The Order of the Hex

The Order of the Hex is GrogHeads' recognition of outstanding achievements in wargaming.

Why the "Order of the Hex"?

Few things are as associated with wargaming as a hexagonal grid. Regardless of genre, scale, scope, or size of the wargame, hexes the expected standard on the map, and wargames without hexes frequently feel the need to justify their omission. The Order of the Hex is a recognition of achievements in wargaming and strategy gaming, and therefore GrogHeads has chosen something immediately identifiable to our fellow Grogs as clearly wargame-centric, as well as being highly unlikely to be co-opted by anyone else.

How does a game get recognized?

When preparing a review of a game - a review, not a preview, screenshot feature, or interview - the reviewer may nominate the game to the staff, along with a detailed explanation of why it is nominated, and how it stands out from similar game along those lines.

The staff ultimately bestows the honor based on consensus discussion.

This is not something we undertake lightly, and mere nominations are not sufficient for induction. Moreover, a lack of induction into the Order of the Hex is not an indication that a game is lacking. Induction into the Order of the Hex is recognition above and beyond what is currently in the market, not recognition for merely being successful.

The Current Inductees to the Order of the Hex

Warlock: Master of the Arcane for Addictive Gameplay.

Decisive Campaigns Case Blue for Accessible Accuracy.

GrogHeads Management

Longblade! bio coming soon	Gus! bio coming soon
DR Son of Montfort! bio coming soon	BayonetBrant! bio coming soon
Jarhead! bio coming soon	Fluffy! bio coming as soon as we invent it

Our Manifesto

Take that Hill!

If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you get there? It’s a good question. Sometimes the journey is better than the destination, but even so we think having some basic guidelines is helpful. Here at GrogHeads, we’re interested in how games work. We’ll “ooh” and “ahhh” over splashy graphics as much as anyone else, but in the end we look for games to hold to some kind of internal or external logic. “Realism” may be stretching the concept, but games should at least try to make sense in their own universe if not real life. That’s what we’re about. The best games may not be 100% simulations of reality, but they tend to engage us with mechanics that makes us believe it’s the way things should be, even if they’re not.

Man Cannot Live On Bread Alone

Sometimes ya gotta take a break from the routine. At GrogHeads we love a good military sim as much as the next guy. Maybe more. Wargames should meet the criteria of trying to replicate historical or modern conflicts. But at GrogHeads we also have fun playing sci-fi games and those with elves and dragons. Not being real, dragons don’t have to conform to historical behavior, which is why we’ll be looking for them (and the spaceships) to be created with an eye on whether they make the case that the universe they live in makes sense. Reality doesn’t have to be real, but it should be fun and it should make some kind of sense. Even if it doesn’t really make sense. Does that make sense?

So What’s That Mean?

All this vision thing means is that we like to have fun, we like to play a variety of games, and we like talking about them. Expect our reviews to be eclectic – expect the unexpected. We’re not always going to be the fastest out the door with a review, but we hope when we get to it, it will be because we’ve taken enough time to get to know it. Declaring a great game to be great isn’t really that difficult. The hard part is when you have a decent game with a few flaws. Sometimes they’re easy to identify, but often they’re not. Articulating why a game is good-but-not-great is often the difference between being a fansite and being a true review site. We’re not interested in gratuitously bashing games, but the ability to define both the good and the not-so-good in a game helps readers come to understand if there’s enough of what they like to make the call to buy it. And it helps the developers and publishers understand why it didn’t blow the marketplace away.

At GrogHeads, we’re going to try to help everybody in the gaming community understand why games are great, and if they aren’t why they aren’t. We’re going to look deeper. Because we have games on the brain.