Month: April 2018

04/18/18

GrogHeads Reviews Cruel Morning: Shiloh 1862

Tiny Battle Publishing promises “Tiny Package. Big Fun!” Does Shiloh live up to it?  ~

Robert Ellis, 18 April 2018

– Designed by Sean Chick
– Published by Tiny Battle Publishing
– Scale is approximately 1/3 mile per hex (1700ft)
– Each turn is one hour.
– Units are Brigades.

The American Civil War has held a fascination for me for a great many years, and not only have I read an enormous number of books on the subject, I’ve also played a fair number of games, both board and PC varieties. However, the last, and as far as I remember, only game based on Shiloh that I’ve ever played, was the old 2 map SPI ‘Bloody April ‘from 1979 a bit of a monster game and one of the first in the ‘Great Battles of the American Civil War’ series. It was quite hard work to play, and I suspect it put me off from gaming that battle ever since.

Therefore, I was quite pleased at being given the chance to review a comparatively new game on the subject, albeit one based on a much different scale.

So, lets open the zip-lock bag and see what we get.

There is a 24 page Rulebook, several pages of which contains extensive scenario and set-up information, plus one optional rule. According to the game page on TBP website, this is a ‘full colour’ rulebook, but, apart from the cover, and a very few colour illustrations on pages 2 & 3, colour is limited to some highlighted text only.

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04/18/18

Car Wars – A Trip Down The Memory Fast Lane, (the lost) Part 9

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).

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04/16/18

What’s Gus Playing? Endless Space 2, part 2

The famous fun-sized phantasm of flight fights fearlessly ~

Lloyd Sabin, 15 April 2018

I totally forgot that I was supposed to focus on the combat of Endless Space 2 last week when I wrote up House of the Dying Sun. It happens. Our own BayonetBrant had to ask me ‘WTF happened to the 2nd part you said you were going to write up on Endless Space 2 combat?’

My response? ‘Well f– me, I totally forgot.’ Until now. Even if it is a dayweek late.

Endless Space 2 combat is liked by some, disliked by others. I enjoyed it because it had a lot of options that I had not seen it 4x games before, like your force’s offensive/defensive disposition, formations, etc. And again, I only scratched the very shallow surface of this game, including the combat component, and will be back for much more in the near future.

Battle engaged!

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04/14/18

GrogHeads Reviews Underrail

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 →