Category Wargames

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…

Second Front first impressions (Part I)

Pike & Shot in 2014? Airborne Assault: Red Devils Over Arnhem in 2002? Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord in 2000? Sid Meier’s Gettysburg in 1997?… Give me a moment, cornerites. I’m trying to remember the last time a brush with a…

Operation Oryx: Turn 12

How easy is it to hit a speeding jeep with a rocket-propelled grenade at a range of around 200 metres? Stefan Popov, the Pod grenadier next to the Vostok memorial, has a splendid chance to answer that question in turn…

Operation Oryx: Turn 11

During this sixty second consignment of CMCW combat action, the dastardly Pods get an opportunity to commit canicide. While the opportunity is by no means golden, I reckon it qualifies as bronzen.

Untapped Tussles: The First Boer War

For students of Victorian military blunders, the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal is something of a gold mine. Two years after Ntshingwayo Khoza’s impi made famous Isandlwana, and nineteen years before Botha’s Boers ensured Spion Kop would never be forgotten,…

Operation Oryx: Turn 10

The Comment Commanders need a new lucky rabbit’s foot, or a bigger one. Their current model failed to prevent a Pod IFV potting their (inadequately) armoured car two seconds into turn number ten.

Operation Oryx: Turn 9

Three contiguous clashes supply most of the drama for today’s battle update. Looking north and working from left to right, the first involves a previously undetected Pod sniper, and two Zen scouts who are endeavouring to patch up a wounded…