Grognard Wargamer Thread!

A generous gesture by the people at Osprey Books.

I’ve never heard of Osprey books but what the heck–I’m enjoying learning about Sassanian heavy cavalry now.

Nothing calms my jangly nerves during a pandemic like stomping virtual Nazis so I’m playing Strategic Command WWII: War in Europe.

The Axis AI is bad enough that I get to feel like I’m good at war games, so doubleplus good!

Wow, that’s a terrific offer. I downloaded all five. Note that you have to use the promotion code to get the free deal. The book on Yak vs Bf109 is awesome, sheesh.

Osprey books are good stuff. I’ve used them in the past, mostly to research some obscure questions about Japanese WW2 transport planes and even more obscure questions about certain Japanese submarines.

So how is this Warplan thing?

I have Strategic Command and that fills a pretty good lightweight Strategic Wargame niche. Does anyone have any experience with Warplan here. I think I remember it coming up quite a while ago but it is fresh out on steam now so it just hit my radar.

Thank you very much for the link up thread. That review was perfect.

If you’re interested in AARs, there are a whole bunch of PBEM AARs over in the Matrix forums. You can also find the manual there, and a bunch of general comments, including player reactions to the game. Most positive, a few negative – complaints about ease of invasion, escort strength, etc. I’m pretty interested; debating whether to wait for a sale.

Edit: Forgot to link the forum! Here it is: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.asp?forumid=1756

If you have SC War in Europe (as opposed to World at War) and you enjoy it there’s not much mileage to get from WarPlan (unless you’re one of those types that just buys every wargame anyway).

Not really ‘putering right now, I am deeply into doin’ “real” wargames via Vassal lately. 😀. Rather than playing with myself or negotiating the vagaries of code limitations of GUI or “AI”.

Virus +14 and I am thinking of picking up my Midway argument. Just because. Sigh.

You know ultimately I think I am right but its so hard to argue with so many years of wargame knowledge.

War history knowledge seems like a different thing entirely. But now that we are on a stupid virus pandemic maybe I miss a bit of hard core wargamers. To each his own I guess.

This might be of interest, for it’s unusual approach:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1229152218/napoleonic-tactical-wargame-marengo-1800/description

What I like: the use of Kriegspiel-like dice to substitute for tables.

What I am curious about: the overdesigned multi-piece counters. They may work or be fiddly. But they are unusual.

The pieces remind me of Mage Knight and the other games of that ilk from a few years ago.

The guys at Single Malt had a chat with Vic from VRDesigns (Decisive Campaigns, ATG) about his games and upcoming Shadow Empire

(Honesty Mode: I’m helping Vic with the game, but still think it’s an interesting conversation that you guys might like)

Forget it, Kristi. It’s Chinatown.

Shadow Empire looks really interesting.

I wish Vic had just done another Decisive Campaigns game.

I am so hyped by this! It must be out soon surely.

Week 2 is up, https://ospreypublishing.com/blog/Free_eBooks_week_2/