Huge episode! The Tailsmen have Mike from Firelock and is joined by the crew to spoil all that Firelock Games has in store in 2022!

By Mitch Reed

Tarawa 1943 from finally arrived at NDNG HQ, and I was eager to check out this solo game that features the mid-war bloody battle that lives in US Marine Corps lore. I played the game a few times right after it was delivered and I cannot stop playing it, some how the game dares you to beat it which makes it very addictive.

By Troy Hill

The long awaited chance for Warlord Games to get a decent set of army special rules for the Italian forces is finally …. not here yet.

Don’t get me wrong. The new Campaign Italy: Soft Underbelly book is great when you hold it in the context for which it is intended. That being a historical approach to gaming the invasion of Sicily during Operation Husky and beyond.

For those Bolt Action gamers hoping for a new set of Italian Army rules that brings the Italian army into the competitive zone most other armies get in the game… yeah, that didn’t happen here either. In context, a competitive Italian Army wasn’t to be had in the invasion of Sicily nor the Italian mainland.

But, if you’re into a historical approach to your gaming, instead of just pounding away with the meta and special rules to dominate in tourneys, this is an excellent book.

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell

In Canada, it was decided (during our lockdown this summer) to not have one Canadian Nationals event in Ottawa (since we could no longer book the Marriott we usually go to), but instead have several Regional events. Overall winner would be the person with the highest total points, tie breakers going to number of wins, and then if still tied, going to the person who attended the larger event.

The National Capital Region (NCR) event was put on by Darko Prodanovic and John Edward (Jed) and hosted by a local game store across the river in Quebec called Freres de Bataille (Translation: Battle Brothers, hereafter FdB). Our event in the NCR occurred Nov 20-21 was , Late War 105 points (No Bulge US). Regionals in Winnipeg, Maritimes, and Edmonton also occurred. After compiling the results from the regionals, the winner is…

We resume our interviews with the authors from . Today we have Aden Magee, the author of The Cold War: Wilderness of Mirrors.

By Patrick S. Baker

Part Three

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified

Released on 20 August 2013, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified is technically a prequel and spin-off of Enemy Unknown, not a direct sequel, as it was under development in 2006, before Enemy Unknown was, but the development was both lengthy and fraught with difficulties.

The game started as a collaboration between two of 2K Games development studios, one in Marin County, California and the other in Canberra, Australia. The game was conceived by the 2K Australia team as a combined mystery game and first-person shooter. Tn the game the player was tasked by a secret government agency with photographing mysterious aliens and then researching what they are and what they were doing. However, the Marin team wanted a third-person shooter that focused on teamwork with more tactical elements. 2K Australia was removed from the project because of the disagreements between the two studios. The Marin team renamed the game, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, and moved forward with their ideas.

By Howard West

Photos supplied in this article by Anthony Burger, Rich Baier and Howard West

HMGS Inc. in normal times has three historical gaming conventions a year, Cold Wars in the Winter to Early Spring, Historicon in July, and Fall-Inn in November. Historicon 2021 was moved to the Fall-Inn time slot and took place November 10th -14th, 2021 at the Valley Forge Casino Resort, King of Prussia.

This was the first convention that HMGS was able to have since Cold Wars March 2020 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. It is located right off the PA turnpike near the King of Prussia Mall and about 30-40 minutes from the Philadelphia Airport.

By Mitch Reed

Some of you may recall my review of an area game from Peter van Dop and the folks at BelloLudi, a Dutch game company. Peter sent me another game of his to review called BelloLudi World War Two Skirmish game 1939-1945 and it has some of the same great mechanics and playability of his previous title.

We are live at Historicon 2021 for the first half of the show, joined by the guys from . Then we wrap up the show after we made our escape.

By Patrick S. Baker

Steel Panthers II: Modern Battles

Steel Panthers II: Modern Battles (SPII:MB) was released in November 1996, just one year and two months after the release of the original Steel Panthers (now referred to as Steel Panthers I or SPI).  Grigsby had two main goals while developing the new game; one was to improve the animation and the other was to let the players simulate most of the armed conflicts, both major and minor, historical or hypothetical, throughout the world, from 1950 to 1999.

SPII:MB was more than just a reskin of the first game. Grigsby retained the game engine of the original, but the database was completely overhauled with a thousand modern units from 40 different countries, and non-state actors, all modeled in great detail and having characteristics unique to each time period and nationality. For example, helicopters, both scout and attack were added to the weapons inventory and were placed under the players’ direct control.

Airplanes were still in a support mode, but were now equipped with ordinance like precision-guided weapons, napalm, and/or cluster-bombs. Ground forces were kitted out with an assortment of heat-seeking and radar-guided Surface to Air Missiles (SAMs) to counter the air threat, and so on.