11/14/14

GrogHeads Reviews Falling Skies

Andy Mills, 14 November 2014

How does the TV show translate to a game?

Introduction

The TV show Falling Skies tells the story of the 2nd Massachusetts Regiment, a group of rag tag warriors that are fighting an alien race (the Espheni) intent on dominating the Earth. This sci-fi drama is set on the East Coast of the United States after a near-catastrophic alien attack and features a myriad of characters from all walks of life. The majority of the action tends to be focused around the exploits of Tom Mason, a former university history professor, who is now the second in command of the 2nd Mass. Tom and his comrades are having limited success in fighting the Espheni, when a second alien race (the Vohm) lands on the Earth to help the humans with their struggle.

As one can imagine, Falling Skies provides fertile ground for a squad-based, tactical strategy game that would allow players to share in the adventures of the 2nd Mass and their struggle for survival. Creating a successful PC game based on a TV show is no easy task. The gaming landscape is littered with examples of TV shows or movie adaptations that turned into complete train wrecks (insert the name of any Star Trek game ever released here). The key to making a good PC game adaption of a TV show is striking the perfect mix of established content with a solid gaming system – so before starting my review, I found myself asking two things:

How will Falling Skies fare in relation to some of the other excellent titles in this genre, such as the most recent XCOM and Xenonauts?
Does the game provide the player with an experience similar to that depicted on the Falling Skies TV show?

With these questions in mind, I fired up my Steam account and pulled the trigger on Falling Skies.

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11/13/14

Campaign: Leipzig – The Two-Sided AAR, part 1

13 November 2014

Cyrano and PanzerDE face off in the age of muskets and sabers, and find themselves on opposite sides of an Eastern German battlefield, in the first of a series of AARs that give you both sides of the action.

I first met Doug (panzerde) at Origins in June. Despite finding him an all-around fine fellow, I am now tasked with driving him from the field of honor in this scenario from John Tiller Software’s Campaign: Leipzig. I picked the battle (all my fault) because I’d never played it and thought it struck a reasonable balance between variety of forces and size. Leipzig can, after all, become ridiculous at the farthest end of things.

I’ve been playing the Tiller Napoleonic games for well over a decade. I’ve been involved with the Napoleonic Wargame Club for just about as long and am therefore aware of all the theology concerning its alternative rulesets, homerules, optional rules, &c. I offer only that I generally try to play the game as given in the hope of being able to play with the widest range of opponents. I do, however, typically play with a standard set of optional rules given to me long, long ago by my most regular opponent (who thrashes me with unnerving regularity). The rules are these:

I’d be happy to take questions and hold forth at length about why I prefer these rules, but it seems unnecessary here. I’ll only observe that deciding whether to play with “No Melee Eliminations” on or off is a choice that fundamentally alters the flow of the game and its outcomes. With it off, units required to retreat that have no ZOC-free hexes to which they can retreat are eliminated. This can lead to casualty rates far closer to those of the first day of the Somme rather than 1813. I will admit, though, as someone who long lobbied for this rule to be included in the series, that, when this rule is on, the system’s lack of morale collapse above the level of the individual battalions, can result in the very best units hanging about far longer than they ought.

To the battle itself, then. Lowenberg is one of those “extra” scenarios typical of a type Dr. Tiller’s developers have worked to improve their offerings. It’s an early fight in the Leipzig campaign and the scenario description is a simple one:

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11/12/14

Book Review: Islands of Rage and Hope

A Review of Islands of Rage and Hope by John Ringo

Avery Abernethy, 12 November 2014

Islands of Rage and Hope is the third novel in John Ringo’s intelligent zombie apocalypse series. Steven Smith (Wolf), his wife, and daughters Sophia and Faith (Seawolf and Shewolf) have continued to build their flotilla in the Atlantic. The novel starts with Wolf Squadron’s attack on the bare remnants of the US military forces at Guantanamo Bay Cuba. The hope of Wolf Squadron, which now leads the largest surviving contingent of US military forces in operation, is capturing enough of the right medical equipment to start large scale manufacture of a vaccine against the zombie drug. If vaccine production can be restarted, then the crews of US nuclear submarines can be turned into an effective land fighting force.

Just after I finished reading this book, a scary new twist in the real-world Ebola virus gripped much of the world. Two medical missionaries infected with Ebola were flow back from Africa to nearby Atlanta and hopefully cured. This real world episode framed Ringo’s coverage of the manufacture of a vaccine for a deadly disease in an uncomfortably real perspective. Much of the discussion of how to isolate a vaccine, the risks of various vaccines, and the production speed of vaccine covered in the book is now in the pages of newspapers world-wide.

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11/11/14

Tuesday Screenshot – Veterans’ Day

11 November 2014

Veterans, not just US veterans, are remembered today. The Grogs here at GrogHeads wish to thank all of your for your service and wish the best possible future as you drive on through life.

Although the check specifies the US, veterans of all of our allies are in our thoughts and prayers today. Thank you all for your service.

Your Veterans’ Day thoughts here >>

11/8/14

The JTS Interview

By Boggit, 8 November 2014

John Tiller and Ed ‘Volcano Man’ Williams take us on a tour of their new releases

German infantry advance though a ruined East Prussian Town ©Deutsches Bundesarchiv

John and Ed, thank you for agreeing to talk to Grogheads about your recent work. Both East Prussia ‘14, and Panzer Battles: Kursk, the Southern Flank are recent releases and show some interesting developments in John Tiller Software games

Ed, I know that you’ve put many years of research into the First World War Campaigns. What attracted you to the period in the first place, and do you have any favourite campaigns you’d like to explore?

Ed Williams: I have always been interested in World War One for as long as I can remember. I am not sure what initially attracted me to the subject, perhaps it was the movie Lawrence of Arabia, but I recall my desire to read and watch movies and documentaries about the war all the way back in grade school. About ten years ago I was attending college and I took a history class taught by an excellent professor (Dr. Robert Bruce) and the class covered the war, but not all the boring economic and political stuff, it was purely about the battles and the conflict itself.

I suppose it was that class that piqued my interest, but it did so at a perfect moment since I had just finished the HPS Korea ’85 game some years before and I was basically twiddling my thumbs with nothing to do.

So, I had the experience to develop a new title, the free time to do it, and a renewed spark of interest in the subject matter. I took the interest and came up with an idea of a World War One game using the Panzer Campaigns engine at its core, but of course it would need to be modified. I set about creating a list of modifications that were necessary and I presented them to John, and he was receptive to the idea, made the appropriate adjustments, and so I intentionally charged forward before I had time to think about how difficult of a task it would be.

As for my personal favourite campaigns, I am interested in all campaigns of the war but my personal favourites would have to be anything in Palestine and Mesopotamia, the Galicia campaign, and the 1918 battles.

The first bombardment at Tannenburg by I ArmeeKorps field artillery starts auspiciously with the disruption of a Russian unit - an assault will soon follow. New features like radio intercepts now add to the game experience in East Prussia 1914 — The first bombardment at Tannenburg by I ArmeeKorps field artillery starts auspiciously with the disruption of a Russian unit – an assault will soon follow. New features like radio intercepts now add to the game experience in East Prussia 1914

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