Gaming

Our collection of delayed recordings continues their release with this episode of Tales of the Sail recorded in December. Talesmen Glenn and Tom host Maarten De Kruif, one of our Dutch listeners, to speak about Blood and Plunder over in the Olde World. Maarten speaks about his community, his first hosted tournament, and the proper pronunciation for “Kapers”. Join us for this episode originally recorded in December for a chat about gaming on the other side of the Atlantic.

By Tom Gall

Does a tabletop miniatures game set in a fantasy setting interest you? When looking at a new game system to get into we all have a lot of questions, let’s look at Conquest The Last Argument of Kings or TLAoKs.

Simply, Conquest TLAoK by Para-Bellum Games is a rank-and-file miniatures war-game set in the world of Ëa. It’s a “newish” miniatures game that has started to sweep through the gamer ranks at D6 Games in Rochester Minnesota and more broadly here in the US. The game was originally released back in 2018, and, given the dark times of Covid, perhaps slowed in its potential growth due to those events. Regardless, as the system gains momentum, those dark days have given the rules time to be tuned, updated, and expanded.

Next question, does a rule set that is available online as a PDF for free interest you? The rules are a living document with a history of updates over time that have been improving gameplay. They were just updated to version 2.0 and while that might imply a huge set of changes, it was a smaller set of adjustments.

By Tom Gall

If you have a resin 3D printer and have been watching the variety of Kickstarters going by with STLs to choose from there seems to be an explosion of offerings for tabletop wargamers.

I’ve been very skeptical of printing my own 10mm/15mm infantry figures. Sculpts and print quality are my primary concern, as things get smaller, would the results be reasonable? What happens when small resin figures are on the tabletop, with dice, dropping, etc, will there be shattered sadness?

Before we get to my own experiences, I want to highlight the work of Henry Turner who has a Kickstarter up for NATO troops set in 1983. Within the Kickstarter, he has both US and British infantry in a variety of poses that are meant for a variety of scales. At £30 or $50US for both sets it’s a good deal and you’ll see why in a moment.

After a long Hiatus and many many technical problems, podcasts are back to being published here on NDNG. Tales of the Sail returned with guest Jason Klotz of Timber and Sail to talk Oak and Iron for this episode originally recorded in November. To get ourselves back on a regular schedule, expect weekly podcast postings from Tales of the Sail. Next week we meet with a special guest Maarten De Kruif from Holland, and the week after that we hear about Firelock’s upcoming plans with a tell all from Mike Tunez recording live from Miami. It’s going to be a busy few weeks, so stay tuned.

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell

Here we are, at last, with a new version of ‘Hail Caesar‘ by Warlord Games. I hesitate to say ‘Hail Caesar 2‘ or call this book a sequel since even though this is an update to the original book, the main rules remain pretty much the same.

The original Hail Caesar book came out in 2014, and while it’s certainly time for a refresh, you can easily still play Hail Caesar with either book, though the newer one opens up Sieges and Late Medieval, clarifies diagrams, and includes generic scenarios.  Let’s dive right in.

By Mark Greenwald

Crossing the Line is part of a series of games developed by Vuca Simulations in Germany. I came across it a few years back and put it on my Christmas wish list. But a second edition with a mounted map was just published this year. So I picked it up for myself.

It arrived last week and as soon as I could find table space, I set it up to do some solo learning.

Vuca Simulations is probably a company most have never heard of, but they are putting out some really nice games with nice reviews.  This series includes two other games right now, Across the Bug River – Volodymyr-Volynski 1941 and Operation Theseus – Gazala 1942. It is an operational-sized hex and counter wargame with a nice twist on the standard IGOUGO turn sequence.

“At least I know where bottom of the ocean is.” 

Sergey Titov, on Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing.

By Patrick S. Baker

“Bottom of the ocean” is correct. This 2003 racing game has an aggregate 8 out of 100 score on Metacritic and reportedly a 1 out of 10 on the now-defunct Gamerrankings.com website. Both of these scores are the lowest in history. One reviewer stated that “Big Rigs is so devoid of design, game play, structure, aesthetic or functioning technology that it can’t be called a game at all.”

by Mitch Reed

We recently got a draft of the NUTS! 4th Edition which is currently wrapping up its Kickstarter Campaign. NUTS! Has been around since 2006 and this new edition represents the latest work of its developers to get a good WW2 miniatures skirmish game into the hands of our community.

Having played many WW2 skirmish games over the years, I can admit that many games share some of the same feel as others in the market and the experience often gets stale. NUTS! does not fall into that paradigm. While it shares many mechanics with other games (hard to avoid), it does have a lot of different rules that piqued my interest.

By Kreighton Long

The Italian Army, or Regio Esercito, was the first military in the world to mass-produce camouflage equipment for their soldiers. The M1929 telo mimetico was utilized by Italian soldiers and paratroopers as well as by Italy’s German ally during the course of World War Two.

For my Italian paratrooper army project I knew I needed to commit hard to the camouflage pattern and after a few trial runs incorporating feedback I reached a scheme that was close to accurate while still being doable.

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell

Here we go, another game of Pike & Shotte by Warlord Games. This time we ‘run what we brung’. In other words, everything we have painted hit the table in a pitched battle. Scott has even managed to base all his units (since we saw in the first game). He is just awaiting flags to finish the units.

Scott is freshly back from the UK, where he was deployed for about a year. He was a member of the Abingdon Wargaming Club while posted to the UK and brought us back some shirts!