Category: Featured Posts

12/23/17

2017 – Looking Back on the Year in Wargaming

We asked folks in the hobby what their biggest personal accomplishment was this past year.  Here’s what we got from them –

GrogHeads, 23 December 2017

Iain McNeil, Slitherine

That’s a tricky one as it depends if I use my business hat or my gamer hat. Battlestar Galactica Deadlock has been a huge project for us and is going really well on PC and just released on console, but from a personal point of view I love Field of Glory II. It’s not as commercial as BSG but I’m very pleased with how it has turned out and still enjoy playing when I get the time.

Stronghold Games

SURVIVING this year is my biggest accomplishment!  28 releases for a small company is rather astonishing.  And also moving operations for Stronghold Games (and my residence) to Florida made this year very challenging to say the least.

However, if that’s copping out, then I’ll go with Terraforming Mars.  While released in the latter half of 2016, the success of the game was truly realized in 2017.  Getting out two expansions in 2017, “Terraforming Mars: Hellas & Elysium” and “Terraforming Mars: Venus Next” (releasing on 12/31/17 worldwide!), solidified its stature as one of the most significant hobby game releases of all time.  Terraforming Mars is now ranked #6 (soon to be #5) on BoardGameGeek.com. Continue reading →

12/22/17

Dragon’ Up The Past – Week 9, Eastern Wanderings and AD&D2E

Just how many editions ago? ~

Brant & Jim, 22 December 2017

Looking ahead to Second Edition, as well as exploring the options for Eastern adventures, and small-press good/bad ideas.

We’ve got plenty more where this one came from – there’s 192 issues still to go!

Chat about it below, or in our forums, or hit our FaceBook page >>

12/19/17

Classic Reviews – Prisoner of War

Got a hankering to conduct your own Great Escape? ~

Michael Eckenfels, 19 December 2017

Developed by Wide Games and Published by Codemasters

Prisoner of War is an evolution, of sorts, of the usual mind-assaulting first-person shooters – or a regression, depending on one’s perception. True adventure games with more puzzle solving and limited or no violence are rare; such a title set in the chaos of World War II makes for an even more interesting game. I tried hard, however, to not like this game; I’m afraid that this perception came from the plethora of lukewarm reviews that have preceded mine into print regarding this title.  Something tugged at me, however, to check this one out; I had a feeling I might not be disappointed.
Besides the Cold War, very little can evoke images of skullduggery or sneaky missions performed behind enemy lines like World War II. OSS agents mixing it up with fedora-donned instruments of the Gestapo and their jack-booted gun-toting guards…it’s a time of intrigue that helps to define modern standards for suspenseful storytelling.

So bring in Prisoner of War. No, it’s not about spying, but the premise is similar: an Allied pilot is shot down behind German lines while running a photoreconnaissance mission. He’s captured and brought to a sort of way-station (which doubles as a truck depot) for prisoners that are eventually shipped off to the official Stalag Luft prisoner-of-war camps. The pilot, one Captain Lewis Stone, resolves immediately and heroically to not stand for such imprisonment, and is off on one minor adventure after another to outwit his German captors and escape to freedom. Along the way, he uncovers a heinous plot that he tries to stop.

Continue reading →

12/18/17

What’s Gus Playing? Episode 11

The wee wonder of warmongering waxes whimsically ~

Lloyd Sabin, 18 December 2017

Well my Polish campaign in Medieval 2: Total War (with the Stainless Steel mod) looks to be wrapping up in a way I didn’t really want…Hungary, Novgorod and now Venice have all found savory bits to lop off my increasingly small empire and I fear I may be knocked out of the campaign soon. Witness some of the below shots.

Initially I cheered at this news as the Holy Roman Empire was a victory objective for me to defeat but then I quickly realized that the powers that dismantled it were in the process of taking my Polish empire down too.

Continue reading →

12/17/17

A Look Back at 2017 from GrogHeads

2017 – What hath we wrought?

It’s been an eventful year here at GrogHeads.

We’ve expanded almost everything we do – more articles, more pictures in our articles, more traffic in the forums, more podcasts, more events at Origins, waaaaay more games to give away at Origins, more advertising partners to help us keep the lights on, more video features, and more members of our forums.

But none of that does much for us without you, the reader, to join us for the ride, and for that we are the most thankful. Our readership stats have gone up aross every metric: clicks, reads, time on the site, and reach with our social media.

So what’s coming next year?

Well, we’ve got a handful of things to work on. First, we’re going to updating some of our merchandise options, with new shirts and new products. We’ve got a podcast series already out there, and a new video series, too, but we don’t do much with live video, and we’ll look to start experimenting with some of that.

We’ve got some ideas getting more involved in the wider gaming community, too. We already plan, sponsor, and execute a bunch of events at Origins each summer, but that really only reaches the Grogs that can make it to Origins, so we’re going to look into some plans that can help reach our Grogience where you live and play – at your FLGS and smaller conventions. We’ve got some ideas about how to tie that into our social presence, too, but that’s admittedly a bit of a science project.

2017 By The Numbers:
– Over 200 articles
– Over 150 new members
– Over 30 Interviews
– 16 GrogCast Episodes
– 16 New Videos
– 68 Origins Events
– (20 just for kids!)
– 7 Conventions Covered
– 28 T-Shirts given away

Finally, we’re going to start experimenting with some new graphics updates on the site to go along with some new (Gus!) and reborn (GARPA) columns we’ll be putting back into rotation.

As with everything we work on – these are moving targets. We’re going to try something, and if it works (The GrogCast, #TBT ads) we’ll keep doing them, and if it doesn’t (Tuesday Screenshot, How To Make It In The Game Business) we’ll cut it out.

Most importantly, though, we’re going to try to have even more fun this coming year than last year, because ultimately that’s what this is all about, right?

Chat about it below, or in our forums, or hit our FaceBook page >>