Tsukuda Hobby’s Hoth is a 1982 design from Atsutoshi Okada, who was prolific during the heyday of Japanese wargames in the 1980s. Okada designed a host of mech fighting games based on the hit manga TV series Mobile Suit: Gundam. You can check out my brief look at his 1981 …
I will come clean here. I am a fiddler and I need to stop. And so should you, my fellow fiddlers. What I mean by “fiddling” is the designer’s compulsion to make minor adjustments to a game when it is nearly ready – or much worse – already submitted for …
If there’s anything that recent world events have shown, there is always the chance that some random element is going to come and ruin your day. Life, as they say, is a dangerous business. Some days you wake up and go to work. Other days, the warehouse down at the …
In the early 1970s, a series of articles in Hobby Japan about miniatures wargaming in America made a splash among young Japanese people who were looking for something to do with their free time and money. Despite the disapproval of the older generation and a moral panic fed by the …
The Bear and the Jackal is an expansion for LnL’s tactical game, Heroes Against the Red Star. This expansion deals with the Soviet war in Afghanistan during the 1980s. It’s great to see wargames that deal with this conflict because even though it seems to have faded into public obscurity, it is one of the most fascinating wars in modern history – not so much for the usual reasons, but because of how important this conflict was for shaping the world as we know it today. So before I get into the game itself, let me talk a little bit more about this.
Let’s take a quick look at a scenario from Lock ‘n Load Publishing’s Heroes Against the Red Star. One of my favorite scenarios is “Down Time”, which is a quick battle (five turns) of mostly infantry in confined quarters. Here’s the rundown: May 14th, 1985 1500 GMTWell into the afternoon …
I just finished reading Larry Bond’s classic 1989 military thriller, Red Phoenix. What a great read! It’s an epic tale of a Second Korean War set during the late 1980s just at the tail end of the Cold War. There’s plenty to enjoy – taut military action, intrigue, and a …
Author: Rear Admiral J.R. Hill Year Published: 1984 Published by: Ian Allan Ltd. In the mid-1980s, UK-based publisher Ian Allan Ltd. noticed something was wrong. The market had become saturated with military books that featured photos and dry numbers about the latest equipment. Very few of these publications, however, addressed …
This has been one of my busiest years so far with a ton of books completed and coming down the pipeline. Here’s a look at what’s been done so far: First Strike I started working on this one early in the year. This project was a request by David Heath …
This is a brief report of Scenario 1 from Victory Games’ 1986 classic, Sixth Fleet designed by Joltin’ Joe Balkoski. This is a simple short scenario with clear objectives: sink the other guy’s subs before the end of Turn 9. The background is pretty basic. The USSR wants control of …
