Tag Archives: Eastern Front
Grogheads Previews Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa
Your first look at the newest release coming from VR Designs and Matrix Games ~
Vance Strickland, 14 November 2015
click images to enlarge
Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa, DC3 from here on, is the third in the series of operational level hex and counter wargames from VR Designs, published by Martix Games. The first, Decisive Campaigns: Warsaw to Paris (DC1), let us fight the beginnings of WWII with the invasions of Poland, France and a hypothetical Sealion. It had regiment level units with historical OOB’s. Hundreds of units representing infantry, artillery, and armoured units on the ground and fighter and bomber formations in the air for all the major combatants. Next came Decisive Campaigns: Case Blue (DC2). With the same scale of units and map it took us to the Eastern Front of WWII to participate in the massive German offensive of 1942 again with detailed OOB’s conveyed by hundreds of counters on huge maps. This game upped the detail of the supply modelling and refined some of the Command and Control aspects of the first game.
Let’s see what we can expect from the latest installment of this excellent line of games.
Note: This preview is from a pre-release beta version of the game. Some art and content may change on release.
What’s New
Title screen only the main event… so far…
The main entrance seems bare compared to the last version because there is only one scenario – the main event! There is no editor listed either but that apparently will be released as a separate entity that will work with the previous games as well. Also that that PBEM is now handled by Slitherine’s PBEM++ server system.
A plethora of options for lots of gaming
GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #78
Oh so much GARPA goodness for you this week…
Brant Guillory, 2 October 2015
Bear’s Claw 1941 (GMT Games / Consim Press)
P550 – not there yet
What the world really needs – just needs! – is another East front wargame, huh? Well, it’s printed by GMT and designed by CP, so it’s going to be a solid, quality production. And unlike those massive drive-to-the-Urals-at-company-level monster games, these battles are bite-sized games of specific actions. Over-runs, morale, unknown Soviet unit strengths, and air support all contribute to a solid level of detail. The counters are a little busy, but still gorgeous, so don’t hesitate to march off to GMT’s pledge site and get on board.
Tank on Tank – First Look!
LNLP reboots the Tank on Tank franchise with 2 new boxed games
Brant Guillory, 19 August 2015
Click images to enlarge
Lock’n’Load Publishing has brought back the Tank on Tank franchise, with the long-awaited East Front stand-alone game to accompany the previous version, now labeled as West Front. What’s in the boxes? Lessee…
The boxes are the standard LNLP “thin” boxes, which stack nicely on the game shelf alongside all their others.
edit: to clarify, when referring to the standard LNLP “thin” box, we’re referring to the height of the box, and not the thickness of the actual box material. These things are pretty substantial, but are only about 1″ high. They are not the paper-thin tuck boxes of LNLP days gone by.
GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #72
Hey, it’s still Friday somewhere. Here’s GARPA, just a little late
Spearpoint 1943 Eastern Front Heavy Weapons Expansion (Collins Epic Wargames)
$1900 of $500, ends 17 July 2015
Bringing some new toys to the East Front action of the Spearpoint 1943, this expansion lets you add new vehicles, and even some bombers, to your deck before launching death and destruction toward your opponent. We discussed the game in GrogCast 16, and if you didn’t listen – WHY NOT?! One of the pledge levels nets you the base game with the expansion, and another also stages the other expansions for you, so you’ve really go no reason to avoid this game. It’s fast, furious fun with a cinematic flair and a perfect lightweight wargame when you lack time for a big game, or lack opponents willing to take the plunge on something more hex-y. Rumble over to the Kickstarter page and check out all the toys you get.
GrogHeads Reviews Battle Academy 2 – Eastern Front expansion Kursk
The first expansion for BA2 Eastern Front is here. How does Kursk stack up?
Lloyd Sabin – April 20, 2015
Largess
Here in the West we tend to be a bit short-sighted when it comes to history. Take a look at the majority of American movies and books on World War II and the Western Front will almost always be the main focus. The Eastern Front, if discussed at all, is framed as a distant, alien component of World War II, not more than a sideshow because of its foreign nature to Americans.
As grogs, we know this is a huge mistake. World War II’s Eastern Front was the central land combat theater of the entire war, far larger and certainly more pivotal than the Western Front, dwarfing land combat operations anywhere else on the globe during World War II. It was on the Eastern Front that Adolf Hitler attempted to establish his concept of lebensraum for the Third Reich, where the Reich’s logistics and supply systems were severely tested by distance and weather, and, ultimately, where World War II was decided in a massive, bloody, total war to the death between Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union.
And within this bloody total war, the central, deciding push was The Battle of Kursk (German offensive Operation Citadel), begun in July, 1943. It pitted almost 800,000 German troops under the command of Generals von Manstein, Kluge, Hoth, and Model (among others) against almost 2,000,000 Soviet troops led by General Zhukov and a cabal of other generals. In 2015 it’s almost impossible to conceive of these gigantic numbers of men, not including the thousands of tanks and heavy guns arrayed on both sides. In the end, The Battle of Kursk would further evolve beyond just being the most colossal battle on the most pivotal front of the war – it would also morph into the most gigantic clash of armor the world has ever seen.
Hard to resist the Kursk campaign now that is available, especially playing as the Germans.
