Check out some outer space adventuring with voiceovers from Jarhead over at GrogHeads.
Star Citizen v 2.1, along with some commentary and background of the game.
We’re also chatting about the game and showing off other videos in our forums >>
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Tank on Tank is LNLP’s re-release of their older WWII tactical combat game. Unlike the LNL Tactical system, this one focuses on – wait for it – TANKS!
Counters are individual fighting vehicles, with additional infantry platoons running around. The West Front box (this review) has Panzer IVs, Priests, Pershings, and Panthers. There’s also playing pieces that pon’t part with “P”, like Shermans and Stukas, Wolverines and Armored Infantry. The maps are 50m hexes, and include a “winter” map on the backside of each of the standard maps.
Inside the Box
Production values are the usual LNLP high-quality, with a standard 1” deep box, individually-cut pieces (no corner clipping!), and vibrant colors and graphics. The play aids are useful without being obtrusive, and the rules are simple, concise, and compact. Although the production value is excellent, the West Front box seems a tad sparse for $34.99. For only an extra $5, the East Front box certainly packs more into the same size box – twice the counters and three times the maps. You can see the comparison in our previous unboxing article here.
Some gamers love the intricate role-playing game full of soliloquies, conspiracy theories, and more character development than a British melodrama. Others would rather dispense with the backstory, role-play an archetypal character, and kick butt. In the early days of computer games, most fantasy ‘role-playing’ was the former, not the latter. Runebound strikes me as one of these computer games, transported to a board game environment.
And don’t think that’s a negative in any way. Some of the most fun I had in my teenage years was in front of Pool of Radiance and the Wizardry series. These games were fantasy adventures, but not necessarily fantasy role-playing. Runebound understands the difference.
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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.
INTRODUCTION
A habit of epic proportions formed with me some years ago when the first Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures Core Set hit stores. The Core set, I bought for myself, though I had nobody else to play the game with. I was immediately smitten by the mini-figures of the one X-Wing and the two TIE Fighters that come with that Core set, and was hooked.
That Core set because an extra ship here and another one there, and soon enough my collection of X-Wing Miniatures makes it look like I could film my own Abrams-worthy battle scenes for the next Star Wars movie. The problem is, while these things are beautiful to look at, they’re fragile. I feel like even lustful glances, let alone wonton groping, would cause them to break into pieces.
While the store I bought my Core set hosts an X-Wing Minis game night every Tuesday evening, I never went by, because I had nothing to really store my pieces in, much less transport them. I did some searching and found a few solutions online – some do-it-yourself, others more expensive off-the-shelf stuff – and finally fell on a line of cases by a company called Feldherr.
Feldherr is a company based in Berlin but has a worldwide reach, providing figure cases for not just Star Wars but a wide variety of miniatures. Their cases are on the pricey side, so it took me a few months before I finally pulled the trigger and bought one after much deliberation and research. I am now the owner of a Feldherr MAXI case, and have had it for a couple of months now. What’s the verdict?
IMPRESSIONS
The Feldherr case I purchased is, specifically, the Rebel Set 1, which holds the Tantive IV, the Millennium Falcon, and the YT-2400, as well as fifteen other ships (the latter category is the smaller ships, such as the X-Wing, A-Wing, TIE Fighters, and so on). At $70, this was something of a steep investment, but I really wanted a case to carry my components in so I could FINALLY visit the game store and play with the figures that I’ve spent two years collecting.