Contests to Join

For those who like free things, you should look up Frontline Gamer which has a lot of prize drawings at the moment, and the prizes have been nice so far. So give it a look, it's a good read over there I think.

Goodbye Warhammer Historical

It seems that Earhammer Historical is no more!

I read about this a while ago and quickly went to the website and this is the message that greets one now when pressing "home":

Warhammer Historical Has Now Closed
We can no longer accept any further orders for our products

We would like to thank our customers who have purchased our publications over the years and hope you will continue to get many more years of gaming enjoyment from them

If you have any queries regarding orders that have been placed with Warhammer Historical please
contact the Forge World Customer Service team.

I'm sorry to see something like this close down as they did produce some interesting books. The rumor that they closed down arised already last year with the 50% sale that went on for some time and now it has proven true. I find it interesting that they close down so soon after releasing their WWI airplane game but that decision was probably made long ago. In conclusion I think it's a shame that Warhammer Historical is no more but I am glad I actually managed to get a decent amount of rules during their discount period last year.

It's Time to Cast Your Vote

So all the entries are in for the Strange Aeons AAR Contest by Styx over at Strange Aeons Adventures and it's time to cast your votes. So get going and vote for your favorite entries in both the written and the media category.
The entries can be seen from here

Strange Aeons Video AAR

So for the contest I mentioned before over at Strange Aeons Adventures, I also wanted to do a media AAR. A media based AAR would be a video or slideshow or similar, and I thought I'd go for the video presentation.

The Scenario in the presentation is "The Doomsday Device" in which agents race to disable a doomsday device  and take out the bad guys before the thing detonates. All in all fun scenario to play although we had a very short game.

Anyways, here is is: The Doomsday Device...

For those that are unaware, the music is Let Your Fingers Do the Walking by Sort Sol.

My First Game of Victory at Sea

Last friday I had my first game of Victory at Sea (VaS) and an interesting one although I got wiped out without causing much damage to my opponent navy. VaS is a naval WWII game from Mongoose Publishing and we played it using 1:3000 scale ships from Navwar.

My collection of German ships

The game pitted a good selection of British warships against a few ships of the German Kriegsmarine. Although I unfortunately forgot the British vessels (perhaps due to the tragic memory of the devastating defeat I suffered) that won't stop me from listing the German ships used.

German list: (5 pt raid) 

• Scharnhorst
• Admiral Graf Spee
• Köningsberg
• Karlsruhe
• Z23
• Z25
• Z26

We had a third person set up the islands and then we placed our fleets.

Germans and British face off against each other near some small islands

This was my very first game so it took a bit of explaining to get the rules, however they do appear quite simple to grasp, however mastering them is another issue as I soon found out.

Three German destroyers navigate some rocky islands preparing to assault the British.

After playing some Dystopian Wars where the Prussian fleet is quite good at close range I quickly set all ahead flank and closed in on the British vessels. However, in VaS the Germans are best at a distance and once in close proximity I took a pounding from the British cannons that left me wishing that I had kept my distance.

The game in progress

The game ended after about an hour when I lost my last ship, the Admiral Graf Spee to a duo of British coastal ships and their cannons.

Even though I lost I will admit that I find the game interesting and I will certainly be trying more of this. Also according to Mongoose Publishing a new version of VaS may be coming out in the late summer/fall, something I'll be watching closely.