You were wondering if there wil be solitaire play rules for Undaunted Stalingrad (20:39). Designer David Thompson states and explains in an interview that there will be no solo rules and also explains why not. It can be checked on BGG (check under "Undaunted Stalingrad", there then in the forum posting "No Solo play = no purchase. Simple." In that thread one can read a posting/answer fronmThompson himself which actually includes the RU-vid interview link. It links to the relevant part of the interview.
Thanks, and yes, I agree. That looks quite spectacular. I'm very curious to see how it plays too, and I'm hopeful it'll be smooth, deep, and challenging.
Sure thing, Patrick! It's fun to make these, and I've discovered a number of games I didn't know about either. I'm not sure my wallet thanks me, but oh well. :)
I have Aces of Valor and Western Front Ace pre-ordered. I just added Carrier Battle to my wishlist from seeing this. So many new interesting games. Oh my aching wallet ... 🤔
Yeah, I think as the shipping backlog has loosened up we seem to be getting so many new games, and perhaps the pandemic gave designers more time to build stuff? And gamers more time to play stuff?
Really enjoy your videos. Like you I am returning to the hobby and you seem to get excited by the same subjects I do. Also you talk effortlessly (maybe you have spent hours planning everything) but so many RU-vid videos are marred by the host not really knowing what they're going to say.
Thanks, Matthew! It's a great time to get back into the hobby, things have progressed so much. I'm happy to hear that you're enjoying the videos. I can assure you the talking part isn't effortless, but I'm super happy to hear that it sounds that way. :)
Check out the Fans of Victory Games Carrier FB page. The best game on Carrier warfare. Takes place in the Solomons. Tokyo Express is the surface ship version. There is talk from the Designer (Jon Southard) that these might be re-released as part of a campaign game.
I am waiting on delivery of a Kickstarter game called Winged Victory. Seems like one you might like, although you'd have to wait for it to show up on the secondary market.
Cheers for the shout out, Zilla. Am interested in the two WW1 aerial combat games. Will however wait until both hit European retailers as shipping from the US to the Netherlands is pretty expensive (about half of the price of the game).
Sure thing, Manuel. Yes, international shipping from the US is really high now. Oddly enough, it's not too bad INTO the US, but I feel for people ordering stuff to Europe from the US.
@@ZillaBlitz I follow FPG so I got direct notice of Kickstarter as it was approaching - loving Old School Tactical for its balance between play-ability, crunchiness, fog of war, etc. New subscriber here ......
Thanks for subbing, I hope you enjoy the content! AMFS will be my first FPG game and perhaps my first Civil War game (depending on whether The US Civil War arrives first).
I'm looking forward to Aces of Valor. Erik has some excellent games (Berserker Gams), and I'm very happy that he has gotten a couple published by larger companies. Thanks for you informative video.
Oh, that's good to know. I'm not familiar with his other work, pretty much has me at WW1 Solitaire Air Combat. I'm really looking forward to both of those games. :)
Thanks, Jeffery, I just took a look now and those do look quite similar, artistically. It's definitely the same map artist, for sure. Looks like some very interesting games. And I think the Gettysburg game here (A Most Fearful Sacrifice) starts shipping on our about April 11. The shipping backlog seems to be clearing. :)
Wings from Yaquinto was an awesome WWI air combat game. Bloody April from GMT is another one - part of the GMT Downtown series. Eagles in the Sky is coming from Revolution Games.
Point noted, thanks! I'm quite backed up at the moment with games to play, so I'll likely keep these in my list for the future. I want to catch up a bit first. :)
Thanks for bringing a couple of these to my attention. I will definitely pick up Most Fearful sacrifice and will take a closer look at Skies above Britain. I already am waiting for a couple of WW2 aerial combat in kickstarter. (Fighters of the Pacific and Age of Dogfights WW2). Take a look you might find them interesting as well if you do another volume. Cheers
Sure thing! I think A Most Fearful Sacrifice is fulfilling Kickstarter orders in another couple of weeks, so I'd guess that it'll be open for regular orders at some point soon after that. I'm not familiar yet with those two WW2 games, I've noted them down and will check them out, thanks! I'm thinking I'll do the 3rd one of these at the end of April. :)
Western Front Ace has been on my radar. I agree it's a somewhat underserved topic compared to some others (like sub combat ;) ). Wings of Glory is a good WWI air combat game with nice miniatures. Not terribly solo friendly though.
I'd think that the tricky part of a solitaire WWI game (and come to think of it, 2-player as well) is handling the dogfighting. Fighter ability, plane specs, human decision-making, so much going on. Designing that in a way that feels organic and unpredictable, without getting too fiddly, seems to be a fairly tall order.
Would love to own A Most Fearful Sacrifice, but just too big & don't have the capacity to play the full game. Not sure if Purple Haze is available here yet. Waiting for Tarawa which is out in the States and is due here in May. Excellent & informative as ever, great upload.
I think Purple Haze will be a while, for sure. The Gamefound thing just ended. Tarawa looks quite good, yes. I've watched a bit of some videos on that and seen some Tweets. And thank you! :)
Have many of your selection on Kickstarter myself, but am also picking up older games as well. The Battle of the five Armies from Ares has been re-released so am picking that up.
I hear ya, for sure. :) Having had a 20-year gap in wargaming has left me with new games both in front of me and behind me. It's overwhelming ... in a great way. :)
Wow, that's more pages than I've written in my entire life! Let me know if you want to try one of these sometime. The Downfall of Empires is on the (free) Vassal system, and we could give that a try 2-player if you want. :)
Yes, it's definitely got a lot of characteristics of ... standard ... board games, with a great theme. I'm curious to see how the base-building and preparation aspects work. Also, morale and fear. Lots of interesting mechanics going on here. :)
Nice video. I am a big WW1 aerial nut. My absolute favourite WW1 game is Age of Dogfights. You get loads of planes on the map at one time and it does not slow down. Another favourite is Winged Victory, mentioned by others here. ... Do you have an account on Board Game Geek I can subscribe to, as I sign-in more over there than I do at RU-vid?
I might have to check those games out, thanks! At the moment I'm looking forward to those two newer games, but yeah, I'm almost as big of a magnet for WW1 aerial games as for submarine games. :)
And whoops, yes, I have a Board Game Geek account: boardgamegeek.com/user/zillablitz I post the videos under the game name, though, so I'm not sure if the account name only will help?
I'm definitely waiting for Skies Above Britain - the video that I watched is #2 on BGG's hot videos list, for those who want to check it out. Definitely interested in the WWI flying scene - I did have a copy of an old game called Ace of Aces, which had a very innovative system where each of the 2 players had a separate book, and you each chose a manoeuvre, you were directed to a page in your book which showed the relative positions of your planes afterwards. Completely unplayable as a solitaire - and of course I lost one of the books.
I was watching a video of Ace of Aces a while ago, and thought it looked like a fascinatingly clever system. I'm surprised that one hasn't been reprinted in some format. I'll have to check out the new Skies video, too, thanks!
Do you want a cool title or two about airplane warfare in World War I ?!? Check out these: Wings of War/Wings of Glory by Andrea Angiolino (same game, different title, due to changes in the producers/printers companies) and Blue Max...
The game "Operation Theseus" by Vucasims is on my radar. It is the 3rd game in an absolutely outstanding series of high quality WWII games. The quality is elite, the system is unique, medium complexity and very interesting. Hex & counter, chit pull, large counters which are beautiful with an outstanding map. I could go on...check it out. Hearing very little about these games on You tube.....
It makes me upset to hear that in most of the games about the World War 1 the Italians and the Austro-Hungarian are not depicted at all and are not playable at all!!! And that in games about World War 2 the Italiana are always depicted badly and their armies also can do not so much or they always have the worst items and equipments: it is an exaggetation of what historically happened... But we italians had also some good piece of equipment & assets if you think about some warships or submarines or some type of planes. And we had also the Folgore paratroopers and the Xa MAS commandos and the commandos scubas that you see in the game By stealth and sea and in Beneath the Med... And the Arditi or the Alpine and the Bersaglieri troops... That in terms of guts had nothing to envy from the allied commandos or the allied troops. We lacked, unfortunately, of good training, good and reliable equipment for the basic soldiers and tanks. We had also the quarrels between the branches of the armed forces and their generals/admirals and between them and the Mussolini entourage itself, or between them and the industrial owners of the FIAT and other companies, and lacked industrialization too: think about planes such as the Aermacchi fighters and many others... They were built artigianally, more than industrially, then their numbers were lower than the output of planes made by USA or UK.
I dislike also the way that the italian SLCs device are depicted in By Stealth and Sea, where they broke every three seconds... I mean... It is an exaggeration of what happened in reality. And it doesn 't take into account that such devices where sperimental and suffered many flaws not for the facts depicted in the game but for the facts that in WW2 they were too much forward in terms of innovation, but the mechanics and the smaller mechanical parts to make them work correctly were to be developed from scratch and during a war, with lack of good materials and fair amount of them too. Then, they suffered from mechanical failures and broke alot, but not so much as shown by the game's mechanics. And not because they sucked. But because they were too much technically and technologically advanced for the time, and the mechanics of precision we have today did not exist during the WW2.
