The worst game ever? Retrospective of Custer’s Revenge

“This game is so bad it makes Superman 64 look like Doom.” — anonymous game reviewer

By Patrick S. Baker

Okay, boys and girls, please have a 55-gallon drum of hand sanitizer ready for this one. Today gentle readers I recount the story of not only one of the worst video games of all time but also one of the foulest and most atrocious video games of all time. And NO, I’m not exaggerating in any way about what a disgusting piece of work this game is.

Custer’s Revenge, also known as Mystique Presents Swedish Erotica: Custer’s Revenge was one of three ‘adult’ video games released November 1982 in a package of video games called Mystique Presents Swedish Erotica. The other two games in the set were Beat ‘Em & Eat ‘Em and Bachelor Party.

Many sources erroneously report that the games were produced by a game company named Mystique, but in fact is no game company named Mystique. Mystique was the brand name for the line of adult games produced by American Multiple Industries (AMI).

Fighting at Night with Berlin German

By Tom Gall

With the release of the Berlin German book by Battlefront, capabilities not seen since FOW version 3 for night fighting are once again available to those that like to run Germans. This article is going to look at the ins and outs of taking advantage of this new material.

AdeptiCon Historicals 2023 Preview

By Michael Rafferty

AdeptiCon is back! After a triumphant return last year, the premier wargaming convention is back in Schaumburg, Illinois.

AdeptiCon continues to grow year after year, with new events and larger existing events. Wizards of the Coast will be in attendance this year with their new game Onslaught. No longer contained by only the Marriott Renaissance, the Hyatt Regency will again host several events. Historical events like Bolt Action and Flames of War will be there again, but we welcome A Song of Ice and Fire and Lord of the Rings to the growing AdeptiCon presence at the Hyatt.

But you didn’t come here to read about how we’re growing. You want to know what’s going to be run at the con! Battlefront will be hosting a one-day Mid-War National tournament. This will be a four-round event at 100 points held on Thursday.

Hail Caesar Battle Report: Beware the Ides of March, Pyrrhic Greeks vs Romans

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell

Fresh off our earlier review of the updated Hail Caesar book, Scott Roach and I have played our first game of the new rules.

We decided to run three Divisions for around 500pts each side, and are opting for the classic orders procedure and not the simplified procedures.

Scott had this lovely table set up (above) with a sweet Roman Fort that I would be defending in front of the main gate, whilst his Pyrrhic Greeks would be marching from the Sicilian beaches after debarking from their galleys.

The fort and occupants are just for show.

Lunar: Mini Boots on the Moon

By Mitch Reed

One of our biggest fans sent me a message about a miniatures game he just purchased that was all about a conflict on the moon. I found that concept very interesting and thankful that it did not trigger my PTSD from the creation of the Space Force. I contacted the creators of the game over at Black Site Studio and they sent me the starter pack to try out. I quickly painted up the models and played a few games and I wondered why there is not a lot of buzz about this game.

Valor and Victory and ASL: A War Gaming Cross over

By David Garvin

One thing I’ve found in war gaming is that I tend to stay in one genre for most of my gaming. In spite of the computer evolution of the 1990s that saw many war games be released in digital form, I have almost always come back to play my games on cardboard. There are exceptions, of course, but for the most part, I have stuck to tossing dice.

For a while, I did get into Flames of War (FOW), but my interest faded with the advent of edition 4, which coincided with my deep dive into Advanced Squad Leader. But one thing that I do like about war games, in general, is that the variety of genres allows many people with various interests to play.

Retrospective of Civilization II: Test of Time

“There seems too wide agreement that the best version of Civ ever, was Civ II – Test of Time.”

Or

“They screwed around with Civilization and made it worse.”

By Patrick S. Baker

By 1997, famed game designer Sid Meier had left MicroProse and founded Firaxis with other former MicroProse employees. At about that same time, MicroProse was acquired by Spectrum Holobyte, and then the merged company was purchased by gaming giant, Hasbro Interactive.

In February 1999, Meier’s new company released Sid Meier’s Alpha Centuri. This game did not carry the Civilization name yet was no doubt a sequel to Civilization II (Civ II). Also, in April 1999, a rival game company, Activision, released the game, Civilization: Call to Power. This release sparked a legal dispute between MicroProse/Hasbro and Activision over the use of the name Civilization for computer games. Part of the settlement was that Activision could continue to make Call to Power games, but not use the Civilization title.

Saga in the Fort 2023

 

By Troy Hill

The game Saga, from Studio Tomahawk, seems to be on a growth curve, and our little corner of Indiana – the NorthEast corner – is no exception. Our game group recently hosted a tournament for the “Age of Melee” at Power9 Games in Fort Wayne Indiana. With twenty players scheduled, eighteen actually managed to make it in that day. A great record for our local group.

Players from as far away as Columbus Ohio, Indianapolis, and Crown Point Indiana made the trek to bring their warbands, throw some dice, and curse the gods of the tabletop when we didn’t do as well as we’d hoped. Despite volunteering to be “ringer” I got to field my Milites Christie and compete, despite two last-minute drops.

Team Yankee by the Analytics V4

By Howard West

The original Team Yankee Analytics was published on January 22nd, 2021 Team Yankee Analytics V2 was published on August 13, 2021, and Team Yankee Analytics V3 was published on July 2022.

The base premise behind these articles was to answer the question: can a person who plays a miniatures war game use some basic data collection to keep track of their performance in tournament play, over a specific period to improve tournament results based on previous tournament games?