Posted by Tim Stone on December 31st, 2009.
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In wilderness survival situations a dearth of hope can kill as quickly as a dearth of drinking water or plump companions. Remembering this, I survived a recent family gathering by mentally compiling a list of the sims and wargames I was most looking forward to in 2010. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Tim Stone on November 29th, 2009.
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…The HistWar Demo
Originally commissioned by an ecstatic Lord Liverpool the day after the Battle of Waterloo, HistWar: Les Grognards – wargaming’s Duke Nukem Forever – is now so close you can smell its pungent musket-smoke-and-baccy odour. The demo has been promised for today. How should a groggy fellow fill these last tense hours?
Posted by Tim Stone on November 8th, 2009.
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Not a good week for Combat Mission creators Battlefront. After waiting donkey’s years for Jean-Michel Mathé to finish his ground-breaking Napoleonic ‘First-Person Commander’ wargame HistWar: Les Grognards, the scamp has jumped ship at the eleventh hour and decided to self-publish. Battlefront are sticking doggedly to a ‘we cancelled because of repeated delays’ line, but the simmering annoyance radiating from their statements suggests subtler shenanigans. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Tim Stone on September 27th, 2009.
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The last time I used ‘innovative’ or ‘refreshing’ to describe a hex wargame, Good Queen Bess was on the throne and bear-burning and witch-baiting were legal. While HPS explore some unusual themes now and again and Matrix flirt with modernity occasionally, on the whole six-sided PC strategy seems firmly wedged in the past. Three cheers for Hours of War then. This Finnish-made WW2 operational wargame currently in open beta, blends the unorthodox and the familiar in a most enticing way. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Tim Stone on August 2nd, 2009.
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The makers of my favourite simulation of 2008 may, fingers-crossed, be about to unleash my favourite wargame of 2009. The demo of ЛИНИЯ ФРОНТА: БИТВА ЗА ХАРЬКОВ is disappointingly nocturnal and only available in Russian right now, but I reckon there’s enough Close Combat-calibre tactical action and Combat Mission: Campaigns-style meta-game discernible, to warrant incautious optimism. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Tim Stone on July 26th, 2009.
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That Syrian skirmish I AARed a few weeks ago is now available to all and sundry as part of the recently unleashed CMSF: British Forces demo. If you are either all or sundry, and thought my tank tactics timid, my employment of artillery artless, and my use of infantry infuriatingly infrugal, now is your chance to do better. Grind out glorious low-cost victories, then strut and brag via the comments section.
Posted by Tim Stone on June 14th, 2009.
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As the night sky pales over a dusty plateau near Damascus, two Wolf Land Rovers and two Jackal patrol vehicles parked in the lee of a ruined wall, start their engines and move off in search of the enemy. My first Combat Mission Shock Force: British Forces battle is underway. Wish me luck.
Posted by Tim Stone on June 7th, 2009.
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The bloke that cut-me-up on the A303 yesterday is a STENCH WEASEL, the librarian that never returns my smile is a RAVEN STARVER, and the person that regularly fly-tips at the end of my road is a STINKING TURD. Thank you midden-mouthed web wargame 1066, a week in your company has enriched my abuse lexicon no end.
Posted by Tim Stone on May 31st, 2009.
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The best way to learn about Paradox’s rapidly approaching grand-strategy leviathan Hearts of Iron 3? Sit down with a gallon mug of tea and a family-size packet of custard creams and plough through the fascinating 30-part developer diary. If you’ve already done that, or don’t have the patience/dunkable biscuitry to take on such a task, try the following Q&A in which Lead Designer and Man of History Johan Andersson fields questions on subjects as diverse as HoI3, gulags, and HoI3.
Posted by Tim Stone on February 22nd, 2009.
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Great – it looks like I’m going to get to use my ‘The smell of the greasepaint, the roar of the Krauts.’ strapline again. Theatre of War, one of the more wargamerly WW2 RTSs of recent years, is about to spawn a sequel. Going by this hot-off-the-compiler Russian-language demo, that sequel will please a lot more grogs than its parent did.
