Tag: Board Games

04/8/16

GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #91

A hefty dose of groggy tabletop goodness from guys that are not the biggest publishers out there ~

GrogHeads Staff, 08 April 2016

Moscow ’41. Wargaming on the Eastern Front (Ventonuovo Games)
$15k of $5600, ends 1 May 2016

Scaling down from the theater-wide Blocks in the East, Ventonuovo’s latest offering focuses on the initial German campaign down Moscow. A block-unit and area-movement game, M’41 lets players re-fight the vital campaign that Hitler was sure would knock the Soviets out of the war. The graphics on the block stickers are fantastic, and the colors pop against the gorgeous map. The Germans are trying to seize Moscow as quickly as possible, while the Soviets are patching their lines with a mixture of remnant units and full-strength, but untested ones, leading a tense sequence of probing, responding, and exploiting on the battlefield. Rumble over to their Kickstarter page and help them get to their stretch goals.

g91-m41

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04/4/16

Tracer Rounds: Attack of the Killer Poetry

What do you do with a backlog of reviews? ~

Brant, 04 April 2016

We get all kinds of games sent to us, along with the ones we pick up one our own.  Some good, some bad, some gorgeous, some not so much.  We try – we really do try – to get to all of them for review purposes, but it doesn’t always happen.  There’s a reason I’ve got a weekly blurb here called “What I’m doing this week when I should be playing games”.  Moreover, when I play a game for review, I want to play it multiple times to ensure that the review I’m writing is accurate based on how the game is balanced, and how it plays over time – especially if replayability is one of the key factors we want to discuss.haiku

Among the reasons I’ve made it a point to start republishing a bunch of the ‘classic reviews’ are that I don’t want my reviews to be dependent on someone else’s site continuing to exist, as well as wanting folks to be able to find opinions on older games that they may want to take for a spin.  Additionally, many of those older reviews (some of which I’m going to get to soon) were longer borderline-investigative-journalism pieces that really dug into the games through repeated plays.  That was a lot easier when I was in grad school.  Working 3 different teaching jobs, plus being the editorial director here, makes all that a lot tougher.

So, this episode of Tracer Rounds is designed to catch up on those reviews – with a twist.

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03/25/16

GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #90

What’s up for preorder in March?  Space wars, dice, castles, and WAR! ~

GrogHeads Staff, 25 March 2016

Hull Breach!: In Defiance of Dictators Card Game (Not-So-Broken Games)
$10k of $33k, ends 17 April 2016

We’ve been tracking the Hull Breach gang for a while, going back to 2013 (https://grogheads.com/?p=3199), so now that their new release is hitting Kickstarter, of course we’re going to throw them some love!  It’s a deck-builder type of game, with tactical gameplay that depends on how well you can structure and deploy your assets. Your home base (“station”) needs your protection, and you attack with all variety of ships, marines, and special weapons.  Mixing and matching with other boxes lets you customize your deck; fret not, though, as it’s not a collectible game, just a customizable one.  The new box includes enhanced rules for team play, new victory conditions, and a streamlined rulebook, to go with a truckload of new cards.  Launch for their Kickstarter page and fire off your pledge.

g90-hull

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03/15/16

Tracer Rounds: Origins Events!

Here’s what’s coming at the GrogHeads Central Command at Origins ~

Several years ago, we approached Origins with a simple idea: bring wargaming back to the convention.  It had been withering on the vine for a while.  The first year I attended as BayonetGames was in 2005.  We were across the aisle from MMP (who said about 4 total words to us the entire show), next to Columbia (where Ferkin said about 4 words to us every other second), and within sight of Avalanche Press, GMT Games, and Matrix Games, with Decision Games, and others, all in the hall as well.  By 2010, there were almost no wargamers left in the building.  There were some folks playing over in the CABS Board Room (after its consolidation with the War Room), but wargaming had evaporated, not out of malice, but out of neglect.  So I called GAMA.  I talked to them and asked what sort of parameters they had for us to operate within if we wanted to try and bring the wargamers back to the show.  And thus the GrogHeads Central Command was born.  We were able to bring some wargaming companies in that hadn’t been there before, as well as bringing back some others.  And now we’re getting ready to launch our third year working with Origins, and here’s what we’ve got in store for you:

  • Enterprise Games, a retailer out of Indiana, will be the official rep/sponsor of our GMT events.  That’s right, for the first time, the Central Command will include official GMT events – we’ve got scheduled events for both COIN series games and Wing Leader, as well as the opportunity for some pick-up games of other titles, like Combat Commander and Command & Colors.
  • Lock ‘n Load Publishing is coming in.  Since the ownership change, they’ve not come back to Origins, until this year.  David is planning on bringing in a (literal) boat-load of new games off the press, and we’ll be running events for LNLT, World at War, and Nations at War.
  • Lost Battalion Games is back!  They’re the only company that’s joined forces with us every year of the GrogHeads Central Command, so we probably ought to get them some t-shirts to celebrate or something.  They’re going to be running some large ‘rolling’ events for both Sergeants – Hell on Wheels! and Rally Round the Flag that’ll permanently occupy a pair of our tables for the entire show.
  • Flying Pig Games is making their Origins debut.  Mark has committed to the show and we’ll be running events for both Night of Man and Old School Tactical.
  • Proving Ground Games is bringing back their Origins Award-winning minis rules, and taking over a table of their own with their snazzy terrain boards for a weekend of minis-based wargaming, both WWII and modern.
  • The ever-enjoyable Command Post Wargaming, wherein you and the rest of the participants get a quick primer on military planning, and then get to develop your own plan for keeping the red horde from rolling over the inter-German border.  And then you get to execute your plan and watch it fall to pieces in the first 10 minutes as you scramble to adjust while the war goes on!  Seriously, though, it’s an exercise in wargaming with a far more realistic approach to planning, intel, and logistics than you get out of any other tabletop experience.  If we get enough participants, we sometimes run this one head-to-head, so bring your friends!
  • For those that want the Command Post Wargaming experience, but are short on time, we also have the more scaled-back Command Post Chess events, where the principles of planning, intel, and execution are very similar, but with a simplified game that everyone already knows – Chess!
  • Because I’m the guy that puts all this together, I also sneak in a few events of my own, so we’re going to make sure that BayonetGames‘ long-discussed-and-eventually-to-be-published game about modern-day war in Ukraine hits the table (Orange Crush) as well as one of BayonetGames’ Warfighter-series games, Asian Thunder.

We’ve got over 50 wargaming events spread across 5 days, including some drop-in game times and a stray seminar here and there.  There’s something for everyone, so come join us this summer at Origins.  Detailed day-by-day schedule breakdowns are below –

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03/12/16

GrogHeads Reviews ONUS!

Ancients battling across your tabletop, with minimal prep! ~

Jim Owczarski, 12 March 2016

There are two types of miniatures wargamers. The first is into the assembling, painting, and basing of miniatures for the mad fun of it all.  Actually subjecting their lead, or more recently, plastic, hordes to mere rules in a game can seem secondary; just about everyone who has ever “played” Warhammer 40k leaps to mind.

The other is the sort that loves the aesthetic of so many little men, but, even if he finds the process enjoyable enough, knows that he’ll likely never have the time, space, and resources to play in one of those really big games that show up in rulebooks and convention floors.

Enter Onus! (I will hereafter forgo the exclamation point) by Spanish publisher Draco Ideas.  Originally published in 2014 in a Spanish-language edition, Onus recently emerged from a successful Kickstarter that will, among other things, produce an English-language edition.  What follows is a review of the original version.

The concept behind Onus is simple enough. Most wargames involving miniatures require players to stick their figures onto squares or rectangles to facilitate movement.  Onus skips the bit about miniatures and gives us the bases, made of playing card stock decorated with pictures of the soldiers and bids us have at.  This allows the game to come in a very small package.

Mighty armies, itty-bitty living space
Mighty armies, itty-bitty living space

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