By Mitch Reed

I have been a fan of the Strategic Command series since a company called Battlefront came out with two games that covered World War II and the Great War. Now that Slitherine Games has become involved with this series they have released a new version of the first two games and have released Strategic Command: American Civil War, which like its predecessors is an addictive time suck that makes you wonder where the day went.

“Come on, you apes, do you want to live forever?”

—Attributed to an unnamed US Marine Corps gunnery sergeant, 6 June 1918

By Patrick S. Baker

Starship Troopers: Terran Command is a fun and engrossing real-time tactics (RTT) game.  The developers, The Aristocrats, are clearly fans of the 1997 Paul Verhoeven movie and have integrated that film’s “look and feel” without distracting from the actual game play.

Just like in the 1959 Robert A. Heinlein book and the film, humankind is fighting a genocidal war against the Bugs (called the Pseudo-Arachnids in the book), an alien race of giant insect-like creatures.  As the player, you are put in charge of the campaign of 19 scenarios to secure the desert mining planet of Kwalasha from the Bugs.

By Jim Naughton

TWO-BEE, or NOT TWO-BEE, THAT IS THE QUESTION

Zwei-bae, oder nicht Zwei-bae, das ist heir die Frage…somehow the pun doesn’t work in German. But it is an important question for PACT players. When you buy your new T72 battalion for BattleFront’s Team Yankee system, you can build your T72 models as the older T72/T72M variant or the brand-spanking-new T72B variant. The layers of reactive armor look awesome. The T72B brings missile capability along with the reactive armor, as well as advanced penetrators.

If you buy the AT-8/AT-11missiles for long-range engagements the T72B makes NATO come to the party by outranging their tanks and is a threat to hunter-killer helicopters. The move-and-shoot capability of the AT-8/AT-11 ensures that even from reserves, the T72B is a credible threat to any visible target. The ERA gives the tank the ability to crash lines of Irish Guards, an ability the Soviet/PACT has been sadly lacking. My heart, be still.

by Paolo Paglianti

When the man with a 3D printer meets the man with the right Kickstarter, the man with the 3D printer will print a lot! You can’t say 3DBreed, the Spanish STL files producer, sits on their hands at all. After the launch of the Persian/ Greek Kickstarter, they now time travel to the XIX century on the wild west frontier.

By Tom Gall

Now that the Bulge German book, command cards, and unit cards are starting to flow out across the planet, I’m sure you’re like me, plotting what to buy and wondering in general how things will play. This article is about a 100 pt game featuring Volksgrenadiers vs American Airborne with tank destroyers and Pershings.

I like the Volksgrenadier formation as it offers fairly cheap German Infantry that can be improved partially depending on what Command Cards you may or may not choose to field.

Some feel yes you can just upgrade a portion of the formation, others feel that no you can’t and must have the 12 Volksgrenidier cards for all unit types you field. Phil Yates from Battlefront did take some time out of his busy day and make a ruling on this which was that you can’t mix the units.

Today I am joined by my battle buddy from podcasts of yesteryear and we talk with Gabe Garcia, the designer of War Stories, which lets you RPG all the exciting action of WWII. Gabe tells us about the game and the design process, and by accident got me into playing RPGs!

The game will be available for pre-order on 22 June at Firelockgames.com.

By Tom Mullane

This past April I turned 39. And when my wife asked me what I wanted to do with my birthday weekend, I told her I had it all planned out. I would be heading down to Maryland to play in my first Blood and Plunder tournament in nearly six months.

Glenn Van Meter, Tyler Stone, and I had been plotting and scheming for months to put on a land tournament at Critical Hit Games in Abingdon Maryland.

The cards had been printed, the terrain had been made, and the invites sent. Heading into the weekend we had 24 signed up but expected a few would drop for the usual reasons. Since I was traveling the furthest, Glenn and Tyler generously told me I could play in the tournament without acting as a TO. (I would not be taking any prize money obviously, because I’m an eagle scout who wouldn’t break the sacred vow we all took as Tournament Organizers).

This tournament I would be bringing my Spanish, to see if my multitude of games getting my clock cleaned might finally pay off. My friends Niguel and Shane get credit as my sparring partners in the lead-up to this Tournament.

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell, additional photos by Mike Abbott and Tod Creasey

The local gaming club, Ottawa Miniature Gaming (OMG), held a two-day Art de la Guerre (ADLG) event over the May long-weekend. I decided to sign up after only one practice game.

I could only attend the 15mm 200pt Roman-themed event, but was able to drop by and snap some pics of Day Two’s 28mm Dark Ages era tournament, stayed tuned for a future post.

We had 15 players attend, which is a great turnout, despite the gigantic summer storm knocking out power. With an odd number of players, I opted to take the third round bye so I could take some pics.

By Troy Hill

What do we eat on the Russian Front during Operation Bagration?

Baggy Rations, of course.

At least, that’s what gamers snack on while playing a historical-themed event this past weekend. Anything to support the FLGS, right? Whatever snacks the store had disappeared as our local Bolt Action players munched their way through three rounds of operational madness.