Tag Archives: MMP
Winterfest: Wargaming’s Mini-Mecca
Pull out of the winter doldrums with a heavy dose of hex-and-counter happiness ~
Gary Mengle, 28 February 2018
A small gathering of wargamers has met in Sandusky, Ohio for the last 21 years. While the Cedar Point amusment park sits frozen just up the road and Sandusky sleeps through its winters, the February weather is ideal for wargaming. The centerpiece is a small handful of monster wargames, with smaller titles played on the side and a variety of pickup games in the evenings, or throughout the day as folks shake loose from their bigger games.
This year the featured monsters were a playtest of OCS Third Winter and a combined La Battaille game of Ligny and Quatre Bras. The venerable Stonewall Jackson’s Way was also played throughout the event, as well as twin games of Axis Empires: Totaler Krieg. Smaller but nevertheless multi-day games included TCS Omaha, OCS Sicily: Triumph & Tragedy, OCS Tunisia II and a double-blind game of Flat Top. Short-format actions included Amateurs to Arms, The Napoleonic Wars, Close Action and Star Fleet Battles. It would be impossible to categorize the sole miniatures game of Teutoburger Wald as “small” but it only took a few hours in each of two playthroughs.
As you can see from the above list, titles from The Gamers and Multi-Man Publishing were very well-represented, but stuff from GMT, Avalon Hill, Clash of Arms and even ADB got busted out and played. Plans for next year’s games are already afoot. This was my first year in attendance – it won’t be the last. As one of the new guys I was made to feel very welcome, and there was always something available that I wanted to play. Even with an event-long attendance of less than 30, Winterfest is a great little event that you should take a look at if you’re in or near the Midwest or can’t make the annual pilgrimage to Tempe.
More Info:
Winterfest Wargaming
Ardwulf’s Lair
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GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #84
Give us a break… we’ve been watching football all day ~
Forgotten War, The Korean War ASL (MMP)
Preorder price $96
ASL goes to Korea… officially! Seriously, what else do you need to know. OK, how about what’s in the box? 7 countersheets and 4 maps, plus a bunch of rules additions. Now, the caveat – you need the ASL base rules to play, so in addition to your $96 here, you still need a bunch of other stuff to play. But hey, you can finally get off the Eastern front, or the beaches of Normandy, or wherever you’ve been treading water in your ASL games. Storm over to MMP’s site and place your pre-order and re-fight the first conventional battles of the Cold War.
GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #81
Yes, GARPA is running late. You’re still reading! ~
Beerpocalypse (Black Liver Games)
$20k of $50k, ends 26 November 2015
A beer-powered post-apocalyptic drinking game. Seriously. Just go pledge it already.
GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #52
It’s the last GARPA of the Summer, so here’s your holiday weekend bundle of goodness!
Clockwork Wars (Eagle Games)
$50k of $25k goal, Ends 3 September 2014
Steam-powered warfare? Check. Fantasy races? Check. Tanks? Hells, yeah! Fight for control of a modular mapboard, in a 4X-ish game of conquest that mixes and matches magic and steampunk technology. One nice touch are map tiles that can be used on an artistic side, or purely-functional “giant symbol” side not unlike the strategic hex-view in Civ5. It’s an Eagle Games production, so you know that it’ll be over-the-top gorgeous, barely fit on a ping-pong table, be a ton of fun to play, and go out of print in about 11 seconds. So truck on over to the site for the campaign, and plunk down your pledge, and maybe throw a few extra coins in for the expansions, which look equally cool and will not doubt be gone in a hot minute on the open market.
GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #46
A new D-Day game, and (finally!) the digital version of one of boardgaming’s most popular conflict games of all time. Smells like…. GARPA!
Twilight Struggle, digital edition (GMT Games)
$115k of $50k goal (though that’ll be surpassed by the time you read this), ends 3 July 2014
For several years, it could be wryly joked that the “Struggle” in Twilight Struggle was for the difficulties in getting the digital version deployed. No more. It’s not uncommon to see a Kickstarter campaign blow well past the full funding mark, into ridiculous levels of stretch goals. It’s rare to see a Kickstarter campaign fully funded within hours. Yes, hours. Twilight Struggle was at $30000 around 400pm on June 5th, having only launched earlier that day, and within the next 90 minutes they almost doubled that total, to exceed their $50k goal. They’ve doubled that goal within the first 24 hours. Why are we not talking about the game itself? Do we really need to? It’s to top-ranked “wargame” at BoardGameGeek (though admittedly, discussions of whether or not it’s a “wargame” waste plenty of hours online). A forum/team game has been running here at GrogHeads for a while now, and countless schoolteachers around the US use it to introduce their students to the Cold War. Seriously, you don’t need convincing. You just need to go figure out your pledge level and get it over with already.
Day of Days (MMP)
181 of 650 orders needed
It wouldn’t be D-Day without us digging up an Overlord game, right? MMP has a new SCS game for D-Day that’s designed to cover not just the landings themselves, but the breakouts that followed. There are even scenarios designed to skip the amphibious assault, and start with Allied forces on the beach. This game is new enough that there’s no draft cover art, playtest photos, or anything else that’s leaked out. We were able to scrape up a very rough image of the maps (yes, plural) to show the scope and scale of the game, which will include scenarios that focus just on the British landings, or the US landings. It’s an MMP game, so it’s going to be a solid and well-tested game on a known platform (SCS) and all those great touches that come with MMP tackling the subject in depth. Go get a pre-order in!
