04/30/16

Victory and Glory: Napoleon – First Impressions!

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever. – Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French ~

Boggit, 30 April 2016

Developed by Electric Games, and Published by Matrix/Slitherine

Victory and Glory: Napoleon is a strategic level game covering the Napoleonic Wars. It offers six start points during the Napoleonic Wars, each preceding one of the major campaigns in the wars, with the player cast in the role of Napoleon. To win the player must either make peace – or survive as an individual from becoming a prisoner or battle casualty, and make it to the scenario end turn. If you get that far, your performance throughout the game is qualitatively assessed in terms of victory or defeat.

A very pretty menu screen. Here’s hoping the rest of the game is too.
A very pretty menu screen. Here’s hoping the rest of the game is too.

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04/29/16

Twilight Struggle: An AAR – Part 13

Our AAR of the new digital Twilight Struggle enters Turn 2 ~

Michael Eckenfels, 29 April 2016

PART 5

TURN 2, ROUND 5, USSR

 

Here we go…there are two more Action Rounds left in this second Turn. Let’s see what Moscow decides on this time…

ts-aar-116

Of course the Communists would have one of the more powerful US cards in his hand. And of course he’d just blow it on the Space Race track, which of COURSE gives him +2 VP. That’s now +13 VP in favor of the bloody Russians.

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04/28/16

Twilight Struggle: An AAR – Part 12

Our AAR of the new digital Twilight Struggle enters Turn 2 ~

Michael Eckenfels, 28 April 2016

PART 4

TURN 2, ROUND 4, USSR

 

ts-aar-109

The USSR plays TRUMAN DOCTRINE, and the game prompts me to remove Influence in one country. I’m not really sure this is a bad thing…obviously, he’s playing this for its whole 1 Op, and the Event has to fire…which makes me think he doesn’t have much in the way of cards.

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04/27/16

GrogHeads Interviews Volko Ruhnke
about GMT’s COIN Series

The “father” (and now grandfather!) of the COIN series stops by for a chat ~

Brant Guillory, 27 April 2016

Volko Ruhnke is rapidly becoming one of the most-recognized strategy game designers in the US, as his COIN series is taking over the world.  He’s visited with us before, in discussing A Distant Plain before its release a few years ago.    He comes back for a more broad-based look at the COIN series as we ramp up for several COIN events this summer at Origins.

Volko Ruhnke:  Hello GrogHeads! 

Int-VR-AAGrogHeads:  Hey there!  Did you have any idea the COIN series was going to take off like it did when you first designed Andean Abyss?  When you were working on AA, were you designing with the intent of a “system” or was it just a one-off that you were able to expand?

VR: I did not have any idea that the series would take off in the sense of popularity, as my main objective was to bring at least a few wargamers and other boardgamers into some then rather little-gamed topics regarding modern insurgency and counterinsurgency.

I did from the start envision a system and a series, and that plan was part of Andean Abyss’s appeal to Gene Billingsley from my first phone call with him to pitch the project.   I can document that claim, as the original printing of Andean Abyss says “COIN Series, Volume I” right on the cover, and the ad copy played up that aspect.

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