Tag Archives: Board Games
Raiders of the Deep – First Look!
Michael… ahem, “dives” into the Compass Games sub warfare box ~
Michael Eckenfels, 7 April 2018
It seems that the solitaire wargame market for submarines is picking up steam (a harr a harr) in the last few years. Silent Victory, Silent War, Target Bearing 023 Degrees, Operation Drumbeat, The Hunters…there’s plenty of options, including this title, Raiders Of The Deep from Compass Games.
Based on the same system that The Hunters and Silent Victory use, Raiders Of The Deep puts you into the role of a German submarine commander in World War I. This is a very intriguing prospect to me, being based in World War I, when submarine warfare really came into its own. Some of the German submarines at the outbreak of war were tiny things that could hold maybe 15 sailors and two torpedoes, but they evolved quickly over the following years of The Great War.
RAF The Battle of Britain 1940 – The GrogHeads AAR, part 1 of 5
Michael’s got England in his sights ~
Michael Eckenfels, 3 April 2018
Introduction
This AAR covers the game RAF: The Battle of Britain 1940 (2009). It is a most excellent solitaire game with bodacious amounts of fun, given that there are three games in one in the box – a solo game where you play the beleaguered RAF, a solo game where you play the Luftwaffe, and a two-player game as well. GrogHeads just reviewed the newest version of the game, and I did a review of this game a few years back for GrogHeads here. I was also a fan of the original RAF game that was put out back in 1986. That last one was one of my staples growing up; it was fast, challenging, and always kept you on the edge of your seat.
This AAR is full-length and yes, before you even ask, it is complete. I’ve been working on it for a few weeks now, wanting to ensure it gets done one way or another before I even try to post it to the site.
I’ve also included a bit of padding/narrative to try to tell a (non-historical) story as I am wont to do on occasion. I hope you will find it entertaining and not a distraction. Though, honestly, it was a bit hard to write considering the viewpoint – I’m playing this from the perspective of the Germans, and as such, it means I have to ingrain myself in as the leader of the Luftwaffe. Or, the sub-leader. You see, in my alternate history, here, Goering choked to death on a goat meatball sandwich, and “I” take over on the eve of the Battle of Britain.
GrogHeads Reviews Battle of Britain (the new one!)
Never have so many spent so much backing a game by so few that plays… so well? ~
Jim Owczarski, 31 March 2018
During the mad era when Lorraine Williams lead TSR, the company released, counter intuitively to some, a few of the most popular wargames ever created. Chief among these was The Hunt for Red October, but the list also includes bright lights like Red Storm Rising, A Line in the Sand, and, less brightly, Europe Aflame. This list was joined in 1990 by Battle of Britain (hereafter just BoB), a Richard Borg design that brought Mr. Borg’s love of light simulation and dice-heavy combat resolution to the skies over Britain and the English Channel in those early years of the Second World War.
More than 25 years later, the Plastic Soldier Company, which partnered with Mr. Borg to create the First World War iteration of his Commands and Colors system, launched a Kickstarter to re-release BoB and bring its production values up to contemporary wargame standards. The Kickstarter was well received, but, as with many of these endeavors, there were lots of delays, allegations of poor communication on the part of the company, and a fair amount of displeasure with the quality of some of the components. I received my own copy over a year after I backed it — about eight months after I expected it — and I’ve been having a go at the game with my son. What do I think of the re-boot? That would be telling; please read on.
Lovely cover art
GrogHeads Interviews Glenn Drover of Forbidden Games
FoG Glenn Drover is launching a new venture, and stops by to tell us all about it ~
Jim Owczarski, 24 March 2018
Glenn Drover has been in the game business for quite a few years now. 
Despite an abiding love of historic gaming — notably in offerings like Napoleon in Europe and Victory and Glory: Napoleon — his biggest successes have been lighter fare including time spent at digital developer PopCap. Earlier this week, he and fellow PopCap alum announced a new venture — Forbidden Games. It seemed like a logical time to do a little catching up.
So, for the six people reading this who don’t know you, what were the last three games — digital, tabletop or otherwise — you were involved with?
The last three games that I worked on that were published were:
- Victory & Glory: Napoleon, a lighter grand strategy game of the Napoleonic Wars for the PC, published by Matrix (Note: I finally finished the board game version, which will be shipping in April, published by Forbidden)
- Galactic Rebellion, a sequel (of sorts) to Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery, published by Eagle Games
- WarQuest, a fantasy strategy game (with amazing miniatures) inspired by Divine Right, published by Mr. B Games
Sword & Sorcery: Immortal Souls – First Look!
Another new box-full-o’-minis in an oversize tabletop dungeon crawl ~
Michael Eckenfels, 21 March 2017
There’s about sixteen billion board games now dealing with dungeon crawls and sporting cool minis, or enough to choke a bag of holding – whichever reference you get first.
I’ve since realized I was expecting an RPG experience
I hadn’t heard of Sword & Sorcery before (go figure). According to BGG’s page, this game “is an epic -fantasy cooperative board game in which 1-5 players fight together against the forces of evil, which are controlled by the game itself.”
This last bit was enough to intrigue me. I’d had a momentary flirtation with the D&D games; specifically with Castle Ravenloft, which I played, and Temple of Elemental Evil, which I have yet to play. These D&D games struck me as too simplistic, but I’ve since realized I was expecting an RPG experience, and was disappointed because of it. I need to revisit those games with a different outlook on what to expect.
This one, though, seemed pretty cool for a variety of reasons. Not only the “1-5 player” aspect of it, which is admittedly a huge selling point for me (I like running multiple players in cooperative games), but also because this game has a lot of Galaxy Defenders (another game) in it. And it should, because Gremlin Productions created both of these games.
There’s also the 8.3 rating on BGG, which is impressive in and of itself, as well as the 95 (!) videos covering it, as well as over twelve hundred threads in the BGG page for it. Not bad for a game that was just released in 2017.
For a final reason, the minis are cool as hell, as you will see momentarily.
