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 David Garvin

Way back in 1974, Australian John Edwards released a game that remains popular to this very day. That game? The Russian Campaign. It was eventually picked up by Avalon Hill and later the L2 Design Group, worked over by such game designers as Don Greenwood, Richard Hamblen and Tom Gregario.

And as of early January, 2023, an incredible 5th edition is up for P500 at GMT Games. The hobby is filled with several games depicting the war on the Eastern Front, from the monsters “Fire in the East” by the Game Designers’ Workshop (GDW) and “Guderian’s Blitzkrieg II“, to more simple games such as “Blitzkrieg to Moscow II“.

There are of course games that cover certain aspects of the war, such as “Death Ride Kursk: Grossdeutschland“, “Stalingrad ’42” and “Panzer Battles: 11th Panzer on the Chir River“. These games all range from the Strategic to the Tactical. Yet among them all, one stands head and shoulders above the rest: the Russian Campaign

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 Mitch Reed

Twilight Struggle, which came out in 2005 is one of the most iconic and popular war games in our community, however, it is not a game that I would expose new gamers to or someone who wants to play a quick game.

This has now changed with Jason Matthews’ newest game, Twilight Struggle Red Sea: The Conflict in the Horn of Africa (TWRS), which is a great intro game to our hobby but also a game that you can finish in less than 40 minutes.

By Mitch Reed

Recently I had to spend some time recuperating at home from “cave cough” which is prevalent in our West Virginia mountain bunker. This gave me the chance to check out the new release from Micro Prose called Second Front. I had the game on my wish list since the first news of the game came out well over a year ago. I was able to spend a good amount of time on the game and discovered how much fun it was.

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.

By Richard Steer

The Late-War era of Flames of War V4 is rapidly drawing to a close with the upcoming release of Berlin: Soviet. This book picks up where the Bagration series left off and represents the Red Army in its campaigns in Europe in 1945 leading to the final destruction of Nazi Germany.

The pattern that V4 has followed has been to support each book with the release of new plastic kits. Berlin is no exception, with the main new plastic kit being the lend-lease M4A2 Sherman.

“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.”