Tag: Airboy

10/28/15

GrogHeads Reviews Marco Kloos’s “Frontlines” Series

We take a look at Terms of Enlistment and Lines of Departure, by Marco Kloos

Avery Abernethy, 28 October 2015

 

Terms of Enlistment and Lines of Departure are military science fiction leaning towards hard science.  Mr. Kloos has served in the military and it shows in his writing.  Both books are in the Frontlines series with the 3rd book Angles of Attack released in April, 2015.

In the Frontlines books Earth has fractured into two factions: the North American Union (dominated by the former USA) and a Russian/Chinese block.  Independent countries either no longer exist or are never mentioned.  The conflict between the two power blocks has an uneasy truce on Earth itself, but all-out war rages for the 100 or so colony worlds accessible through jump gates.

Kloos-Covers

The Earth’s resources are being depleted, the majority of humanity lives in high rise slums with a minimal ration of food, and the proles are restless and becoming lawless.  Part of the military is deployed to maintain minimal order in the high-rise clustered slums while the rest focuses on space colonization and interplanetary war for colonies.  Slum dwellers have a tiny chance of winning a lottery to become colonists on worlds which can minimally support human life through terra-forming.

Andrew Grayson a young, high-rise slum dweller, wins a 100-1 shot to join the military.  Terms of Enlistment focuses on setting up the dystopian world and the harsh basic training that washes out 80% of the inductees.  Andrew’s first posting is in the military division tasked with keeping order in the slum cities.  After a few initial conflicts, Andrew’s unit is thrust into a disastrous mission which decimates his unit and generates bad publicity through use of heavy weapons in an urban environment.

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01/28/15

Book Review: Strands of Sorrow

A Review of Strands of Sorrow by John Ringo

By Avery Abernethy, 28 January 2015

Strands of Sorrow is the 4th and (claimed by the author) final book in Ringo’s Zombie Apocalypse series.  Wolf Squadron has manufactured the vaccination to the zombie apocalypse virus and has inoculated all of the US Navy crewmen on submarines. But everyone who became a zombie will stay a zombie. So almost all of the world’s population is either a zombie or was eaten by zombies.

With several thousand US servicemen, the US military, with civilian support, starts the initial operations to take back North America.  They start with some isolated military bases and eventually fight to retake Camp Lejeune in North Carolina – one of the primary training bases for the US Marine Corps. This starts an entertaining side story about the living hell of staying in US Marine Basic Training for almost a full year, unable to leave due to the zombie hordes. This leads to Ringo’s take on the difference between training officers, combat officers, and logistics officers.

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12/17/14

GrogHeads’ 2014 Holiday Buying Guide Extra – For the Junior Gamers!

Christmas Suggestions for Potential Junior Gamers

Avery Abernethy, 17 December 2014

Any great hobby needs new converts and Christmas is a great time to provide unexpected gifts to unsuspecting grandchildren, nephews, nieces, cousins and the like to encourage them to join our hobby. A good gift for a novice should be relatively easy to play, provide wonderful fun examples of classic game genres, should work on a wide range of inexpensive PCs, have multiple difficulty settings for a range of intellectual and ability levels.  A good section should also include major elements of the game genre.

An unexpected and unrequested gift should also be inexpensive.  Honestly, if you are providing a true “surprise gift” to get the next generation interested in PC gaming you will probably make a number of gifts to several youngsters before finding that special, gifted young person who will truly appreciate the gift and enjoy the hobby for years to come.

But the most important element is fun.  You want the game to be relatively easy to learn but a lot of fun.  Nothing drives away potential converts than thick rule books, complicated play, and less than fun games.  Do not give your novice grandchildren War in the Pacific, War in the East, or Dominions 4.  I’m not recommending any shooters since any youngster with even a minimum of interest has played Call of Duty or some other shooter on a game system.

Tactical Wargame

Panzer Corps – available on sale from Slitherine on sale now for $10

Features:

  • Fog of war
  • Zones of Control
  • Combined Arms Tactics
  • Range of difficulty settings
  • Limited number of units
  • Some limited ability to recognize European maps
  • Kids get to learn the difference between a Panzer 3, Panzer 4, Panther and Tiger tank!
  • Kids get to learn why the German 88 was such a beast
  • Very fun!

Because this game has some very easy settings it can appeal to the absolute novice.  Yet the game introduces many critical components of tactical wargames.  This game has had remarkable popularity and is a good start to this side of our hobby.

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12/6/14

GrogHeads Reviews Wasteland 2

A post-apocalyptic American Southwest beckons…

Avery Abernethy, 6 December 2014

Load screen

 

Wasteland 2 is a party based RPG set in a post-apocalyptic American Southwest. The game is developed by Inxile Software headed by noted designer Brian Fargo. Mr. Fargo was lead designer on the original Wasteland released way back in 1988 and also lead designer on Fallout RPG series. This is one of the first RPGs to be largely funded through a Kickstarter campaign. I purchased this game from www.gog.com and played it for around two weeks completing approximately 90% of the game.

Although experience with the original Wasteland game is not needed to either enjoy or understand Wasteland 2, many of the game conventions and world design flow from the original. Your small, 4 person party belongs to the Desert Rangers. The Desert Rangers are attempting to bring civilization back to the Southwest after decades of post-nuclear war chaos. The player can either build their starting four party members or choose from predesigned characters bundled with the game.

Starting Party

 

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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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