Yeah, that is pretty wild. Depending on the price I might get it for the novelty of having the most macabre software toy I’ve seen in a while.
Nevsky is now up for online play on the rally the troops website.
Well after 7 years, it has arrived.
Interesting to compare to my 1976 copy - the designer notes in the new edition says 250,000 of these were sold!
Awesome, mine is hopefully on the way. Great comparison shots.
There is a copy of the Compass Jedko reprint at my local game shop and I have been fighting the urge to go buy it. Knowing that they stuck with the 1/2’ counters and seeing your photo with the counters helps kill the urge since I’ve got the GMT/CSW version incoming ;)
This is called the “Deluxe” 5th edition - and they have thrown in all the bells and whistles - bigger counters, setup charts for operations from Barbarossa to Bagration, extra counters for one off scenarios that were printed in a 'zine back in the 90s. There’s even a special map insert for three hexes in Lvov where people argue should or should not be mountains.
The only thing it doesn’t include are mounted maps - you have to pay an extra $40 plus shipping for those!
The bigger counters and maps were a big part of why I ordered the GMT/CSW version.
I doubt I’ll be ordering the mounted maps though. I started on AH games and preferred mounted maps at first, but as time went on I grew to appreciate the maps from SPI, Yaquinto, GDW etc and I grew to prefer the non mounted ones. I only have to look at the maps from my old AH games that were played a lot to see why. And plexiglass sealed the deal.
Question for the digital grogs.
Did any other game do the kind of “war status” strategy map like Red Storm Rising did?
Where you can see the overview of the war even though you are only actually impacting a small bit of it? Close Combat has it’s Invasion maps, but it’s not quite the same as that’s where you’re moving your force around, I think I’m looking for something more “narrative” like… But I’m not sure it exists outside of this childhood classic…
Damn, I had forgotten about that. I played that game a lot, too. I don’t recall anything like it recently though.
To be honest, I suspect that a lot of the stuff in Red Storm Rising, like in OG Harpoon, was smoke and mirrors though. Stuff that gave the impression of more going on under the hood than actually was there. For instance, after putting in countless hours in Harpoon, I ran into one of the programmers who casually admitted that the AI was pretty much a simple close and shoot loop; all of the devious strategies and tactics I had imagined the Russkies were using to bombard my carrier groups were pretty much just that, imagination. But, hey, it worked!
All the best entertainment is smoke and mirrors in some way, I think.
There were probably only about 20 story beats/war states in RSR, but it did an amazing job of making feel like your ancillary combat actions were vital to the war effort.
Most other wargames, be they turn based or real time, prefer to make you the hero in the middle of everything. There must surely be something else that gives that same feeling of being an vital cog in the effort but without being all super hero about it
I haven’t received my copy of the GMT version of Russian Campaign yet. I still have the Avalon Hill version. It still gets my vote for the most playable strategic wargame.
I got my shipping notice today for Inferno and The Russian Campaign. Woot!
And speaking of tabletop wargaming, a friendly PSA that there is the spring deployment for the online SD Hist Con, coming up on March 18. All virtual, done with Discord, Vassal, TTS, and other systems. $5 gets you a badge for the day.
Linkie for more Information:
SD Hist Con
You’d be surprised how much of F4’s “amazing” “dynamic” “campaign” is (/used to be? Dunno how much BMS have fixed things) just hardwired routines.
Hey, nah, I’d not be surprised at all! The thing is, in the end, smoke and mirrors often works. Gamers don’t want reality, we want a simulation that gives us all the good stuff and none of the tedium.
The 2nd printing of The Last Hundred Yards looks like it should be shipping soon from GMT. They charged the card this morning.
Thanks for the heads up. I’ve been trying to decide whether or not to order the 2nd edition while it was still at the P500 price. I recently picked up a clean used copy of the first but the greedy bastard in me says two copies are good because then I can use the maps that are on the backside too lol! Or play double blind I guess.
I know I’m late on this one, but I bought Skies Above Britain the other day, and it’s so good. I haven’t even started a campaign yet, but if those hold up, it might be GotY material for me. I liked Skies Above the Reich a lot, but this seems to me an improvement on that.
I also received Carrier Battle: Philippine Sea recently, but haven’t had much chance to look at it. The components are nice. If it’s even as good as the same designer’s “Carrier” it will be very good, indeed.
I never played Storm Above the Reich. It didn’t seem too different than Skies. Please correct me if I am wrong there. But, Skies Above Britain is definitely an entirely different set of decisions. I haven’t dug into it too much at all but I like what I see.
Also, does anyone here have experience with FITNA? I picked it up a little while ago because I like the modern setting and it seemed to be at the level of abstraction I enjoy.
My copy of The Last Hundred Yards finally arrived today. Now I’m just waiting on the Russian Front module to complete the set.
Looking at the site, North Africa '41 is currently at the printer, so that might be showing up in the next couple of months as well.
I’m still waiting on word from Compass about when Air & Armor will be ready for shipping. Taking a quick glance at csw, it looks like the project has really expanded with 2 more titles in the works. So there will be Air & Armor Würzburg, which is the update of the old West End game, Air & Armor Spearhead which will focus on 3rd AD and Fulda, and finally Air & Armor BAOR. Lee Brimmicombe-Wood is involved with those 2 titles.