Yes, Risk. It’s a skirmish game, not a conquer-the-world game. Truth be told, it’s a videogame on your tabletop, which is what you’d expect from a cross-branded game that is using the Risk name to sell a tabletop adaptation of the Battlefield series.
INTRODUCTION
Given the theatres that a hypothetical World War III conventional war could have been fought over, the World at War series has done a nice job thus far with putting far-flung locales from decades ago onto many gaming tables across the world. This one, Operation Garbo, is something of a surprise. Personally, I would have thought a North Cape World at War would make more sense, with Russian marines fighting Norwegian and NATO troops, so when you see a game that touts Sweden vs. the USSR, you might raise an eyebrow.
Nevertheless, this latest publication in the successful World at War series from Lock ‘n Load, takes wargamers to a place that is rarely visited, and that’s something that makes it very intriguing from the get go.
In order to play Operation Garbo, you must own Blood and Bridges. This game is not a stand-alone game, but an expansion. All the rules from Blood and Bridges applies to this expansion, as well as a few extra rules added to the rulebook for this game (see below).
click image to enlarge; go on – you know you want to!
Aside from being a popular Grogheads forum member, Tim van der Moer (aka Lord Zimoa on the forum) first gained his reputation as modder before moving into games design. Here he gets the opportunity to say how he got involved in games design and about his plans for the future.
Tim, tell us a little bit about yourself. I know you come from a modding background. Tell us how you moved from modding into game design.
I think back in 2000, or 2001 when I got a phone call from an old chap called Iain McNeil who was on the phone from the UK and asked if I was Lordz’ Tim Moer. For years we were running a modding community, and we got some attention in the international press with our mods, especially our Napoleonic mods, our Lotus fantasy mods, and basically he wanted to ask who I was and what I was doing. I gave some of my personal background, but basically I was totally not into the industry.
Hex-and-legion warfare, courtesy of Hunted Cow Studio’s new Ancient Battles: Rome. Stay tuned for a full review later this month.
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Picket Duty is a solitaire board wargame that focuses on giving you ‘spiritual’ command over a Fletcher-class World War II destroyer during the Okinawa campaign. Your job is to guide the crew as it fends off wave after wave of Kamikaze and ‘special’ attacks while at its duty, or picket, station. Most Fletcher-class destroyers served in this ‘Picket Duty’ capacity to provide early warning to the larger and more valuable fleet targets, such as aircraft carriers, supply ships, and troop ships. So, of course, Kamikaze planes sometimes focused on these destroyers to pave the way for other Kamikazes to get a good shot at those targets.
The game, unfortunately, focuses on little else other than Kamikaze and ‘special’ (or, normal) Japanese aircraft attacks. There is no surface-to-surface combat action, nor DD-vs.-submarine action, or any land-based fire support. Given the complexity and amount of work put into this title, though, it’s hardly a surprise. I just wish it might have done a little more. For the purpose of fighting off hordes of Kamikazes, if you want to feel like you’re the only ship in the American fleet and getting all the attention of these deadly attacks, you’ll very likely love this game.