Dubno 1941 The Greatest Tank Battle of The Second World war by Aleksei Isaev translated by Kevin Bridge ...
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Dubno 1941 The Greatest Tank Battle of The Second World War by Aleksei Isaev and translated by Kevin Bridge
Ogre is a turn-based game of strategy which has been around in tabletop form for 40 years. It was first released in 1977 and has been u...
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Ogre
Ogre is a turn-based game of strategy which has been around in tabletop form for 40 years. It was first released in 1977 and has been updated with numerous editions since then. I've only been a boardgame fan for a couple of years now, so I didn't know much about Ogre going in to this review. I did take the time to check out the various tabletop versions, so that I would have an understanding of where this game was coming from. From what I've gathered, this is a very faithful rendition of the classic Ogre boardgame, which is great for fans. At the same time, Ogre suffers a bit from the double edged sword which is strict boardgame-to-PC adaptations. However, any game which remains popular over the span of four decades has certainly got something going for it, regardless of how you are playing it.
Ogre succeeds unequivocally in one aspect, which is the presentation of playing a boardgame in a digital medium. The visuals are simple and clean, while giving the distinct feeling that you are looking at a hex-map covered in models, all set up nicely on a table. The game runs buttery smooth, which isn't surprising given the level of detail, but does make the presentation all the better. You want to feel like you are looking over a boardgame table, and smooth camera movement is key to that. While the units only have limited animations, they are adequate for the job, accompanied by equally simple explosions and other effects. The sound effects were rather less impressive, with most being extremely repetitive. On the other hand, I found the music to be surprisingly good for this kind of game. It's not Command & Conquer, but there are some decent techno/rock type of tracks to give the game some ambiance while you play.
Ogre, according to the lore, depicts a futuristic world where humanity does battle with each other using tactical nukes as the standard weaponry. This is because armor has advanced so rapidly that nothing else can make a dent. Even the armored soldiers are closer to nuke launching tanks than infantry, Starship Troopers style (the book, not movie). Deciding that wasn't enough death and destruction, the humans of this world invented the Ogre, an armored machine bristling with enough weapons to destroy a city or three, and piloted by an AI. As you might guess, the story of the game involves that AI going all Skynet and attempting to wipe out humans for good.
While the game features a variety of armored units for the human forces, like light/heavy/super heavy tanks, long range artillery, fast GEV's, and infantry, the Ogres completely dominate the battlefield and shape the gameplay. An Ogre can only be disabled by knocking out their dozens of tracks and each individual weapon, rather than being destroyed outright. The Ogre comes in a series of models, from I to VI, with the relatively small Model I Ogres requiring a dozen units or so to defeat, and the big bad versions able to take on entire armies alone. This creates a stark strategic difference between the Ogre and everything else on the battlefield: most of the other units can only fire once per turn, but their sheer numbers give them flexibility of movement, while the Ogre is often alone, but able to engage many targets at once.
Combat follows a set series of phases, where the player gets a chance to move and attack, and then the other side goes. Maneuvering around the Ogres, such that your units can get close enough to attack, while maximizing their chances of surviving the opponent's turn, is at the center of the game's strategy. The game seems extremely simple at first glance, but there is much more subtlety to the tactics than may first appear. I actually had to research some common strategies just to get through the first mission, but once I had a better understanding of the mechanics, a mission which seemed impossible became far easier. That isn't to say that the game throws you in blindly. There is a solid tutorial to start things off, where you learn about moving and attacking and so on. However, after that the ten mission campaign drops you straight into the deep end of the pool. If you are like me, several attempts will be needed for each mission before a winning strategy emerges. In particular, I enjoyed stacking my forces with the quick GEV's, since they get to move again after firing. This lets them zip in, take a shot at an Ogre, then flee out of range of its wrath.
The UI for handling all of this moving and attacking is mixed bag. On the one hand, it is perfectly functional and clear about what you are doing. Click to select a unit, click a highlighted space to move, click to select a target, select the units you are using for the attack, click "Fire" to attack, and so on. The problem is that you are very often moving around quite a few units, and each one requires this slightly too lengthy series of clicks to function each turn. The movement animations are also a touch too slow, and you can't do anything else while they play. This makes moving a stack of five tanks from one space to another a real chore. If you were playing the tabletop game, you could just pick up a whole pile of units and, assuming they are all the same type, move them to another space in the blink of an eye. In the PC game, this could take a good thirty or forty-five seconds of clicking. The developers have been steadily sending out patches to address feedback, and I hope they will add in some means of speeding up this area of the game.
The combat, while for the most part compelling, had some stumbles for me as well. There is a lot of good strategy here. How you position your units, what priorities you set for targets, and the composition of your force all matter a great deal. More than once I lost a mission and felt frustrated, but then immediately jumped back in with the thought "Well, what if I did it this way instead?" From what I've learned on my own, and gleaned from reading online, there is no one-size-fits-all strategy here. The simple question of "How does one kill an Ogre?" has all sorts of answers. With that said, the boardgame origins of the combat mechanics don't always feel right in video game form. Rolling the dice always introduces luck into a game like this, and you will see a lot of dice rolled in Ogre. Part of the strategy is balancing the odds. Do you go all in on one sure-thing attack, or do you make several lesser attacks, with the chance of destroying multiple targets? One aspect of the combat which drove me crazy though, was taking out the treads on an Ogre. Unlike the weapons on an Ogre, the treads are targeted by each unit individually, with a rather low chance to hit, and there are a LOT of them to destroy. Sometimes this boils down to watching fifteen units pew-pew at a weaponless Ogre for multiple turns in a row, slowly grinding away the treads until you win or run out of time, with no skill involved whatsoever. I'm sure a long time fan of the game could jump in here and tell me that I'm approaching it incorrectly, and they might be right!
If you want to flip things around and take command of the Ogre yourself, that is certainly possible. Besides the campaign, the game features skirmish maps which include several different generic scenarios. Some are balanced, while others involve lopsided forces, like a human army and a small Ogre defending against an extra dangerous class V Ogre. While the AI is decent enough, and will give you fits in the tricky campaign, there is of course the option of online play against a human opponent, the sort of match that Ogre was originally designed for. I didn't get to experience this myself while playing the game for review, but it seems to be functioning based on reports from other players.
It feels almost wrong to render any kind of verdict on a game that is been enjoyed by thousands of players longer than I have been alive, especially after only spending a week or so with it, but here we are. Ogre will most certainly please fans of the tabletop game. Everything is here, presented in a very clean and functional digital wrapping. There's online play for beating up your distant friends, and a couple of modes for solo play that will keep you busy for many hours. For players coming into it strictly as a PC game, it may feel constrained in some ways. The luck of the dice which can turn the best laid plan on its head, and the at times clunky UI could drag down your experience. Despite those criticisms, there is a very solid core of strategy gaming to be found here. New tactical layers reveal themselves as you get familiar with the mechanics, and usually reward your improved approach with much better results. I think any fan of turn-based strategy gaming will find something here to sink their teeth into.
Developer: Auroch Digital
Website: http://www.sjgames.com/ogre/products/ogrevideogame/
- Joe Beard
Twenty years ago I read the seminal work on Nazi Germany: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer. I am glad I can now cr...
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Rising Sun: The rise and fall of the Japanese Empire by John Toland
Twenty years ago I read the seminal work on Nazi Germany: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer. I am glad I can now cross Rising Sun by John Toland off of my book-bucket list. Rising Sun is every bit as authoritative and detailed as Shirer's work and I consider it the Pacific companion to Shirer's earlier work. In fact, I think that the lineage between the two books is quite clear and I am almost certain that John Toland was inspired by William Shirer's book.
The Pacific Theatre holds a particular fascination for me. Despite the number of books and documentaries I have read and viewed, I found Toland's book to be the most well-explained and detailed analysis of the pre-war period I have experienced to-date. I must admit to struggling with the sheer volume of names and political shenanigans but in all, I learnt more from this one book than I did from nearly all of the others I have read combined.
Iwo Jima: D-Day |
In reading this book I feel I have attended The University of the Pacific Theatre, although I would probably graduate with a measly third or two-two at best. I feel wholly unqualified to review this Pulitzer-winning magnum-opus. The sheer quantity of information, especially Japanese names, left me stumped on a few occasions ("Who was he again?") but I got more comfortable with it and was fairly fluent in my Togo's and my Tojo's (very different people) by the 600th page, or 2/3rds of the way through this half-a-tree book.
Marines on Tarawa |
In most books about the Pacific Theatre, the behaviour of Japanese soldiers is often held up as barbaric and our Allied 'heroes' are paragons of virtue. As Winston Churchill himself wrote, 'History is written by the victors' and this book does an excellent job of not just recalling those well-known crimes, but explaining and humanising them without excusing them. It also counterbalances that with some appalling accounts of actions of US forces which are not often mentioned in accounts of the Pacific Theatre.
Bataan Death March |
During the war, many Asian nations, sought self-rule and viewed Tojo (the Japanese Prime Minister) as a figurehead of Asian power and a model of how to fight against their 'masters'. There did appear to be several senior Japanese politicians and military men so averse to give Hirohito, the Emperor, any bad news that the war continued in vain. Toland makes it quite clear that the Emperor attempted many times to extricate his country from a War Japan knew it couldn't win even before it started.
Hirohito |
Apologies for getting all philosophical, but this is a weighty book, dealing with a heavy subject, not just that of war but also of national and personal identity. It shows how simple mistakes and misunderstandings can cause events to wheel out of control very easily, given the right heady-brew of personalities...
I can recommend this book it to everyone, unfortunately, it's only going to appeal to a very small niche of society, although it has probably found a much wider audience in American and Japanese markets - I'm glad I've been in that audience.
広島平和記念碑 - Hiroshima Peace Memorial |
*I'm including Great Britain and Northern Ireland in that statement still...
65 by Flying Pig Games Strangely, I approach the unboxing of the game with some trepidation. I had heard about...
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65 by Flying Pig Games
Training Aid |
Action Counters etc. |
Vehicles |
Action cards |
Some of the card actions are:
Blood lust: You can rally or reconstitute one eligible unit.
Fast move: The unit can get one extra movement factor.
Aimed shot: Add two to a unit's targeting on a hard target.
Some scenarios come with the ability for each side to draw a 'bonus victory condition card'. If you draw a card with a condition that cannot be fulfilled (the other side has no hero, etc), then you draw another card.
Bonus Victory Cards |
First scenario My Cards |
In this play example I have used my card for its 'Move' value, and moved my U.S. rifle squad three road hexes closer to the enemy.
My opponent then uses one of his card's 'Fire' value to engage my rifle squad with his sapper unit. When counting the range you include the firing units hex, but not the target hex.
So this gives us a range of two. Then you calculate the firing unit's HEF (High Explosive Factor). This is a two for the sapper unit. Next, we calculate the range modifiers which total up to a '+1'.
So we now draw three cards (2 +1) from the deck, and consult the 'HE" result in the lower right hand quarter of the cards.
The first card gives us a 'Hit' on the U.S. rifle squad. When a unit receives a 'Hit' for the first time, a 'Shaken' counter is placed on it. The next card is also a 'Hit', so the counter is flipped to its reduced side.
The third card had no 'Hit' value for its action. This is lucky for me because a third hit would have eliminated my unit.
The game plays well in solo mode also. The small footprint and amount of counters in scenarios means that you will not have to take up much space for playing. The game's average time for the scenarios is one to three hours. So you won't have to set it up and worry about small children or animals getting at it while you are at work. With the relatively small amount of rules and all of the player's aids (and ability to read them), makes the game a quick run through after the first few games. The developers were looking to make a fun quick game on Vietnam warfare, and they have succeeded admirably.
Holdfast Atlantic is one of two recent Kickstarter offerings from Worthington Games . They are both now available from your Friendly Local...
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Holdfast: Atlantic
Holdfast Atlantic is a fairly simple Block wargame that comes with just 8 pages of rules which includes several examples of play. I don't ever remember playing a wargame with so few rule pages. Even my very dusty and unloved version of Risk has 9 pages of rules. (Okay they're printed on a much smaller pamphlet than these are)
For the veteran gamers amongst us, HF Atlantic is a re-skin of a classic Avalon Hill title, War at Sea. Unfortunately, I can't compare the two as I have never played the older version. But what I can say about Holdfast Atlantic, is that it is an engaging and surprisingly strategic offering, considering the 20 minutes it's going to cost you to read and understand the majority of the rules.
Each turn follows the same sequence of steps, whereby first the Allies, then the Axis player, move their ships into regions adjacent or within 2 regions of the ship's port of origin. This mechanism allows the Axis player to calculate some of the risks prior to the battle which cleverly negates the effect of their dwindling resources through the game.
The game lasts for 8 turns, and the player with the most Victory Points, gained by controlling sea regions at the end of a turn, is the winner; ties to the Axis player. After I was comfortable with the rules I found each game with a new player lasting about 2 hours. If you're both familiar with the rules then just over an hour is a realistic time to complete a game. For a wargame that recreates the Battle of the Atlantic, that is no mean feat.
September 1939 ... |
Initially, this U-boat movement caused me a few concerns, but I realised that it is just an abstraction of the hidden/unknown threat of U-boats in the Atlantic, and it is not an attempt to simulate submarine movement. The Axis player gets to place all his units with full knowledge of where the Allies are. They are then free to target those areas where they think the more vulnerable units are. This is another clever, yet simple way, to recreate the risk that must have been present for any Allied naval commander facing the U-boat threat.
Different units and markers to play the game |
I enjoyed the fact that the designers had put in most of the major combatants into this game or at least the more well-known participants of the Battle of Atlantic. Although I should say that the Axis get the Graf Zeppelin which is used in the air combat rounds. I assume this is to provide a little balance against the stronger Allied forces although it is not historically accurate. As the Axis player, I wasn't complaining.
The only WWII German carrier. The Graf Zeppelin was never operational |
The game comes with three optional rules, I would suggest you start playing with them all included. They are simple to implement and provide a much better strategic experience. Amongst other things, they allow you to try to reduce your opponents repair capacity so you could plan a crippling naval battle and also an air raid in the same turn to reduce their shipyard industry.
Brave Bomber Command crippling German dockyards |
Any new player will be familiar with the turn structure after 4 turns or so, I would have appreciated an on-map sequence of play as an aide-memoir, there is enough real-estate on the map to even provide two, one orientated for each player as they sit facing each other.
Start of combat phase: game turn 5 |
This game is perfect for me. I have used it and will to use it to introduce my more casual gamer friends into the simpler side of wargaming in the hope that we'll have another convert to our hex and counter religion and I can convince them to try some ASL...(that hasn't happened yet)
I should mention that the component quality is top notch, although a company that got this simple formula wrong would have to be trying pretty hard. Worthington Games has published a very good introductory wargame with high-quality components. The blocks and mounted map look and feel great.
Come back soon for some Holdfast Pacific action ...
Derby Worlds 2017 was held 7th and 8th October, just South of Leicester at the Bruntingthorpe Proving Grounds. Demo game for The Battle...
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Derby Worlds 2017
Demo game for The Battle of Cerignola |
A very special Magic Realm |
The Battle of Jutland (on a massive table) |
Towards the tournament side of the hall |
Another view of Cerignola |
First World War African battle |
My Berserker dying |
INTERVIEW WITH DESIGNER & GAMES PRODUCER TRISTAN HALL Our designer in creative mood ... or has he just spotted the tarantu...
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INTERVIEW WITH DESIGNER & GAMES PRODUCER TRISTAN HALL
INTERVIEW WITH DESIGNER & GAMES PRODUCER TRISTAN HALL
[A few months ago I was unfortunately away on holiday when Tristan Hall came to my local games store (Wargames, Southport) on its club night to demo his latest game design, Tears For Many Mothers. More recently his own family commitments meant that the hoped for opportunity to meet and game with him at a local twice yearly gaming event went out the window. So, thankfully there is at least the good "old" internet which gave me this opportunity at least to pose some of the questions that I'd hoped to ask face to face.]
What were some of the other influences and reasons that led you to design and produce your first game, Gloom of Kilforth?
Among your many decisions as the designer, why fantasy for your theme and why purely a card-based game?
Is there a particular group of gamers or games club that have helped you with playtesting?
The gaming community on boardgamegeek has been immensely helpful over the years. For example, I tinkered with some scenarios for the D&D Adventure System games and built some adventures for the Lord of The Rings: The Card Game LCG that had tens of thousands of downloads and loads of positive feedback, which really helped me believe I could create something of my own from the ground up. When I mentioned that that's what I was doing gamers from all over the world started asking if they could play-test it and their feedback and support has helped shape Gloom of Kilforth into what it is today. [Yes, I think this benefit of comment from so many outside sources comes out clearly, as sometimes in-house products can suffer from the fact that a group of play-testers are so familiar with the product en route.] The same thing happened with my current, second game, 1066, Tears to Many Mothers, which went down really well with the community and has started to pick up award nominations even before it has even been published. Also, the Playtest UK guys at UK games Expo were very helpful too.
Personally, I discovered and was drawn to seek out Gloom of Kilforth after being hooked by the Kickstarter for your current design, Tears to Many Mothers. Here you've turned directly to history and the almost legendary, but little gamed, Battle of Hastings. What took you in this direction for your second design and why the title you chose for it?
Whilst a sequel to Gloom of Kilforth would have been the path of least resistance, I was determined to prove that I'm not a one-trick pony, so I wanted to make a completely different design and a 1-2 player head to head card game seemed like a great fit for an historical battle game. The Battle of Hastings has always fascinated me- and no doubt thousands of other British school kids - since we were taught about it at school. The events leading up to the battle were momentous and the outcome obviously had its impact on English history for hundreds of years afterwards. Both sides were so perfectly matched on the battlefield that it could have gone either way at any given moment. The tragic story of King Harold, one of England's potentially most powerful kings, living out one of the shortest reigns and falling in brutal battle is utterly compelling too. Capturing that narrative via the medium of a card game was too tempting an opportunity to resist.
I also considered how cool it would be if, instead of memorising the statistics of a Pikachu or a Shivan Dragon when playing card games, what if they took away a little bit of history with them after playing too? So, every single card represented in the game is based on a person, story or event from the time of the Battle of Hastings, even down to pulling character names from the Domesday Book.
And that very unusual title. What's the story behind that?
Ah well, the title comes from a strange quotation I came across. In April of 1066 Hailey's comet was in its perihelion orbit and writers at the time said it was four times the size of Venus and shining with a light equal to a quarter of that of the Moon. Many thought it was an evil omen - including the aged monk, Eilmer, of Malmesbury Abbey, who wrote of the event:
"You've come, have you? - You've come, you source of tears to many mothers. It is long since I saw you, but as I see you now you are much more terrible, for I see you brandishing the downfall of my country."
Which is where we get the title of the game.
In giving us some details of this game, other than the change from fantasy to history, what would you say are the major differences in your two designs?
They are very different - but, in a nutshell: Gloom of Kilforth is an epic, sprawling, fantasy adventure game for 1-4 players with dice and hundreds of cards and tokens that can be played solo, competitively or cooperatively and takes about 50 minutes per player. It delivers an immersive role-playing experience, whereas 1066, Tears to Many Mothers is a 1-2 player competitive card game that dynamically re-imagines the historical Battle of Hastings and can be played on your lunch break.
And, inevitably, my final question has to be what next when once we have 1066, Tears to Many Mothers in our hands?
- Lifeform - alien terror in space with superstar designer Mark Chaplin
- Sublime Dark - horror card game with campaign play
- Touch of Death: A Fantasy Quest Game - the stand-alone expansion-sequel to Gloom of Kilforth
- 1565, St. Elmo's Pay - the stand-alone expansion-sequel to 1066, TtMM
Thanks, Tristan, for taking the time to answer all my questions in such depth and detail. AWNT obviously wishes you continued success with all your projects and I hope that it won't be too long before I have the chance to meet up for some real ftf gaming.
To whet you're appetite further, I shall be reviewing Gloom of Kilforth in the coming weeks and showing you something of the superb art work mentioned here.
Waterloo The Campaign of 1815 Volume 1 From Elba to Quatre Bras by John Hussey First things first, the ...
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