by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell

Fresh off our earlier review of the updated Hail Caesar book, Scott Roach and I have played our first game of the new rules.

We decided to run three Divisions for around 500pts each side, and are opting for the classic orders procedure and not the simplified procedures.

Scott had this lovely table set up (above) with a sweet Roman Fort that I would be defending in front of the main gate, whilst his Pyrrhic Greeks would be marching from the Sicilian beaches after debarking from their galleys.

The fort and occupants are just for show.

By Mitch Reed

Gamers should be excited that Blood & Plunder: Raise the Black from Firelock Games is now out. For those who love the game, they now have new lists, characters, and models to augment their collections; however, my focus in this article is on the new starter kit that will bring in new players who have been waiting to get into Blood & Plunder.

We are excited about the upcoming RPG from Firelock Games, War Stories, a WWII RPG. We put the game to the test with two Soldiers, Nate aka 1/77 and Sapper Mike and roll up our characters which you will hear in and upcoming episode.

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.

Join Troy and Mitch as the speak with Mike Demana, president of HMGS Great Lakes. Mike Joins us to talk about SAGA and some other great games we all love.

Mike also has some game design credits and you can find his designs here.

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 Richard Steer

One of the most enjoyable parts of the current Flames of War release cycle has been the new plastic kits that Battlefront has developed. A number of new kits have been released for Bulge: British, including a box that covers the Sexton self-propelled gun, the Ram tank, and the Ram Kangaroo armored personnel carrier. I have a bit of a soft spot for the Kangaroo, so I recently picked up the box in order to add some to my Late-War British.

The box can build four vehicles, and contains two sprues per vehicle. The first sprue has all of the components needed to build a Sexton, specifically the Sexton Mk II.