It’s now September 1942 in my ongoing game as the Allies against the Axis AI in “Strategic Command WW2: World at War.” Things still look remarkably historical.
The Germans have just assaulted Stalingrad for the first time, but they were rebuffed – this time. They’re also a couple hexes away from both Moscow and Leningrad. It’s tense.
In North Africa, the Axis powers are now scaring me big time, as they’ve reached the outskirts of Alexandria and Cairo. I’ve rushed in some reinforcements from South Africa and the UK, but I need more. It’s worrisome, because not much defends the rest of the Allied Mideast. I’m prepping my own Operation Torch to land US forces in Algeria, to relieve pressure on Egypt, but I’m worried I’ll be too late.
Japan is still inching toward Chungking and Yenan, but I’ve managed to upgrade Chinese weapons, and that’s helped slow down the Japanese. I’ve also opened the Ledo road, providing more supply to China, and some Indian units have started to climb over the mountains to help out. Indian units are also holding the line against the Japanese at the Thai-Burmese border. Rangoon and Mandalay are still in Allied hands.
My only real counterattack so far has been in the Pacific, where the Americans have seized Kwajelein and the Aussies some of Papua New Guinea. Guadalcanal is still in Japanese hands. It’s my next big target. After three years of being whacked around, I’m ready to start winning!
Well, now I’m up to September 1943, and things have hardly changed, and I’m starting to lose patience. The Americans have invaded North Africa and are slowly moving through Tunisia toward Libya. And the Yanks have taken Rabaul, Nauru, and some of New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies. But it’s all slow, painstaking progress. Meanwhile the Russians and Chinese and Burmese and Egypt fronts have hardly moved. I know the AI occasionally gets a free unit – as do I, it seems. How often does this happen?
My “Strategic Command” game is going better now. I’ll report more after the New Year. Heading off to travel for a few days, so will be offline. Happy New Year, fellow grogs!
Thanks! It was recorded a few months ago, but it was only released on Dec 22. So you’re very timely!
Ted Raicer has another game with interesting ideas called Hitler Turns East that I didn’t bring up. Much smaller–just through March '42–and worth checking out.
Flashpoint Campaigns Southern Storm has been announced! In addition to the new content, they’ve moved to 64-bit, which solves the memory issues that you run into on the larger Flashpoint Campaigns Red Storm maps.
Hopefully they can port the maps/scenarios from the earlier games, because those larger campaigns are literally unplayable.
I picked up Ageod’s “Civil War 2” at the Matrix sale, for $10, including a Steam key. I played the first game and enjoyed it, so I figured, why not.
Has anyone played GMT’s “The U.S. Civil War”? It’s on the P500 list for a reprint, and I’m tempted. I’m reading the rules now. I’m also tempted by Mark Herman’s “For the People,” a well-regarded card-driven treatment of the same subject. But much as I love Herman’s other games, I think I’m in the mood for a more traditional hex-and-counter approach to a strategic Civil War game.
Oooh, Bruce Maxwell is working on an update to Air & Armor. @Brooski and @Navaronegun, have either of you seen a Compass game with Kranz running the project? He seems to be in charge of the ones I’m interested in, Maxwell’s NATO update, the Third World War update, and Herman’s France 1944. I imagine France 1944 is a safe bet since Mark is involved.
The latest Compass releases have me continuing to stay away from Compass.
You’ll get a game that’s broken, one way or another imo.
I’m sorry man, I wish I had better news. The designers can’t QC product no matter how good they are and they ain’t developing. Krantz so far gets mixed reviews at best on France 1944
The initial report so far on France 1944 is bugly fugly art. More later as the news comes in.
I got my hands on a copy of the 3rd edition (2nd edition really) of Conflict of Heroes: Storms of Steel, based on the battle of Kursk. Even though CoH is not the most realistic wargame, the new edition is one of the smoothest-playing wargames I’ve ever played. The simple rules and new dice-roll exhaustion mechanic make it really easy to learn and fast to play (and make it great for solo-ing). At this point, I think it is a perfect intro game to hex and chit wargames. The production values, as always, are top notch.
Things I’ve learned today: Avalon Hill’s Blitzkrieg was about a fictional war like Tactics II. I’d always assumed it was something about Germany’s early campaigns, but I’d never looked at it. Just noticed it when looking through one of the old General magazines that had an article with rules for modern combat.
I played a lot of Bltizkrieg in high school with my long time gaming buddy. IIRC the problem was that the rules allowed units to stack by combat points such that you could stack as much infantry as armor, thus the armor had no advantage on attack. We ended up calling it Sitzkrieg because of that with fronts stagnating. He wrote an article that appeared in one of the original issues of Strategy and Tactics circa 1967 suggesting a change to stacking to fix the problem.
Speaking of S&T, Chris Wagner lived in Albany, NY back then and we would go to his house where he would give us games people had submitted for review. We would take them, play them and the give Chris our feedback for his written reviews. I still have Trafalgar by Roger Cormier that he gave us in 1968. Been meaning to put it on my pool table and play it again., Those were the good old days. :)
I remember eagerly awaiting, and then devouring, every issue of Strategy & Tactics, Moves, Fire & Movement, and even The General, even though I was never really as in to AH games as I was to others. Eventually I wrote some reviews for F&M, in the early '80s, my first foray into game journalism and freelance writing. I didn’t write much after that until the early-mid '90s, when I started freelancing for CGW at first, then Strategy +. The board wargame era though was special. So many games were played solo and so many reviews were done without people actually playing the game F2F, lulz.
I still have some issues of S&T, Moves, and The General as I’m sure many forum dwellers here do. Sadly I lost S&T #1 along with a bunch more of the first year issues some time ago.
