Remember that whole series from over a year ago? Yeah, we missed one… ~
Michael Eckenfels, 18 April 2018
click most images to enlarge
THE AADA ROAD ATLAS AND SURVIVAL GUIDE
VOLUME ONE: THE EAST COAST
The AADA Survival Guides, of which I believe there were seven, were essentially campaign game starter books that gave Car Wars-centric information for various regions of the United States. Or, at least, what was left of the United States. Further, it should be pointed out that these Guides are built to be used with the GURPS system (more specifically, the Autoduel GURPS rules).
Airboy dives into the bowels of Underrail to see if it’s worth taking the plunge ~
Avery Abernethy, 14 April 2017
Computer RPGs often have an excellent design concept but poor execution. Other RPGs have a great design and good execution, but play balance goes off usually later in the game. Your characters become so powerful that almost nothing presents a challenge. Very few RPGs have a good concept, and game mechanics while retaining challenging (but not impossible) play throughout the game. Even fewer RPGs manage to do this while enabling different effective play styles. Underrail is one of a handful of games I’ve ever played which hits all of these benefits. Continue reading →
Never have so many spent so much backing a game by so few that plays… so well? ~
Jim Owczarski, 31 March 2018
During the mad era when Lorraine Williams lead TSR, the company released, counter intuitively to some, a few of the most popular wargames ever created. Chief among these was The Hunt for Red October, but the list also includes bright lights like Red Storm Rising, A Line in the Sand, and, less brightly, Europe Aflame. This list was joined in 1990 by Battle of Britain (hereafter just BoB), a Richard Borg design that brought Mr. Borg’s love of light simulation and dice-heavy combat resolution to the skies over Britain and the English Channel in those early years of the Second World War.
More than 25 years later, the Plastic Soldier Company, which partnered with Mr. Borg to create the First World War iteration of his Commands and Colors system, launched a Kickstarter to re-release BoB and bring its production values up to contemporary wargame standards. The Kickstarter was well received, but, as with many of these endeavors, there were lots of delays, allegations of poor communication on the part of the company, and a fair amount of displeasure with the quality of some of the components. I received my own copy over a year after I backed it — about eight months after I expected it — and I’ve been having a go at the game with my son. What do I think of the re-boot? That would be telling; please read on.
Fans of shoot-em-ups, have we got something to tell you about! To be honest, though…I’m not a fan. I never had too much fun with the ‘move-fire-madly-flip a switch-next level’ stuff, having thoroughly taken part of such excitement (and passed a ton of quarters) to the stand-up arcade monsters of the 1980’s. I didn’t relish the possibilities of this title much, but every so often even the most anachronistic wargamer should poke their head out of their board game dungeon and try their hand at a little action.
So here is Operation: Blockade. While a shoot-em-up, it is deftly clever at covering up its own inadequacies, simplistic ideas, and never-changing worldviews, by injecting a hot load of steel-and-fire addictive game play. The gamer will probably be disappointed in some aspects of this title, but that should be balanced through some surprisingly attractive graphics and cleverly manipulated sound.
Designed by Mark H.Walker
Published by Tiny Battles Publishing.
About the game
Poland Strikes is one of four games in the ‘Platoon Commander’ series and depicts an hypothetical war between Poland and Hungary taking place within a wider European conflict.
The game uses the latest v1.5 series rules and features an 11×17-in map, 88 x 5/8” counters, a nicely laid out and very colourful player aid card, plus 18 ‘action cards’
I assume that these latest rules are backwards compatible with the other games in the series.
Each hex represent approx 150 meters, and each game turn 15-60 minutes.
