The Lions of Lodowice: Turn 8
The waypoints and ambush arcs I plot on behalf of the Comment Commanders at the start of Turn 8 promise fireworks. The Panther’s final path pyramid sits in map square a4W, a spot the IS-2’s commander and gunner plan to…
Category Wargames
Review Reprise: Montjoie
I’ve written hundreds of reviews, previews, and retrospectives during my twenty-odd years as a games inspector. As many of these appeared in the British version of PC Gamer magazine and nowhere else, now and again something from my archive may…
General Staff: Black Powder editors available on Steam
Grogs can’t play Ezra Sidran’s bright-as-a-button black powder-era wargame yet. However, those who own Crusader Kings 3 and are willing to shell out £42 can create battlefields, armies, and scenarios for it. Undoubtedly unintentional, the CK3 stipulation may well be…
No chance of a Napoleonic Field of Glory
Slitherine’s latest video briefing contains both heartening and disheartening news. Although Field of Glory 2 won’t be getting any more DLCs (“We’re actually thinking that FoG2 is kinda… finished”), the Crusader Kings-style meta game the Epsomites have in the works promises to…
The Lions of Lodowice: Turn 7
There’s no mistaking which tanks are the lionesses this turn and which the worried/weary/wounded wildebeest. While the two Soviet AFVs retreat eastward before pivoting to confront their foes, the three German felines purposefully close distance and look for opportunities to…
Terrorise the North Atlantic in Bismarck Solitaire
Last night I paced the Bismarck’s bridge as she swapped broadsides with The Mighty Hood. I endured Swordfish attacks, and braved mountainous seas in the Denmark Strait. I watched the plucky Prinz Eugen vanish beneath the waves achingly close to…
MATE 2.0 is smarter than General George McClellan
Ezra Sidran’s latest General Staff: Black Powder video lets us read the thoughts of the game’s silicon McClellan as he prepares to do battle outside Sharpsburg, Maryland on September 17, 1862. Impressively, none of Little Mac’s thoughts are prefabricated. They…
The Lions of Lodowice: Turn 6
If there was a Hundred-style win predictor at the bottom of the above screenshot, I reckon the red German section of the bar would be at least 50% longer than the blue Soviet one. Outnumbered 3 to 2 (3 to…
A2Z
A is for Abbreviated A2Z. My mammoth monthly news round-ups are on hold, but short, scattergun versions like this will appear from time to time
The Lions of Lodowice: Turn 5
Ten seconds into this turn’s sixty-second action phase, the two tanks involved in last turn’s surreal square dance meet again. Although both gunners are expecting trouble and, on paper, are equally adept, it’s the triggerman ensconced in the…
Undaunted: Normandy review (part 2)
Twelve rapt hours of Early Access Undaunted: Normandy have failed to dull my appetite for this moreish if uncomely board game port, or alter, in any meaningful way, my early positive feelings towards its silicon foe. However, there are thoughts…
The Lions of Lodowice: Turn 4
Aged seven, Leonid Ivanovich Arkhipov fell from a speeding express train near Dnipropetrovsk. Three hours after the accident he was found unconscious but otherwise unhurt laying between the rails of the adjacent track. During his time on the sleepers, ten…