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...
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DESCENT: LEGENDS OF THE DARK - THE BETRAYER'S WAR
Stargard Solstice by Three Crowns Games It is 1945 and the Red Army is seeking vengeance for the horrors that were perpetrated in the Mot...
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Stargard Solstice by Three Crowns Games
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:
Fortress Games Talks About Their Games and Themselves " Fortress Games was a product of two things: what I thought was a revolutionar...
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Fortress Games Talks About Their Games and Themselves
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 8th 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 “8th Air Force” for my own amusement. In the process, I designed “20th 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 “8th 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 “8th Air Force” (and “20th Air Force”, but I give founders credit to “8th 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 8th AF & 20th 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 8th AF & 20th 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 8th AF & 20th 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 8th AF & 20th 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)
Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance by Slitherine This is a demo of Slitherine's new real time strategy game based in the Terminator un...
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Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance by Slitherine
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
Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance
1212 Las Navas de Tolosa by Draco Ideas The year is 1212 and El Cid has been dead for thirteen years. The deadly conflict between the Musli...
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1212 Las Navas de Tolosa by Draco Ideas
1212 Las Navas de Tolosa
by
Draco Ideas
The year is 1212 and El Cid has been dead for thirteen years. The deadly conflict between the Muslims and Christians for Spain is still going on. In fact, the Reconquista will continue for almost three hundred years. The tide had turned and the Muslims, commanded by their Caliph Muhammad al-Nasir, were taking a good number of Spanish fortresses. It had gotten so bad that the pope, Innocent III, had called for a crusade in Spain. I am simplifying the historical tale. Both the Christians and Muslims were a loose group of smaller states that fought each other as often as they fought against their supposed enemies. The crusaders and a number of Christian states banded together to fight against a similarly made-up army under the Caliph. This is the backdrop behind the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa.
This is an excerpt from a written account of the time:
"They attacked, fighting against one another, hand-to-hand, with lances, swords, and battle-axes; there was no room for archers. The Christians pressed on." – (The Latin Chronicle of The Kings of Castile)
This is what comes with the game:
Board
54 Unit Markers
9 Combat Cards
6 help cards
12 special cards (6 from each side)
The Battles of Antiochus the Great The Failure of Combined Arms at Magnesia That Handed the World to Rome by Graham Wrightson Antiochus I...
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review
The Battles of Antiochus the Great by Graham Wrightson
The Battles of Antiochus the Great
The Failure of Combined Arms at Magnesia That Handed the World to Rome
by
Graham Wrightson
Antiochus III, or the Great, was a ruler of the Seleucid kingdom from 223 to 187 BCE. He ascended the throne at eighteen years of age after the assassination of his brother Seleuces III. His throne was not secure by any means. The provinces in the east had left the empire a few decades before. He was also faced with a revolt by the satraps of Mesopotamia, Medea and Persia. The Ptolemies had almost crushed the Seleucid kingdom a few years before. Syria was also lost to the Ptolemies at the time of his ascension to the crown. The author informs us of all of the history written above at the start of the book. He also goes into the state of the nations around the Seleucid kingdom so that we readers know exactly where the Hellenistic world, and beyond, stand at this time.
The book describes itself thusly:
"The author analyses Antiochus' major battles, Raphia, Arius, Panium, Thermopylae and, of course, the disaster at Magnesia which opened the door to Roman dominance of the region."
The author's take on the militaries of the later Hellenistic kingdoms is that they had not learned the lesson of Alexander or the Diadochi very well at all. He extols that the militaries of the later kingdoms were just a pale comparison to the great armies that had conquered the Persian Empire and beyond. Not just because there was no longer an Alexander to lead them, but because they did not understand what made those armies invincible for their time. The book shows how the percentage of infantry to cavalry, approximately 3 to 1, had changed so that it was more than 10 to 1 by Antiochus' time. The main idea of the book is that these newer rulers did not understand the combined arms approach that was needed to win with a Hellenistic army. He uses the battle history of Antiochus to prove his point. In this the author easily succeeds.
However, the book gives the reader much more than the above. He goes into the tactical uses of each of the parts of a Hellenistic army. The author shows us how to use a Hellenistic army and where Antiochus went wrong. Antiochus was a singular unlucky king. He ruled at a time when Rome was branching out to make the Mediterranean Sea a Roman lake. It did not help that one of the greatest Roman generals, Scipio Africanus, was present with the Roman forces. While he deserved his appellation 'Great' by reconquering all of the Seleucid territories in the east, Antiochus ensured the death of the Seleucid kingdom by his loss to Rome. This is a tour de force about the military history of Antiochus' reign. I can easily recommend the book to anyone who wants to learn about him and the militaries of the Hellenistic kingdoms. Thank you, Casemate Publishers for allowing me to review this excellent book on an era that hardly ever has some light shed on it.
Robert
Book: The Battles of Antiochus the Great: The Failure of Combined Arms at Magnesia That Handed the World to Rome
War Along the Wabash The Ohio Indian Confederacy's Destruction of the U.S. Army, 1791 by Steven P. Locke The United States was only ...
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War Along the Wabash: The Ohio Indian Confederacy's Destruction of the U.S. Army, 1791 by Steven P. Locke
War Along the Wabash
The Ohio Indian Confederacy's Destruction of the U.S. Army, 1791
by
Steven P. Locke
The United States was only eight years old when this campaign took place. One tends to be a bit shocked that only after so few years that the country and Army that had defeated Britain was almost totally destroyed by an Indian Confederacy. This book goes back in time a few years to show how the smoldering resentment of both the English and the Native Americans burst forth into war. We are shown that Britain ceded all of the territory up to the Mississippi River to the new United States. There was only a small matter of the indigenous population who were not a part of the treaty. The native tribes had been pushed farther and farther back by the colonists, even though Britain had tried to stop the colonists from encroaching farther inland.
As the book shows, the British were still upset about their loss during the American Revolution and were very slow to, or not at all, follow the treaty's stipulations in the Northwest Territories. They refused to leave most of their forts. Not only that, but they were fomenting hatred among the Native Americans for the new rush of settlers that were encroaching on their lands. The British were also arming the Native American tribes of the area.
The author explains that just like after every war until the Cold War the United States had shrunk its Army to an incredibly small size. Governor Arthur St. Clair was authorized on March 4, 1791, to raise the Second American Infantry regiment. This, along with the First American Infantry Regiment (The U.S. Army at the time) and with some six-month volunteers, only amounted to 4,000 soldiers! This force was to be used to create forts and strike out at the Ohio Indian Confederacy.
This sets the stage for one of the U.S. worst military defeats with losses more than three times that of the Battle of the Little Big Horn. The three Native American chiefs Buckongahelas, Little Turtle, and Blue Jacket are almost forgotten now except for historians. The fame of Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse now far exceeds these earlier warriors.
The book goes into the hows and whys of the campaign. It then traces the resulting campaign and the trek through native American land. The battle does not really have a name like Tippecanoe or other battles against the Native Americans. It is called St. Clair's Defeat or the Battle of the Wabash but again it is mostly lost to history.
The author has given us an excellent book about the era just after the American Revolution in the Ohio River Valley and the Northwest Territory. The book follows St. Clair's expedition day by day and gives all of the bad decisions that were made on many levels to lead to the crushing defeat. Thank you, Casemate Publishers, for allowing me to review this deep and well written book. It is a must for anyone who wants to know about early American history or the history of the Native Americans trying to defend their land.
Robert
Book: War Along the Wabash: The Ohio Indian Confederacy's Destruction of the U.S. Army, 1791
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