World War II – Stately Play

Say bonjour to the next board game Kickstarter you’re going to back: Maquis

April 9, 2019 David Neumann 2

Tabletop Earlier this year I fell in love with an unassuming little solo board game called Black Sonata. You can read all about it right over here. Just a spectacular solo game that combines tight decision-making with mechanisms that obfuscate the underlying math, ensuring you never feel like you’re simply solving a puzzle. Yesterday, publisher Side Room Games decided to go at it again. Leaving the Elizabethan era behind, their latest focuses on World War II espionage in a little title called Maquis.

Carrier Battles for Guadalcanal is trying to become Carrier Battles for PC/Mac and more

November 1, 2018 David Neumann 1

iOS Universal, Android, PC/Mac • While I used to talk quite a bit about iOS war game gem, Carrier Battles for Guadalcanal, over at another site I used to write for, our coverage here at SP has been shamefully light. I apologize not only to the one-man development team of Cyril Jarnot, but to you as well. CB4G is a pretty great hex-and-counter war game for iOS (the only one I can think of) and we’re the kind of audience that should be eating it up. With a little (or a lot–that’s a big $ number) luck, CB4G will be a little less niche than it currently is. A Kickstarter started today to not only bring CB4G to other platforms–namely, PC/Mac–but also adding a ton of functionality making “the little war game that could” into the sprawling epic war game that Cyril envisioned from the beginning.

Battle Fleet: Ground Assault rumbles onto Steam

May 1, 2018 David Neumann 0

PC/Mac • It’s got tanks and it’s turn-based, so there’s no reason for us not to be excited to play the latest iteration of Battle Fleet from Mythical City Games. Whereas the old Battle Fleets centered on, well, fleets, this latest takes the combat inland and puts it on treads. Battle Fleet: Ground Assault has arrived for PC/Mac today and it’s on sale to boot.

Battle Fleet: Ground Assault bringing turn-based tank action to Steam on May 1st

April 10, 2018 David Neumann 1

PC/Mac • Back in 2014 Mythical City Games released a turn-based military sim onto Steam and mobile called Battle Fleet 2. Some guy named Owen reviewed it back then and summed everything up with three stars, whatever that means. I could go and read the thing but, let’s face it, Owen’s writing is way over my head. An Owen metaphor, “A gruesome struggle of life and death becomes a badminton match played with high explosive shuttlecocks.” My metaphor, “A gruesome struggle of life and death becomes raccoons eating garbage on a Saturday night in my driveway while listening to the Original Broadway Cast recording of Cats.” See? He’s just way better at this than I’ll ever be. Anyway, Mythical City is back with Battle Fleet 2’s sequel that, due to a change in theme, isn’t simply Battle Fleet 3. That’s right, instead of steering mighty warships we’re driving nimble juggernauts of destruction: tanks. Welcome to Battle Fleet: Ground Assault.

Review: Lightning: D-Day

July 27, 2017 Kelsey Rinella 4

iOS, Android • Dave has given me the impression that HexWar are the Lucy van Pelt to our Charlie Brown, repeatedly advertising wonderful games and delivering troubled ones once we get our hopes up. I assume that, once the running gag had been established, the challenge for Charles Schultz was to find a way to create interest in a joke with a predictable ending. With Lightning: D-Day, HexWar did it by translating to app from a well-regarded, unusually simple WWII card game famous for its poorly-written rules. I had hoped that the combination of a lower degree of difficulty than their ambitious past games mixed with an easily addressed problem in the cardboard version made this a superb candidate for an unqualified HexWar success. Then again, we all know how this joke ends.

Lordz and HexWar combine forces on the just released Lightning: D-Day

July 14, 2017 David Neumann 4

iOS, Android, PC/Mac • We’ve known that the wargame developers Lordz Games Studio and HexWar are working on bringing the classic GMT title, Commands & Colors: Ancients, to our iPads for a bit. What we didn’t know is that C&C: Ancients isn’t the only project they’ve been teaming up on. This morning they launched another board game (well, card game) conversion on iOS, Android, and PC/Mac based on a 2004 Dan Verssen design, Lightning: D-Day.

Tank on Tank rolls onto Steam

May 10, 2017 David Neumann 2

Windows, Mac • You ever get an email from someone that triggers a memory of a long-ago email that you were supposed to reply to, but forgot and now you feel like an ass? It happens to me at least three times a week, with the latest being an incoming missive from Jo Bader, the developer who brought the digital version of Tank on Tank to life. We reported on our ignorance of Tank on Tank’s existence back in February which prompted a discussion between us and the fine folks at Lock ‘n Load that we let die an inglorious death in our inbox. This is why I yell at my kids to be more organized, so they don’t grow up to be major screw ups like their old man (that, and I’m sick of always picking up their crap). Anyway, back to Mr. Bader’s email. If, for some reason, you’ve been putting off getting Tank on Tank directly from the LnL website and really wanted it in your Steam library instead, today’s your lucky day.

Slitherine going back to the well with Panzer Corps 2

March 13, 2017 David Neumann 0

When Panzer Corps was released for iPad back in 2013, it immediately became the best war game made for the platform and, to this day, hasn’t been surpassed. The PC version that preceded it isn’t bad either, and has spawned 17 expansions since its release in 2011. With all this success, it could only be a matter of time before a sequel appeared. That time came last week when Slitherine announced a successor, creatively titled Panzer Corps 2.

Did you know Lock ‘n Load’s Tank on Tank has been on PC/Mac since December?

February 14, 2017 David Neumann 0

PC/Mac • A long time ago I remember hearing rumors of cardboard publisher Lock ‘n Load getting into the digital game, then I hit a personal black hole and lost contact with the world only to reemerge last fall having completely forgotten about their digital plans. Turns out I should have written a note or tied a string around my finger to remind myself, because Lock ‘n Load published several versions of their light, fast tank battler Tank on Tank for PC/Mac last year and I’m just hearing about them now.

Carrier Battles of Guadalcanal has a long name and another update

December 14, 2016 David Neumann 0

Carrier Battles of Guadalcanal is the best war game on the App Store that involves carrier battles in the Pacific that have Guadalcanal in their title. I joke, but it’s actually a pretty amazing little war game with a ton of depth and character which belies its one-man development team. It’s also updated with new content so regularly that when a new update hits, it’s barely news. Last week the latest update arrived and it’s a doozy.