Tag Archives: Boggit
Flash Review of Combat Mission Black Sea
Developed and Published by Battlefront Inc.
Reviewed by Boggit 14 February 2015
Black Sea is the latest addition to the Combat Mission series. It focuses on a speculative continuation and escalation of the present Ukraine crisis to a new flashpoint in the central Ukraine Dneipr river/Donetsk area set during the summer of 2017. NATO has now been drawn into the fight and with the release of this game we see US troops joining the fight between the Ukrainians and Russians. Conceived well before the current crisis in the Ukraine, this is another of Steve Grammont’s eerily prophetic modern Combat Mission games – the last one was Combat Mission: Shock Force set in Syria in 2008!
Ukrainian scouts cautiously advance. A barrage meanwhile slows any advances on their left flank.
As a flash review/first impressions feature, this article is based on my gameplay of a couple of the scenarios, and around half a dozen quick battles. It’s not exhaustive by any means, but I hope that I’ve covered things sufficiently to give some useful insights into what the game is all about. If I’ve missed something – it happens – well now you’ll know why. 😉
GrogHeads Interviews Joel Billings of 2By3 Games
Boggit, 7 February 2015
Joel Billings of 2By3 Games talks to Boggit about War in the West and game design in general
As always, click images to enlarge
GrogHeads: Joel, thank you for agreeing to talk to Grogheads about your recent work. War in the West is your latest release and shows some interesting innovations in the development of 2By3 games.
Tell us about yourself. How did you get into wargame design?
Joel Billings: I started SSI in 1979 when I had just graduated from college. I was a long time player of historical wargames and had tinkered with various game rules and created miniature campaigns. I started SSI because I thought computers were a natural evolution for wargames which would allow for better fog of war and an AI opponent.
War in the West ships with 10 scenarios, including 3 full campaigns, and two introductory scenarios.
GH: Your recent products of War in the East and War in the West are massive in scope and detail, which might be potentially off-putting to all but the most hardcore gamers. Tell us about the design decisions in making such apparently challenging games.
JB: The first decision was whether to go with an IGOUGO system or a plot and execution system. Gary had used the later in his previous Eastern Front games. We decided to go with the IGOUGO because we thought it would attract more players as it could be made to be a very addictive game where you want to keep making one more move, one more combat. This is especially true in 1941 Russia. Of course we wanted the extreme detail that people expect from Gary, and that comes from the database.
GrogHeads Reviews the CMBN Vehicle Pack
Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy Vehicle Pack, Developed and Published by Battlefront Inc.
A screenshot review by Boggit, 21 November 2014
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to field some of the rarely seen specialist Allied vehicles, or scratch built German armoured groups that fought in Normandy? Well now you can. Drawing heavily upon Hobart’s “Funnies” of 79th Armoured Division and the “Ersatz” units created by Major Alfred Becker – a rather unique engineer – for 21st Panzer Division – Battlefront have introduced a vehicle pack that brings new vehicles and weapons into the mix for their Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy game.
A Churchill AVRE supported by infantry advances in spite of nearby mortar fire. It also carries a breach team for when a 290mm round is just overkill. Reloading the Petard mortar on the AVRE is slow, but historically correct.
The vehicle pack requires the installation of the version 3.0 game engine, which is separately available from Battlefront. V3.0 brings Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy up to the same level of development as Combat Mission: Red Thunder, which provides a lot of improvements. You can check out some of these described in my Red Thunder review here .
Tuesday Screenshot – Field of Glory
18 November 2014
A big-time Field of Glory butt-kicking.
Slavs Rule OK! (Even if my C-in-C was killed in the battle!)
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
