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Podcasts

Wild Weasel #14

Timeline

News: 2:43

Tom Russell from Hollandspiele: 11:32

The gifts that keep on coming: 39:54

Links to items mentioned

Hollandspiele’s Tom & Mary Show podcast

Hollandspiele’s Grunwald Swords

Mounted map boards from White Dog Games (and Hollandspiele)

Nightfighter thread on the Quarter to Three forums

Compass Games holiday sale

Multiman Publishing preorders

Front Toward Enemy by Joe Chacon

Jack Greene’s Hitler Strikes North

GMT Games latest newsletter

Vesa Arponen’s All Bridges Burning

Brezhnev’s War by Ty Bomba from Compass Games

Land of Confusion by Paul Rohrbaugh from High Flying Dice Games

Hollandspiele’s Charlemagne

Napoleon’s Resurgence from OSG

OSG store

Legion Wargames’ website

Decision Games’ Wacht Am Rhein

Mrs. Thatcher’s War from White Dog Games

N: The Napoleonic Wars from White Dog Games

VentoNuovo’s Kickstarter for Stalingrad: Inferno on the Volga

Hexasim’s Ligny 1815

Discussion

8 Responses to “Wild Weasel #14”

  1. Thank you Santa, you to Bruce.

    Posted by Kevlar871 | December 24, 2017, 9:30 pm
  2. Hello Bruce,
    Merry Christmas! Your Wild Weasel episode wasn’t only a gift to yourself, but also to me, as I immensely enjoyed listening to it while doing some handywork I only find time for around christmas.

    Question: Your mentioning the Compass Games website has coloured me interested and I was eyeing Enemy Action: Ardennes before, because believe it or not, there is not a single wargame about the Ardennes Offensive in my (puny) collection.

    The shipping costs to Germany are pretty prohibitive though. So I thought “dream big” and get one or two more games so it won’t matter too much, but I have a hard time finding another title from Compass Game’s sale that piques my interest.

    “Steel Wolves” covers an interesting topic, but the playing time will probably kill me: I struggle to find the time to get the Air Leader Games from DVG on my table every once in a while and they look a lot less complex than this beast.

    On the other hand, the African front is my second favourite after the Pacific and I have heard about “The African campaign” as a wargaming classic, but I also already have No Retreat NA, which looks nicer and can be split into multiple smaller sessions more easily which is a factor for me. It’s similar with Proud Monster (I can hardly imagine playing it over NR:RF which I loved to bits the one time I managed to play it and I want to keep exploring that game).

    I know, giving recommendations is stupid, because everyone is looking for something different and I’m not looking for an excuse to just buy stuff, but maybe you can point me in some direction. What might be interesting to look at for a wargaming neophyte? Are there gems in Compass’ catalog that I might have missed?

    Happy to hear some impulses from others, as well, and I promise I’ll make responsible purchase choices afterwards like the adult human being I am now.
    (well, haha, we know that last part is not going to happen though šŸ˜‰ ).

    Posted by Michael Knarr | December 26, 2017, 8:56 pm
    • Hi Michael,

      Enemy Action: Ardennes is a tremendous game. Recommending things is tough, but I do think The African Campaign is worth playing for someone with an interested in North Africa. If you are interested in World War I, I highly recommend John Gorkowski’s Balance of Powers. Back to WWWII, I like Ted Raicer’s Fall of the Third Reich for how quickly and smoothly it plays. And John Hill’s Yalu is a classic that I am glad they reprinted (although I only have the original 1977 version from Conflict Games.

      Hope that helps!

      –Bruce

      Posted by Bruce Geryk | December 28, 2017, 4:27 pm
  3. Excellent episode as ever, thank you. The length, balance of content and most of all the insight in Wild Weasel never fails to impress.

    Posted by Gareth Rhymes | December 29, 2017, 12:51 pm
  4. Thank you again for the podcast!

    There will soon be 3rd Finnish Civil War game, which will be kickstarted early next year (possibly on 100th anniversary of the civil war in January). BGG has entry for game and copy of living rules:
    https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/234673/1918-brother-against-brother

    It’s very traditional card driven war game, inspired e.g. Paths of Glory.

    Disclaimer: I have read and commented cards and designer is friend of mine. Unfortunately I never had opportunity to playtest.

    I also liked a lot the end bit of the podcast where you discussed on how some of the elements from so called Eurogames have impacted Wargames etc. I assume that euros have brought a lot more people to tabletop gaming, and some of them, including me, have got to wargaming through euros. This might be even more so in Europe where we don’t have similar war gaming veterans from hex & counter era (with possible exception of UK). Thus, most wargamers in Finland are less than 50 years old and they also play euros in addition to wargames (with possible exception of active ASL community). As a result of this, I feel war gamers over here are maybe a bit more open to new mechanisms and ideas since gamers are used to all that in euros. Or at least we lack the resistance from veterans, since we donā€™t have any!

    Posted by Marko | December 31, 2017, 4:41 pm
  5. I know Iā€™m late to the party, but I just watched all four videos in your analysis of Dien Bien Phu wargames (after reference in a response on BBG) and they were terrific. Analyzing games in this way really helps one understand the pluses and minuses of each approach and also whether all/some/none meet the readers criteria of what they are looking for in a game experience. While this effort took a huge investment in your time, it gave me a lot to think about in my own approach to wargames. It would be nice to see similar series on other wargame topics, although obviously it would be insane to try it for the most ā€œbeaten to deathā€ topics that are represented by dozens of titles. Iā€™ve also listened to all your Wild Weasel podcasts and look forward to more!

    Posted by Jerry Winchell | February 20, 2018, 12:03 am
    • Thanks, Jerry! There is no “late to the party” – there are tons of people who still haven’t seen it! I am planning the next series right now, probably to cover Operation Market-Garden.

      Posted by Bruce Geryk | February 25, 2018, 9:25 pm
  6. Hi Bruce: Really enjoy the insight you bring to the hobby.

    I have a extra copy of Jim Day’s MBT expansion BOAR if your interested. Shoot me a email & I’ll send it to you. It’s a nice balance between rivet counting, chrome and a enjoying game experience.

    Keep up the good work!

    Posted by Matt Morocco | March 3, 2018, 11:38 pm

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