Month: February 2015

02/11/15

GrogHeads Interviews Harold Buchanan (GMTs Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection)

Brant Guillory, 11 February 2015

Harold Buchanan gives us the low-down on the next COIN game from GMT, and turns the tables on our interviewer!

We had a chance to chat with Harold Buchanan, Designer of GMTs Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection. This one takes the COIN system to the American Revolution. This is Harold’s first game, but he is well supported by series creator Volko Ruhnke and series developer Mike Bertucelli. Örjan Ariander is designing the ‘bots’ that control the factions not represented by a player in the game. Harold is also an expert on the period and has a degree in Finance and Game Theory from MIT. He resides in San Diego, California where he lives with his wife of 22 years and has 3 kids in college, so he needs all the help we can give him with pre-orders.

LDInt-06
Playtesting!

 

GrogHeads: Do we really need another American Revolution Game?

Harold Buchanan: Are you kidding me? Absolutely! I love 1776 and played it a lot in my youth. I love the Area Status Chart and how British pieces in a Region reduce reinforcements to the Patriots! A game ahead of its time in incorporating regional politics. Then came We the People/Washington’s War with its breakthrough card driven mechanics. I enjoyed it as an elegantly playable innovation and really enjoyed timing the game end through the use of the “War Ends” cards. Plenty of room exists for new and different approaches in it.

Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection looks at the same war as so many other games have but from a different angle: it identifies the four factions critical to the conflict and plays off how they interacted politically, economically and militarily. The game is driven by a detailed set of historical events cards on the topic. Grab three friends and give the conflict a look from a new perspective. It may change the way you think about the American War of Independence.

Given the Patriots won the Super Bowl I am considering adding another card to the mix—the Pete Carroll event card. If you are the Seahawks and you are winning the game during a Winter Quarters Round you must first roll a die: 1-5 you do something stupid and the Patriots win and 6 you actually get to win.

More playtesting.
More playtesting.

Continue reading →

02/7/15

GrogHeads Interviews Joel Billings of 2By3 Games

Boggit, 7 February 2015

Joel Billings of 2By3 Games talks to Boggit about War in the West and game design in general

As always, click images to enlarge

GrogHeads:  Joel, thank you for agreeing to talk to Grogheads about your recent work. War in the West is your latest release and shows some interesting innovations in the development of 2By3 games.

Tell us about yourself. How did you get into wargame design?

Joel Billings:  I started SSI in 1979 when I had just graduated from college. I was a long time player of historical wargames and had tinkered with various game rules and created miniature campaigns. I started SSI because I thought computers were a natural evolution for wargames which would allow for better fog of war and an AI opponent.

War in the West ships with 10 scenarios, including 3 full campaigns, and two introductory scenarios.
War in the West ships with 10 scenarios, including 3 full campaigns, and two introductory scenarios.

GH: Your recent products of War in the East and War in the West are massive in scope and detail, which might be potentially off-putting to all but the most hardcore gamers. Tell us about the design decisions in making such apparently challenging games.

JB: The first decision was whether to go with an IGOUGO system or a plot and execution system. Gary had used the later in his previous Eastern Front games. We decided to go with the IGOUGO because we thought it would attract more players as it could be made to be a very addictive game where you want to keep making one more move, one more combat. This is especially true in 1941 Russia. Of course we wanted the extreme detail that people expect from Gary, and that comes from the database.

Continue reading →

02/5/15

Campaign: Leipzig – The Two-Sided AAR, part 3

5 February 2014

Cyrano and PanzerDE face off in the age of muskets and sabers, and find themselves on opposite sides of an Eastern German battlefield, in the first of a series of AARs that give you both sides of the action.

As a reminder, we are alternating between Jim (in blue) and Doug (in green)

As always, click images to enlarge

1030 August 19, 1813

Well, if, indeed, there are to be three scraps in this fight for Lowenberg (per Marechal Ney’s original appreciation), the two other scraps had better get a good deal more hotted up

In the north, some may remember, GD Maison had detailed GB Penne to take his First Brigade, 18th Division, V Corps and see if anything couldn’t be done to help their brethren preparing to fight near Plagwitz.
taketheroadsouth8

Between the time this screenshot was taken (turn eight) and the end of turn 10, Penne finally located the Prussians coming from east of Deutmannsdorf and preparing to cross the Deutschbach Stream. These troops at first were cavalry piquets and, as no JTS Napoleonic commander worth his salt(peter) would turn down a chance to shoot at horses with infantry, I had Penne move his men up and form into line. Shortly thereafter, though, they were joined by well north of 1,000 foot in two battalions and, choosing the better part of valor, Penne began a withdrawal back to Maison’s main force.

It’s been an eventful five turns, particularly in and around Siebeneichen.

Continue reading →