Hexsides and Hand Grenades

September 1940 marked the end of the favorable weather so the Germans did what they could to consolidate their gains over the past year. With Italy having recently fallen, the Germans sent some infantry down to Rome to claim the city while a panzer army was transferred off east from the Italian front. Using the extensive rail system for Strategic Movement, the panzers arrived just west of the frontlines in northern Russia, near Latvia. The Yugoslavs fell back under the pressure of the combined German, Hungarian, and Bulgarian army. Split was captured and the Yugoslav Will slipped. The Soviets sent masses of infantry to push back the German incursions, using assault tactics rather than mobile attacks. The rolls just were not there, however, and the Soviets made no gains. That was fine. Time was on their side. End of Sept. 1940: Yugoslavia falls and the east falls into stalemate. October 1940:  As predicted, severe weather in the Cold Zone ends up helping the Soviets immens...

I've got a campaign game of Unconditional Surrender! World War 2 in Europe going right now. This is my first attempt at the game in a long time. Before this, I had played through most of the learning scenarios a few times and I thought I had a good handle on the basic rules of combat, movement, supply, etc. I tried the campaign game after that and liked it very much, even after some pretty major mistakes that dealt with the conditional events. Several months later, I have the game back on my table and I'm ready to try again. I have likely made some mistakes again with this playthrough but I'm learning each time I play and, most importantly, enjoying myself in the process. Up 'til now, I've made it one year in and I'm at September 1940 so I'll give a basic rundown of what has happened. The game started off in September of 1939 with a variable start to the war. A 3 is rolled and the Germans have decided to go with an East First strategy. War is declared ...

There is a lot of buzz out there about two newer game publishers that started up in the last year or so;  Flying Pig Games and Tiny Battle Publishing , both creations of Mark H. Walker . FPG flew onto gamers' radars late last year when Mark eschewed the P500 route for the company's first big release, Night of Man . Instead, he put the game up on Kickstarter and it quickly hit its funding and stretch goals. Flying Pig Games has also raised eyebrows with its publication of Yaah! Magazine , which is now into its fourth issue. The magazine has taken a broad approach to gaming, featuring articles on everything from Victory Games hex and counter classics to newer miniatures games such as Rivet Wars. Tiny Battle Publishing, owned by Mark H. Walker and headed by Mary Holland-Russell, has so far garnered positive attention by releasing lower-cost games on a wide variety of themes and topics. These range from Invaders from Dimension X!  a solitaire game inspired by '50s-era ...

Mark Stille designed a really nice game about Von Manstein's attempt to relieve Friedrich Paulus' 6th Army trapped near Stalingrad from 12 - 23 December of 1942.  The game is included in  Yaah! issue number 3  and I really enjoyed it. "Stalingrad. This city bears the name of the Boss!" The unit scale is division/brigade/battalion/regiment with each hex on the map representing about 5 kilometers.  The German player controls the key German divisions attempting to open a corridor to Paulus' 6th Army.  If he can open a corridor to the hexes on the bottom right area of the map (northeast) and get a relief convoy adjacent to these hexes, he will probably gain enough VPs to win the game. Of course, it is the Soviet player's job to prevent this from happening. Cover of Yaah! magazine Issue 3 The game rules are very simple and straightforward, which is a very good thing for a magazine game. The German player performs a movement, attack, and exploitation...