Wargames

The Silver Bayonet – A Wargame of Napoleonic Gothic Horror, Joseph A. McCullough. An entertaining skirmish scale game that combines the Napoleonic period with gothic horror, seeing teams of competing specialists from different European powers attempting to investigate and defeat monsters from European folklore, so we see musketeers, riflemen etc taking on vampires, goblins or werewolves, in quick moving scenarios. A nice simple D10 based system with a wide range of attributes shared between the heroes, monsters and weapons, a potentially rather brutal combat system (but with mitigation), and a nice experience system that will reward success without letting the winning team pull too far ahead (Read Full Review)

Oathmark: Battles of the Lost Age, Joseph A McCullough. A small scale fantasy wargame, designed for armies of 30+ figures, each representing an individual soldier, with a quick moving set of basic rules supported by a set of interesting looking advanced rules for heroes, magic etc, and backed up by a fun kingdom creation system that lets you customise the overall army list you use to build individual armies, making it possible to field mixed forces with just about any combination of troop types from the game (Read Full Review)

Oathmark Bane of Kings, Joseph A McCullough. Contains four additions to the Oathmark system – new formation rules for using existing units, new units (animated stone and chariots), kingdom events to give your kingdom more of a history (with some impact on upcoming battles) and two military expeditions, linked series of three scenarios with their own interesting special rules. A fun addition to the system, especially to the already fun kingdom system (Read Full Review)

Stargrave, Joseph A. McCullough. A squad based sci-fi wargame, based around battles between small independent crews, emerging as a mix between a competitive RPG and a small scale wargame, with a nice advancement system for your lead characters, supporting by a squad of more disposable characters, fighting in skirmish battles that work best as part of a long campaign, with a nice system for bringing ever more hostiles onto the battlefield. Aimed at the ‘fun’ rather than the ‘competitive’ end of the market and nicely achieves that aim (Read Full Review)

Stargrave: The Last Prospector, Joseph A. McCullough. An entertaining add-on to the Stargrave system, built around a ten scenario long campaign where most can be done in any order, with the order chosen and the results of previous ones having some impact on later scenarios. Also includes some useful additions to the game, including new backgrounds for your two characters, new soldier types, new monsters and new equipment (Read Full Review)

War Story – Occupied France, Dave Neale & David Thompson. A cooperative adventure game that is a combination of a pick your own adventure game and a board game, with the players taking on the role of a team of four SOE agents infiltrating occupied France. Each agent has different stats, some have special abilities, so the choice of agents affects your game. Early choices will have a long term impact, with the game keeping track of the results of earlier encounters and sending you on different paths later on depending on earlier results, so each game will play differently. Plays well, and with linked scenarios has plenty of scope for replaying. Works well as a solo game, but will feel very different with a team arguing about every choice! (Read Full Review)

Absolute Emperor – Napoleonic Wargame Battles, Boyd Bruce. An interesting approach to Napoleonic wargaming, aimed at getting large battles fought with relatively few figures and in a reasonable timespan, focusing on the division as the unit of maneuver and the corps as the command level. Simple core rules combine with a set of changes for each major combatant in the conflict, to give a nice feel to the game. The control system takes some getting used to, with all orders set at the start of the game, corps commanders limited in their options, and divisions freer as long as they stay within command range of the commander (Read Full Review)

Castles in the Sky: A Wargame of Flying Battleships, Eric Farrington. An interesting game that combines First World War naval warfare with post War of the Worlds flying ships, to give us a world of flying dreadnoughts and cruisers, generally armed with variations of their familiar weaponry, but with the added complication of altitude to cope with. A fun game, complete with a good random scenario generator and campaign system, and an unusual way to use a collection of small warship figures. (Read Full Review)

With Hot Lead and Cold Steel, Arthur van der Ster. An interesting set of American Civil War wargaming rules that focus on using genuine Civil War era formations, manoeuvres and orders to give a more accurate feel for the period. Uses an interesting system where regiments are the individual units but brigades give orders. All units use the same basic set of infantry, artillery and cavalry stats, but with modifiers for green or veteran units, commanders come with their own abilities and flaws, and with plenty of special rules to give a feel of Civil War battles. Aimed at those wanting to recreate genuine Civil War battles with their unbalanced armies and different objectives, rather than allowing for artificially balanced games. (Read Full Review)

Lion Rampant Second Edition, Daniel Mersey. An entertaining small scale medieval skirmish game, using a relatively small number of unit types and fairly simple rules (with plenty of optional extras) to cover the millennium from the late Roman world to the high middle ages. Aimed at armies of up to about 70 figures, with an interesting system where different units have different changes to obey orders to attack, move or shoot, and with a nice simple combat system, produces fast moving fun games (Read Full Review)

Imperium: Classics . A very entertaining asymmetrical deck building card game for up to four players (with a solo option), with sixteen factions between the two versions of the game. Each has a power card which gives that faction special play and scoring rules, and a set of unique cards which mean each play differently – in some cases very differently! Easier to play than explain, and with a well thought out solo play ‘mode’ that is entertaining in its own right. This is the Classics edition, with generally easier to master factions with less dramatic differences between them. (Read Full Review)

Imperium: Legends . A very entertaining asymmetrical deck building card game for up to four players (with a solo option), with sixteen factions between the two versions of the game. Each has a power card which gives that faction special play and scoring rules, and a set of unique cards which mean each play differently – in some cases very differently! Easier to play than explain, and with a well thought out solo play ‘mode’ that is entertaining in its own right. This is the Legends edition, with harder to master factions, including some with rules that are very different from the standard (Read Full Review)

Wargames Terrain & Buildings The Napoleonic Wars, Tony Harwood. Covers nine different projects, mainly for stand-alone buildings, but including a well and a diorama made of several buildings, taking us from the original concept, through the entire modelling process and on to the painting. The author’s results are very impressive, and the techniques he uses are clearly explained and do appear to be reasonably achieveable by anyone with a bit of modelling experience (although it will take some time and practice to get close to the same results!) (Read Full Review)

North Africa and the Middle East – Wargames Terrain & Buildings, Tony Harwood. Part two in a series on scratch building wargaming terrain, looking at North Africa and the Middle East, but with no particular time period in mind. Contains a mix of fairly simple and more complex models, mainly buildings but also including a gunboat and an entire oasis scene. The many and varied techniques look fairly achievable, and the instructions are nice and clear. Now I just need an excuse to build myself a model mud brick hut! (Read Full Review)