Tag: Modern & Near Future

08/22/14

A Report From Connections 2014

Guest columnist Brian Train gives us a peek inside the annual premier gathering of professional wargaming practitioners.

Once there was an Air Force Captain named Matt Caffrey who realized that commercial wargame designers had a lot to teach and learn from military and government analysts, planners and other subject matter experts. So in 1993 he organized the first CONNECTIONS conference, for the purpose of bringing these two worlds together to talk, for a few days at least. Now retired, Lieutenant Colonel Caffrey has worked to make this conference happen each and every year since then. The 21st annual CONNECTIONS conference on professional wargaming was held at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, August 4-7, 2014, and I attended.

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Monday, August 4, was a half-day featuring presentations and discussions by individual speakers. Matt Caffrey spoke on the history of wargaming using information from his upcoming book, the engaging Dr. Peter Perla, author of The Art of Wargaming spoke on analytical wargaming, and Dr. Joe Saur and Chris Weuve spoke on the basics and pitfalls of wargame design.

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08/15/14

GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #51

Wow. There’s suddenly a whole lot of excellent gaming available for your pre-order happiness.

Eight-Minute Empire: Lost Lands (Red Raven Games)
$35k of $15k, ends 25 August 2014
A sequel to the insanely good Eight-Minute Empire (which we reviewed), this new expansion adds new map boards, new cards, and new mechanics to your favorite one-sitting empire builder. There are new player boards to help you organize your cards as you acquire them, new cards that change some of the mechanics, and a ‘faster’ gameplay option that seems very 7 Wonders-ish that involves passing hands around the table. The original was a great game, this one really kicks it up another notch. Head over to Kickstarter now and pledge, yo!

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08/10/14

Risk: Battlefield Rogue – First Look!

Yes, Risk.  It’s a skirmish game, not a conquer-the-world game.  Truth be told, it’s a videogame on your tabletop, which is what you’d expect from a cross-branded game that is using the Risk name to sell a tabletop adaptation of the Battlefield series.

The thick box belies the contents. If there were expansions coming, the size of the box would be appropriate.
The thick box belies the contents. If there were expansions coming, the size of the box would be appropriate.

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07/13/14

GrogHeads Reviews World at War: Blood & Bridges

World at War: Blood and Bridges, Published by Lock ‘n Load Publishing

Review by Michael Eckenfels, 13 July 2014

 

INTRODUCTION

The fascination with the hypothetical balloon going up in Europe in the 80s doesn’t cease to amaze me. I think this is mainly because I am a child of the 80s and during that time, as I was getting into wargaming, a conventional NATO vs. Warsaw Pact ground war was a very real possibility. Gaming it out to bloody completion was compelling and riveting for me. And now, about a quarter century after the Berlin Wall fell and communism (more or less) has left Europe and Russia, it’s still something of a hot gaming topic. Whether you play it out on your PC or on your dining room table, there’s commie tanks looking to grind outnumbered Westerners under their treads, somewhere. photo 2 Blood and Bridges is a Lock ‘n Load game that captures a slice of the West vs. East “war” in the 1980s. It is not a grand strategic game, but rather a tactical one, that focuses on platoon-level combat. If you’re looking to decide the fate of the entirety of Western Europe, you’re going to be disappointed. However, this game delivers, in a way, something better: a focal point battle (or series of battles) fought over the Rhine River Valley in the western part of West Germany. The premise is: the Soviets have taken something of a beating from NATO ground forces, but have doggedly ground their way forward, and are making a final, massive thrust towards this all-important geographic feature. In their way is the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR), making a steadfast final stand of sorts – a very British thing to do! Continue reading →