Weekender: Team Yankee & The Bolt Action Summer Offensive
August 8, 2015 by lloyd
Welcome to The Weekender where we're doing a bit of a round up of things we loved at Gen Con this year and also considering a bit of alternative history with Team Yankee on the cards from Battlefront...
Great Wargaming Survey
The Great Wargaming Survey is still going on and you have a few days left to have your say on the project and be in with the chance of winning some goodies just by answering some questions.
We discuss some of the findings so far and have our say on what we think of the statistics as they stand.
Bolt Action
Talking of statistics, the Bolt Action Summer Offensive is going great guns with a whole host of people from across the world getting involved to log their results.
As well as that we have news that Bolt Action will soon be island hopping with Empires In Flames where you get to send the Marines into battle.
The Western Front isnt being left out however with Winter Americans coming soon.
Flames Of War - Team Yankee
Going with a 'What If' scenario Battlefront have started talking about their upcoming game which will follow the Cold War escalation after World War II, Team Yankee.
Look forward to some big tank battles and if this talk of nuclear war has got you excited consider checking out the board game, Twilight Struggle too.
Gen Con Round Up (Part One)
Last but very much not least we have the first part of a full weekend of Gen Con round-ups.
We'll be discussing Hawk Wargames' Dropfleet Commander, Halo: Ground Battles from Spartan, and Privateer Press' Undercity board game.
Then we discuss a bit on Conan: Rise of Monsters and those all new Fantasy Flight Star Wars models for X-Wing and Imperial Assault.
Join Backstage To Watch XLBS Tomorrow
Look out for more tomorrow in XLBS and a big thanks to Dawn & Gianna for covering the convention. You can see Part One and Part Two for more on the best four days in gaming.
Have a great weekend!
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Happy Weekend!
looking forward to the Gen Con round up. Happy Weekend
It’s the weekend… Hobby time!
Not sure that tabletop or video games can really be considered mainstream. At least not in my experiences.
Their popularity is growing or perhaps we, the (stereotypically) marginalized socially inexperienced geeks, simply have a greater sense of community thanks to the things like the internet and so it seems that their popularity is growing. Or maybe the younger generations have become more accepting of things that still earn eye-rolls and are scoffed at by our contemporaries.
In either case, I believe that many of our more insular tendencies continue to be curbed by the communities we form on places like Beasts of War and in our home towns with other geeks. We’re much more open about it as a result.
Things have improved dramatically from decades ago when D&D would have earned immediate shunning!
I agree apart from on the videogame front. I don’t think you can see that as anything but mainstream now. GTA v making an order of magnitude more profit than all the summer blockbusters combined in its release year. Or the fact my elderly mother spends hours playing candy crush pretty much screams mainstream. Certainly certain genres are not as mainstream as others but as a passtime it certainly is.
…and the odd kicking!
another weekend …..another smile
Slappy Hatterday!
Talking about the super secret military space shuttle, Warren took the show into “conspiracy today …” territory. Oops. 😉
I was wondering, if it is so super-secret how come Warren from Beasts of War knows how long it stays in space for?
Ignore my last post. Just spotted a Sky News story on it. Not very secret after all.
Happy Saturday – looking forward to spending the day playing games
Yeah really good weekender guys! One day I’ll get to Gen Com.
Twilight Struggle shoutout! A strong contender for the best boardgame ever made.
Let agree to call that race won; it IS the best! 🙂
Loyd is right on with his “Team Yankee vs. World War III” comment. I expect the expansion to be small scale like the Fate of a Nation expansion. It will follow the novel (I’ve only read the synopsis on Wikipedia), not be global-scale World War III.
But, Oh my goodness, I want to play a hypothetical global-scale World War III. I want Russian and American tanks fighting in American suburban neighborhoods, I want troops kitted out in ABC gear. I want to see Chinese, Cubans, Warsaw pact and NATO allies.
you and me both! Lol
Its all about the Swedish Dave wants lots of Stridsvagn 103!
by the way guy’s, there was a British novel released in 1982 called ‘Chieftains’ written by Bob Forrest-Webb about….. yep! you guessed it…. a troop of Chieftains in WW3,
at the time i was a trooper in a ‘real’ Chieftain troop in Germany so it became mandatory reading……. a more dark and gritty novel then team Yankee, a few mistakes in places but not a bad read…..
I am going to have to get both novels now. It’s been too long since I got a good tank-fix 😉
John. if you get the chance read Sir John Hackett’s ‘third world war’ novel has well and that will help to set the scene, by the way we used to call our tanks ‘PANZER’S’….lol
Warzan’s, check out this PDF document. I think you’ll especially like pages 7&8… http://www.archives.gov/research/foreign-policy/cold-war/1961-berlin-crisis/overview/us-military-response.pdf
I hate my tablet’s auto-correct: I think it was developed by North Koreans with little grasp of English and a desire break us down mentally!
Seeing as its me that the hedges/fences statement was about, I have no issue with discussion of terrain and effects I do it every game myself. If you want to go light on rules thats also fine but at least mention that u have in a tutorial video…. I’m all about having fun over everything else in my games if we cant find a rule for instance rather than get bogged down looking it up we’ll just go with what seems reasonable at the time. However if I’m teaching someone to play a game I will try to be as accurate with the rules as possible or at least inform them that I’ve gone rules light to start with.
Don’t take the banter seriously 🙂
When you have done this kind of thing for a while you soon realise no matter how much prep or how many times you re film or do over … There will always be the proverbial hedge that we get bogged on 😉
So if it wasn’t your observation of the hedge it would have been something else. And while ‘teaching’ is an admirable thing and we do hope viewers glean something from these vids, primarily they are just some light entertainment to help us stay engaged with our hobby 🙂
Yup had that recently. A building with one window in it. All his men could shoot out from it. But supposedly none of mine could shoot in. 🙂
Team Yankee is a great read, some of the chapters read like scenarios. It will be interesting to see how the rules cope.
Morning world – happy saturday! Infinity all day…
Brilliant, brilliant and brilliant. It would not have been anywhere near complete without Johns opinions.
Nuclear war: In every for want of better wording real wargaming back in the day I had a lot to do with its planning and actual deployments, we the west again for ease of wording would go nuclear simply to stop the flow of numbers we believed the east able to put track on soil. However the reality of the easts supposedly mass units became a reality showing at least a half of the numbers being maintained in sufficient quality to be even remotely serviceable. Ill send you some interesting facts guys at BoW. All ok to talk about now.
Gen Con careful there Lloyd Victoria had her coat on and coming through the door.LOL.
60 something thousand geeks in one place that must move something in the force.
Sorry I disagree about the difficulties in communication bit on geeks etc and welcoming new players in clubs etc from the aspect you addressed. Big into my sports as big as my wargaming, then again the community may have had something to do with that and the age difference interesting will talk later.
Over all rated as a cold coffee show which is an excellent rating. Two hot coffees worst rating as this means didn’t hold attention so coffee did not go cold. Cold coffee show though definitely so brilliant, brilliant and brilliant.
lol
And ‘our glorious leader’ wired a message through from his compound that ‘he approved’ of this episode – but did say he’s got a bigger one than his mate Vladimir 😉
Playing Kim Jong UN in a friendly game of Warhammer.
Also see “let the Wookiee win”…
…remember spaces!
Sad to see Portrush getting wiped off the earth in WW3. The only consolation I think is that because it is built using 1960’s Soviet construction methods Barry’s amusements would probably survive
Ten pointer comment right there lol 😉
When Conan Rise of Monsters was announced I said at the time I don’t see how they are going to make this a success coming so soon after the hugely successful Monolith game. I know there are 22 days to go to pledge, but at only 32% funding it’s not looking good.
What I find interesting is that the comparable top tier pledge is $95 more Monolith’s top tier, I think that this may be where the issue lies with people pledging. With Monolith at $135 you got a huge amount of stuff, dozens of miniatures, game tiles, unlocked freebies etc. Pulposaurus’s offering just doesn’t compare, I know the cost is in the pre-painting of the figures, but with so many people already invested in a Conan themed game, unless Pulposaurus were offering in terms of quantity something similar or a lot more it was never going to fly.
It’s clear that they have put a huge amount of effort into the design of this game, but I feel they should have waited for the hype surrounding Monolith to die down before they launched.
I suspect they will get funded but it’s going to be tight, and that’s a shame as I think their efforts deserve more.
Great weekender.
Very valid point (at least in my experience) of wargamers being a bit shy and shunned as kids. I was actually met with something similar a few months ago, I was at a job interview and as an icebreaker they asked me do I have any hobbies, it is really hard to tell people who are not fellow gamers what we do for fun, so I think i mumbled something about airfix model kits, as they couldnt comprehend what I was trying to say. I actually got asked the question ‘so you play with toys?’ which kind of set the tone for the rest of the interview. Needless to say I didnt get that job
Agree with you on that. I always just reply that I’m interested in history, and that is something that people can understand. I never dare to even hint that I would be collecting, painting and playing with miniatures as most people think of their 5-10 year olds playing with plastic soldiers from Poundland etc. I think even model railway people have it easier, that is just considered geeky but still something that adults can do.
I have no issue with talking to people who ask. I tell them I’m a gamer, if they ask if I’m a video gamer I tell them I’m a tabletop gamer so I play things like boardgames, card games, and wargames. I’ve never experienced any problems.
Same here. Most of the time they are quite interested and I’ve hooked quite a few with my wicked gateway games. I’ve never been bullied or persecuted for being a gamer but maybe that’s because I’m a bit eccentric and people expect me to do “odd” things.
Amazing how critical people can be. It is awful that you had that experience.
I have had varied experiences of reactions to my hobby, however I do believe change in attitude both within and outside of the hobby has happened over time. I am a female gamer (both tabletop and video), I have been war gaming in excess of 20years ( not going to say exactly how many, a girl likes to keep her age a secret !!). When I first started I was greeted with mixed reactions. Some enlightened people were welcoming, and some were, well let’s just say they were less welcoming. Some comments behind my back and some directly in front of me. Some would not even acknowledge my existence in the room. At some shows, I have had comments thrown to my husband that he should have left me back in the kitchen !! I have to confess that, as anyone who knows me will understand, my response was calm, well thought out and yet none too polite !!
I have to say however, that times have changed. The hobby has changed. I’m still very much a part of the war gaming world, I know many of the traders at the shows (one I volunteer my terrain building services to on a regular basis – hi Ben, Adam & Cad).
I have to say though that to be accepted as a female wargamer is as much a responsibility and approach of the girl trying to wargame as it is of the males already in the hobby. Nothing is worse than a female entering the hobby, complaining about female figures, complaining about it being male dominant and not female friendly. Girls, chill out, just enjoy the game, appreciate the games and figures (let’s face it, we’re just jealous we don’t actually look like that), enjoy the banter and have a laugh. And guys, just give us a chance, we’re not really that bad you know !! Happy gaming everyone.
Why shouldn’t men and women have the same hobbies, I think it’s a great thing for our hobby.
I can remember the awful times that @galadriel72 and I had when she was getting into our hobby. The hobby was mostly run and played by men, most were not so inviting at all. I respect her for sticking to her guns and sticking with it. As she said in her post, we are well known with many traders on the UK circuit and game with many gamers.
I am thankful that times are changing and women want to game (tabletop and Playstation/ other formats as well), as without both genders young through to old getting into our hobby how can we expect it to survive.
Getting beat by your wife / partner is not always a bad thing, is it ? 😉
I couldn’t agree more. These days the idea of “geek grlz” seems to be gaining traction as women assert their right to be interested in the same things as men but still we have issues such as “gamergate” that have me banging my head against a wall. What the hell is wrong with these idiots.
I hear you had some quite awful interviews over the years when asked about hobbies. would have thought working in it/electronics/telecoms would have had a more understanding approach to niche hobbies but no. Now when asked I use the opportunity to gauge whether I want to work for them based on reactions. Last few places I worked have had a thriving lunch break gaming scene to the point where we have converted some people who never would have thought to have a go
another cool show:-) cant wait for dropfleet
Very excited for Team Yankee. I remember reading it years ago, Lloyd was right in being happy to be so far away from London.
im just disappointed the nukes weren’t dropped on Lurgan…
…£25 quids worth of damage if they were!
Always the optimist @unclejimmy
…how did you know I repair glasses?
I’ll have to check out what nukes would do to my home city, Malmö! Also, WARREN…if you got a cent every time you say the word “ok” you’d be as rich as Bill gates 😉
he may be a south park junky?
Totally enjoyed the weekender today, Im an long time video gamer (atari, nintendo, supernintendo, playstation, game boy etc nearly every kind known to man lol). I still love this medium of gaming but as you pointed out it can be very isolating and its far to easy for people to behave badly when they are not in the same room. I have only just started to testing the waters in board gaming/hobby. I havent finished gluing my first model together yet, most certainly havent played any of the wonderful games sitting around on my shelves. But this is due more to my own shyness, not because there isnt any where to go game. I have visited a few places where I could go and game with others, but I felt very awkward and out of place ( I also wanted to take a duster, vacume cleaner and air freshener to give it a good cleaning). My main reason for wanting to turn to board games is most certainly the social aspect, as this is something I dont have with my video games. I may well have to make my own club, play a little AvP and have some scones and tea for afters lol.
Re. rules lawyering, I think this is entirely the fault of the rules writers.
I remember reading in a WD how a member of the magazine’s team went up against an army with a troll in it, and he was upset that the opponent had milked the rules to keep his troll alive (basically, cheated within the rules to regenerate wounds). Now, whose fault is that?
In my opinion, it’s not the gamer’s. He spent £30 on a troll, several hours painting it, of course he’s going to try to keep it alive within the rules. The fault lies with the rules writers for not being clear.
Thankfully, in the digital age, rules updates are easy to do (and GW did it a lot in WD) and there is no real excuse for loopholes that can ruin social as well as tournament play. But I don’t blame the gamers for exploiting loopholes. If rules are woolly and full of holes, they’re bad rules.
{Red Is The Colour did a good rant about a 40K ruleset that says, “if you and your opponent can’t decide on the interpretation of the rule, roll a dice” – which is horrible. I mean, the freaking RULES are admitting they don’t know the rules!)
All of this. Badly written and/or poorly playtested rules are the biggest cause of WAAC and rules-lawyering.
The first tabletop wargame that I played was Team Yankee, published shortly after the book so in the end of 80’s. Back in those days boardgames were quite common, SL and ASL were probably the best known but there were plenty of other games as well and quite many for WWIII. I had already built plastic models for years and I always felt that there has to be something more to do with them instead of just collecting dust in the shelf. So Team Yankee got me to realize that you can do the same thing with plastic models instead of using small card chit representing Abrams or Bradley etc.
I used to have that game! Definitely nowhere near as complicated as other games in the “tactical WW3 in Germany” genre like GDW’s Assault, Bundeswehr, BAOR, and Boots n’ Saddles, but it was a great “gateway” game because it was light, fun, and easy to teach new players.
Still think 15mm is the wrong scale, but if gets more players interested in modern gaming then that can only be a good thing
Technically speaking, you’re almost certainly correct in that it’s too large a scale to accurately represent what happens in modern warfare.
But most players and potential players, however interested in the history they are, are probably not very concerned about accurate simulation. They want a fun game with nice miniatures that they can convince themselves is a bit like a real battle. (In case it’s not clear, I’m definitely including myself in this description.)
Battlefront are presumably hoping to appeal to existing players of their game(s), but also epecting that potential new players will be attraced to models that are big enough to paint and easily identify and look cool as models. I think it makes perfect sense for them to do this in 15mm.
During the 80’s I lived right behind Thiepval Army base so I would have been screwed if it had all gone up
Great show as always gents!
Finally some Bolt Action again..looking forward to seeing Empires in Flames being released. Surely we will get some nice new plastic tanks like LVT’s and stuff!?
Better restart working on my USMC..
I hope Team Yankee will just be Battlefront’s entry to Cold War so let’s make sure it’s going to be a success so it *will* get global 🙂
And by God how cool does Halo Ground Battles look!!
Guess I’m gonna have to print more money quickly 😉
Warren, you forgot to ask John about his opinion on backstage. 🙂
What does John think about that?
Wow! These Dropfleet ships look awesome, it looks like I will end up with two starship battle games after all, but man, these are the most amazing star ships I have ever seen!
Broke out of the weekender to get a comment in.
You may mock but we Historical gamers out here are interested in John’s opinion:-)
Why did Battlefront skip Korea? much of the stuff is late war and available. Some great scenarios to play eg Imjin.
Second 🙂 very informative to note that Portadown will survive the nuclear destruction of Coleraine.
@warzan The nukes in Twilight Struggle are strategic nuclear weapons hence it makes sense that using them ends the game. Use of battlefield or tactical weapons wouldn’t necessarily have that effect – not nice but not really world-ending unless escalated to strategic.
Interesting stuff could expand more on tactical vs strategic nukes?
Wikipedia is pretty bang on with this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_nuclear_weapon
I understand tactical as something that could be launched from a tank or launched from an aircraft of F-14 size or so.
Back in the late 70’s/early 80’s I worked for the Admiralty Marine Technology Establishment simulating cold-war encounters on our big computers which is where I picked up most of my rather outdated information. Interestingly enough a lot of it was about simulating the logistics of warfare, aircraft turnaround, ship ammunition and general supply levels rather than just shooting at each other.
You know we are very lucky here in BoW land to have soooo many chaps who served during this era as part of the community, I think it’s gonna make coverage of Team Yankie very interesting indeed 🙂
This is true. I know for the kind of games we typically play “unlimited ammo” just makes the game play easier. Not seen a system yet where you can count your shots simply.
I worked on Maritime Patrol Aircraft and they were equipped with a tactical nuclear weapon – a nuclear depth charge – this was designed to be used against “wolf packs” of submarines, a predicted tactic that could have been used by Soviet submarine forces.
See, I wan’t going mad about this 🙂
No you weren’t, @lloyd . 🙂 “Tactical” nukes are a real thing, and have been since the mid 50s.
The “Davy Crocket” mini-nuke was only the smallest (and most absurd) example, we had a bit of a discussion about it back on the old “World War 2.5” forum. I say absurd because according to US “Pentomic” doctrine at the time, these weapons could conceivably be under the direct control of officers as low as battalion commanders (Lt. Colonels). Good grief, it’s amazing we survived as a species.
But tactical nukes can be as small as 8-inch howitzer shells fired from systems like the US M110A1 self-propelled howitzer (delivery range about 25 miles) Usually 20 kt nominal yield, I think. (Hiroshima was 10kt, Nagasaki was 20 kt). There are also naval equivalents I think someone mentioned, basically rocket-delivered depth bombs that explode under water for use against submarines. Crap, which reminds me, subs also carry nuclear-tipped torpedoes for use against other submarines. It’s grim to note that the delivery range on these weapons is short enough to almost ensure the FIRING unit’s destruction (i.e., the old Knox-class frigates of the 1980s, used to know a guy who served on one). But to trade a small ship with a crew of 250 men for a Soviet SSBN submarine that could destroy up to 200 American cities . . .
After that are what they call “theater” weapons, or IRBMs (intermediate range ballistic missiles). Shooting from say the UK to Poland, usually with with 300kt payloads. Examples include the US “Pershing” that caused such an uproar when they were deployed to Germany in the 1980s. The Soviets have several versions too, but I’m NOT going to Wikipedia to look it up (resist, resist)! Modern nuclear-armed cruise missiles the the US Navy’s Tomahawk would also fit into this category.
Finally come the ICBMs and SLBMs that we all know. Still usually 300kt (accuracy in delivery technology has improved to where this is pretty much the biggest warhead anyone actually needs) but of course these weapons carry 8-12 MIRVs (Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles), so one missile can burn the heart out of 8-12 cities, not one.
Of course, these are just the kinds of weapons used by the “Big Five,” the original nuclear club. More recent additions like India, Pakistan, Israel, and possibly North Korea, I know much less about their specific payload / delivery system options.
Thank you so much for not talking about Gencon.
La la la I can’t hear you.
I think I’d play team Yankee in 1/72 scale just so I can use these bad boys
http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=1343
Nice – SLR is one of the best weapons ever! So solid. Makes an awesome club. Never been a fan of ‘plastics’, but I have to say some of them are pretty good.
I read team Yankee the paperback novel when it came out – I don’t remember a graphic novel version but I might have missed that.
Tactical nukes – these have existed since the 1950’s. Instead of me blethering about it just go read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_nuclear_weapon
Warren should be made to wear the Soviet tanker NVG’s for every Weekender – fair play to you for having a laugh as well as dispensing a bit more knowledge at the same time.
I am dithering over HALO Fleet Battles and Hawk’s Dropfleet… knowing me, I will probably end up with both 🙂
Oh – I forgot – Warren mentioned orbital weapons – check this out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOBS
@warzan I don’t want to be too critical, but the stuff about price being price does not wash. Price is effectively everything.
First off, I agree with you, most of the hobby is fairly priced.
But pricing is not set in stone by factors far down the chain; that puts the cart before the horse a bit. To sell a product, you must determine first if you can sell it at a price people want to buy it at. Your cost, while it is a factor of price, does not determine price.
Take your business for example; you run a relatively small shop and charge customers a fair price for access to premium content. I assume, like most business, you ask “what will people pay” and “at what rate can I maximize my customer base”. For this consideration price is everything and it determines what services and quality of product you can provide. If the opposite were true; of you approached the business from the perspective that price was just a result of cost, you would build the studio of your dreams; 20 rooms, 60 staff, golden throne (whatever your fancy 🙂 ) and produce all the content you could dream of and then say “Backstage membership costs $100 per month, the price is the required price due to cost, we can go no lower”. But obviously that would be as backwards as trying to jump right into producing a television station from scratch. Instead you start with price and determine if you can produce a product for costs that match what the market will bear.
The danger is if you start to raise your prices but remain revenue neutral; meaning your core audience pays more but you reach out to less customers – I mean if it came to it, I think you’d do the right thing for the business, do what you had to in order to lower the costs to allow you to lower the prices. And I think we all know the first three costs that you would
Cut… Lloyd’s coffee, john’s paints and Justin’s bathroom breaks. That is obviously never going to be the case for BoW because you guys seem to be extremely good at planning maintainable growth (and you’re growing which is great!). But you also know that price isn’t arbitrary and it’s not a result of your costs; rather the opposite.
No matter the product, price can always be dropped, it’s just a question of
If there is a market for the cheaper product (it may be inferior, but price drop doesn’t mean it has to be)
I agree I think alot of top manufacturers have an rrp price in mind at the concept stage and then materials are sourced to fit that budget. Budget PCs would be a good example of this the manufacturer already knows roughly the rrp and what margin they want on the products way before the design gets fully underway. Of course there is always an inherent cost of base materials, labour etc… Premium products are all well and good free market will always rule with the price people are willing to pay and they will vote with there wallets after all. I did take note in GW recent financial statement that the new CEO states he will not be dropping prices however he will be opening up products at different price points. Perhaps we will see more boxes like the 5 man cultists, 3 space marine style with a more pocket money price point. Ultimately its our hobby and we’ll spend what we think is a fair price and what we can afford, then there’s always the shiny thing in the corner shouting you want me too….
Great episode, and naturally very glad to see historical getting some coverage.
Which reminds me, @warzan , you have a small present coming in the post (no more “thongs,” I promise! :)). In the letter, I mention something about historical content on BoW. Please ignore that now, you have already addressed the “issue!” 😀 It just takes stuff forever to ship over the Atlantic unless you want to pay very high postage.
…too right £13 to send a book to Canada!
@apocryphal @warzan Regarding ‘price’, keep in mind this “what would you like to change?” question was an open question to which many indeed responded pricing. I think that in many cases should be read as “I want everything I want, which is more than I can afford”, not necessarily as a comment on prices in and of themselves. We all know that especially for luxury expenses, which hobbies are, the budget tends to stretch with the available amount of money and until your monthly budget reaches Donald Trump-esque heights, there’ll always be stuff you’d like to have, but can’t afford…
Good show today, guys.
I like the idea of Team Yankee but do wonder if the scale is too big, I used to play a lot of Cold War/modern in the early 90s with 10mm (1/200) kit. Most games were company size actions (just like in the Team Yankee novel), even at this small scale we rapidly ran out of table space, modern combat ranges are huge. Team Yankee will need some scale fudging to accommodate things like ATGWs with ranges of several kilometres with 15mm kit.
The idea of battling in Berlin could make it a viable option, plus the British ‘Berlin Brigade’ has some cool urban camo on their vehicles.
For books, apart from ‘Team Yankee’, ‘Red Storm Rising’ by Tom Clancy is a good non nuclear NATO v Warpac story, Clancy’s ‘Sum of All Fears’ also has a tank battle in Berlin in the final chapters which would make an interesting scenario.
For getting a feel of ‘Cold War going hot’ there is an interesting alternative history ‘documentary’ on You Tube: World War 3: the Movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yXTCEZkjQ4&list=PLxE37Hj7k368apDMeLEdZGEumnh1cj59Y
The original novel by John Hackett “answers” the question about nuclear escalation.
Answers it in the sense that it’s a bit of a propaganda piece in which he explains in one alternate history how the peace movement and nuclear disarmament in the West would result in the Soviet Union achieving global conquest, whereas in another, mutually assured destruction works, even when the conflict heats up, and the soviets, even when they begin losing the war on the ground, conscientiously avoid going full scale nuclear, and sue for peace from a position of weakness. The end result in his preferred alternative history is global peace, the end of communism in a happily ever after scenario for global capitalism, and the justification of the culture, the massive military spending, and the nuclear stockpiling of the cold war era.
A pretty rose tinted view in my opinion. I’m with Warren here. Either side, facing defeat, would have gone full nuclear, and there is no stepping back once that button has been pushed.
Hackett’s scenario is both sides drop one nuke each, then shake hands and say “terribly sorry about all that”, and the Soviet union agrees to go away quietly.
I suppose that’s what you needed to believe at the time if you were to get behind the notion that the people campaigning for peace were the bad guys, while the warmongers were taking us in any direction other than towards the brink of catastrophe.
Having said all that, I do really like the idea of gaming in a cold war gone hot scenario.
I think it’s the only way you can do “moderns” and get around the problem (for me it’s a problem) of asymmetrical warfare, and the controversy around lots of modern conflicts, because youre gaming in an imaginary scenario, instead of in the real-life grimdark of modern warfare.
Do I really want to collect say an American airborne force for Vietnam knowing what we do about the My Lai massacre? Tiger Force? The winter soldier testimonies? Yeah, Hueys are cool, but that’s not for me.
Hmmmm… from the artwork Soviet T72s and BMP2s fighting CENTAG?
In the mid 80s the Soviets had no T72s or BMP2s deployed with those forces in CGF, NGF or GSFG. Only T72s were with allied WARPAC units. Soviets were fielding T64s and T80s.
I shall turn off my rivet counting mode now…
Oh and the book ‘Red Army’ is a better counterfactual novel of a possible Cold War scenario and told from the Soviet perspective.
Great weekender guys.
I’m really interested in this survey (and had already taken it). I’m not surprised that a lot of us worry about recruiting new hobbyists – and worry about putting them off. Just because we recognise a problem doesn’t mean we know how to solve it though. For what I imagine is a fairly typical group of guys playing with their (male) friends they’ve known since gaming together as teenagers, where the fun is getting together with mates rather than going public and meeting new people, it’s going to be hard for new people to get involved.
And even harder for women, who face a group of guys who know each other well playing with each other while their female friends (partners, sisters, daughters or whatever) are off doing something else. The men in this scenario don’t have to be doing anything at all wrong and yet they can still be offputting.
People generally feel more comfortable joining in with something if they can see that other people like them are doing it. If anyone – male or female, white or non-white, straight, gay or anything else – is determined to join in and knows they want to join in, then the chances are they will find the players in this typical group to be welcoming and accommodating. But if they don’t already know that they want to join in; if they’re only aware of the hobby in passing, then it’s not easy for them to get to get involved, and I suspect that many of those answering the question in the survey on this subject had this kind of thing in mind.
It’s one of the reasons I think it’s great that you’ve got Dawn and Gianna covering Gencon – and other subjects too. They do a fantastic job; they’re great presenters, enthusiastic, ‘approachable’ (if that’s a term you can use for someone on TV?), knowledgable, etc. They’re clearly not just tokenistic representation. And yet they _are_ representing female gamers, and that is very important. It sends out a message to our community and to potential members of our community about who we are and who and what we want to be as a community.
Keep up the good work!
Forget ‘Checkpoint Charlie’, build a table of Coleraine and fight your battles there. BoW looks to be near the only bridge over the river for some distance so it should be the focal point of much fighting.
I can picture the scene now: Justin building sturdy timber barricades and Lloyd weathering them, while Warren bombards the approaching enemy with empty energy drink cans.
And the ice cream van stands ready for medevac.
I think the problem is finding anyone who would actually want to fight over Coleraine.
I’m not going for Team Yankee. I’m saving my money for Halo ground battles.
happy weekend
I must echo Lloyd’s commendation of those two lone ladies coping with Gencon. It must have been very tough, what with preparing tea and sandwiches, and hoovering up the convention halls every night. 😉
Question for John: Are there aging Russian tankers who are now blind from X-rays due to their night vision gear?
Halo is gonna be a big thing for me next year, it might even take over 40k for me.
GenCon Coverage is trully amazing, love to see all the excitement and the interviews with the creators ( Adam is awesome! ). If there is more i want to see it! thanks Dawn & Gianna !
About the travel in space, is a odd thing because you can “travel” way faster than light : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive
To briefly explain it in the most crude way : You can’t travel faster than light, but you can move the space around you, it sucks the space in front and send it to the back of the ship while the spaceship stays in a bubble of with it’s own space that doesnt move at all. This siphon effect is what makes possible to travel 12 years light distance in JUST TWO WEEK! Yes is that crazy. The reason why i bring this up is because it will probably be very hard to calculate the exact place you will end up, so you have to aim for near but safe point outside of the solar system you want to go to, otherwise you will probably hit some asteroid or planet and die in a massive desintegration ( no idea really but it will probably be very bad! ) So yes, there will be some kind of deep space trave from the outside of the solar system up to a specific place that will be way slower than light speed, so it will take months to reach a specific destination within a solar system, probably very hard to do a on/off short jump within that space, but i can be completely wrong, things get perfected and can be done way better than the first estimations… so we will see.
About the whole thing “being not very friendly” for new people, or lets just say “not totally nerds”, just think how you react to a Slaanesh Fan ? Yep… that’s right and i am one -.- . If i talk about that everyone goes away! So that’s the thing, we love so much what we do that we act crazy ( because we are! ) or we go the other way and be shy and reclusive about it. Common people won’t like to get in contact with someone that is so heavily invested in something that is not mainstream, is like they fear to get infected by it and maybe like it, for the love of Nurgle we know we sometimes are like that ( ok… maybe just me T_T ).
I have one a specific case of female friend of mine that is what i call a “bridge” person, meaning that it can be with both weird nerds, she is not a weird nerd completely, but also can be with common people. I’m proudly ended up convincing her to buy a few terminators models and paint them because she is a huge fan of Terminator, i’m not sure if that made her want to be inside this hobby or not but maybe i manage to spread the shinning syndrome a little more :P. Also, let just remember that we are big kids :P.
About the gender issue, my feeling is that we don’t need to change the games/models or stuff like that, but rather add more diversity so that everyone can get on board, is actually not a gender issue because people like different things for different reasons, so we shouldn’t try to make “Wargaming for Girls”, it will be just uterly imbecile, variety is always the best answer because it brings everyone together rather than separate people. But is rather the old views, expresions and things like that everyday come back the ones that we need to get out of our vocabulary ( don’t worry, here we have a tons of phrases that we need to take out of our mind, because words shape minds and we need to get in good shape ).
Playing catchup as had a busy day playing Bolt Action 🙂
Loving the Summer Offensive campaign so far, and as said on the vid, it’s great to see this kind of interaction with the players. Very much looking forward to the Empire in Flames book, it’s finally given me the motivation to paint the USMC army that has been sat on my shelf for a year now!
GenCon coverage definitely grabbed my interest at the sight of the Halo: Ground battles minis. Am 50/50 on whether to pick up the fleet game but certainly want to pick up the ground forces. FoW has kind of floundered at my local clubs so hoping this will raise a few eyebrows and interest.
Having grown up in during that era of the cold war, I am interested to see what battlefront do with it. If it lets me play out red storm rising I am sold.
@warzan I know its a novel but Red Storm rising by tom Clancy is a really good read if your interested in the” what if” the cold war goes hot topic. it was a major influence on my teen age years. It goes from the political, why the war starts to how its slowly getting beyond the control of those who started it and has reasons why it doesn’t go nuclear. Has action on land sea and air demonstrating how they interconnect.
I would recommend giving it a shot, its deep enough to seem realistic without being too heavy. I am sure there are many other books around the subject matter too. Ill be try to track down team yankee too
Another book similar to Team Yankee is Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy as well as his military reference series for lots of background information.
Team Yankee great book, I would recommend reading all of Harold Coyle’s books. He is right their with Clancy and Bond with the cold war military books.
The game has potential. Yes they have/had tac nukes but in the interest of game play you leave them at a higher command level. The ranges and tech changes will be the biggest challenges to the game. Not to mention a M-1 in 15mm will be pretty large, hopefully plastic. Helicopter rules will be the biggest challenge as they are both transport and attack. Also different services and countries use them differently. As their are a lot of gamers with military experience from this era fed back will be interesting.
It was also a period of great change in the US military. For example early 80s M1911.45s, jeeps, steel pot helmets, m-60 tankA3 tanks, Law rockets, c/k rats mid 80s switch to 9mm pistols, first HUMVs, kevlar helmets, first M-1 tanks(only a few), AT-4 ATR, MRE field rations. This is just off the top of my head from my time in the USMC, I am sure that I am forgetting a few.
This game is bound to stir up memories both positive and negative. I for one am looking forward to seeing this ruleset, BUT if someone doesn’t want to play this era, respect their wishes and don’t push.
I am really excited by ‘Team Yankee’, it reminds me of many enjoyable hours playing World in Conflict on the PC (now I need to try to learn how to play Wargame: Red Dragon…. gah that game is difficult).
What I would love to see is a nice big range, I particularly would like to see the NVA (Nationale Volksarmee) of East Germany, as that would be a fun force to collect.
I do have some worries though:
1) The Nuclear question, as raised above. I think there are various scenarios we can consider, and I think it was a truism that conventional warfare would occur before escalation to nuclear. I think the idea was that continental forces could hold out for 72hrs in the event of a Soviet assault, so maybe all of our games will be occurring in those 72hrs? Another possibility is that we accept a reluctance of both sides to actually ‘push ze button’ (anyone seen that Yes, Prime Minister episode? Where the PM slowly rules out possible locations where he would press the button? Hilarious, but apt as well). After all, it is feasible that neither side would use the weapons. Also, we could potentially have battles fought in the midst of irradiated zones…. after all, I think both sides developed CBRN defence, and most vehicles were sealed or prepared for that as well(?) [On that note, tactical nukes were indeed a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_nuclear_weapon%5D
2) The storyline. It’s all too easily for Cold War alternative scenarios to seem like propaganda, or to buy into propaganda. Take for example the Team Yankee story (a summary of which I have read on Wikipedia, so don’t take me as an expert), I note that the Soviets launch the war (evil empire, boo!) from a position of economic weakness; and promptly suffer lots in conventional conflicts with the West as their forces mutiny or fail to push the attack. The forces of the West fight hard and well, and suffer no serious defeats and/or accidents or other miscommunications. I fear that the scenario will be the same, where angelic gung-ho forces of democracy and freedom (rolls eyes) can DO-NO-WRONG whilst the evil forces of the communist totalitarian dictatorships hate what they’re doing and lack the will to fight.
Of course, I don’t speak as someone who was alive in that time (heh, I was born just as the Soviet Union fell) but as a historian I tend to take these things with a pinch of salt. And I would like my wargames to do so too…. especially as I’m most interested in collecting Warsaw Pact, I don’t want to be fielding stuff with flaws built in them that come from an ideologically skewed perspective.
I look forward to seeing what they do with it in any case. Just colour me optimistically cautious. 😀
As an added thing, note the front cover of Team Yankee……. glorious Abrams charging and destroying everything in their path! Woot, yeah! 🙁
Having just read Team Yankee, I can say that the book does a decent job at presenting the Soviets as competent and humane, although a few points with things like political officers might be a bit much.
In terms of military skills and tactics, both sides have some good plans and major failures in the course of the story.
For example, at one point Team Yankee itself (a mixed company of tanks and mech infantry) is forming the spearpoint in their batallion’s advance into enemy lines. However, they get too far forward despite orders to slow down, leaving the mech company behind them (including their batallion HQ) exposed to counterattack. When a company of Soviet tanks attacks the advance’s flank, they manage to render the entire mech company and most of the HQ combat ineffective.
Some of the info in the book (like specific equipment used by WARPAC forces) has turned out to be historically incorrect since then, but overall I’d say it paints an interesting picture.
Yes @warzan The Lost Fleet and its follow on series The Lost Fleet Beyond the Frontier and its spin off series The Lost Stars are great book and i’d recommend them to anyone that like scifi. And @lloyd they have tactical nukes! There is a facebook group Fan of the lost fleet that the auther John Hemry posts on from time to time too and happily answers fans questions. https://www.facebook.com/groups/172583651591/
This gives the discussion on nuclear war some perspective
http://metro.co.uk/2015/08/08/japanese-atomic-bomb-survivor-reveals-scars-which-still-cause-pain-70-years-on-5332485/
Something which many people haven’t noted is that Battlefront have already stated that the Team Yankee release will be supported with plastic kits for the main units on both sides.
This was mentioned in their article previewing what they’d planned for this year.
This probably means plastic M1s, T-80s (or T-72s if they’re still following the book), plastic APCs and plastic infantry for both sides at least.
Does anyone remember playing Team Yankee on the Amiga or Atari ST? I thought Warren & Lloyd would have, being old Amiga gamers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Yankee_(video_game)
Yup and pacific Islands
I think you can download both on abandonware sites now
love playing pacific islands.
great show guys, i was expecting @johnlyons to come out with (That would be an ecumenical matter?) at one point. the dropfleet figures looks good.
they are currently tracking 150 000 pieces of junk down to the size a small bolt
I just hope i’ll be able to watch this weeks XLBS, the last two are still not working on my ipad.
I’m really excited for Dropfleet but In 40k most of the space battles happened around planets or objectives, they usually didn’t happen in deep space it was usually in system so I don’t really see the difference.
As usual, great weekender.
I have been lucky enough to have encountered a number of great woman gamers. At one time, I was running a D&D campaign which started with 3 male players and grew to 7 players by adding 4 women. It definitely changed the game. I think for the better. The game dissolved after a few marriages.
I would hope that the appeal of games would allow them to reach a wider audience overall. However, I agree that it is not likely.
HI guys.
Great show as always.
I would just like to comment on the interim survey highlights.
I agree that the background and look of the games is what attracts people .
And narrative based scenarios and campaigns are more engaging long term then just playing pitched battles.(Playing pitched battles is fun to start with though.)
However, I think the comment about the ‘rules lawyer’ aspect.Is more of a desire for companies to write clearly defined rules that follow the intent of the game play.
Poorly worded rules ,lack of professional levels of editing and proof reading allow ‘rules lawyers’ to ruin the fun for others.
He is an example .
‘Named Body Guard unit’ may only deploy with ‘Specific Named Character’.
Intent
The ‘Named bodyguard’ is only ever used as a retinue option for ‘Specific Names Character’ .
The rules lawyer points out the Named Bodyguard and Named Character can do nothing BUT deploy .As that is ‘rules as written.’
Everyone else sees the rules as intended, and blame the rules lawyers for reading the rules as written.
But who is really to blame? The RAW should be the RAI. If they are not, the rules set has failed to do its primary function .
If the company writing and publishing the rules clearly defined the INTENT by writing the intent clearly in the rules.Rules lawyers would not be able to function.
The comment about wanting to be more welcoming to new players.
I think this is a general desire to try to grow the hobby .An as table top gamers often feel they are on the ‘fringes’ of society.They may feel its their fault there are not more people enjoying the same hobby as them.
Where as the truth is they are a friendly bunch of people , doing their best to promote the hobby.(Like B.O.W. do.)
Its like Warren said, unless people have the mind set that makes them like table top gaming hobby , they just are not going to be interested in it no matter what.
In respect to the comments about pricing of product in the industry.
If all the companies competing in the open market , are selling at a price point for their game systems which are seen as good value for money .(Otherwise they would not sell.)
Which is much lower than the only company with its own chain of B&M stores.
And it can be proven the chain of B&M stores are artificially inflating the price of that companies products.
It is natural for people to see higher prices and a result of ‘miss-management’, rather than ‘premium quality’,IMO.
Great reviews of all the new releases!
Hey guys here is a link to board game geek for a board game based this novel as well. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8101/team-yankee
If you like Cold War gone hot, look up the Wargame video games, might not be your thing to play since it is a bit of a niche game but it is set in the cold war, and the sheer amount of detail in all the units is just incredible, I mean they have a search engine in game to find specific units. Even if you wouldn’t play it it’s worth a look.
Hello guys!
It’s good to see you and be back! 🙂
Team Yankee cold war era cool, really would like to see if they go to BAOR at a later date, Chieftain, 432’s, Scimitars, Spartan, MILAN. Will be interesting to see how they handle MILAN, TOW, AT-3’s, etc in the rules. Also good to see Leopard 1A4’s, Marder’s, for the Soviets BRDM’s, ACRV’s, T-64A/B, BTR 60/70/80, etc.
The Lost Fleet series of books are great, well worth the read if you are into sci-fi fleet space battles.
Very late attempt at a sensible additional comment…
Montgomery wore the same battledress as his men and ate from the same field kitchens. He also didn’t lose an engagement until Arnhem which was an uncharacteristically daring adventure for this usually cautious General. (Played this one with the megagamers in Nijmegen last year – great experience).
Rommel without doubt was a great commander and Patton, well a bit of a nutcase but I’m waiting for Oriskany to fill me in or send me to the authoritative books. I know in my neck of the woods (Luxembourg) Patton and the American forces will never be forgotten. Almost every village has a memorial. When it stops raining I’ll take a couple of snaps of our local.