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For your Wargamer, Toy soldier collector, MiniFig collector, military history nut. Reviews, interviews, Model Making, AARs and books!
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Typhoon Over Moscow by T Broderick and Death on the Volga by T Broderick Again my book of the week visits WW2 and th...

For your Wargamer, Toy soldier collector, MiniFig collector, military history nut. Reviews, interviews, Model Making, AARs and books!
Typhoon over Moscow and Death on the Volga. My Books of the Week.

Typhoon Over Moscow by T Broderick
and
Death on the Volga by T Broderick
Edit: Sadly it's unlikely to be anymore, just noticed the publication dates!
FINAL ACT The Dials! The Dials! Ok, I ' ve got your attention. Now, can the game hold it? Well, this certainly is ...
For your Wargamer, Toy soldier collector, MiniFig collector, military history nut. Reviews, interviews, Model Making, AARs and books!
FINAL ACT
Only the cardboard swamp and minefield look rather ordinary among such well finished pieces. Once again, I can't help drawing you back to the dials.
Admittedly, dials have become something of an in-thing in the gaming world, from Glass House's production wheels to Tzolkin 's gears and, perhaps most recently Scythe's Combat dials. But these really are the piece de la resistance. Though the pointers are made of plastic, they are solider than any others I've come across and, most important, already assembled and secured in quality machined, metal units.
The map too is an attractive production with strong, vibrant earthen colours that are echoed in the orange and brown shading of the berms.
The rules do an excellent, clear job of explaining play, but are barely more than four pages long. As you can see below, text is fairly brief, well-laid out and attractively illustrated.
Before you reveal and move your tanks, you place each tank's wooden shell in one of the square's of the tank's fire arc. In the photo above, you can see several images of how terrain affects that fire display. You then reveal your control panels and move your tanks.
So, combat boils down to a game of "guesstimate". You work out which squares your opponent's tanks can potentially enter and your shells can hit and then try to guess which ones he/she has chosen. This factor alone [reinforced by the ultimate goal of the game being to get one of your tanks into the enemy's area designated Last Line of Defense] has led me to struggle to find players among my gaming circle, both of Euro gamers and wargamers, willing to give Final Act a try.
Though the initial secret placing of terrain and tanks lends variety to each game and there is no doubt of the physical quality of the game's production, ultimately I've found reactions have uniformly been that this is a delightful product and excellent for introducing children to the fascinating world of wargaming, but with very limited appeal to an adult market.
Final Act is published by Tyto Games and can be pre-ordered on their website tytogames.com
Afghanistan '11, developed by Every Single Soldier and published by Slitherine, is the sequel to Vietnam '65. This new title ta...

For your Wargamer, Toy soldier collector, MiniFig collector, military history nut. Reviews, interviews, Model Making, AARs and books!
Early Access Preview: Afghanistan '11 - Part 1
Afghanistan '11, developed by Every Single Soldier and published by Slitherine, is the sequel to Vietnam '65. This new title takes the established formula of fighting an insurgency, while winning over the hearts and minds of civilians, and adds several new layers to it. The game is scheduled for release later this month on March 23rd, so I thought I would do a preview consisting of an AAR (After Action Report) to give you an idea of how the game plays.
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Scenario Selection Screen |
In Vietnam '65, there were no distinct scenarios, only a randomly generated map which always asked you to complete the same set of general victory conditions. Afghanistan '11 includes an 18 mission campaign in which you must complete specific objectives in addition to the normal gameplay loop.
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Scenario Briefing |
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The Strategic Map View |
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The road from HQ (bottom right) to FOB Bravo (upper left). |
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The convoy sets out. |
Political points are used for pretty much everything you do. Requesting reinforcements, building new FOBs or roads, and even moving units around costs political points. You have to balance between using enough to get the job done (so you can generate more points) and overstretching yourself to the point that your forces become ineffective, as you cannot do as much once you run out of points. This number can even go negative, so you have to be careful.
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Trouble ahead. |
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An Apache attack generates mixed results. |
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Heavy Artillery. Look at that range! |
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The FOB artillery can now cover the central region of the AO. |
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An opium field spotted north of the right village. |
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The Taliban shows up. |
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More Taliban! |
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An ideal sight! |
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Cast your vote. |
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My second convoy runs into trouble. |
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My Chinook bites the dust. |
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The situation as it stands on Turn 11. |
The elections will conclude next turn. Hopefully the Coalition friendly candidate will win, and the momentum will shift back to us.
Look for Part 2 very soon!
- Joe Beard
LEGEND : WINDS OF WAR 1934 - 1940 Though the title Winds of War may have deceived you into thinking that this will be a review o...
For your Wargamer, Toy soldier collector, MiniFig collector, military history nut. Reviews, interviews, Model Making, AARs and books!
LEGEND : WINDS OF WAR
LEGEND : WINDS OF WAR 1934 - 1940
After watching him talk about all that he has designed on the Mille Miglia, you go away knowing that this is the passion of his life and a topic of which he has an encyclopaedic knowledge. As someone who knows no more and possibly even less about the car racing world of today than the most average "man in the street", I wondered how I would fare with this new product. One thing from my very early childhood I did remember was the name Mille Miglia and the glamour associated with that race and my fascination with the racing driver, Sterling Moss, and his astounding win in 1955 of the Mille Miglia.
My familiarity with car racing games is equally ordinary, starting in 1962 with a Christmas present of Waddington's Formula 1 and then leaping forward many years to a limited experience of formula De, then more recently Thunder Alley and just a few weeks ago Rallyman.
Of the other types of card, there are five named, historical drivers featuring photos of each in his car [seen below]
Text is fairly small and quite densely presented, but well-illustrated in full colour. The opening Component section is clear and easy, explaining first the dashboards and the many items that they monitor [starting with speed in km/h and then engine, temperature, barkes, bodywork and tires]. The course tiles come next and the basic road identifiers; white dots for flat sections, red dots for uphill and black dots for downhill and finally those black lines that you've carefully applied turn out to indicate the beginning and end of the curves [i.e. bends]. All the cards and the Race Chronograph and how to use them are similarly straightforward.
Moving on to what is called the Driving Academy, here we're introduced to the main body of rules and they will take all your concentration. They are for the most part clear and backed up with very thorough examples, but there is a lot to take in and every word matters. Though the final page of the rule book does contain the necessary charts, a separate Play Aid card with additional notes would make the eventual races that you run easier to deal with.
Initially simple movement, acceleration and braking get you off to a smooth beginning. Standing Starts, Great Starts, Slipstreaming and Slopes aren't bad to follow, but the substantial and important section on Curves, which also covers Accidents, need nearly as much care to negotiate as the real thing. I must admit that I felt just as I did when I started to learn to drive and thought," I'll never manage to remember all that's in the Highway Code and the things I've got to coordinate in driving the car will never become second nature." Well, I've been a happy, confident driverfor many years now, but the details of Exceeding the Turning Speed and the ramifications of Head Straight, Emergency Braking and Hard Braking, Fast Exits and then Collisions and Accidents are not yet second nature.
Making my own Play Aid has greatly helped in starting to fix things in my head, but for me this is not a game I can take down and play without substantially refreshing my memory. The essential actions are very simple: adjust speed, move your car accordingly, roll the dice, if necessary, and mark appropriate consequences on your dashboard display. However, the complexities and sometimes confusion arise from the potential
choices of how you may affect, either to enhance or try to avoid dangerous consequences resulting from, those simple actions. All add to the focus on simulation rather than game that I feel this product aims for.
The final section of the rules explains the procedures for setting up each type of race and here there is an interesting variety of options to suit a variety of needs. First and foremost, there is time. for the shortest play time, the advice is to select a Grand Prix circuit. Most of these are three-lap races, but obviously fewer or more laps can further temper your game to the time slot you have available.
Whatever type of race you prefer, you can choose between what the designer calls simulation or arcade mode. The latter choice naturally tends to give you a quicker game, while the former gives a more detailed and historical experience. Using the 1000 Miglia Yearbook page, you can decide on a year which gives you a range of cars to choose from and a maximum budget of lira that you can spend on creating your racing team.
However, if you go for the full Mille Miglia, then each car will be setting off at eight minute intervals and your opponent is going to be the clock. Each stage of the race is run in sequence, with your time the crucial factor, as the winner is the driver who clocks up the fastest time to complete all the stages of the race.
I know the intention is hopefully to work through the years with new expansions and though Race games are not my chosen field of interest, I truly hope that Carlo Amaddeo is successful in his intention. If so, I look forward to one day being able to emulate my childhood hero, Stirling Moss, as well as race with the likes of Fangio and Nuvolari!
My final conclusion is that Legend : Winds of War is definitely for the lover of car racing games and especially for those who want to learn about and experience a detailed simulation of this legendary race. Though this may have introduced some simplifications to the original, it still remains simulation more than game.
So, if, like me, you favour a simpler and more dramatic form of racing then this may be not your best choice.
[Talking about simpler. Next time, I shall be reviewing a game at the opposite end of the complexity spectrum. In Meerkat terms, folks, "It's simples!"]
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