating British attempts to catch his raiders. The game chronicles the development of the Royal Navy’s strategy to contain the German fleet by pitting players against each other in five successive operations that comprise a Campaign Game. Seven additional scenarios treat specific historical actions, including a Sink the Bismarck scenario, a PQ17 scenario, and the Channel Dash. The game features battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, convoys, and pocket battleships, while U-boats, elusive armed merchant raiders, and air assets play an important role too. Operations during the Campaign Game and stand-alone historical scenarios each take 1-2 hours to play."

Some counters

 This is what comes in the box:

22 x 34" mounted game board

Two 8.5"x11" Inset Maps

Three 11"x17" player aid cards

Two 8.5"x11" player aid cards

Two Task Force Displays

Sheet and a half of counters

240 wood segments and cylinders

Rule book

Advanced Battle Rules

Tutorial booklet

Solitaire Scenario booklet

Two-player Scenario booklet

Four six-sided dice

Some scenarios and setups

 These are the awards it has won:

2021 Charles S. Roberts Wargame of the Year Winner

2021 Charles S. Roberts Best World War II Era Board Wargame Winner

2021 Charles S. Roberts Best Solitaire or Cooperative Board Wargame Winner

2021 Charles S. Roberts Best Board Wargame Rules Winner

2021 Charles S. Roberts Best Board Wargame Playing Components Winner

 After the list above, I should just post this and say "Goodnight Gracie".

A game in progress

  I am not often staggered by the contents of a wargame. I have more than a few that are monsters. However, I was really surprised about the number of contents that GMT Games was able to stuff inside the box. It was like a cornucopia, and seemed to be a never-ending stream of things, especially Rulebooks. I was a little trepidatious about what I had gotten myself into. Read on to see if I had bitten off more than I could chew. 

 For the contents, we will start with all of the booklets. First off, all five of them are made from glossy magazine type paper (although thicker). They also all come in full color. The printing, examples, and pictures throughout them are very large. It is always nice to see a game company help out us old timers. The Rulebook is sixty-three pages long! However, remember that everything in them is large. The Tutorial Booklet comes in next at fifty-five pages. Once again it is filled with large examples of play. The last four pages are the Design Notes. Please read this because it explains the missing elephant in the room. After that comes the Solitaire Scenarios Booklet. This comes in at seventy-one pages, and the last three pages are Historical Notes. The Two-Player Scenarios Booklet is sixty-three pages long. The runt of the litter of booklets comes next. This would be the Advanced Battle Rules Booklet at a mere fifteen pages. This is a bit funny if you have been keeping track of the pages from the other Booklets. Before the Advanced Rules Booklet, the total pages are a whopping 252! I was beginning to wonder if playing the game would give me some college credits.

 

 The next component is the mounted map. The map goes from the Canadian Maritime provinces to the top of Greenland on the western edge. On the eastern edge it goes from Gibraltar to the top of Norway/USSR. There are boxes to represent all of the different ports on the map. The Battle Board that is used to plot out ship gunnery exchanges is on the right side of the map. It also has sundry tables/charts that are needed for play. The colors are muted, and nothing was added to take away from gameplay. As in most naval wargames, the majority of the map is the big blue ocean. There is also a double-sided hard card stock map. One side has the western side of Norway on it and the other side has the North Sea hemmed in by Britain, Norway, and Denmark. There are two double-sided and fold out Players Aids. These are both easy to read and nice and sturdy. Up next are two double sided Player Aids that on one side have the Campaign Player Aid and the other has the British/German Force Pool Schedule. After that comes two single-sided British/German Task Force Displays. Then we have the last one, another foldout and double-sided Advanced Battle Rules Player Aid. 

 The last things to talk about are the wooden pieces and the counters. The wooden pieces are all uniform in their segments and cylinders, meaning that there are no flash or missing chunks of wood in any of them. When I saw them, I gave a sigh of relief. Why, you ask? Because they are already pre-marked for the game. I was not looking forward do dealing with 240 stickers. I have stickered many a game, but I do not enjoy it. The counters are fully functional and easy to read. The capital ships, cruisers and above, are represented by large rectangular counters that are almost universal in naval wargames. These have the obligatory silhouette of the ship in question. The leaders and 'Intel' markers are 5/8" square. The other markers are 1/2" in size.

 I know we grognards are a hard to please bunch. However, GMT Games should be proud of their endeavors with this game's manufacturing (so should we game buyers). I really have not had a game from them that was subpar in components, and I do not think it is because I am lucky.

Game situation

  The missing elephant in the game box are U-boats. When the designer (Jeremy White) started talking about his new design, the first question was "where are the U-boats?". When he answered that they were not really present in the game, the next query would be "so, it is another sink the Bismarck game?". Apparently when told the answer to that question most people were a bit confused. He writes that some grognards even begged him to put in U-boats. The various Air and submarine assets of both sides are represented as adjuncts to the surface war. I will let him address the issue from his Design Notes:

 "U-boats appear in Atlantic Chase as an effect rather than a fleet of machines. The U-boat arm operated independently (and invisibly) of surface vessels, for the most part, but because they hunted the same waters, this game presents opportunities for their operations to overlap with those of the surface arm. The player should understand that Admiral Donitz and his fleet of Steel Wolves are busy throughout this game, but that activity is not particularly visible."

 The story of how this game started out in the 1990s because of working on command and control in the American Civil War is a very interesting story. The designer definitely does a deep dive into the background story of the game and its mechanics. 

 So, the first thing you absolutely need to know that this game is not one that you can set up and glance through the Rulebook and be at it in no time flat. The tutorials are your friend and spoon feed you bit after tasty bit of what you can handle from one to the next. The complexity level of the game is only marked at a five, and I believe that is correct. There are a lot of things going on in the game, but none of them by themselves is a deal breaker or insurmountable object. You will not feel like Sisyphus while learning the game. The hardest part, and that is not correct either, is learning about the trajectories. Those would be the different colored rectangles snaking across the map. The thing you have to remember is that you are playing the admiralty of either nation, not an admiral at sea. So, you somewhat know where your forces are heading and what bearing they will be following, but because of radio silences etc. you are not quite certain exactly where they are at any given moment. The designer explains that the board is not meant to represent the actual ocean, but instead the operational maps that were hung up in the Admiralties of London and Berlin. These would have the trajectories charted out with colored string and pins. He has just brought the representation to the 21st century for us to have a blast with. Because of the new way of representing naval warfare, it is a bit hard to describe. All I know is that the system works extremely well but does not take the fun out of gaming. 

 Thank you, GMT Games, for allowing me to review this really excellent and innovative game which works just as well as a solitaire game and a two-player one. You do not need a shoehorn to make it fit into one or the other. Much like the word love, innovation is used far too often for just a change or even a slight change in a gaming mechanism. The Atlantic Chase mechanism is really innovative and, as many people have said, is ripe for being used in so many other situations in wargames. The designer should be wearing shades, because his future looks bright indeed. Pardon me, I have to now go to YT and listen to Timbuk 3.

Robert 

Atlantic Chase:

GMT Games - Atlantic Chase, 2nd Printing

GMT Games:

GMT Games

 

 Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance

by

Slitherine

  This is a demo of Slitherine's new real time strategy game based in the Terminator universe. I will state this right up front, I am not a big fan of RTS games. They are usually way too frenetic in pace. I have always liked turn based strategy games with their slower pace and with the ability to think about what you are doing each turn. That being said, it is good to get out of your safe space in games every once in a while. 

Screenshot from the first mission

 This is what Slitherine has to say about the demo:

"The Terminator: Dark Fate – Defiance Demo will give you an insight into the campaign and skirmish modes in the final game. The demo will be published on October 9th as part of the Steam Next Fest, and will be available to everyone for a limited amount of time.

The Steam Next demo includes the first 3 single player campaign missions, and includes 1 Skirmish Map. This preview demo is identical, except it doesn’t have the skirmish map yet. 

The early campaign missions will teach you the basics of the game but doesn’t include the multi-choice RPG aspects seen in later missions, where players can choose which factions to ally with (or attack), which objectives to follow or ignore, and how to respond to other characters through multi-response conversations. 

These early missions also don’t include the army management screen. Here, you can upgrade skills, weapons and armor for your squads and vehicles. It’s possible to buy and sell manpower, vehicles, equipment, weapons and ammo at bases and trading zones, place troops into vehicles, and edit and rename your unit names. Your army is taken from mission to mission, so if you lose a unit in a mission, then it’s gone! But if you upgrade a squad, they’re ready for the next mission. 

The Skirmish Mode in the demo includes an Assault Mode map. This Mode allows only the Founders or Legion to be selected and includes Assault Mode gameplay, with objectives to either attack or defend points on the map. 

The release will also include Domination Mode maps that allow Founders, Legion or Movement forces to be selected, with different reinforcement rules. 

All skirmish maps will also be available in Multiplayer, which isn’t provided in this initial preview. Multiplayer will allow up to 4 players to play within a map, in 1v1, 2v1, 2v2 modes."

Terminator: Dark Fate – Defiance will be available on PC later this Fall.

Screenshot from the second mission

 I can tell you three things about the demo that I really like. The first is that the game is really nice looking you can almost say beautiful to behold. The second is that you are given a few different orders to give to your small soldiers and vehicles. The third is something you do not usually see in a RTS at least when they are first released, and that is a pause button. I have played more than a few RTS games where the pause button was added in an update or is a mod made by a player.

This is a screenshot from the third mission 

 Another thing I like is that you are really given a storyline to follow. In the demo you are a Policeman who has decided to help both civilians and the army units. So, you become immersed in the game. Instead of just sprites, the characters in the game actually mean something to you. Before the second mission begins you find out that it is ten years later, and you are now a Major in the Founders. This would be the remnants of the civilians and army that have coalesced after the rise of the machines. The machine army is called the Legion. 

Another pic from the third mission

 I was quite pleasantly surprised by the demo and the gameplay, especially the pause button. For a demo of a game it was very immersive and really left me wanting more to play.

Another screenshot from the third mission

 The game will come with the ability to play either side, at least in skirmish mode, and that is another point on the plus side. The only thing about the demo I did not like was the inability to zoom out much at all. You can zoom in to see separate soldiers. However, there is an inset map that even if the zoom is not increased can be used to keep an eye on your units and the enemy. Thank you Slitherine for letting me take this demo for a ride.

Robert

Slitherine

Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance