Category: Reviews

09/5/14

GrogHeads Reviews Hannibal: Terror of Rome

“I swear that so soon as age will permit . . . I will use fire and steel to arrest the destiny of Rome.” Hannibal’s promise to his father, Hamilcar Barca (attrib.)

A Review by Boggit, 5 September 2014

Developed and published by AGEOD/Slitherine

I first saw Hannibal Terror of Rome at Slitherine’s Home of Wargamers 2014 presentation, and was immediately excited by the crucial last real attempt by Carthage to halt the expansion of the of early Roman Empire. The inability of Carthage to strategically defeat Rome left Rome the dominant power of the Western Mediterranean. Over the next 100 years Rome was able to exploit that situation to expand into and dominate the rest of the Mediterranean world. But what if Hannibal had fully exploited his dramatic early victories, and defeated Rome? Could the Carthaginians have arrested the advance of the Roman Empire, or even have subjugated Rome?

Hannibal Terror of Rome is the latest standalone expansion to AGEOD/Slitherine’s game Alea Jacta Est. It continues the development of the franchise most notably with Birth of Rome, and the Parthian Wars scenario pack. There is more to come. Philippe Malacher and Philippe Thibaut, both of AGEOD/Slitherine told me at Home of Wargamers 2014 that further expansions to the game will be arriving on average twice a year, with the game franchise ending after the Wars of Charlemagne! The next couple of DLC packs planned are likely to be Rome in the third century AD, focusing on the Palmyran Wars between Aurelian and Zenobia, with another focusing on Rome in Britain (as well as a hypothetical Hibernian campaign [set in Ireland]). Anyway, let’s get back to Hannibal…

For those unfamiliar with the game system used in Hannibal, I refer you to my earlier article on Alea Jacta Est  since Hannibal uses exactly the same game engine. If you already have one or more games in the franchise, then there is no problem with duplicate files on your hard drive. Taking Philippe Malacher’s advice I simply installed Hannibal, copied over the content of the scenario folder from my other games (Alea Jacta Est, and/or Birth of Rome) into the Hannibal scenario folder, and uninstalled the other games. Simple.

The start screen where you can access not just the Hannibal scenarios, but other scenarios from the Alea Jacta Est family of games.
The start screen where you can access not just the Hannibal scenarios, but other scenarios from the Alea Jacta Est family of games.

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08/31/14

Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes, Part 2 of 2

Review by Avery Abernethy, 31 August 2014

This review is split into 2 parts. Part 1 was last weekend.

Click images to enlarge

orderhex-FELE
Grogheads is proud to induct Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes into the Order of the Hex for the following:
1) Successful Integration of Role Playing Game elements into a 4x game
2) Environmental Threats (Monsters) as well as Enemy Kingdoms a challenge through end-game.
3) Excellent 4x game without overwhelming micro-management problems.

Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes incorporates many role playing game (RPG) conventions seamlessly . The RPG side of the game has a profound impact on winning or losing. RPG elements include the ability to equip individual pieces of armor, individual weapons, individual miscellaneous magic items, and cast tactical and strategic spells from a spell book. Only the faction leader and champions have access to these RPG elements. The faction leader is the player’s initial champion at the start of the game. New champions are acquired when fame garnered by completing quests, winning battles and cleaning out monster lairs hits specific levels. Once fame reaches a certain level, another champion is made available. The total number of champions available to a faction during a game is quite limited. Even in a long game played on a large map, I had only eight champions at the end.

At the start, your faction leader is often your strongest single melee combat unit. Both offensive and defensive skills of your faction leader and champions can be increased with magic items, weapons, and armor. These can be purchased at a ruinous cost in towns, or can be gained as loot from conquered monster lairs. Armor, weapons, and miscellaneous items can be traded between champions – but only if they are in the same hex or in the same town. There is no “universal vault” which enables you to drop off a magic sword in city A and have your champion in city D immediately gain the weapon. This makes movement of your limited number of champion units an additional strategic component.

 

 

Lots of Items
Lots of Items

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08/24/14

Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes, Part 1 of 2

Review by Avery Abernethy, 24 August 2014

This review is split into 2 parts.  Part 2 is here.

Click images to enlarge

orderhex-FELE
Grogheads is proud to induct Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes into the Order of the Hex for the following:
1) Successful Integration of Role Playing Game elements into a 4x game
2) Environmental Threats (Monsters) as well as Enemy Kingdoms a challenge through end-game.
3) Excellent 4x game without overwhelming micro-management problems.

Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes released by Stardock, is a turn-based 4x strategy game. In 4x games the player controls an empire and eXplores, eXpands, eXploits and eXterminates the opponent. 4x games were made famous with Sid Meier’s Civilization series and have been translated into space (Master of Orion) and fantasy (Master of Magic).

This review is based on 70+ hours of gameplay on a 3 year old Falcon Northwest computer. I completed two games to victory and played several other games short of completion, and I also lost a couple of games.

Fallen Enchantress takes elements of traditional 4x games, role-playing games (RPGs) and simplified tactical combat games to build a challenging world environment. All three game structures are combined to build on the strength of each design element, yielding a whole that is superior to the individual sum of the parts. I will start by discussing each major game element in turn, and conclude with a discussion of how the various game elements combine into a deep, addictive, and amazingly fun whole.

I love 4x games. I have been playing 4x computer games since the 1980s and have purchased and played almost every major 4x game ever released. And I was very impressed with the execution of Fallen Enchantress’ 4x elements.

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08/8/14

GrogHeads Reviews World at War: Operation Garbo

World at War: Operation Garbo, Published by Lock ‘n Load Publishing

Review by Michael Eckenfels, 8 August 2014

 

INTRODUCTION

Given the theatres that a hypothetical World War III conventional war could have been fought over, the World at War series has done a nice job thus far with putting far-flung locales from decades ago onto many gaming tables across the world. This one, Operation Garbo, is something of a surprise. Personally, I would have thought a North Cape World at War would make more sense, with Russian marines fighting Norwegian and NATO troops, so when you see a game that touts Sweden vs. the USSR, you might raise an eyebrow.

LNL-OG-1

Nevertheless, this latest publication in the successful World at War series from Lock ‘n Load, takes wargamers to a place that is rarely visited, and that’s something that makes it very intriguing from the get go.

In order to play Operation Garbo, you must own Blood and Bridges. This game is not a stand-alone game, but  an expansion. All the rules from Blood and Bridges applies to this expansion, as well as a few extra rules added to the rulebook for this game (see below).

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08/3/14

GrogHeads Reviews Picket Duty

Dive into this solitaire WWII game and stave off the attacks on your destroyer.

Michael Eckenfels, 3 August 2014

 

Picket Duty is a solitaire board wargame that focuses on giving you ‘spiritual’ command over a Fletcher-class World War II destroyer during the Okinawa campaign. Your job is to guide the crew as it fends off wave after wave of Kamikaze and ‘special’ attacks while at its duty, or picket, station. Most Fletcher-class destroyers served in this ‘Picket Duty’ capacity to provide early warning to the larger and more valuable fleet targets, such as aircraft carriers, supply ships, and troop ships. So, of course, Kamikaze planes sometimes focused on these destroyers to pave the way for other Kamikazes to get a good shot at those targets.

PicketDuty-3

The game, unfortunately, focuses on little else other than Kamikaze and ‘special’ (or, normal) Japanese aircraft attacks. There is no surface-to-surface combat action, nor DD-vs.-submarine action, or any land-based fire support. Given the complexity and amount of work put into this title, though, it’s hardly a surprise. I just wish it might have done a little more. For the purpose of fighting off hordes of Kamikazes, if you want to feel like you’re the only ship in the American fleet and getting all the attention of these deadly attacks, you’ll very likely love this game.

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