Wartile, the Viking themed miniatures combat game from Playwood Project, received a hefty load of new content in an update today. It adds a new character class, new maps, a new game mode, new items, and a lot more. 

If you want to read my initial rundown of the game you can find that HERE.

If you want to see the game in motion, and watch me lose rather horribly, not once but twice, this video is for you:

Official Wartile Website: http://www.wartile.com/


Finally, below is the complete list of changes and additions:

Overview
New Battle Board & new game mode: Trial of Tyr
New Battle Board: Thor’s Wrath
New Figurine Class: The Archer
2D Art Overhaul
Progression Overhaul
Pickup Items
And much much more.

Progression Overhaul
As we get closer to final release and get more content, we’re slowly starting to be able to organize our progression to our final vision. This means that the map progression has been changed slightly from our last patch.
The Rescue now unlocks after Heidrun Clan
Trial of Tyr (new map) now unlocks after Heidrun Clan
The Monastery now unlocks after The Rescue
Thor's Wrath (new map) now unlocks after The Monastery
The Archer (new class) now unlocks after Heidrun Clan
The Brute now unlocks after The Rescue
Difficulty has been rebalanced accordingly
Progression of experience and loot and gold cost of figurines has been rebalanced accordingly
Pickup Items

In our last patch, we added that characters could carry a Torch; expanding on this mechanic, we have now added items on battle boards that can be picked up. Pickup items will, after being picked up, appear on a character as an ability card that can be used to provide an effect, such as healing or throwing a bomb.

This mechanic will continue to be implemented and improved on in future content and likely added retroactively to existing battle boards.

Trial of Tyr
Added the new Battle Board “Trial of Tyr” adding a new game mode; Skirmish, that involves fighting against waves of enemies and surviving for as long as possible, with randomized events and enemy compositions creating a new and varying challenge.

Trial of Tyr like other maps can be completed like normal, but is also an infinite mode that allows you to test how many waves you can withstand.
New game mechanic: Wave defense
Events that change playing conditions
New Battle Board layout
Thor’s Wrath
Thor’s Wrath features battling your way through not only groups of enemies, but passing through a hazardous thunderstorm that is likely to cause some issues if you are not careful.

Thor’s Wrath features a vast network of caves with partying Vikings, where the element of surprise and tactical use of abilities will certainly be required, unless you choose to brave the dangerous thunderstorm.

New Figurine Class: The Archer
The first female character has been added to the game; The Archer. The archer is strong long range unit, that is particularly weak in close range. The Archer is higher skill cap unit that requires a lot of movement and micromanagement.
The archer class is now unlockable
The archer is a long range unit that requires active input to attack
Archer has the following abilities
Starting ability, Volley: Fires multiple shots in quick succession
Second ability, Rain of Arrows: Lets down a Rain of Arrows in an area dealing AoE damage to nearby units
Third ability, Flaming Arrow: Fires a flaming arrow at a target that ignites the tile dealing massive damage.

2D Art Overhaul
We’re in the process of a full overhaul of all 2D graphics on cards and UI. This is a longer process and this update will contain the first batch of these primarily focusing on Player and Figurine ability cards, quests and Menu UI.

Art in the entire game will follow this new style that will be introduced until the game releases.

Other Updates
Added Quest Tracking
Quests will now be tracked at the right side of the screen after looking at objective cards. This will now distinguish primary from secondary objective as well as adding support for tracking objectives will multiple sub-tasks.
UI element added to the right side of the screen for tracking objectives

Group Moving
Group moving has been introduced as a feature in this patch. Holding down the Shift key while moving a unit, will automatically cause your other nearby units to move with the unit. This has been introduced to reduce the effect of traversal on larger maps.
Group move is done by holding down “Shift” when moving your units

Lost Norse Additional Objective: Poisonous Toads
A new objective has been added to Lost Norse.
Collect toads and earn a new player ability

Battle Notifications
We have added a new Notification system that gives an indication of what effect buffs have and when units receive high grounds and flanking bonuses.
Battle notification appears when a unit enters a flanking position
Battle notification appears when a unit receives high ground defense bonus
Battle notifications appears when a units gains stat debuffs or buffs.

Item tooltips
In an attempt to further clarify the effect of items, we have added tooltips that will improve the feedback of the item’s effects.
Added tooltips to items explaining stats and special effects

AI Improvements
We’re improving a lot of things about the AI systems. Players will notice the following effects:
AI now properly moves through objects on the ground (such as Hel’s Helmet)
AI now reacts better to archers firing at them
AI now reacts to dangerous tiles

Other Changes/Bugfixes
Stat card (lower left corner) should now properly scale and move with different resolutions
Bear Trap is now permanently visible to the player using the card. Opposing players will see the trap setup, after which it will become invisible.
Slight changes to card system behind the scenes. Cards will move cleaner and have less blinking/artifacts as well being ordered differently
Fixed a bug causing friendly invites for multiplayer to not always function
Fixed a bug causing units killed with abilities and ability cards to sometimes not award experience
Units killed by neutral damage sources will no longer award battle points to the player
Minor combat changes (pending an upcoming larger change); Combat now functions slightly differently behind the scene and crits are now visible.
Fixed a bug causing debris to interfere with figurine movement
Fixed a bug that sometimes caused music to stop playing after pressing
Escape to open the menu.
Fixed various missing animations for the Brute figurine class.
Slow time now functions more smoothly. Slow time now properly interacts with other systems, such as no longer slowing down time while showing event card. Slow time will also no longer slow UI elements (such as unit ability cards).
Added hints to the menu to help new players understand more advanced concepts beyond the the scope of the tutorial.
We now save and list your high score on a battle board. This, however, does not work retroactively and will require you to replay maps to display.
Brute “Kick to the Groin” has been re-flavored to “Headbutt”
The godly card “Movement Speed” has been renamed to “Speed of Sleipnir”

Warbirds: Blitzkrieg AAR: Stuka Attack!
 

 

 

Click for Game Review!

SOS Ed 4 Kickstarter
 

 

 Streets of Stalingrad 4 is a multi-player, company-level boardgame about the German 1942 Fall offensive to take the city of Stalingrad street-by-street, block-by-block. It includes many two-player scenarios and new aviation and river crossing components. The original SOS was published in 1979 followed by two more editions, the last one in 2002. It is considered one of the all-time classic wargames. This fourth edition is a major graphic redesign and game expansion by Lombardy Studios and 626 Designs. SOS4 includes the latest historical information and orders-of-battle based on never-before-seen Soviet archival records and images. A Kickstarter for playtest kits is scheduled for June 2017; the full monster game Kickstarter will launch in September 2017 and run during the 75th anniversary of the battle.
 
LINK TO SOS WEBSITE
 
LINK TO KICKSTARTER

Panzer IV Ausf. H And Ausf. J Volume 1

by

Lukasz Gladysiak

and 

Samir Karmieh

 Panzerkampfwagen loosely translates into English as 'armored combat vehicle', and just as we use the short word tank to describe one, the Germans use Panzer. The German tanks from the Panzer I  through the Tiger look like they belong to the same family. If asked, most Allied soldiers would say that they fought against Tigers each day of their campaign. In truth, the Tiger was actually a rarity in most combat situations. There were just too few of them. The actual tank that the allied soldiers were up against was more than likely the Panzer IV. The Panzer IV was actually the backbone of the German tank units.

 Amazingly, the Panzer IV was actually designed in 1936. The Panzer IV was used operationally from 1938-1945. Seven years does not seem too long, but all you have to do is compare the world's standard tanks or tankettes in 1938 to the behemoths of 1944 and 1945. The engineering of the Panzer IV was such that it was able to be upgraded and used on the front line all the way through the war.

 This book is actually Volume I on the most numerous built versions of the Panzer IV: AUSF. H and AUSF. J, the J version being the last one to be produced. The Panzer IV was also imported into Syria from left over WWII stock, and used as late as The Six Day War. 

 Chapter one goes through the development history of all of the different versions. Chapter two gives a run down of all of the tanks' technical aspects. There are sections on armor, armament, and the electrical system, etc. There is even a section on the wireless equipment. 

 The next section of the book is a photographic walk around of an intact Panzer IV in Belgium. These close-up photos are a modeler's dream.

 The next part of the book is where I get to say "It is good to be alive now". This section is a stunning 3D visual walk in and around  a Panzer IV.  It is an amazing fifty-two pages of a computer generated wonder that even shows the inner workings of the Panzer IV. Short of getting to spend a few hours in and on a reconstructed Panzer IV, this is as good as it gets. I cannot wait to see more of this series from Kagero.


Robert


Book: Panzer IV AUSF, H And AUSF. J Volume I
Authors: Lukasz Gladysiak and Samir Karmieh
Publisher: Kagero
Distributor: Casemate Publishers

 

The Battletech Backer Beta just went live a couple days ago, here is a video of me giving it a spin! I got a microphone upgrade, so now you can actually understand what I'm saying.

Official Website: http://battletechgame.com/

- Joe Beard



Editor: Full version will be reviewed when released.