Category: Featured Posts

12/6/15

GrogHeads Holiday Buying Guide 2015

 

Do people claim you’re hard to shop for? Just point this to this list, and hope they get the hint! Don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of games on the list, but first, some fun stuff ~

 

 

TANK!

hbg-tankHey, we’re not that far removed from TANKSgiving, so why not an M1 tank? It’s 1:16 scale, can get up to 60 feet from your remote, and for some reason has actual headlights. Cruise the back yard, chase the dog, and assault the annoying neighbors.

And if the modern M1 isn’t your thing, you can go back to WWII and bust out a Jagdpanther, too.

 

DRONE!

Keep tabs on your tank with a drone sporting an onboard computer that lets you fly manually, or programmed and on autopilot. It can orbit, fly over, or hover, without you touching a remote.  Just don’t ask what it costs – remember, you’re not supposed to pay for it!

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11/27/15

GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #82

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A TANKSgiving GARPA special – Black Friday/holiday sales! ~

So lots of folks are running a variety of holiday / Black Friday sales.  Here’s a handful of them, and feel free to add your own in the comments below.

Turning Point Simulations is offering a free copy of Paul Rohrbaugh’s No Safe Harbor with any order between now and Christmas.

If wargaming-on-the-go is your thing, HexWar has a ton of iOS wargames at 50-60% off (some might be more than that, we’re just bad at math).  There’s also a bunch of Mac wargames on sale, too.

Collins Epic Wargames is offering 30% off their entire online catalog until 12/1/15.

The Matrix Games holiday sale runs all the way ’til January 10th.  But seriously, buy them early and play them over vacation.  It beats ‘mandatory fun’ with the in-laws.

Lock’n’Load Publishing’s Black Friday sale includes 50% off a bunch of titles, both tabletop and digital.  They also include a bunch of their Line of Fire magazines.

Pewter-pusher?  GHQ has you covered with a Black Friday sale that’s already kicked in, but only runs for one day, so hurry!

Victory Point Games is discounting everything 10% if you order thru their Amazon store before 11/30.

Compass Games is offering 30% off all in-stock games until the end of the year with code “bgg30” (no quotes).

Looking for some gear to treat yourself this year?

GoRuck has a big sale going on their field gear.  It’s all made in the USA and field tested by some truly insane dudes.

The boys over at RangerUp have 30% of the entire site this weekend, plus a bunch of 50% off deals on Black Friday itself.

And seriously, who can’t find a few (dozen) somethings over at ThinkGeek?

Discuss GARPA in our forums >>

Also note that we have running threads for sales, deals, and discounts on digital wargames, and tabletop wargames.

11/21/15

TANKSgiving! GrogHeads Reviews DVG’s Modern Land Battles

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TANKSgiving kicks off with a bang!

Jim Owczarski, 21 November 2015

Click images to enlarge

Dan Verssen’s Modern Naval Battles has rolled past its 25th birthday and is making its way to its 30th.  I’ll pause for a moment and let that sink in with those who were already adults when it was released.  Bitter reminders of our mortality aside, the game has been and remains a popular choice for grogs interested in playing a game that feels crunchy and lets them indulge their love of technology while not requiring days or weeks to play.

Enter, then, Modern Land Battles: Target Acquired, a 2-6 player non-collectible card game that tries, in its own abstract and simplified way, to simulate mechanized land warfare in the period following the Second World War.  I’ve already done a piece un-boxing the game (Modern Land Battles – First Look!) so what follows is a review of the game’s mechanics, level of simulation, and overall flow.

As indicated in the earlier article, MLB allows two players or teams of players to select from seven national force pools:  United States, Arab Multinational, China, Great Britain, Insurgent, Israel, and U.S.S.R.  And while I did discuss some of the vehicles before, it would hardly be TANKSgiving if I didn’t offer a few more shots of lovely, lovely AFVs.

I keep wanting to shout "Wolverines!!"
I keep wanting to shout “Wolverines!!”

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11/20/15

The Zombie Apocalypse, Part 6: Get The Point

||: Hack, slash, poke, repeat :||  ~

Jonathan Glazer, 20 November 2015

 

Swoosh! And the Katana liberates the Zombie’s heads, in quick succession from the tyranny of being attached to their rotting bodies. Andrea was saved from the horror of being eaten alive after losing her balance and falling to the forest ground. This was how the character of Michonne was introduced to the story of The Walking Dead. The Samurai sword carries high regard as a Zombie killing melee weapon. Is this adulation warranted? Arguments can be made for both sides of that controversy. As an active practitioner of the Japanese Sword Arts (JSA), I have my own opinions that I feel are rooted in reality. Most will agree that edged weapons are an essential tool for every toolbox following the ZA. They are silent, do not need reloading and are relatively free from excessive regulation. That last point is quite subjective as many bladed weapons are restricted in some areas. The UK has severely curtailed possession of what they deem to be “offensive” blades, which include swords and the US has a federal ban on switchblades, although automatic knives are in common use despite this ban. We will touch on these points momentarily.

swords

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11/14/15

Grogheads Previews Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa

Your first look at the newest release coming from VR Designs and Matrix Games ~

Vance Strickland, 14 November 2015

click images to enlarge

Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa, DC3 from here on, is the third in the series of operational level hex and counter wargames from VR Designs, published by Martix Games. The first, Decisive Campaigns: Warsaw to Paris (DC1), let us fight the beginnings of WWII with the invasions of Poland, France and a hypothetical Sealion. It had regiment level units with historical OOB’s. Hundreds of units representing infantry, artillery, and armoured units on the ground and fighter and bomber formations in the air for all the major combatants. Next came Decisive Campaigns: Case Blue (DC2). With the same scale of units and map it took us to the Eastern Front of WWII to participate in the massive German offensive of 1942 again with detailed OOB’s conveyed by hundreds of counters on huge maps. This game upped the detail of the supply modelling and refined some of the Command and Control aspects of the first game.

Let’s see what we can expect from the latest installment of this excellent line of games.

Note: This preview is from a pre-release beta version of the game. Some art and content may change on release.

What’s New

Title screen only the main event... so far...
Title screen only the main event… so far…

The main entrance seems bare compared to the last version because there is only one scenario – the main event! There is no editor listed either but that apparently will be released as a separate entity that will work with the previous games as well. Also that that PBEM is now handled by Slitherine’s PBEM++ server system.

A plethora of options for lots of gaming
A plethora of options for lots of gaming

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