Grognard Wargamer Thread!

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.

I know zero about this but this card:

might need some updating!

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.

Posted over on BGG, some of the alumni of SPI holding forth:

Good stuff.

Just got back from the Lakes here in the UK and managed to attend Unthirl on the Saturday and today.

Got a super 4 player game of Holland '44 in. I had to leave as the denouement approached for the long game but my partner who was playing XXX Corps had done very well to give us a shot at victory…

I managed to get both ends of Arnhem bridge for a while but the early arrival of the Germans in the 82nd area stymied any charge for Nijmegan bridge.

We had a bridge everywhere else (including managing to grab Grave despite losing the US para unit in the drop)

I’d left my partner with plenty of Para’s left though (both at Arnhem and Nijmegan) so hopefully he can tell me he got over the Rhine later on tonight!

82nd and 101st positions. Eindhoven proved a very tough nut to crack for XXX Corps…

1st Para positions before the inevitable German build up…

Cool stuff. I remember playing Highway to the Reich a billion years ago, on somebody’s floor. Also, Terrible Swift Sword in somebody’s garage. This doesn’t look quite as huge at least, so a real chance of actually finishing a game!

Skies Above Britain from GMT Games - So I picked this up last week; coincidentally while my wife was out of town. ;) So far it looks great. Production quality is first rate as with just about every GMT game. The rules are well written and there are plenty of examples of play with pictures. Many of the mechanics will be familiar to anyone who has played Skies Above the Reich or Storm Above the Reich.
The heart of the game is the campaign where you have to manage your squadron of 20 pilots over 28 missions spread over 4 chapters. The chapters run chronologically from 10 July to 31 October. It’s a solo game, and anyone with an interest in the Battle of Britain should consider adding it to their library.

As an aside, Poindexter Games has some videos of the game that are the best produced of any I’ve ever seen on Youtube.

It’s definitely nowhere near the scale of TSS (which I finished many, many years ago) it does come with some additional chrome which makes the game a bit slower than those games though (traffic jam markers and bridge blowing rules for instance, neither are complicated but do add some friction to the smooth processing of a turn and ZOC bonding adds another level of positional play)

The CRT is pleasingly attritional and there some nice mechanics around troop quality and determined defence which allows you to perform the requisite miracles with the para units. This gives a very nice historic feel to the campaign as the para’s seize ground and then grimly hold on while waiting for XXX Corps to inch it’s way forward.

Airlanding rules are quick and smooth to do so it adds very little time to the game which is nice…