Monthly Archives: October 2015
All Things Zombie Reloaded – A Halloween AAR
An adventurous romp through the zombie apocalypse for your Halloween Weekend.
Jim Owczarski, 31 October 2015
My family, on my mother’s side anyway, comes from the farming town of Abrams, Wisconsin; 2000 population 1,757 if Wikipedia is to be believed. Growing up, I’d often be taken back to the ancestral homestead to sit in my great-grandmother’s kitchen and hear the elders talk about the ciezkie czasy. These “hard times”, for that is the meaning of the Polish phrase, were something scrubby preteens would be threatened with if the odd vegetable went uneaten or we otherwise expressed ingratitude for our material circumstances. I don’t know as I was ever certain what would cause these times, other than my own ingratitude, or how they might end. I was certain, however, that I wanted to hide from them up there in Abrams. Not too many people about, but those who were tended to be good with things necessary in the direst of circumstances and might even be honest and trustworthy enough to help you resist whatever might be causing the hard times.
I think I can say without fear of correction that a zombie apocalypse would count as ciezkie czasy. With all this in mind, please join me as I, my wife, and my son journey to Abrams and confront the slavering horde of the undead as imagined by Lock ‘n Load Publishing’s “All Things Zombie: Reloaded” (ATZ).
The first thing to do was choose characters. Having tried a number of other characters in previous games, I decided to have a go with Sailor. He shows up as strong and particularly good in a hand-to-hand scrap.
Helllllloooo…never mind…
GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #80
If it’s Friday, it’s GARPA! Unless, y’know, it’s not GARPA because it’s the off-Friday where we run fun Zombie-themed stuff or something else.
Brant Guillory, 30 October 2015
Scythe (Stonemaier Games)
$1.29mil of $33k and yes you read that right, ends 5 November 2015
Roll Save vs “Ooooooh”. You failed. Seriously. You gotta see this game; it’s a visual treat. It’s 2-hour(ish) playtime for 1-5 players, so it scales nicely from solo to game-group play, and has countries in an alt-history Eastern Europe fighting over technology and resources in in the 1920s. It’s proto-industrialism without the Steampunk tropes, and manages to blend almost-familiar nationalities with giant ‘mechs, 4x mechanics, and decent dose of sci-fi storylines. Oh yeah, and it looks good, too. It’s not like they need our help to succeed, but you might need our help to find their campaign page.
Gaming Nostalgia – The $2160 Wargame
Folks dug the Nostalgia ads so much that we’re keeping them around, and just changing the day. Look for our blasts-from-gaming’s-past to show up on #tbt from now on, and occasionally some other day, just to keep you on your toes.
Still a better value that JCATS!
click images to enlarge
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GrogHeads Reviews Marco Kloos’s “Frontlines” Series
We take a look at Terms of Enlistment and Lines of Departure, by Marco Kloos
Avery Abernethy, 28 October 2015
Terms of Enlistment and Lines of Departure are military science fiction leaning towards hard science. Mr. Kloos has served in the military and it shows in his writing. Both books are in the Frontlines series with the 3rd book Angles of Attack released in April, 2015.
In the Frontlines books Earth has fractured into two factions: the North American Union (dominated by the former USA) and a Russian/Chinese block. Independent countries either no longer exist or are never mentioned. The conflict between the two power blocks has an uneasy truce on Earth itself, but all-out war rages for the 100 or so colony worlds accessible through jump gates.
The Earth’s resources are being depleted, the majority of humanity lives in high rise slums with a minimal ration of food, and the proles are restless and becoming lawless. Part of the military is deployed to maintain minimal order in the high-rise clustered slums while the rest focuses on space colonization and interplanetary war for colonies. Slum dwellers have a tiny chance of winning a lottery to become colonists on worlds which can minimally support human life through terra-forming.
Andrew Grayson a young, high-rise slum dweller, wins a 100-1 shot to join the military. Terms of Enlistment focuses on setting up the dystopian world and the harsh basic training that washes out 80% of the inductees. Andrew’s first posting is in the military division tasked with keeping order in the slum cities. After a few initial conflicts, Andrew’s unit is thrust into a disastrous mission which decimates his unit and generates bad publicity through use of heavy weapons in an urban environment.
GrogHeads Reviews: Heroes of the Pacific
Lock’n’Load heads to the PTO!
Doug Miller, 24 October 2105
Despite a proliferation of WWII tactical systems in recent years, tactical wargames covering the Pacific Theater tend to be rarer than hen’s teeth. Even the benchmark WWII tactical system, Advanced Squad Leader, isn’t overwhelmed with PTO modules and scenarios. So I was definitely excited to see that LnL Publishing was not only bringing many of their out-of-print Tactical Series games back, but also adding to the series with a dedicated Pacific Theater game.
Heroes of the Pacific focuses on tactical combat between the US Army and Marines and the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). Like other games in the series the core of the game is infantry combat between squads and weapon teams, supported by armored vehicles, various kinds of on- and off-board artillery, and air strikes.
The game uses the familiar Lock n’ Load Tactical Series rules. The rule book has been updated to version 4.0 and includes the additions to support the unique aspects of the Pacific Theater of Operations (PTO) in-line with the remainder of the rules. Significant rules changes are helpfully highlighted in green throughout the manual to bring experienced players up to speed quickly.
