Monthly Archives: September 2016
Car Wars – A Trip Down The Memory Fast Lane, Part 2
Continuing his series on Car Wars, Michael rolls back through the memory banks again ~
Michael Eckenfels, 23 September 2016
TRUCK STOP: A CAR WARS (FIRST EDITION) SUPPLEMENT
This expansion, released the same year I bought the original Car Wars, added massive 18-wheelers and other large rigs to the Car Wars universe. It seemed only right, given the fact that tanker trucks were a lynchpin of the Mad Max universe. Besides, these things are righteously huge. Just imagine them armored up with large-caliber guns bristling everywhere, and one wonders how cars, much less cycles, would have a chance in Hades against them.
One could virtually feel the temptation to HULK SMASH and sledgehammer smaller opponents with tons of rolling steel death. (Hell…I have this feeling even to this day.) I had to have the expansion, and so I have owned it for 32 years now. The box has held up well in that time, and I probably haven’t opened it in some 30-odd years, to be honest. So this will be something of a time capsule.
This box is in surprisingly excellent condition. I hope the insides have aged well, too…
Gaming Nostalgia – Avalon Hill Computer Games
#TBT at GrogHeads!
Remember when Avalon Hill got into the software game?
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Tracer Rounds: The Best Damn Songwriting You Never Appreciated
Can we finally give Guns ‘n Roses their due ~
Brant, 19 September 2016
Things have been a little too heavy lately, and we need to talk about something completely different… So can we just take a step back and spend a few minutes admiring what totally bad-ass, criminally-under-rated, and never-appreciated songwriters the guys from Guns’n Roses were? Sure, we all know the ‘hits’ – Welcome to the Jungle, November Rain, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, You Could Be Mine, and Sweet Child o’ Mine – and the ‘scandal’ songs like Used to Love Her, or It’s So Easy. But once you get beyond the radio tunes (or heck, even with the radio tunes) the quality of songwriting you get from the band so far exceeds their contemporaries that they’re not even in the same galaxy.
Back in the late-80s, the popular talk was comparing GnR to The Rolling Stones, under the premise that supposedly no other band had conquered the rock and roll world on their own terms to the degree that GnR did. That was typical rock journalist hyperbole, of course. But honestly, the depth of songwriting, quality of musicianship, and production was blowing most other acts at the time out of the water – even GnR’s supposed contemporaries. Motley Crue didn’t figure out how to write a song until their 4th album; Poison never quite did. Ratt’s riffs were impeccable, but aside from the one-off lyrical curiosity like Wanted Man, they didn’t keep up. Great White? Slaughter? Bulletboys? XYZ? Rough Cutt? Firehouse? Please. Don’t embarrass yourself suggesting them.
GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #96
GARPA comes back with a couple of new pre-order offerings for you ~
GrogHeads Staff, 16 September 2016
HOLDFAST: ATLANTIC and HOLDFAST: PACIFIC (Worthington Games)
$33500 of $10k, ends 24 SEP 2016
Worthington takes their popular block-based Holdfast series from big land wars (Korea, Russia) and heads to sea, as WWII comes back to life on your tabletop with this new pair of games. The influence of the classics War at Sea and Victory in the Pacific is obvious, but with the fog of war that block games can give you. Big region-based maps, and low-complexity gameplay get gamers into the action as fast as possible, and let armchair admirals focus on the war and not the rulebook. Steam over to their pledge page and fire your salvo at their Kickstarter campaign.
Gaming Nostalgia – Role Aids RPG Accessories
#TBT at GrogHeads!
After Judges Guild, the Role Aids line was one of the original third-party series you could use for early 1ed-AD&D gaming.
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