Checked, and it seems the reprints of both RAF and D-Day at Omaha Beach should hit retailers in early July. I plan to get both.
Brooski
1942
Yesterday I got a delivery from MMP which I had completely forgotten I pre-ordered: War of the Suns by Leonard To about the Sino-Japanese War. I broke my rule of buying games I will probably never play because I really want to see how this works, and apparently Leonard To spent a lot of time researching this.
Did anyone else get this? Since we were just talking about the Sino-Japanese War I thought it was at least somewhat relevant.
Boardgamegeek page is here. Someone already gave it a “10.”
Bruce, please post what you think of it (even if you don’t play it). I was interested in this one, but in the end, I didn’t preorder.
It is waiting for me at home. I hope to give it a whirl this summer. If I do I will post an AAR with pics.
GMT announced a new COIN game, Fire in the Lake, about the Vietnam conflict. Looks like Volko Ruhnke is co-designing this one with Mark Herman.
I got this as well but it will be a while before I get this to the table. Components seem really nice, I like the 5/8" counters instead of the 1/2" I’m looking at in my first foray into OCS with Tunisia, and the rulebook is shorter than I expected (36 or so pages). I like that there’s a number of small and medium scenarios to go with the campaigns.
JoshL
1947
Matrix deal of the week is for Battle Academy (both iPad and PC) 50% off. Tempting.
http://matrixgames.com/news/1117/Battle.Academy.iPad.and.PC.50.per.cent.off!
Bingo. Guess what Matrix, significantly knocking down the price of one of your games got me from “interested, but nah” to “welcome to my backlog”.
See? SEE?
vyshka
1949
But, it went into your backlog! If you would have paid more you would value it and put it at the front of the line :)
This was the only appropriate place for this photo essay from the Atlantic.
My favorite:
"An actor dressed as a Japanese military soldier jumps and kicks a man acting as a villager during a performance at the Eighth Route Army Culture Park, one of two theme parks, in Wuxiang county, north China’s Shanxi province, on October 20, 2012. Visitors to the theme parks pay to participate in a dress up action play with performers, where they can choose to role play as soldiers from the Japanese army or the Eighth Route Army, with professional sound and lighting effects. A live-action show and the parks, located near the former headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, a military group controlled by the Communist Party of China during the Chinese Civil War and the Second Sino-Japanese War, cost the Wuxiang government around 500 million RMB ($80 million) to construct. (Reuters/Jason Lee) # "
I mean, “Eighth Route Army Culture Park” sure beats Six Flags, eh?
I’m so oblivious that I didn’t realize there was a demo for Battle Academy. I tried it (on PC) and I also played the bonus Normandy mission. This actually seems like too much game for me on the iPad. I don’t usually sit down and play the iPad in long enough sessions for something like this unless I’m playing a bunch of async multiplayer games. There are so many units and so many animations each turn.
It’s also really freaking hard with the enhanced AI. I lost the Normandy mission big time, although I probably don’t understand certain mechanics well enough, like reaction fire.
Anyway, it seems like there’s a lot going on and it’s fairly solid. But I think I’ll save my energy for Steel Panthers and Heroes of Stalingrad, or maybe even Conflict of Heroes.
Dejin
1953
That was fun. Thanks for sharing the link.
vyshka
1954
Command Ops: Battles for Greece was released today. Apparently the 1st half of an update of COTA scenarios to the latest engine. $10 discount if you have a serial number for COTA.
Not the most inspiring campaign choice.
When COTA was released, I felt the same way, but when I played the battles, they were quite interesting. One good thing about them is that the campaign isn’t very familiar, nor is the terrain, so it’s all kind of new–not another Bulge or Normandy or Kursk thing, which are sort of the staples for wargamers. Also, you get some great experience dealing with less than overwhelming forces, on either side–it’s infantry center stage, with armor supporting, and artillery is really vital, as are other support troops. I didn’t look, but I’m guessing the next half of this will include the Crete/Malta stuff? Those battles in COTA were quite good.
But yeah, on the surface of it it seems underwhelming. Give it a try though if you are at all interested in a little-known theater of the war that has some gripping battles in it.
I was always hoping COTA would have a grand scenario/campaign that mimic’d Avalon Hill’s old Air Assault On Crete, but I think the scale is off and Panther’s engine isn’t designed at the right scale (right?).
SamS
1958
OMG!! I cannot describe how excited I am about this. I have been waiting for COTA in the Command Ops engine to drop ever since CO:BftB was released and then BANG, out of nowhere.
I think the Panther engine could handle the unit count pretty easily, but IIRC it wouldn’t be able to handle pathfinding and other map operations on something the size of Crete. I’m pretty sure the hypothetical Malta scenarios covered the whole island, though. One of these days I’m going to do an AAR of one of those here.
