03/6/14

Birth of the Federation, an AAR, Part 3

Part 3: Oopsies all around

Wait…hello, nurse!

I’m using HyperSnap, and for some reason, the suns aren’t appearing in the screenshots. Nor are the dilithium displays. So, I’ve downloaded Fraps to capture these things, so let’s see if it’s done right.

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Looks like it.

So, the Seadragon moves into the Sarona star system and finds not only lots of big planets with energy and food bonuses…but dilithium as well! This is huge news, because dilithium is what makes starships move, and starships moving means the Federation becoming big and powerful, which means we’re safer when we run into ali-err, I mean, IF we run into aliens, of course. Continue reading

02/13/14

Birth of the Federation, an AAR, Part 2

Part 2: Terraformin’

Fortunately there are no alien life forms in the Tohvun system. While this is a sad little system with tiny little planets (two Barren, one Desert, one Jungle, and one Arctic), the Jungle planet has a food bonus for its fertile soil, and the Desert planet has some great angles or something to it so it catches lots of rays for solar energy absorption. Or something. It’s pretty scientific, you probably wouldn’t even understand.

Those brave colonists immediately began to terraform the planets in the Tohvun system. Meanwhile, I took a look at how things were here in the Sol system. That’s where Earth is, don’cha know.

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We’ve managed to terraform Mars, but not Venus, Mercury, or Pluto. Right now we have room for about another 80 population, but if we terraformed those three planets we’d have a shot at really growing our britches off.

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Continue reading

02/7/14

Picket Duty: Kamikaze Attacks against U.S. Destroyers – Okinawa, 1945 – First Look!

Michael Eckenfels unboxes another recent discovery!

 

Legion Wargames’ Picket Duty is a solitaire game from Steve Dixon, a designer that had a hand in creating B-29 Superfortress and its expansion, Hell Over Korea. I’ve been watching this title for some time now and was quite eager to get a copy, even though I’ve read discussions over on BoardGameGeek about how the current version 1.0 of the rules are confusing and a newer version is due out soon. Regardless, what I followed in development looked like a game with a lot of potential and great components.
You can view the game on Legion Wargames’ page here.

 

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The box is a standard-sized wargame box, if a bit thinner than a ‘normal’ one.

Continue reading

01/24/14

World at War: Blood and Bridges and Operation Garbo – First Impressions!

Michael Eckenfels takes a look at two of Lock’n’Load’s key expansions to the World at War universe

Lock ‘N Load’s World at War series is a huge compendium of NATO vs. Warsaw Pack wargaming goodness, with several titles detailing that hypothetical conflict. In this First Impressions article, we’re taking a look at both Blood and Bridges and Operation Garbo as they are unboxed.

Click images to enlarge.  A lot.

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Blood and Bridges has what I’d think of as a ‘standard’ size wargame box, with Garbo being a bit smaller in both height and width. That’s a little annoying to someone as anal as I am when it comes to storing and displaying games (as well as books, actually), but that’s about the only bad thing I can say (and it’s not even THAT bad). The artwork, done by veteran artist Marc von Martial, is his usual high standard of excellence.

Continue reading

01/23/14

Birth of the Federation, an AAR, Part 1

Part 0: Introduction

I was very impressed by Martok’s Birth of the Federation AAR (“Ex Astris, Scientia”: a Birth of the Federation AAR). So much so that I decided to do my own.

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While he did the Balance of Power mod, which I’m honestly not familiar with as I’ve not played it extensively, I am doing the “All the Ages” mod, which more closely resembles the ‘true’ Star Trek experience, from the NX-01 Enterprise to the Nemesis-era Enterprise-E.

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I will play the Federation in this one. I never liked playing the others as much, even though I’ve done all of them. I’d like to think that the Federation’s rosy, hippy-fueled outlook of exploring for its own sake is the best reason to undertake a journey to the stars, rather than exploiting resources or trade routes (the Ferengi), or being a conquering neandrathal (everyone else, pretty much). You could certainly play the Federation as a conquering force, but their population of weed-smoking liberals will not tolerate that for more than a planet or two before they go into some serious levels of rebellion. Continue reading