AdeptiCon 2023 was held March 22nd – 26th in Schaumburg, IL. This year we had over 6,500 badged attendees, which is the largest AdeptiCon we’ve ever had. It looks like we’ve fully recovered from the COVID slump and things are bigger and better than ever. This was the second year of having a full second venue at the Hyatt, which grew from just hosting historicals to also hosting Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire.
When I first played Squad Leader back in 1983, I found that 35-page rule book to be rather complex. The rules were laid out in Programmed Instruction in order to facilitate ease of learning. This just meant that the player only had to read a few pages, play a scenario and then progress. By the time the player had gone through the book, he or she could then play any scenario.
This method of instruction continued through the original series, up to and including GI: Anvil of Victory. By that time, the player could play any of 47 scenarios released with the games, and a number more of officially-released scenarios. There were a few third-party scenarios, including some from On All Fronts and even Dragon Magazine. That said, as I attempted to parse some of the rules while hanging out with my friends, the language was at times dense.
What did I just read?
Later as I delved into Advanced Squad Leader, (ASL) I found the rule book to be too much for me to initially comprehend. It was around 1986 and I failed to put any serious effort into learning the rules or the game. Programmed Instruction was now a thing of the past, and even though there was a learning chapter, my friend Gary and I just never really got into it.
Imagine my surprise then, many years later as I was learning how to play, that not only were many people playing ASL – likely more than at any other point in its history – but also that there was a very large and vibrant international community of players. In fact, one of the first of many third-party producers made ASL scenarios in French!
“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).
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
Join Glenn and Tom as they interview Firelock guru Mike Tunez. Mike helps judge the winner of last year’s New Year’s resolutions, and spills the beans on Firelock’s upcoming plans. This is a supersized episode, because Mike had a lot of beans to spill. Enjoy!
“This game is so bad it makes Superman 64 look like Doom.” — anonymous game reviewer
“There seems too wide agreement that the best version of Civ ever, was Civ II – Test of Time.”