Category: Featured Posts

06/16/13

Origins Announces Award Winners

Straight from the show, here are last night’s winners of the 2013 Origins Awards, with the press release from GAMA:

COLUMBUS, OH (June 15, 2013) The Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design is proud to announce the winners for the 39th Annual Origins Awards.
The Origins Awards are presented annually by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design to recognize outstanding achievement in design and production of games and game-related products.
The winners were voted on by attendees at the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, OH on June 12th – June 16th from the nominees in each category chosen by retailers at the GAMA Trade Show. The winners were announced at the Origins Awards Ceremony on the evening of Saturday, June 15th.
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06/16/13

Origins 2013 – Some Highlights

By Brant Guillory, 15 June 2013

The Lighting-Fast Run Through Origins 2013

Seven hours.  Yep – seven.  That’s all I had to cram in as much of Origins as I possibly could.  I had one day, a press pass, a borrowed digital camera, and Bayonet Jr in tow, and it was a mad dash through a pretty freakin’ big game convention.  Plenty more pictures will follow, but I wanted to start with some highlights…

Collins Epic Wargames

We highlighted one of their upcoming expansions in a recent GARPA column, and the Frontline General game is the cornerstone of Byron’s line.  But he was also showing off a sci-fi minis game with a nifty little command mechanic.

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Byron Collins working hard

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Frontline General in the foreground, and sci-fin minis coolness (Polyversal) in the background

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06/14/13

Spring Recruits 13 Freeblades Tournament

A Hero Shall Rise!

A report from Jon – 14 June 2013

And look for DGS Games at Origins!

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Ed Note: don’t forget to check out DGS’s current Kickstarter campaign!

Our third official tournament was a great success. The format was 200 gold Freebands, with the twist that only the Leader and Caster heroes could be taken. The rest of the freebands had to be followers, with one surviving follower rising up to hero level after each round. The format brought about some interesting situations, seeing massive pile-ons, but also mass panic! And then there is the rise of the Thug follower to hero status, which due to his END of d8 made him a 3 LP hero, with Die Hard on a d10!
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06/13/13

Thunderbolt Apache Leader AAR

Publisher: Dan Verssen Games

Author: Jim Zabek

I’ve had my eye on Thunderbolt-Apache Leader for a long time. Designed for solo play, it’s a modern era wargame where the player takes on the role of Close Air Support (CAS). Several campaigns are included in the game, and given the random nature of opposition force selection the possibilities are nearly endless.

As this is my first time with Thunderbolt-Apache Leader I start with the introductory scenario: the 1991 Iraq War campaign. Setting up the defending Iraqi units was straight forward but when it came time to choose my own forces I have to slow down and assess the options before me. I have a total of 30 Special Option (SO) points. SO points are spent purchasing aircraft but they are also used on other Special Conditions and Mission Events. Deciding how much to invest in aircraft and how much to hold back is a mystery to me, though I have followed JudgeDredd’s AAR in our forums with interest so I do have a sense that I should keep at least a handful back for later use. With 26 SO points in total, I decided I’ll aim for spending 20 points on planes and see how close I come to hitting that mark.

Thunderbolt Apache Leader June 2013 Start
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06/9/13

Book Review: Baneblade

Author: Guy Haley

Publisher: Black Library

Reviewing Author: Jim Zabek

Reading Warhammer: 40,000 fan fiction is something of a guilty pleasure. It fills the time when I’m not in the mood for military history. Its quality is usually high but I’ve run across a few books that weren’t quite up to snuff. But sometimes I run across a novel that stands above the normally solid entertainment that this genre offers, and Baneblade is that book. It’s not only a great Warhammer: 40,000 novel, it’s a great fictional war novel.
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