Gaming

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!

By Troy Hill

Well, 2022 was an experience for No Dice No Glory. We were not visited not by the jolly old fat man in the red suit, but by Google Chrome’s red screen of death, citing malware.

In a nutshell, that was caused when we shuffled the site across the same set of interweb servers to a new account as one of our Toms on the steering committee stepped down, and another Tom took over the site hosting responsibilities. And that’s when the Russian Hackers infiltrated and stabbed us with the malware fork of doom.

Even if you see the red screen of death via Google’s Chrome browser, Google says we’re cured. But…

By Jim Naughton

Introduction

In Part One we looked at the catalog of PACT air defense systems in Team Yankee.  Now we’ll discuss how ADA works, look at the threat, and determine what ADA units meet the threat.

By Robert Kelly

Part 3 of our Grand Tour of Europe brought us to Brussels. Every other week we would check for cheap Ryanair fares from our Forward Operating Base in Aarhus, Denmark.  Once we found a destination that looked interesting, we would also check for reasonably priced hotels.  Late May brought us to Brussels, a city I hadn’t visited since I was little. We happened to be there during Ascension Day (Kristihimmelfartsdag in Danish – my favourite sounding Danish holiday), which is a holiday in most European countries. With most places being closed, a trip to the Waterloo battlefield was the perfect outing. 

“Couldn’t you just do something like Pac-Man?” ~ Steven Spielberg

By Patrick S. Baker

On the multitude of lists of worst video games of all time Superman 64 and E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial are in a constant struggle to claim the top (or is it the bottom?) spot.

In retrospect, E.T. the game looked like a sure world-class video game. The game was based on one of the most critically acclaimed and highest-grossing movies of all time. It was developed by Howard Scott Warshaw, the developer of the highly praised and best-selling Yars’ Revenge and The Raiders of the Lost Ark games. Also, it was going to be released in time for the 1982 Christmas season, when video game and video system sales generally spiked.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial the Movie was released in June 1982 and within a month was so hugely successful that Steve Ross, CEO of Warner Communications, Atari’s parent company, started talks with Universal Studios, the film’s distributor, and Steven Spielberg, the film’s co-producer and director, to obtain the rights to create a video game based on the movie. By the end of July, the main parties had signed a deal that cost Warner Communications between $20 to $25 million dollars ($60 to $70 million adjusted for inflation). This was a ridiculously high amount for video game licensing at the time.