I played the 12-turn Last Stand scenario as the Axis. My goal was to relieve the pocket that has already formed. I went up against a Computer+ AI this time. That gives the AI extra reinforcements, extra supply, and +1 to combat dice rolls. I also selected hidden units, random weather, etc. I ended up with a Decisive Victory (below Overwhelming) and I was only able to rescue one division from the pocket before the scenario ended. I never even took Lysanka. That was a nice balanced result thanks to the AI bonuses.
(So close!)
Then I played the included 32-turn Ardennes Offensive campaign. Since this would be my last game, I decided to have some fun. I selected exposed units and the normal AI difficulty. I wanted to pretend like I was playing Unity of Command by forming huge pockets of enemy troops. I was able to create this big one near Martelange:
It’s a nice scenario. There are more roads than in the Korsun Pocket scenario. Even on mud turns, I felt like there was more room to maneuver. The heavy forest tiles helped me a lot on defense – the AI routinely took two hits when it tried to attack me. Destroyed units are also worth a lot fewer victory points in this scenario for some reason.
I rolled over the entire map. Eventually I wiped out every unit. All of them! I finished with 11,717 points. The cutoff for an overwhelming victory is 600 points. That was a fun way to end it.
I loved playing this game. I can’t wait to move on to another classic operational wargame.
New video of Lock n Load from that same guy that had the first video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05deCtgtx8I
This looks like the turn-based tactical boardgame conversion I’m looking for. Like I said above, there is something about simple 2D graphics that makes them more appealing to me than bland 3D graphics.
On a related note, are there any other good YouTube channels that feature PC wargames or boardgame conversions? I just want to be able to watch gameplay for 10-20 minutes to see if I’d like a game. This guy, Pewpewchewchew, will post a gameplay video every now and then but there are a couple little things that annoy me about them. I don’t play physical boardgames so those channels don’t work for me.
Tim, great AARs and screenshots! I love that these games can still appeal to people, even though they’re basically fifteen years old.
I am also looking forward to Heroes of Stalingrad, even though the game is basically six years overdue. If you like 2D games, I would give Conflict of Heroes another shot, using the upgraded counter art. I agree that the counters on the bland 3D map are annoying, but I think the gameplay is pretty decent.
I unfortunately don’t know of any good channels other than the Pewpewchewchew guy.
You are going to have to try War in the East sometime!
Haha, well I try to shy away from games that take a huge time investment, which you mentioned in an article. I’ll start with some slightly smaller games first.
For those people who play board wargames with a face-to-face group, Shenandoah Studio is currently looking for playtesters for their El Alamein game for iOS, the follow up to Battle of the Bulge. The playtest is being done with boardgame kits, so you’d get a map and counters for your playtest sessions.
SamS
1906
Bruce, what did you think of Grigsby’s War in the Pacific?
sclpls
1907
I may hit up Shenandoah Studios about that El Alamein playtesting.
I picked up Combat Commander: Pacific during the recent GMT sale. I’m still not totally sure how I feel about the card system, but I think I enjoy the game a lot, but I need to try out more of the scenarios.
War in the Pacific is an interesting solution to an almost insoluble problem, which is that that the meaningful decisions (logistics) play out over the course of months, whereas the meaningful encounters (carrier battles) take place over the course of hours. The entire Pacific campaign was decided by the development of logistical centers and the protection of these centers and their supporting sea lanes. The Japanese were unable to prevent the Allies from building huge bases in places like New Caledonia and then using these to attack key points along the Japanese island chains and disrupt the Japanese supplies. War in the Pacific is a game where you spend hundreds of turns building up theses bases, stocking supplies, developing port facilities, and the exciting parts are almost incidental.
I think War in the Pacific is by far the most difficult computer wargame to master (far more difficult than War in the East - people who are playing WitE because they want to play “the toughest, most hardcore” wargame are playing the wrong game) because the objectives are so difficult to grasp, at least in terms of what you are supposed to do every turn, and so divergent from what people actually expect. People play it like it is a carrier battle game, and then get frustrated when they can’t seem to make any progress because they don’t have enough fuel or supplies stockpiled in 1943 when it is time to start invading things.
In that way, it’s a very “realistic” game: you have a lot of control over your overall buildup strategy, and not much control at all over your combat units, which is just how it was for the theater commanders. For that reason, I think it bounces off of people. You have to have a fair amount of knowledge about the Pacific war to see what it’s actually trying to do. But it also carries a very specific payoff for that reason, which doesn’t satisfy a lot of people.
Otagan
1909
Out of curiosity, do you have any books/authors you’d recommend about the Pacific theater? I have a rather firm overall grasp of what happened but would love to delve in with more detail, and it might be enough to get me to dust off my copy of WitP and give it a shot.
peterb
1910
Eugene Sledge’s “With The Old Breed” is irreplaceable. And gives a vivid sense of how much the enlisted men hated their officers.
If you are fairly conversant with the general chronology of the campaign, I recommend The Pacific War: The Strategy, Politics, and Players that Won the War for an excellent explanation of the development of the strategy that led to thrusts through both the Central and Southern Pacific. I thought the idea that inter-service rivalry could lead to duplication of effort on this scale was a crackpot idea when I encountered it in Dan van der Vat’s history twenty years ago. Turns out he wasn’t crazy.
If you are fairly conversant with the general scope of the campaign but want a definitive account of the early war, read H.P. Willmott’s Empires in the Balance and The Barrier and the Javelin.
And if you are interested in some outstanding historical forensic detective work about the myths surrounding famous battles, you should absolutely read Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway (by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully) which refutes a bunch of mistaken assertions by Mitsuo Fuchida that have permeated the historiography of the Battle of Midway since the beginning. It was very enlightening for me and I thought I had read everything there was to read about Midway. I wrote most of an article for Qt3 about it before putting it away last year for lack of time.
And since no one knows enough about it because it is so downplayed in US histories, everyone should read something about Slim’s campaign in Burma and something about the Australians on the Kokoda Trail. Those Ragged Bloody Heroes and Defeat into Victory should be required reading before delving further into the US Pacific War.
And while I was looking up the URL for Those Ragged Bloody Heroes, I found this book: The Path of Infinite Sorrow, which apparently is an account of the Kokoda campaign from the Japanese perspective. Looks like I found the next book I’m reading.
Quartered Safe out Here is one of the best war memoirs I have ever read. Written by the guy who did the Flashman books.
Two recommendations from me: Pacific Crucible by Ian W. Toll, a very readable account (by the author of the very readable Six Frigates, which is great read on the early days of the US Navy), which covers the first year or so of the war, and Neptune’s Inferno by James D. Hornfischer, which picks up the story at Guadalcanal.
Just my opinion, but I was disappointed in the Toll book: I didn’t feel it added much to things that had been written before by better authors. But I definitely second the Neptune’s Inferno rec: some of the best accounts of the surface battles around Guadalcanal I’ve ever read.
Rizik6
1916
I wish Matrix would do a remake of Uncommon Valor. It was a lot more manageable. I don’t know if the old version is still playable or not.
Just my opinion, but I was actually disappointed by the Toll book. It didn’t seem to add anything to the existing literature already covered by better authors. I totally agree about Neptune’s Inferno, though: best account of the surface battles around Guadalcanal I have ever read. Really good on the naval battle of Guadalcanal, which gets overlooked in favor of Savo Island and Cape Esperance in other books.
Works fine in Windows 7. The reason Uncommon Valor is more manageable is that the scale is different, and thus so are the objectives. UV just has to deal with the Solomons campaign and thus is more a naval battle game than a logistics buildup game (although there is plenty of logistics building - you just don’t have to make many macro decisions about it because the choices are pretty obvious).
Shrug. I like Toll’s presentation, and more importantly, I don’t have any other early Pacific War books to compare it with. I’ll certainly grant you that it’s not as strong as Six Frigates, though.
Six Frigates was awesome. Combine that book with What Hath God Wrought and you get a really good look at the early United States.
With the Old Breed as mentioned before is also excellent.
Neptune’s Inferno again as mentioned is great. How odd I have all three of these on my Nexus 7 :)
And bollox to WitP – OCD “wargaming” at its stereotypical worst. I prefer Storm Over the Pacific and War Plan Pacific, warts and all, for my Pacific War fixes…although to be honest I haven’t fired up either for a very long time.
One of my neatest reading experiences lately was coming to the battles from the War of 1812, of which I’d first read in Six Frigates, in the Aubrey-Maturin series.
One of these days I’m looking to give Naval Campaigns: Midway a go. The idea of a carrier warfare game appeals to me.
