Gaming

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.

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.

“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!

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.

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?

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.