THE WORLD WAR TWO GROUP discussion

Members can discuss any WW2 war game they use to play or still play, be it old board games or computer simulations.

I've set this thread up for members as I am sure there are a few of us that use to play the old Avalon Hill board games or computer strategy or combat simulation games from SSI or Battleground.

I have just started playing a game from HPS; Panzer Campaigns - Budapest '45. Brings back memories from long ago :)

Any others out there that use to spend hours playing these games?

For those interested here is the home page for HPS Simulations:

http://www.hpssims.com/

This is the game I'm currently playing (just started learning in fact):

http://www.hpssims.com/Pages/Products...

I was a big Avalon Hill guy,,, Blitzkrieg, Tactics II, Richthofen War?, War at sea?

Currently I play Unity of Command and Gary Grigsby's War in the East

I loved Avalon Hill games, had quite board games a few many years back. Then when everything went onto computers I started playing the Battleground series but had a break of about 6-8 years and have only just got back into them with my first purchase of a HPS game.

Yes, I loved Avalon Hill as well, subscribed to their magazine etc.

I am playing and loving Hearts of Iron III.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/258...

Looks like an excellent game Michael!

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "I've set this thread up for members as I am sure there are a few of us that use to play the old Avalon Hill board games or computer strategy or combat simulation games from SSI or Battleground.

I..."

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "I've set this thread up for members as I am sure there are a few of us that use to play the old Avalon Hill board games or computer strategy or combat simulation games from SSI or Battleground.

I..."

Talking about playing Avalon Hill games is like talking about driving Model A Fords. Board war games are alive and well and thriving and there are a number of game companies that have arisen that produce games that the old Avalon Hill designers only dreamed they could make. There are a number of folks who used to play war games (Avalon Hill, SPI, GDW) back before they had lives and who still have the yen but may feel that there is a social stigma attached (wargamer = warmonger). This isn't the case.

Rather than providing a list of companies that produce board war games, I might suggest that you take a gander at the consimworld (www.consimworld.com) discussion board. You will find hobbyists and games on not only all aspects of military gaming, books, movies, etc but Euro games as well. Yes, they have the usual collection of Internet characters but there are a number of really good folks who know a lot about the topic. You can also find a number of games on a wide variety of military topics.

(Note: I have no affiliation with consimworld, other than being a member)

Hi Nick, thans for the link to consimworld, I am sure a few members here will check it out :)

Nick wrote: "' Talking about playing Avalon Hill games is like talking about driving Model A Fords.."

gee nick, i always pictured myself as more of a '60s muscle
car kinda guy....

hehe, yes i spent toooo many hours, but fun ones w/avalon
hill. stalingrad was the most played, and as far as time to
play goes, the one most often on the table. my parents
got me civil war (american) when i was about 5th grade,
way over my head, even though it only used pawns but
started my interest. let's see afrika korps, blitkrieg, 1914,
jutland, panzer leader, blitz, have a few copies of their mag,
and still have all my games. must be worth dozens of dollars!

I forgot about the magazine...that was awesome as well.

Pamzer Leader was one of my favourites as well :)

I've fond memories off 'The Guns of August', 'France 1940', 'Fortress Europe' and 'The Battle of the Bulge' (Yes, I'm European...)

have a few copies of their mag,
and still have all my games. must be worth dozens of dollars

There are a couple of magazines still out there. I can highly recommend Battles (http://www.battlesmagazine.com), from France (Note: I have written several reviews for them), which comes in a glossy format and includes a game in every issue. It not only features reviews of various games but has articles on military and game theory as well as general interest.

Nick wrote: "have a few copies of their mag,
and still have all my games. must be worth dozens of dollars

There are a couple of magazines still out there. I can highly recommend Battles (http://www.battlesma..."

Another good link Nick, thanks.

Dirk wrote: "I've fond memories off 'The Guns of August', 'France 1940', 'Fortress Europe' and 'The Battle of the Bulge' (Yes, I'm European...)"

Some good games there Dirk!

Dirk wrote: "I've fond memories off 'The Guns of August', 'France 1940', 'Fortress Europe' and 'The Battle of the Bulge' (Yes, I'm European...)"

oh yes, don't have any of those, but did play France '40 & Bulge.
went out to the vault and cleared some cobwebs, also found
i have Anzio, now that must have won the most colorful
counters award, and a couple of the (then) newer models,
Tobruk, 3rd Reich.

Nick wrote: "have a few copies of their mag,
and still have all my games. must be worth dozens of dollars

There are a couple of magazines still out there. I can highly recommend Battles (http://www.battlesma..."

interesting stuff nick. though i've averted my eyes
in recent yrs from computer war games, i always
fear they'll be too good!

carl wrote: "Dirk wrote: "I've fond memories off 'The Guns of August', 'France 1940', 'Fortress Europe' and 'The Battle of the Bulge' (Yes, I'm European...)"

oh yes, don't have any of those, but did play Franc..."

A revamped version of France 1940 would be far more colorful as well! I also have the GDW game 'Fall of France' (costs a day to set up, 2000+ counters) which
covers the same conflict, at the same (division)scale, but on a larger map, including the Swiss.

A revamped version of France 1940 would be far more colorful as well!

There is a proposal for a new one by GMT games.

As I said, all of the games that have been mentioned have been superseded by games that are more historical and that play better. (Not difficult in the case of The Guns of August, which is a noted woofer) The hobby has come a long way since those days: new systems, much better graphics, more color, more history. Why eat bologna when you can have steak? (grin)

Great thread!

I played many of these in high school and during my first few years in college - Squad Leader, D-Day, Third Reich, etc. Then life sorta took over and finding time to play became very difficult. This seems to be a very common life profile for those of us born at the tail end of the boomer generation. Now many of us in their late 40's and early to mid 50's are coming back to the hobby as we find a bit more free time with kids moving out of the house and established careers.

If anyone is interested contact me and I can hook you up with all the details of the hobby today. There have been some huge advances in the hobby as Nick Danger mentioned, to include the ability to replicate the cardboard maps and counters in a virtual environment. The virtual replication has solved many of the problems related to finding an opponent in the local area, has helped many get back into the hobby, and encouraged the younger generation to discover how to become an armchair general. A few words of caution - it is an addictive hobby and can consume much of your available free time :)

Nick wrote: "Great thread!

I played many of these in high school and during my first few years in college - Squad Leader, D-Day, Third Reich, etc. Then life sorta took over and finding time to play became very..."

Nick,
My husband was a huge Dungeons and Dragons player back in the day and when I found out that there are RPGs for WWII he strongly cautioned me that it is an extremely addictive hobby. As there really isn't a huge group of people in our area that are WWII RPG enthusiasts, I never took up the hobby. Great to know that there are virtual options out there now that allow you to connect and play with people from anywhere on the globe. I will contact you should I decide to throw caution to the wind and give this hobby a try. Thanks for the posting.

Hi Christie,

Ah... D&D, yes I confess that was another enjoyable time sink I had as a teenager. I wonder how well I would have done in school if I hadn't been playing games in my free time! I'm not aware of any true WWII RPG, but I would agree if there was a good game out there I would be in trouble. Any idea the name of the WWII RPG it is that the people in your area play?

Most of what I play today are the traditional cardboard counter variety of game which most of us remember from the 60's, 70's and early 80's. The virtualization I refer to is the replication of these cardboard environments on the computer for play across the internet.

Nick wrote: "Hi Christie,

Ah... D&D, yes I confess that was another enjoyable time sink I had as a teenager. I wonder how well I would have done in school if I hadn't been playing games in my free time! I'm n..."

Nick,
I honestly don't remember. There was a listing for the group at a local comic/collectible/hobby shop that has since gone out of business. Such is the sad fate of so many cool independent businesses now a days. If I come across anything and you want me to potentially give you directions to the abyss, I will let you know :) My husband will be glad to know he isn't the only one who asks that question about high school!

During my last house move I sold over a dozen of my old board games, I wish I hadn't! There were some great games in that bunch :(

I've got nearly the full range of Talon Soft Civil War, Napoleonic & WW2 games but haven't touched them in over 3 computer upgrades.

I have recently tried a game from HPS which covers the fighting for Budapest in 1945:

www.hpssims.com

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "During my last house move I sold over a dozen of my old board games, I wish I hadn't! There were some great games in that bunch :(

I've got nearly the full range of Talon Soft Civil War, Napoleoni..."

I've never tried HPS Simulations. I'll check them out. Thank you for the reference Rick!

My pleasure, if you Like Talon Soft you should enjoy these as I think its a few of the same people involved.

The Conflict of Heroes boardgame series are my favourite - I've enjoyed "Awakening the Bear".

http://academy-games.com/games/confli...

There's also the Small General Eastern Front game for mobile that was quite engrossing to play given the format.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/de...

Thanks for those links Whatfroth, much appreciated.

Hello Fellow Grognards!

Just wanted to let you know Multiman Publishing just released It Never Snows, a board wargame recreating Operation Market Garden. Unit scale is primarily at the company level. Turns are half a day and a hex represents 600m. The game is shipping to pre-orders and should be available for general purchase within a few days.

I just received my copy and am looking forward to getting this one on the gaming table. The rules are very simple to pick-up, but there is a lot to play with - over 800 counters and five beautiful 22"x34" game maps. Here is a short excerpt from MMP's website -

The expansive five map area allows each of the airborne division fights to be geographically isolated and separate, as was the case historically. What this does is that it allows each situation to be gamed as its own little tactical puzzle—making it such that a player might be “winning” in one region while “losing” in another, at the same time. Both players are always “in the game.”

While the Allied player is busy dropping paratroopers, establishing bridgeheads and running a ground offensive to link up with them, the German player must devastate the airborne forces clinging to Arnhem, defend the various river crossings and counterattack to sever the Allied supply lines. Both players are attacking and defending at the same time, every turn.

There is nothing quite like pushing around paper armies :)

Nick

Nick wrote: "Hello Fellow Grognards!

Just wanted to let you know Multiman Publishing just released It Never Snows, a board wargame recreating Operation Market Garden. Unit scale is primarily at the company lev..."

Thanks for the link...cool looking game.

Oooh, it does look good :)

This is funny, Rick- about a month ago I was recommending 'The Operational Art Of War' (I finally got version III early last year) to Jerome, who obviously is far too young to remember those pre-computer days when the Avalon Hill games had their heyday... I used to play some of the Pacific War themed AH games with a friend of mine during the early '80s, and I remember how long it used to take to set up & even take a handful of turns. I never had the requisite amount of patience to be a really serious player (not particularly surprising since I was 12-14 years old at the time), but several years later when SSI's 'Panzer General' was released I was instantly addicted... Sadly, the old IBM ThinkPad I used to play it on died a few years ago, but by then I had discovered TOAW anyway (I had always had some serious problems with the PG timeline vis-a-vis availability of weapons systems, not to mention the occasionally wildly unrealistic combat performance of some of them). I would recommend TOAW to anyone interested in Military History, even if, like myself, they are not much of a "gamer". I've noticed that my grasp of the WWII North African Campaigns has improved markedly by placing myself in Rommel's shoes via TOAW, for example, which initially surprised me a great deal...

Hi Liam, I loved those old Avalon Hill games, I remember going to a friends house to spend the day playing Gettysburg, or Battle of the Bulge, or one of the large Russian Front games and leaving the game set up on the dining room table which didn't please his mother much so we could resume battle the next day. I will have to check out 'The Operational Art Of War'. I suppose the one difference now is that when we were younger we had a lot more time, now a days I don't seem to have much spare time.

Rick-

Here's the link to the TOAW page on the Matrix Games website: http://www.matrixgames.com/products/3...

It's extremely cheap as far as games go, and absolutely worth every penny, for my money anyway! As I told Jerome, although the game itself is great, I've always thought the Scene Editor (software tool for designing your own scenarios) was one of the coolest features- having the ability to model any obscure battle that crosses your mind is an almost unbelievable state of affairs, but in essence that is what it provides. I've never had the time to actually use that particular feature myself, but some of the scenarios included in the current version (TOAW III) were designed by players during the 15 years or so since the original game was released. I hope you like it; as I noted above, I've never been that heavily into gaming, but this game is so good that I still play it at least a couple of times a year...

This looks pretty good Liam, thanks for the link, geez your a bad influence :)

Yeah, I've heard that before!

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "Pamzer Leader was one of my favourites as well :)"

Absolutely. Did you ever play the multi version scenario? That was cool. We set the boards up on Dad's pool table and I believe it took two weeks to play. Flattop was another great game. Played it in college. I in my room, my roommate in the dining area and the judge was in the basement. We had to send our moved to him through the laundry chute. Very fond memories.

Got put onto a free MMO by a friend the other day. It is called war thunder and is buy a Russian company. It covers both historical and arcade based WWII battles. The game is in the Beta format at the moment so you can only access the air side of it. But the full version will allow you to take control of land vehicles as well as ships.

The air component includes both fighters and bombers and is a blast to play. Below I have provided a link to those who are interested.

http://warthunder.com/

Thanks for the link Michael, I am sure a few folks will check it out :)

Michael wrote: "Got put onto a free MMO by a friend the other day. It is called war thunder and is buy a Russian company. It covers both historical and arcade based WWII battles. The game is in the Beta format at ..."

Micheal, I know I'm gonna regret looking at his game, but he graphics and music have me hooked. This could put a damper on writing activities.

Oh no - now look what you've done Michael :)

It is a tad addictive

My LORD! It took over five hours to download. I fear hitting the play button could be the doom of us all. Updates later.

Well I am well an truly hooked. Just spent 2 hours battling over Stalingrad the graphics are awesome.

Ugh. Looks like I need to get a new video card. The graphics are great, but there is a lag time between commands.

I'm not even going to look, that's all my wife needs, me stuck on the computer for hours on end battling through Stalingrad :)

O bugger, this looks really interesting. Now I want to get home from work and start downloading.

Oooops, another one!