Gaming

By Patrick S. Baker

X-COM: Interceptor

MicroProse and Mythos stopped working together, but MicroProse ended up with the X-COM license. Dave Ellis was assigned as chief game developer for MicroProse’s X-COM games. Ellis was the company’s in-house guru on the franchise, having worked in quality assurance and also, he had written strategy guides for the first two games. Inspired to expand the X-COM Universe by LucasArts’ Star Wars games, Ellis determined to create a game using a flight simulator engine and set the new sequel during one of the previous X-COM games. The idea was to let the player experience the events of an earlier game from a different viewpoint. This concept would become X-COM: Interceptor.

Throughout the development process Ellis and his team received fan input from what they referred to (perhaps not so politely) as the “Cult of X-COM” through an open online form and public e-mail. When fans learned that the game was going to be a flight simulator and not a turn-based squad-level combat game, accusations flew that MircoProse was just slapping the X-COM name on something as a marketing gimmick. MicroProse strongly denied this.

By Tyler Stone

Now that we’ve been out of lockdown for a while and things are getting back to normal, I’ve been able to start getting more games in. I have noticed many new players seem to have shown up during the quarantine. Some of you might have jumped in right as everything started to shut down. Some might have decided to get up to speed before the finalized. Whatever the case may be, this article is for you! Today, let’s talk about Force Building for

Before we start, I want to make one thing clear – I am not going to be showing you how to build “the ultimate net-list.” I played GW games and Magic: the Gathering for a long time. I’ve been there, done that, and got the sweaty tee-shirt to prove it. This article is just a “how to” for putting your own list together, but I’ll pepper in a few Tactical Tips along the way. I’ll also be using the , if you want to follow along.

By Troy Hill

One of the joys of moving to a new city, and finding a new group to game with is diving into the games they play locally. Here in North-East Indiana, the game that is second most popular in the group I game with is .

When I first encountered Saga, back in California, I was warned that I wouldn’t like it, for the same reasons I left another game behind. Too low of a point system, too many special powers and abilities. So I avoided it.

But then, after moving back to the midwest (of the USA), I found myself in a When in Rome, do as the Romans do… situation.

By Patrick S. Baker

X-COM: Terror from the Deep

With copies of the first X-COM game flying off the shelves, MicroProse, now merged with Spectrum Holobyte to form MicroProse, Inc., wanted a sequel to the game in just six months. The Gollop brothers hesitated at this proposal, declaring that all could be done in this timeframe was changing sprites and re-using the original code.

So, instead of developing the sequel the Gollops licensed the game code to MicroProse, that would produce the sequel, named X-COM: Terror from the Deep, in-house. Meanwhile, the Gollops went to work on what would become the third game in the series.

Terror was released on 1 June 1995 for DOS PCs and then ported to the PlayStation the next year. The game tells the story of the Second Alien War, some forty years after the First Alien War. Following the destruction of the Alien Brain on Mars, extraterrestrials under the Earth’s seas awaken after millions of years. These new aliens begin to terrorize ships and ports, and abducting humans. The X-COM organization is revived to fight this new alien menace from the deep.

By Howard West

Team Yankee 2021 Masters was held at located on 8796 Michigan Rd, Indianapolis, IN 46268 on June 26th and 27th, 2021. Family Time Games is a really nice gaming store and has a nice stock of both Flames of War and Team Yankee products. They also stock many other Boardgames, RPG’s, Miniatures, Cards, and other Gaming supplies. Stop and visit the store if you are in the greater Indianapolis area.

Team Yankee Masters is an invitation-only event hosted by each year in June for the top sixteen players as ranked by Battle Rankings in the United States and Canada.  The rankings are based on players placements in various Team Yankee Tournaments across the country during that years season. The Team Yankee tournament season runs from May 1st previous year to April 31 of the current year.  Formal invitations where mailed out to the qualifiers in early May. The 2021 Team Yankee Masters Tournament was sponsored by , Family Time Games, and

By Kreighton Long

While window shopping for light artillery models for my WW2 Romanian army I found limited options to choose from. While Great Escape Games makes a fine looking Romanian light artillery piece (one will make its way into my arsenal eventually) I wanted to challenge myself with a bit of conversion work to add variety to my three-light artillery Romanian list for Bolt Action.

For my conversion attempt I began with the wooden spoked wheel variant of the WWI French style 75mm gun as found in the Warlord Games . The crew themselves needed a little customization to make them more Romanian which is where the conversion work was done for this piece. I did attempt to find a way to modify German, Soviet, and American helmets to the point where they would pass as Romanian but the solution alluded me.

By Troy Hill

I didn’t realize how much I missed other gamers until I had to go about 18 months without seeing them.

True, we stayed connected on social media. And a lot of us used TableTop Simulator, or Roll20 to get in virtual games.

But there is nothing like being back in person. Seeing friends (for me, new friends that I barely got to know last winter. I forget if we had a March game day (maybe?)

This technically wasn’t my first game back from the great distancing. We had one of those in June. Back then we had four players at our North-east Indiana Bolt Action day. Our group gets together once a month for Bolt Action on the second Saturday of the month, and again on the fourth (occasionally the fifth weekend if there is one). This Saturday we had five players for Bolt Action. Not bad. We’d had a few drift off to other games, or still ensconced in catching up with family. Five is a good number. Except someone has to take on two opponents…

Yep. That someone was me. And mistakes were made.

By Tyler Stone

We have had our first full week of campaign gaming in July, and the latest results are flooding in! The Brethren of the Coast have widened their lead, claiming 22 of the more than 100 games played. They’re not ahead by much though, and the English are doggedly pursuing the unruly pirates with 20 games to their name. Hot on their heels are the Spanish and French, each claiming 19 games.

By David Garvin

With the 1977 release of , the wargaming world experienced an earthquake. The virtual tectonic plates didn’t just rattle; they shattered the gaming world!

The late , designer of Squad Leader, had developed a game like none other. Now gamers could re-fight various battles of the Second World War at such low tactical levels like never before! Not only did players get to move squads around, but also some individual and even key leaders!

Squad Leader spawned three successive games, (called gamettes by the designer); , and . These were later supplanted by Advanced Squad Leader, developed in great part by and .

By 1986, Advanced Squad Leader had released its revolutionary rule book as well as the first module in the system, . With the 2013 release of , pretty much every nation that fought in the war had a module covering its actions. And in 2017 with , the ASL universe had expanded into the Korean War.

By Tom “Cap’n Chairborne” Mullane

As we enter week two of the Global Campaign for Blood and Plunder and Oak and Iron, things are tightening up for the many major powers participating. For those who have been checking things out from the sidelines, there is no better time than now to join the fight.

the full update on global events can be found in this on Blood and Pigment’s site.

And a full accounting of the rules can be found .

Bottom line, we want as many battle reports as possible submitted, that means an email, and some pictures! Send them along to: