Tag Archives: Zabek
Tuesday Screenshot – Red Orchestra 2: Rising Storm
I don’t know where this bridge is. It is a long way from my humble cobbler’s shop on the outskirts of Ruzayevka. We have seized another nameless bridge, crossed another blood-cloggingly cold river, and are trying to drive the Germans out of our land so that we can go back worthless Five Year Plans, endless speeches from Stalin, and bottomless bottles of vodka. All I seek after a long day of fixing soles on shoes that have never stepped in a pool of blood is some hot sausage and kraut, a stiff drink, and a big bosomed woman willing to share my creaky bed. God I hate this war.
TANKSgiving 2013 – Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm AAR Part 1
Scenario: A Test of Wills
Author: Jim Zabek, 28 November 2013
Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm has done something for me that no wargame has done for a long time. I am wholly absorbed in it. It’s the only game I want to play. I’ve been addicted to other games (just ask around the forums about Orcs Must Die! 2), but it has been quite some time since a wargame really grabbed me like this. Strange? Perhaps. But there it is.
Normally when I select an AAR I like to choose one I’ve never seen before. It adds to the drama as I don’t know what’s coming and I think it’s a more authentic story to give to an audience. However, With this particular scenario in Red Storm I have played it at least a dozen times and continue to love it. The AI always keeps me guessing. Although I’ve beaten the AI each time I’ve played it, I never feel like I’m winning until after the game is over. The crush of the Soviet horde is hair-raising to the NATO player. The come on almost like a zombie apocalypse: incessant and seemingly innumerable.
In this particular scenario, A Test of Wills, the player is tasked with fending off the Soviets at night. The scenario opens with a heavy rain that limits visibility to 500 meters – one hex. Eventually the rain will lift. But when it lifts can make an enormous difference to the NATO player. In one game it didn’t lift for five and a half hours. As a result the Soviets crawled right into my defensive positions before I could see them, negating my advantage of seeing at night and using ranged weapons like the TOW. I won that scenario, too, but it had me sweating the entire time – I had placed my defensive units in solid overwatch positions to take on the Soviets at range; when they failed to appear I had left some of the roads to the exit points unguarded for an approach in zero visibility. It was probably a worst-case scenario.
In most games the rain lifts sooner – sometimes by the third turn. But the weather isn’t the only thing tossing me curve balls. There are three major avenues of approach for the Soviets. The southern approach has the most victory points and always sees the most action, but the middle of the map also gets a lot of attention, and the northern end sometimes gets heavily tested, too. The AI seems to never do the same thing twice, which keeps this scenario fresh for me every time I play it. And that’s why I keep coming back to this scenario. It’s a mid-sized scenario with lots of uncertainty. So far I’ve won every game I’ve played but I’ve never felt any confidence until the last shot was fired. There simply aren’t enough NATO troops to go around and once their artillery starts to rain too many units get destroyed for anyone to feel confident.
So here I go again. We’ll see what happens.
GARPA 32 – GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory
Lloyd Sabin, Brant Guillory, and Jim Zabek, 22 November 2013
Winter is coming. As a blast of cold, icy air descends from the Arctic we here at Grogheads are doing our best to keep your blood hot for some new games and we’re leading off with GMT’s Fields of Fire, which sounds hot even when you read it through the cool glow of your monitor. Don’t miss some other great gaming goodness beyond the Read More link which includes some awesome terrain for sci-fi minis and some remakes of a couple of classic electronic games.
Tabletop Games
Fields of Fire II from GMT Games
Cleared p500 and in final development
Still available at the p500 price of $55, this sequel from GMT Games takes the highly-regarded Fields of Fire series into action with the USMC. You’ll lead a rifle company through a variety of solitaire scenarios ranging from the WWII PTO through the present day. A card-driven game with a terrain deck and action deck, Fields of Fire has been described by combat veterans as a pretty damned good representation of the kinds of decisions you need to make in combat. Check it out here and go place your order with GMT.
Millennium Wars Advanced: States of Conflict from MCS Group
Still on preorder, no timetable
The Millennium Wars games are an odd fish. Clearly a map-and-counters wargame that any grog should grok at first glance, but quite complex in the interplay of assets, missions, capabilities, and environmental constraints. A heavy focus on C4I puts the Millennium Wars series in the forefront of modern conflict simulation, and allows solid modeling of organizational cohesion as well as varied non-combat effects like cyberwarfare and political fallout. Still on preorder at $49.95, MWA is a package stuffed with a variety of conflicts to make you squirm your way through the difficult decisions faced on today’s battlefields.
Zeppeldrome
$4600 of $35000, project closes 15 December 2013
Steampunks! Yeah, you! Wanna race? Wanna race an airship? Wanna race and airship and fight dirty? C’mon, you know you do. Interchangeable boards, wacky characters, dirty tricks, and lemmings – it’s all here. Players have modular airships that allow you to mix and match capabilities. Racecourses change each game, and the deck of dirty tricks looks like a Mario race in the sky. Put on your brass goggles and silk scarf, float over to Kickstarter to check out a video of gameplay, and plunk down a couple of bucks for a rollicking ride through the sky.
Tropico 4 AAR – Last Isla St. Clara Part 1
I love playing Tropico 4. The easy salsa music contrasted with sharp, cynical political caricatures makes it a great way for me to kick back and have fun. I’ve managed to play the campaign from start to finish already, but today I wanted to share some of my enjoyment of the game in an AAR. Playing the game end to end forced me to solve problems sometimes with significant handicaps. The great thing about Tropico is how open-ended it is. There are often many ways to solve a particular problem. Today, I’m going to have some fun playing around and see how things go in the first mission of the campaign.
The scenario introduction.
I begin by selecting my avatar. I choose a custom one. I purchased the Apocalypse DLC so I have access to some extra traits that don’t come with the base game. Of course I have to dress up in the hazmat suit. It’s a given. Nothing says, “I’m a petty third world dictator” like running around with a gas mask on. Before the player can get down to the business of gaming he needs to do more than pick out an avatar. The player also needs to select a background, rise to power, and three traits.
My background is that of Booze Baron which gives me double the prices for selling rum. However it comes at a cost – I lose 5% respect from the religious faction. My path to power is Elected as a Capitalist. This gives me bonuses to liberty, production, relations with the US and a bonus to the Capitalist faction. For the three traits I pick Patriot (which gives me a bonus with the Nationalist faction and native-born Tropicans), Scholarly (which gives me a bonus for worker training speed), and Survivalist (an add-on from the DLC which helps my citizens consume less food and gives me a bonus with the Environmentalist faction).
Rockin’ the suit and creating my background.
With that the game begins.
January 1950
Although the game comes with a tutorial even after you start playing the regular campaign periodically hints will pop up to help you along. Usually they’re good advice, but the game is open-ended enough that you don’t always need to take that advice. Here I am being shown what is in effect the game’s translation of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Food, religion, health care, homes, fun. If you prioritize your spending along those lines you’ll rarely go wrong. Tropico is also an economic simulator in addition to being a political sim. Wise investment can create a robust and growing economy. Poor investment will put you in a spiral of bankruptcy from which your small island nation cannot recover. Notably absent in that list of priorities is jobs. However, we’ll get to that.
Tuesday Screenshot – Hitman: Absolution
The seedy streets of Chinatown hold a drug kingpin in need of removal. Having crossed the wrong man he is merely a stepping stone to my next victim, but he is, right now, all that matters and he is about to go down.
