Category Wargames

Demo Disc

A minute’s silence in memory of the demo disc, if you please. Coup de grâced by broadband, the wafer of wonders* that once clung limpet-like to the front cover of almost every games mag is no more. Denied these monthly…

Operation Oryx: Turn 18

Zendora has only ever won one Olympic gold medal, and some cynics says it only bagged the gong in question because the legendary Swiss sharpshooter Wilhelm Teller didn’t attend the 1956 Melbourne Games due to a boycott. The gold was…

3×3

Want to turn a green lane into a brown lane, tow a Gulaschkanone across a snowy field, or roam the Western Desert trashing Axis airfields? Get a 4×4. Want quick introductions to games of interest to wargamers and simmers? Read…

Operation Oryx: Turn 17

The faded sign on the roadside north of New Farm states ‘Strupnic welcomes careful drivers’. What it fails to mention is that the welcome extended to careful drivers who come in peace is very different from the welcome extended to…

Play These Wargames First

Having identified the most enjoyable wargames ever made, singling out the battle sims most likely to turn genre curiosity into genre passion, shouldn’t be beyond us. What makes the perfect introductory wargame? These are the qualities I look for in…

A2Z

A is for Alphabetised wargame, sim, and site news. Once a month, assuming I can persuade Austerity’s Blackburn Cirrus Bombardier engine to perform the miracle of internal combustion, I spend a day or two scouring Simulatia and Grognardia for stories…

Operation Oryx: Turn 15

We’re halfway through THC’s second play-by-comment Combat Mission marathon. Having eliminated the majority of the Pod mechanized infantry units occupying Strupnic, the Comment Commanders are about to take on a much more formidable enemy force. The odds of a purloined…

Second Front first impressions (Part II)

Second Front’s five-scenario playtest build has what it takes to divert, surprise, and charm a discerning digital wargamer on the lookout for the Next Big Thing, but what happens when that discerning wargamer swaps his smoking jacket for a lab…

Operation Oryx: Turn 14

Zen sharpshooter Otto Pinkas is an incorrigible optimist, but the sight of seven T-62s rolling towards Strupnic from the east drives a sliver of ice into his breast. The Pod caravan seems to be expecting trouble. Disappointingly, every hatch is…

Operation Oryx: Turn 13

Ivan, the MT-LB commander, and Yuri, the MT-LB driver, fall out during this sixty second slice of action. Ivan wants an opportunity to riddle a skedaddling TOW Mutt with his turret-mounted 7.62mm Pulemyot Kalashnikova MG. Yuri wants to put a…