Don’t forget we’ve still got the Readers Choice Award voting going on for all your favorites from 2013.
We’ve got tabletop games for strategy games, wargames, magazine content, and expansions, as well as the overall Tabletop Game of the Year.
Over in the digital gaming polls, we’ve got categories for wargames, RTS games, RPGs, expansions, and mobile games, as well as the overall Digital Game of the Year.
Hey, it’s still Friday somewhere…
This week is an all-tabletop-gaming week, even though they aren’t all games, per se. Read on, friends!
VCS: Salerno, Multi-Man Publishing
Multi-Man Publishing is kicking out a new series of games called the Variable Combat System, and Salerno is the first title. Amphibious assaults, coordinated actions across multiple maps, and alternate histories that include options for airborne assaults, and different commanders. Awesome Eskubi artwork, revolutionary mechanics, what are you waiting for? Head over to the pre-order page and plunk down your shekels.
Earthdawn RPG, FASA Corporation
$28,600 of $10,000 goal, Ends 12 February
The original ’90s-era Earthdawn was lavishly-illustrated and notoriously fiddly. The reboot looks fan-freaking-tastic and promises to play just as good as it looks. The risk setting was always the hallmark of Earthdawn, and the Kickstarter campaign includes all manner of add-ons, upgrades, and stretch goals that build out the world, from new adventures to location sourcebooks. You can pick up poster art, hard- or soft-cover books, and, for a cool $1200, play an eight-player game with the creator by video chat. Or, you could just check out the Kickstarter page and order a copy of the game. Continue reading
When we left Part 4 I was sensing the tide of the battle had shifted. The Soviet offensive was stalled and I decided to start pushing forward and take advantage of their degrading communications and battered offensive forces. Make no mistake – the Soviets can still pack a punch. They have plenty of armor and massive amounts of artillery that can quickly reduce my small force to nothing if I’m not careful. But if I do this right I can capture some objectives, score some points and crush the Soviets.
The game is now four hours and twenty-six minutes into the fight. The scenario can run another five and a half hours, but I think the Soviets are in trouble. What I’m not feeling good about is the lack of damage I’ve taken. Aside for the beating my engineers took up north, I’m in good shape. Usually the Soviets beat me more badly. That tells me there’s some tough fighting yet to be done. Hopefully we can keep on the move and stay out of their artillery umbrella.
My luck is holding. Because my troops are on the move several barrages of Soviet artillery fall on empty fields in the south. Keep moving, men!
The mines I drop on a VP take out a couple of units. They’re hidden from me, but I hear the reports of their explosions. Fighting in the south heats up with heavy exchanges between all visible units. A suspected Soviet recce platoon is spotted near my HQ area and my mechanized units moving north to the central objective spot it and take it under fire. More Soviet artillery misses and we continue to push forward.
The turn comes to a close. Lots of Soviet artillery has fallen and none of it has found its mark. I intend to keep that streak going by making some unpredictable changes to the line of movement of some of my units.
Around the middle objective I can see more units now, including a stack of about nine tanks. Tempting as that may be for my MLRS I’m going to use my regular artillery to fire at it.
This round goes badly for me. The Soviet ground forces aren’t much of a threat, but their artillery seems to be everywhere and on target. Entire units go from full strength to zero and it hurts. Normally this kind of response is only drawn when I’m in proximity to an important HQ unit. The suspected air defense unit to the far east of the southern approach is probably more than it appears. The VPs around Dudenhofer to the south are clearly must-haves for the Soviets as they appear to be throwing everything they have at them to retake the VPs I have captured.
Note my decision cycle has decreased to 21 minutes while the Soviets have an estimated 37. I’m moving at almost twice their speed. Their success with artillery is probably due to the fact that it’s in LOS of mine and giving direct support to critical HQ units. Let’s see if we can break that pattern now.
There is now a significant cluster of units south of Weiskirchen and it’s time to bust out the MLRS.
I also order artillery to take out the suspect HQ unit to the far east of the southern objective, while my other artillery battery targets the nine tanks north of Jugesheim. Continue reading
ed note: After the shutdown of Twiigs.com, our polls disappeared, so you’ll see a lot of headers, but no polls, on older Readers Choice posts. We’re using someone new now, so perhaps the older polls will still be visible.
Now – getcher votes in! Tell your friends! Come back at the end of the month to see who wins!
note that we got absolutely no (zero, zip, zilch, nada) nominations for any miniatures games
Tabletop Wargame of the Year
Tabletop Strategy Game of the Year
Designer: John Butterfield and Publisher: Decision Games
as always, click images to enlarge
While I am quite a World War II geek, I’m not much into the airpower aspects of it. Most of my interest in that regard is with the bombing campaigns (and with it, games like B-17 Queen of the Skies); indeed, I’m more taken in with tactical and strategic ground combat and the games that focus on that arena. That said, the Battle of Britain has always fascinated me as a true ‘turning point’ campaign that had so many fulcrums and angles that it wasn’t really a foregone conclusion that the RAF would have pulled off a victory.
It was with great anticipation that, back in the late 80s, I found the first edition of RAF on my favorite hobby shop’s shelves. Solitaire games were big for me as it was hard back then to find opponents, and gaming fixes were sometimes few and far between. I was initially a little disappointed that I could only control the RAF in battle and not the Luftwaffe, but the game itself was solid, always different and therefore highly replayable, and even better, had quite a bit of tension to it.
I grabbed my copy of the second edition of RAF late this past summer and have been playing with it as often as I can in a chaotic house with a middle-schooler and a high-schooler and a wife who’s not all that big into games. No cats, fortunately.
Overview
RAF: The Battle of Britain 1940 is a simulation of the trying days of 1940 when the Luftwaffe sought to wipe the RAF from the skies of southern England, in preparation for Operation Sea Lion, the planned invasion of England itself. In the original first edition, you could only play the RAF, as I mentioned above; however, in this second edition, not only can you run the RAF solo, but also the Germans solo, or even play a two-player game. All the angles are covered here, and the added ability to run the German campaign solitaire seems to make for a hit-in-the-making. Of course, one must first open the box and see which way their initial impressions will run…
Out of the Box
Initial impressions were highly favorable when I opened my copy. The counters are nice and thick, with clearly-delineated information; these counters are much easier on the eyes, actually, than the old white silhouette from the older version. Unfortunately, these nice counters are almost impossible to separate cleanly and require trimming to do so, which is a major pain in the tail section. Perhaps it is simply my OCD, but I believe that counters must be clean and have sharply-defined edges – no rabbit bushy tails sticking out from the corners, thank you.
The cards are very nice as well, but I’m not sure they’re an improvement on the old version. While the older version was no-frills and was pretty much print on a card, they were legible and easy to read. The Second Edition’s cards are busy, with lots of background to decorate them. The fonts are similar, in that they’re sans serif, large, and sharp, but these new cards might be difficult to read for some people on a few of the cards.