Monthly Archives: March 2016
Gaming Nostalgia – Fighting Fantasy
#TBT at GrogHeads!
Some of the best adventures-on-the-go were the old UK Steve Jackson gamebooks.
click images to enlarge
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News! 2 New Games from Tiny Battles Publishing
Check out the latest from Tiny Battles Publishing ~
GrogHeads Newsdesk, 31 March 2016
Announcing Mark Stille’s Into the Pocket!
It’s an honest-to-gosh, hex-and-counter, odds-and-CRT, column-shiftin’, panzer-pushin’ Eastern Front WWII wargame. Can three desperate Panzer divisions punch a hole in the Stalingrad Pocket big enough to save the encircled 6th Army? Or will they be overwhelmed by a seemingly endless supply of Soviet forces? It’s good ol’ fashioned historical wargaming at its finest, harkening back to the era when gamers were gamers, and the fate of the world hinged on a +2DRM with 3:1 odds! The game is now available at Tiny Battle Publishing!
- 11 x 17″ map chock full of luscious, snow-covered hexes.
- 88 die-cut counters of death, representing German Panzers, Russian tanks, and much more.
- 8.5″ x 11″ rule book and player aid card.
Avadon – A Visual AAR, Part 1
Another Sauron adventure ~
Vincent Kowolik, 29 March 2016
Here’s the kick-off to an adventure in Avadon
Click images to enlarge
the journey begins
Tracer Rounds: Let’s Talk Education
How smart is too smart? ~
Brant, 28 March 2016
I’ve been thinking a lot about education lately, perhaps a little too much. It’s no real secret that wargamers tend to be over educated, but let’s face it, for many of us school was more of a formality than anything. Most of us weren’t the most studious of pupils, and a lot of our classes were merely checking the box on something we could breeze through in our sleep.
But we’re not the key consumers in the American education system either. And that’s the struggle that I’m wrestling with right now as I have two kids in public schools and I am teaching at several very different colleges. What this adds up to is that my thoughts on this are rather disjointed, but I don’t feel like writing a book to fully explore every one of them, so this is going to be a bit of a brain dump of several different concepts all related to education. Please bear with me and I hope it comes out to a coherent whole by the time I’m done (but let’s face it, the odds of that are pretty slim).
First off, I’m really wrestling with the issue of what we expect education to accomplish. There is certainly an underlying shared experiential component to our education system, as if it’s a massive continental-wide team building exercise for 12-year-olds. To that end, the shared pain and sacrifice somewhat makes sense. Ostensibly, the public education system in the US is designed to turn out citizens with a minimal set of survival skills for the rest of their lives. That said, it’s hard to make the case that it’s succeeding in that regard. There are so many minimally-necessary skills that are not taught, or even touched on (balancing a checkbook, typing, managing a credit score, how to be fucking polite in public!), that it’s not insane to wonder if we should completely jettison the current model and rebuild from the ground up. However, if it’s all just skill building for future societal needs, then we are doing our students a serious service by failing to intellectually engage them. Subjects such as history and literature serve vital functions in providing context in today’s society, as well as important emotional engagement points for many students, even if they do not have an immediate tie into any future career endeavor.
GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #90
What’s up for preorder in March? Space wars, dice, castles, and WAR! ~
GrogHeads Staff, 25 March 2016
Hull Breach!: In Defiance of Dictators Card Game (Not-So-Broken Games)
$10k of $33k, ends 17 April 2016
We’ve been tracking the Hull Breach gang for a while, going back to 2013 (http://grogheads.com/?p=3199), so now that their new release is hitting Kickstarter, of course we’re going to throw them some love! It’s a deck-builder type of game, with tactical gameplay that depends on how well you can structure and deploy your assets. Your home base (“station”) needs your protection, and you attack with all variety of ships, marines, and special weapons. Mixing and matching with other boxes lets you customize your deck; fret not, though, as it’s not a collectible game, just a customizable one. The new box includes enhanced rules for team play, new victory conditions, and a streamlined rulebook, to go with a truckload of new cards. Launch for their Kickstarter page and fire off your pledge.
