Tag: Eckenfels

09/13/14

GrogHeads Reviews Ancient Battle: Hannibal

Review by Michael Eckenfels, 13 September 2014

Developed and Published by Hunted Cow Studios, for iOS (iPad) and Mac (Reviewed on iPad)

Wargaming on the go sounds great – but how does it play?  Michael gives you the low-down…

Hunted Cow Studios is an interesting developer. Before I reviewed this title, I already owned two of their games that I had bought through the App Store (Civil War: 1863 and Tank Battle: 1944). I was already familiar with their titles and their game system, and had heard of this one (as well as the others, like Ancient Battle: Rome), so their games are not a mystery to me.

ABHhexes 2

Continue reading →

09/11/14

Birth of the Federation, an AAR, Part 7

Part 7: Manifest Destiny Ahoy!

click images to enlarge

 The last time I recorded the greatness that is my reign as…uh, I mean…the last time I recorded the greatness of the expansion of the peace-loving Federation…was, we had named our ship after some town in northeastern North America so irrelevant it didn’t even get nuked. Or blown up during the Eugenics Wars. Pick your history and stick with it; we’ve got a train of human expansion to ride!

That didn’t sound as good on paper as it did in my head…

So, while the other fledgling colonies scrape and work hard to survive out there in the cold vastness of alien worlds (alien to us, not “aliens” – not yet anyway – shudder), Sol trucks right along. I decide to fill its production queue with a few ships. I like to change things up when shipbuilding to be prepared for any eventuality. Right now our NX-01s are stationary on the edges of their range and unable to do any more splorin’, so I need to get a few Troop Transports in, balanced with a Colony Ship and another NX-01.

 

BOTF-7-001 Continue reading →

08/8/14

GrogHeads Reviews World at War: Operation Garbo

World at War: Operation Garbo, Published by Lock ‘n Load Publishing

Review by Michael Eckenfels, 8 August 2014

 

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.

LNL-OG-1

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).

Continue reading →

08/3/14

GrogHeads Reviews Picket Duty

Dive into this solitaire WWII game and stave off the attacks on your destroyer.

Michael Eckenfels, 3 August 2014

 

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.

PicketDuty-3

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.

Continue reading →