Tag Archives: WWI
GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #97
GARPA! ~
GrogHeads Staff, 30 September 2016
The Russian Campaign, Designer’s Edition (GMT Games / Consim Press)
p500 $42 / MSRP $60
The Russian Campaign is an oft-revered game frequently mentioned among the ‘gold standards’ of classic wargaming. It’s also been been mentioned with sputtered mutterings that vaguely sounds like “it costs how much?!?!” Well, here’s your chance to get your hands on your own new, updated, corners-waiting-to-be-clipped copy of the classic. You get 5 scenarios, counters with both NATO and icon artwork, full color rules & players aids, and 30 years of refinements and improvements to the rules, examples of play, game balance. Blitz your way over to the p500 page to get your money down.
Screenshot Feature: Steam Squad!
An alt-history wargame with some interesting graphics ~
Michael Eckenfels, 17 August 2016
If you’ve fantasized about a Steampunk game set during an era when humanity was actually just starting to leave steam-powered technology behind, you’re in luck. You’re even more in luck because the game is called “Steam Squad,” and is at heart a point-and-click, real-time tactical combat game set during World War I.
GrogHeads Reviews Tidal Effects from Andrew Heller
Airboy reviews Heller’s follow-up to Gray Tide in the East ~
Avery Abernethy, 03 August 2016
Tidal Effects is the sequel to Gray Tide in the East. In the previous book the Kaiser orders the German Army in 1914 to respect Belgium’s neutrality after Imperial Russia and France declare war on Germany. The British Empire never enters World War 1. Germany and Austria-Hungary crush Russia and annex large portions of European Russia including all of Poland, the Ukraine and the Baltics. France is bled white trying to attack in unfavorable terrain. Germany gives France favorable peace terms taking several relatively useless colonies including Martinique in the Caribbean Sea. At the end of Gray Tide in the East Germany is the dominant land power in Europe.
Tidal Effects contains two novelettes: High Tide and Rip Tide. In High Tide several members of the Imperial German Foreign Service and a high ranking Naval officer manage to start building a substantial naval base in Martinique. 
Substantial progress on this naval base is accomplished without the knowledge of the Kaiser and the rest of the Imperial Cabinet. The USA learns of the base and must decide if they want to enforce the Monroe Doctrine. Tidal Effects includes basics of naval espionage, isolationist politics of the USA early in the 20th century and foreign policy. The central conflict centers on the ability of the US President to get enough political support to keep the hugely powerful Germany from getting a foothold in North America without starting a major naval war. The Kaiser is maddened that his subordinates put him in this position but also wants to maximize the political and military gains possible from this situation. The entire story is plausible given the military, economic, political and foreign policy situation in this alternate history.
GrogHeads Interviews the Team Behind
The Lamps Are Going Out
Kirk, Hermann, and Tim all join us to chat about their upcoming epic WWI game ~
Brant Guillory, 4 June 2016
All images from pre-production artwork.
Compass Games has had The Lamps Are Going Out on pre-order for a while now. The design team behind the game – designer Kirk Uhlman, developer Hermann Luttman, and artist Tim Allen – dropped by for a chat.
GrogHeads: There’s no shortage of WWI games populating the marketplace over the past 5 years or, perhaps inspired by the centennial of the war. What is it about The Lamps Are Going Out that separates it from the pack and should put it on a gamer’s “must buy” list?
Kirk Uhlmann: All of the various WWI games bring a different perspective or emphasis for the players. Lamps came about because I was looking for a WWI game that was historically accurate, had reasonable playing time, gave one an overall perspective of the war, and was fun. While I enjoyed many of the games on the market, none of them hit the sweet spot for me for how I wanted to game WWI. So in a sense, Lamps started because the game I wanted to play didn’t exist. Even if players enjoy marathon monster games, I think Lamps has a place in any gamers’ collection because it plays in an evening, is educational and accurate about the war, is fun without sacrificing realism and conversely, is realistic without being extremely complicated. My intent was for all the hard work to be up front in the design, so that the end result was a streamlined, fast-playing, accurate simulation of the war from a grand strategic level.
Hermann Luttman: I had this very same concern when Compass first offered to publish the game, as I saw that they had Balance of Power and Fatal Alliances also in the works. But they were not concerned as they immediately realized the same thing that we all already knew – that Lamps is a totally different type of strategic WWI game. It can be played in one long evening, is easy to learn, the graphics are unique and the game is very accessible to non-wargamers. All the essentials of simulating this level of WWI are there, wrapped in a simple and yet attractive package. This sets Lamps apart from most other WWI games and you could easily jump from playing any of the more traditional large hex-and-counter wargames to a game of Lamps immediately thereafter and still get a totally different experience.
GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #88
Here’s GARPA, our fortnightly bundle of pre-ordering goodness! ~
Pendragon: The Fall of Roman Britain (GMT Games)
p500 $65, MSRP $95
It got funded in a few days, so it is going to press. The latest entry into the COIN series keeps giving us counterinsurgency warfare from off the beaten path – no Malaysia or Sri Lanka here. This entry brings in a greater level of economics, and boffo-keen (though ahistorical) castle meeples. Scots and Saxons are among the factions that vie for power and veterans of the COIN system already know how to play. Liberty or Death sold out in a hurry, and that’s after all the p500 orders were delivered. Get this now, or miss out and be the laughingstock of the forums when you look for sympathy.
