US Marines Review:

expansion for

Order of Battle: Pacific

Generally, most games do not accurately represent the quandaries faced due to supply during amphibious operations. However, Slitherine’s Order of Battle: Pacific tackles this, and does it extremely well. I experienced all of this somewhat during play of the base game and its first expansion, “Morning Sun”. Now though, supply, landing area, and reinforcement decisions are increased because of the larger number of amphibious assaults in its latest expansion, “US Marines”.

In case you have never had the pleasure of playing Order of Battle: Pacific, it is like a ramped up, feature-enhanced, version of the old Panzer General or, Slitherine’s equally excellent Panzer Corps. “US Marines” has added even more units (M2A4 Light Tank, Mortar Infantry, BB Kongō, etc.) and scenarios (Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Saipan, etc.) for the latest large, sprawling campaign.

Order of Battle: Pacific has always been extremely approachable and very easy to get into, and this latest installment is no exception. However, being easy to play does not mean easy to beat! The very competent AI has kicked my butt around these islands numerous times (actually, more like continuously). It is definitely no cake-walk trying to slog through the swamps and rough terrain, while simultaneously keeping your own units supplied, and facing dug-in Japanese troops supported by (the newly added) concrete bunkers, ships and aerial reinforcements.

Lastly, as your units gain experience, sometimes commanders will be generated to be attached to them. This is another layer of decision-making while also adding realism to the game. Overall, “US Marines” is a must-have for your Order of Battle: Pacific experience.

As a great example of logistics, I have to go back and try to keep my Marines alive, as I have burned through most of my reinforcement pool. Lucky for me, I got two destroyers on Turn 10 (a few days ago) to help with the invasion. This is great of course, but in reality, I could have used them five or six days earlier. Grateful for the help, just hope it’s not too little, too late.

-Clayton

http://slitherine.com/games/order_of_battle_pacific_usm

http://www.matrixgames.com/store/610/Order.of.Battle:.U.S..Marines.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/443620/

Hello all. This is the first article to be published of what's going to be a regular feature on the blog, where I'll be talking about and reviewing military history books, nonfiction and fiction, aswell as interviewing some prominent military history authors. As most of us here are wargamers,  it doesn't stretch the imagination to much to believe we also enjoy reading military history, aswell as our gaming hobby. They are very good bed fellows. I have a decent collection of WWI and WWII books nonfiction and fiction and intend to review as many as I can (well, at least my favourites).

I actually owe a lot to books in general, when I was about seven, I still couldn't read properly, but with extra help at school, I finally got it, it helped greatly that I had fallen in love with books and reading.  At the time it was the fantasy genre that got me hooked. So by the time I was eleven I had read the Hobbit and had moved on to The Lord of the Rings!  Then in later years I started reading military history, both fiction and nonfiction, with a strong preference for memoirs (esp WWI West front or WWII East front). It felt  that being able to see in my mind's eye what the author saw,  I in some way kept them alive, when most likely, they had died many years ago. I find it totally enthralling. It was the closest I was going to get to those moments in history where a man was pushed to the limits of endurance, and yet at the same time 'felt' more  than those who had never been to War. Unbreakable bonds were forged between comrades, an intense feeling of trust and love, created in the furnace of War, as well as an intense feeling of being alive whilst surrounded by death. Yet nerves  were stretched so much that many broke, leaving behind shattered wrecks. The front line was a place where extraordinary selflessness and bravery happened regularly, alongside humanities most vile traits. A place where violence and horrific scenes played out daily.

So this first article is going to be a selection of my favourite WWI and WWII books. Broken down into Fiction and Nonfiction. Though they'll be in no particular order. All books mentioned here I'd recommend without hesitation.

I'm keeping it to just ten for each section, which means so many superb books will be left out.  However the books listed here, and  all the other must reads that didn't make it, will at some point be reviewed, hopefully. One thing I want to say is for WWI nonfiction anything by Peter Hart and Peter Barton are  well worth buying , many of their books could easily have been included

One of the hardest catergories to do was the WWII nonfiction. It pains me to have left out so many great reads. On the whole, I've tried to steer clear of any really famous titles, but some did slip in along the way.

So have a read and then go check them out. I'm certain if you decide to buy one or more you'll really enjoy it. From my perspective every book mentioned here is a must own.

Signing out,

Jason

WWI Nonfiction

1. Liaison 1914 by Edward Spears

2. War the Infantry Knew by J Dunn

3. Other Side of the Wire Vol 1 and Vol 2 by R Whitehead

4. The German Army series by J Sheldon

5. Storm of Steel by E Junger

6. Four Years on the Western front by A Rifleman

7. War Letters to a Wife by R Fielding

8. The War Diary  of the Master of Belhaven

9. Tommy by R Holmes

10. Sagittarius Rising by C Lewis

WWI Fiction

1. Winged Victory by V M Yeates (based on his War experience)

2. Goshawk Squadron, War Story and Hornets Sting by Derek Robinson (His WW1 trilogy)

3. Under Fire by H Barbusse (based on his War experience)

4. Covenant with Death by J Harris (based on his War experience)

5. The Long Long Way by S Barrie

6. Birdsong by S Faulks

7. Richer Dust by S Hope (Based on his Gallipoli experience)

8. Through the Wheat by T Boyd (based on his War experience)

9. In the Line by G Bucher, War by Ludwig Renn and Zero Hour by G Grabenhorst (All based on their war experience fighting for the Kaiser. Try Naval and Military Press for a copy)

10. Verdun by J Romaines

WWII Nonfiction (Very difficult to just list ten)

1. Island of Fire by Jason Marks (Anything by Jason and Leaping Horseman is a must own. Easy could have added two more of his excellent books, Besieged and Into Oblivion, to this list. Only reason I didn't was to widen the field abit)

2. With the Jocks by P White

3. Few Returned by E Corti

4. Barbarossa Unleashed by C Luther

5. Panzer Operations by Raus

6. Stalingrad collection of works by D Glantz

7. The Eastern Front by L Degrelle

8. Soldat by S Knappe

9. Omaha beach by J Balkowski

10. Bridge to Far by C Ryan

WWII Fiction

1. The Red Horse by E Corti ( Italian family saga, superb read. See Few Returned as well which is the author's account of his experience during the Italian retreat on the Russian Front).

2. Cross of Iron by W Hienrich (Even better than the film)

3. Forgotten Soldier by G Sager (This is actually supposed to be a true account, however, this is disputed. The book is too good not to be mentioned in the article, though)

4. Stalingrad by T Plievier

5. Castle Keep by W Eastlake

6. Das Boot by L G Bucheim

7. Beardless Warriors by R Matheson

8. The Kindly Ones by J Little

9. Bomber by  L Deighton

10. Piece of Cake by D Robinson

I started playing Legion from Slitherine.

Legion is a turn-based strategy game set in ancient Rome.

A little bit like Civilization there is a campaign map, a strategic level, where the player controls armies and must conquer other tribes and city to build a powerful in ancient France and Italy.
What makes the game really interesting is the tactical level. In battles the player must position their armies to take advantage of terrain and make use of the best formations, to ensure victory.
I love that part. You place your units, decide their formation when in the battle they will start marching toward the enemy lines and then watch. Since you do not see most of the enemy troops before starting the battle, some late action may save you the battle at the last moment.
Of course, it may be a little bit frustrating since when you start the battle there is nothing much you can do anymore. But the amazing thing with this game is that you do not feel cheated by the AI. The result of the battles always seems to be accurate and balanced.

Let's be honest... watching your armies fighting on your iPad screen is just very pleasant.
Many times I was feeling like a general giving initial orders before the battle and, on top of the hill, looking as where the fate of his soldiers were decided.
You will learn very quickly all the option at hand before a battle and you will not repeat twice the same mistake after your army hit a wall of defenders because you just gave the wrong formation and direction.

At a strategic level, you will manage your cities, raise production building and allocate enough workers to them in order to produce resources. Wood, food and ore. The city also is used to recruit men for your armies. And workers are soldiers. so you have to make some difficult choice between increasing forces or increasing production.

Legion also have a diplomatic interface who is simple but efficient and do the job well even though it may displease the people who love such part to be deep. Here nothing too fancy but it is efficient enough to create simple treaties. You will not win a game as a diplomat. You will win by forced conquest.

The interface is simply very efficient on the Ipad. This game was created so long ago  I think those guys may have foreseen the tablets age.

Be aware the game comes with a PDF manual who must read since the in-game tutorial is very short and do not cover a lot of information you will find in the manual. Some screenshot I took will show part of this manual.
It is not really nice since reading such document on a tablet is tedious. A better tutorial or in-game hint will have been a better approach. But again this game was developed long time ago before the golden age of tablets. The manual though is very complete and can always be printed.

So if you have patience and want to know everything about each units and their strength and weaknesses, if you need every bit of information about every single buildings in the game to make sure you are making every single decision the right one, then you will have to spend some reading time on this manual.

All in all this game is a very good strategic game with an original tactical approach. I will definitely recommend it for those who likes to raise armies and build an Empire . A must have if you own an Ipad.

Decisions, decisions, decisions! 

That is what is in the store while playing Slitherine’s (and Auroch Digital’s) Early Access, turn-based “Last Days of Old Earth”. 

Action Points (AP) are the soul of the procedurally generated main map.

AP are used to recruit units, move units, create armies, and to draw new hero and fighter cards for your expanding deck. Need additional resources (Materials, Population, Energy)?

Leftover AP. Resources are also needed for unit purchase and for trying to improve your chances, at the turn beginnings, for Initiative dice rolls. If you win the Initiative next turn,  you not only move first, but you also earn more AP to spend.

It is tempting to jump in and spend all of your AP every turn. However, any unspent AP will collect each turn and eventually be spendable on more resources. More resources equal higher value cards and, again, a chance for winning Initiative.

Brain melting yet? So, do you spend more AP building up and moving armies or hold on to them to accumulate for following turns? It’s quite the (tremendously fun) conundrum.

As you move through the map, there are various “Encounters” that you come across, with more decisions to be made (I won’t spoil any of them). There are also additional resources on the map itself to build collectors upon (then yet another quandary of, “Leave the collector unguarded or leave precious troops there to protect it?” Yes, you want to protect them, but at the cost of weakening an army?) and reap their benefits every turn.

Supply is also a large factor. Your armies are penalized for moving out of supply range. The solution is to spend the much-needed resources to build outposts, to extend your supply radius.

Everything above is before ever engaging an enemy in turn-based battles! There are easy as many strategies as game hexes within each battle itself. Setup before the battle allows you to decide which units should be frontline, and which ones are to be used as a support, artillery, auxiliary, etc. Turns alternate with you choosing the order of attack you prefer. Tactics rule as you try to outwit your opponent on the battlefield, enabling you to take down an enemy with superior numbers.

It may verbally seem like a lot, but the game is extremely easy to get into. The AI is good as it kicked me around quite a bit while also punishing me for any less-than-optimal decisions I may have made along the way. The gameplay was really smooth and I did not have any crashes or technical difficulties at all.

Finally, all of this is available right now, in an EA game! They are going to add deck building, although the current decks are quite satisfying, which will give you and even more tailored-to-your-strategy experience. Stealth will also be added which will include sabotage and assassination They are also going to implement Air mechanics including air strikes, AA, and air recon. Single player is currently skirmishes only (with variable amounts of opponents), but they are adding a Campaign. (Multiplayer is in, but I did not test that at all).

My only decisions left to be made now are:

1) which side do I choose and 

2) how many enemies do I want to teach me lessons about my decision-making process?

I am definitely going back in to beat upon some more.

-Clayton

Graviteam Tactics:Muis front  after a few hours play, here are my first impressions. 

The con first

• The new UI. In my opinion considering, they have had so many compliants\gripes about the previous UI's etc I just can't understand how they could have made it even worse. I never really had an issue with the previous games. However now I do. The new Box method for me doesn't work at all. I just can't understand why they went this way. Surely they should have had some ideas and tested them with gamers to see what worked. The actual tactical UI part isn't too bad, though again apart from losing those blue boxes has become more confusing \complex. The force management and statistics screens are a total fail. I'm hoping they either redo them or, at least, go back to the previous UI as an option. Saying all this it hasn't broken the game.
• Anti-Aliasing isn't the greatest. Though not bad enough to spoil the fun

Now the Pro

• WOW! Once the battle starts it's breathtakingly awesome and exciting. My only complaint with this aspect is we don't have a rewind button as I miss so much awesome action. Honestly, this part of the game washes away the issues with the UI. The UI here is playable.
•  A great battle editor which gives you an endless amount of battles to create so lots of replayability here.
•  Even has a feature where you ask to be surprised and it creates a battle which you know nothing about and have to get on with it. Love that.
• Campaigns look good. Though you do get thrown into the deep end here.
• Has the historical accuracy and realism you come to expect from Graviteam.

Finally, everyone including veterans must go to Quick Battles and go through the training scenarios and training vids. helped me a fair bit.

Overall it's a must buy for any tactical wargaming fan. I'm sure people know by now I hate real time games..except this one and Command Ops as they are managable and not click fests. It's a crying shame they made the UI even more confusing..obviously they have an issue deisgning this aspect. However once the battles start it's all worth it.

UPDATE:

After a couple of days, I got used to the new force management aspect and with hindsight actually prefer it and it does make things easier. I now can see why other wargamers found the new UI better than the old one. I think as I never had a problem with the old UI learning a new one felt unnecessary.

One issue at the moment is it's having trouble with User made missions and pathfinding, which really needs fixing ASAP as it's making these missions unplayable

So taking into account this update Graviteam Tactics Muis front is an even better tactical wargame propositions and must own

Polaris Sector, the highly enjoyable new 4X space game from Slitherine, has some great, unique, and very interesting mechanisms right out of the gate.

First item would have to be the ease of which the colonization of new planets can be accomplished. While scouting your randomly generated universe, you will naturally come across a planet that you want for expanding your empire. There is simply a “Plan Colonization” button which does two things for you. First, it automatically puts a colony ship in the queue at your ship building planet. Then, if you choose to, you can immediately turn the basic function of the planet over to the AI once it’s settled. Your choices are Agricultural (food), Innovation (research), Industrialization (production), Mineral (mining), Balanced (self-sufficiency), or the pick that I’m most experienced with, Micromanagement. The last choice is obviously the most hands-on, full control selection for people that want to place, and make decisions, for every structure built. Once you decide between the more macro- or micro-management approach, you can easily change your mind at any time later during the planet’s development.

Research is not the normal, static tech tree many 4X games utilize. Research is more fluid, studying multiple aspects simultaneously. It is broken down into two basic categories: Fundamental Science (further subdivided into Biology, Chemistry, Math, and Physics) and Applied Science; each of which having sliders for you to increase/decrease your prioritization as you see fit. There is also a Priority button in case you are wanting/needing to really ramp up a certain tech very quickly. Each specific tech is explained quite well.

Ship customization is also deep and very pleasurable. As you progress through the technologies, an increasing amount of hulls, weapons, shields, augmentations, etc. become available. This allows you to create and streamline a huge variety of ships for your use in battling your opponents. Variety in ships and design is key to victory as the ever-adapting AI will exploit your vulnerabilities or weaknesses. A force of all of one type of ship will quickly spell your doom, whether all large capital ships or all speedy smaller ships. You will need an assortment of more specialized vessels to keep your enemies off guard. There is most likely infinite possibilities of combinations. It is also an easy, intuitive drag and drop method of building them.

The last aspect I will quickly touch upon is the ultra-cool tactical battle system. Once your fleet meets your opponent’s ships, the game switches to the tactical battle screen. On the right side is the fleet set-up, to position your ships before the battle, but only if you’re the defender. If you are the attacker, your ships are already set and cannot be changed. Once the fighting begins, it is time to launch your fighters (if applicable) and give initial orders to your ships. The tactics you employ can lead you to victory even if you’re outnumbered and outgunned. Because of the diversity in ship sizes and speeds, it instantly gave me a “Battlestar Galactica” feel. The quick, flitting, smaller fighters speedily fulfilling their orders, while the larger capital ships slowly move their bulk to accomplish theirs.

Polaris Sector is going to live on my hard drive for a very long time. There are so many other good things that I didn’t even touch on, it would take a book’s-worth of writing to even begin to talk about them all. Instead of doing that though, I have a new universe to (try to) conquer.