Warhammer Ancients

Hello there,

This week is a Wargame post, and so I've decided to start with Warhammer Ancient Battles

Macedonians Vs. Egyptians

For those that played GW's Warhammer (The one that they've stopped doing), you'll be instantly familiar with how Ancients works - less the magic, mythical beasts and monsters of course. The rules are fairly simple and easy to pick up, while still being complex enough to feel realistic. That said, small scale games tend to be over very quickly, and larger battles tend to be more fun as you try to outmanoeuvre each other.

The beauty of it is that it allows you to pick any army from ancient history, be it Greek, Roman, Celt, Egyptian and any in between, and then fight against armies that wouldn't have fought each other - Want to know who'd come out on top in a fight between Huns
and Persians? Well now you can find out.




My Brother, Trojan578's Macedonian Army  

The Start of my Celts

There are plenty of companies that do Ancient models - Warlord Games, Aventine Miniatures, Foundry and 1st Corps to name but a few. You're also not limited to 28mm, the system works well with other scales too

All in all - its a brilliant game and SB5 have loads of fun playing it

That's all for now, see you next time..



NFTR

Coldsteel

Future Projects: Gaming Videos

Hi All,

For a while now I have been recording our online exploits with the use of a handy screen capture software package, so that we can re-live our most epic victories if we hit something of a dry spell or to see what we could have done better for next time.

Until recently that was about it, however I have now purchased some video editing software....


..... see where I'm going here....

Trying to get to grips with the new software

That's right Ladies and Gents - SB5 will (hopefully) be heading to Youtube in the near future! Now you too can see exactly what we get up to! I'll let you guys know when it all gets up and running


That's all for now

NFTR

Coldsteel

Thank GhostWarrior its Friday!: Red Orchestra 2 (part 1)

Evenin' all,

Its Friday and I thought I'd dig through an venerable SB5 classic: Red Orchestra 2. RO2 is a first person WW2 tactical shooter and one of the best in my opinion.While the PC games industry is in no shortage of WW2 shooters the majority seem to feature scenes from classic WW2 films. Whether its the old sock grenade can knock out a Tiger tank trick from Saving Private Ryan (meaning that every American GI could knock out two Tigers) or a nod to Enemy at the Gates, they all seemed a little samey. Also, RO2 is set in what was at the time, quite rare setting of the Eastern Front.

It really is more of a tactical shooter than any previous game. For example; firing at anything on the move more than three feet away is a waste of ammo. Another feature is the aiming. You can set your iron sights and scopes to preset ranges (in increments of 100m) but you have no way of knowing the range to the target. At first this is frustrating as you can be emptying clips into people you think are 100m away and not hit anything. After time however, you start to get a better feel for the ranges and can usually adjust your sights after one or two rounds for mid range combat.

Tinglyed on the MG34, you can see the beautifully modeled weapons on this game

One of my favorite aspects of the game is the class system. Each class has its roll to play and it focus more on tactical doctrine form the time rather than a balanced game. For example MG's can dominate when used effectively, but require other squad members to support (including being handed ammo). Also a simple class and weapon upgrade system give nice rewards for persisting with a class.When I first began playing I was in my sniper phase and can honestly say it is one of the best sniper games I have played mainly due to the sight adjusting and bullet physics I mentioned earlier.

Me and Tinglyed back in the good ol' Sniper days

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

World of Warships

A quick update from Tinglyed today on World of Warships - the online game that's currently played a lot by SB5.  Because we're spread all over the country and people are back to work this week, wargaming is down to a minimum as we do some online gaming in the evenings (but plans continue to be hatched...)

My lovely Ishizuchi battleship!

I have a small flotilla of a destroyer (for competitive games) and the cruiser Aurora and battleship Ishizuchi (for fun 'arcade' games against bots).  I'm really into my naval history and this is immersive enough to be fun and realistic, but accessible to be played quite casually.

• Ghostwarrior is another primarily battleship player
• KB is playing cruisers at the moment, but looking to go for carriers
• Coldsteel is working down the cruiser line

We enjoy working together on this, normally the smaller ships 'orbiting' the larger ones and keeping destroyers away.  Have to say we're just getting into it so we're not brilliant, but it is a fun game.

In the vein of other Wargaming online games (World of Tanks and Warplanes) there is the opportunity to spend absurd amounts of money.  I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Tirpitz and was dismayed to find out it cost £43.  I would have probably paid that for the game itself - it certainly has that much playability.  Instead I opted for the cheaper Ishizuchi, a dreadnought-era ship much closer to my period of interest, which cost about £8.  Including the Aurora and some extra coins for upgrades I've probably spent about £20 which is my limit for these 'free' games.

Of course, the savvy/patient/determined player can plow through the tech tree without spending a penny, I just wanted some of these premium ships which look lovely.

So, any other WoW players out there?

Thank GhostWarrior its Friday!: Company of Heroes 2

Hi there, 

It’s Friday so it’s time for my Friday update! I thought an obvious starting point would be Company of Heroes 2. 

Along with Verdun, this is probably SB5’s most played game and certainly our most played Strategy Game. We converted to COH2 from COH and on the whole it was improvements all round. If you’ve not played COH2 it’s a WW2 RTS. The factions include; Wehrmacht, Oberkommando West, US Forces, Soviet Union and as of September, The British Forces.

An old favourite of mine, the Elefant Tank Destroyer. Despite being and infantry commander, the lure of these wonderfully moddeled vehicles is always there

There’s a nice variety of units. Light infantry, Assault Infantry, Anti-tank infantry, Snipers, Scout Tanks, Heavy Tanks and Tank Destroyers to name but a few! For those of you familiar with the COH series it retains (and in my opinion, streamlines) the doctrine system. Every faction gets a wide selection of ‘vanilla’ units. Before the battle you can select from a growing number of Commanders that give you additional special units (like Elefant Tank Destroyers) and abilities (like Air Support). With SB5 games this is a key part of our strategy, and we plan before the battle who’s doing what.

A rough outline of SB5 strategy is to push out to a defensive line (preferably somewhere that limits the enemy frontage such as bridges or cliffs). My roll tends to be the assault force. So while I provide some units for the defence I’ll be building up an assault force. This is always a difficult choice for me because by nature I’m and infantry commander. I love nothing more than elite infantry rushing from Coldsteel’s defensive line, bombing from crater to crater supported by accurate artillery from Tinglyed, but in bigger games infantry tend to be a bit fragile so I usually end up attacking with tanks (although with some beautifully modelled Tiger I’s, T34-85’s, IS-2’s and Elefants it’s not a terrible second choice). I will note that COH2 makes it easier to look after infantry than the original COH.

Post battle statistcs: the mainstay of RTS gaming. Also proof that while they are fragile, infatry can be a viable option even in big games.

There’s some great gameplay features including ‘true-sight’; this means that while all units have a spotting radius, it can be blocked by buildings, hedges and hills. The intelligent squad movement system the original COH is carried over.

There’s a fairly active Steam community surrounding COH2 with lots of community maps. Some of the original maps have been well remade for the sequel. All in all, it’s a fantastic sequel that defiantly improves on the original and has the characteristic great visuals and replayability of the Company of Heroes series.  

Thanks for tuning in! Have a great weekend

GhostWarrior

ZOMBIES!

Hi,

As I mentioned in my Intro post I mentioned that I was working on a wargame of my own called....

Re-cention

Its a small squad level game set about 120 years after a Zombie Apocalypse, and humanity is starting to rebuild. The burgeoning settlements are now starting to expand into each others territory, which has of course lead to conflict

Two Groups of Fighters battle it out in close quarters

Use of cover is essential

 Of course a Zombie game would not be complete without Zombies, and since the apocalypse is now out of living memory, people have learnt how to deal with them - Single Zombies are easy to dispatch but a horde will overwhelm even the best fighters.

Zombies can become an annoyance, left unchecked they become a serious threat  

Trapped between the Enemy and the Zombies.... What would you do?

I've only just started play testing so there are still a lot of creases to iron out, but it seems that it'll turn out to be a fun, quick wargame that will force players to make some rather difficult choices. I'll keep you guys updated as it goes!

See you next time!

NFTR

Coldsteel

Tinglyed

Looks like I'm second, so here goes my introduction...

I'm Tinglyed, although I go by Colonel Scipio on the blogosphere.  If you play Verdun, and you've ever been machine-gunned from halfway across the map you may be familiar with my Verdun name  of [SB5]MG08/15.  I'll give you a quick rundown of my games:

Wargaming

I already have quite an extensive blog detailing all my wargaming.  I used to be big into WH40K, but now I've moved on to historical, including 2mm.  We often like to run extensive, immersive sandbox campaigns like our American Civil War one a few months back.

I also have lots of Pre-Dreadnought Naval, Mordheim, WW2... you get the idea.  Basically I play immersive games quite casually with mates.

Online Gaming

Online I play a bit of a mish-mash really, I have over a hundred games on Steam and I love pretty much all of them, but to summarize I mainly play historical RTS and FPS games.  Two big ones are Company of Heroes 2 and Verdun.

When I'm on COH2 with the rest of the SB5 gang, I often play a support role.  Lots of mortars, AAA, rear-line security troops - allowing the others to smash forwards with 'fighting troops'.  My big love is artillery, and many's the time SB5 have advanced across the map under an expertly-micromanaged rolling barrage of 105 shells.  Hurrah!

In Verdun, my first love is the Landser machine gunner.  Before my last account was wiped I had about 35,000 kills and 350,000 rounds fired - testimony to my favored tactics of suppressing fire, or firing constantly into a gap and wait for the enemies to appear.  Although I do get stuck in when needed, I'm very much a long-range gunner!

I also like to bring my love of artillery to the trenches, so if we're not playing as Landsers I often go as the officer to call in artillery.  Of course this is a popular role so we have to take turns - but Coldsteel likes to play machine gunner to so mixing it up gives us all chance to play the roles.

I'll try to do some updates in the future about tactics etc, and what we're all up to.

Thanks for reading,

Tinglyed