Month: November 2015

11/20/15

The Zombie Apocalypse, Part 6: Get The Point

||: Hack, slash, poke, repeat :||  ~

Jonathan Glazer, 20 November 2015

 

Swoosh! And the Katana liberates the Zombie’s heads, in quick succession from the tyranny of being attached to their rotting bodies. Andrea was saved from the horror of being eaten alive after losing her balance and falling to the forest ground. This was how the character of Michonne was introduced to the story of The Walking Dead. The Samurai sword carries high regard as a Zombie killing melee weapon. Is this adulation warranted? Arguments can be made for both sides of that controversy. As an active practitioner of the Japanese Sword Arts (JSA), I have my own opinions that I feel are rooted in reality. Most will agree that edged weapons are an essential tool for every toolbox following the ZA. They are silent, do not need reloading and are relatively free from excessive regulation. That last point is quite subjective as many bladed weapons are restricted in some areas. The UK has severely curtailed possession of what they deem to be “offensive” blades, which include swords and the US has a federal ban on switchblades, although automatic knives are in common use despite this ban. We will touch on these points momentarily.

swords

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11/19/15

Gaming Nostalgia – GDW fights WWIII

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.

Nostalgia-14
Once the pinnacle of “modern” wargaming… these guys are still a ton of fun, but with every additional year in the rearview mirror, how “modern” are they anymore?

click images to enlarge

Sound off below, or pop into our forums for a chat >>

11/18/15

GrogHeads Reviews the Feldherr Travel Case

Feldherr MAXI Star Wars X-Wing Rebel Set 1 / Tantive, Falcon, YT-2400, 15 Ships ~

Michael Eckenfels, 18 November 2015

 

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

Out of the box.
Out of the box.

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.

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11/14/15

Grogheads Previews Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa

Your first look at the newest release coming from VR Designs and Matrix Games ~

Vance Strickland, 14 November 2015

click images to enlarge

Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa, DC3 from here on, is the third in the series of operational level hex and counter wargames from VR Designs, published by Martix Games. The first, Decisive Campaigns: Warsaw to Paris (DC1), let us fight the beginnings of WWII with the invasions of Poland, France and a hypothetical Sealion. It had regiment level units with historical OOB’s. Hundreds of units representing infantry, artillery, and armoured units on the ground and fighter and bomber formations in the air for all the major combatants. Next came Decisive Campaigns: Case Blue (DC2). With the same scale of units and map it took us to the Eastern Front of WWII to participate in the massive German offensive of 1942 again with detailed OOB’s conveyed by hundreds of counters on huge maps. This game upped the detail of the supply modelling and refined some of the Command and Control aspects of the first game.

Let’s see what we can expect from the latest installment of this excellent line of games.

Note: This preview is from a pre-release beta version of the game. Some art and content may change on release.

What’s New

Title screen only the main event... so far...
Title screen only the main event… so far…

The main entrance seems bare compared to the last version because there is only one scenario – the main event! There is no editor listed either but that apparently will be released as a separate entity that will work with the previous games as well. Also that that PBEM is now handled by Slitherine’s PBEM++ server system.

A plethora of options for lots of gaming
A plethora of options for lots of gaming

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