You do know what the word "grognard" means, right?Originally Posted by Janster
You do know what the word "grognard" means, right?
There are a lot of games listed here that aren't grognard, such as Birth of America 2.....HOI2 is a lot more complicated than BOA2 so I would call it more 'grognardy'
Grognard games to me are WITP, AGW, RGW, POA2, PITS, etc.
I'm glad the grognard police showed up. This thread was getting out of hand.
After reading CSL and Xpav's aar, I'm really being tempted to pick up a good Civil War wargame. Does GG War Between the States compare to AGEOD's game? Do they have a similar focus? If so, what do you think the better game is? Those two seem to stick out the most to me right now, and I'm curious about their differences.
Great review thanks! I read this the other day on the geek and have been looking for DAK2 to pop up on ebay ever since (fat chance) :)
I love OCS, Tunisia and Burma are simply fantastic.
I keep looking at Case Blue with longing eyes but the knowledge that I will never have the time to play it :(
Never played GG War Between the States, but I'll decalre AGEODs offering superior just because I want another PBEM.
Also I can refer you and I think get you $7.50 off.
Don't horn in on my referrals!
Edit: I'm hoping to get the discount on the AGEOD games myself.
I'm sure we can get two from three AARs. It seems we already got XPav before this was mentioned.
I'd take you guys up on your referrals, but the Ageod web store price is $50 for the download, same as Matrx and GamersGate, while I can order a new copy off Amazon or pick it up in a couple of local stores (national chains) for $30. Or I could download it from GameStop's website for $40. That $7.50 doesn't make up for the price difference. :-)
As long as we can PBEM - probably not another large campaign though - I just care that you buy it.
:P
I consider Stalingrad, War in Russia and Operation Crusader to be everything grognard.
Hoi is a fabfest and a lightweight, but its sheer scope makes it appealing, if only the battle engine would give us realistic battles.
Those Battlefront games, I like Combat Mission, while Shock force is an rts that just sucks.
ASL might drown you in stats, and perhaps bad design and hopeless number crunching a groggy makes, but imho, Steel Panthers did ASL better.
Great games, all three. I still fire up WiR every once in a while.
What the heck is a "fabfest?" I like HoI2 a lot, but for the same reason I like all Paradox games - the feeling of a sort of "choose-your-own" version of history. Many of the mechanics are pretty goofy.Hoi is a fabfest and a lightweight, but its sheer scope makes it appealing, if only the battle engine would give us realistic battles.
Yeah, I honestly see little reason to play a cardboard game of WWII tactical combat - Steel Panthers and Combat Mission do it all, really.Those Battlefront games, I like Combat Mission, while Shock force is an rts that just sucks.
ASL might drown you in stats, and perhaps bad design and hopeless number crunching a groggy makes, but imho, Steel Panthers did ASL better.
Though Combat Commander looks interesting, because it's more of a game than an attempt at simulation.
damn, I heard that word being used when they made the 'Patriot' movie, when the reenactment dudes were upset over the amount of fiction put into the fights. So I heard them call it a fabfest, since I'm not a native I might have missed its meaning, sounds good tho.
Steel panthers, comes with several solid mods, and some that makes it huge in scope aswell.
Combat Commander, linkage?
Combat Commander: Europe - fast-playing, card-driven game of squad-level combat.
I dunno, though, ASL seems to be almost less of a combat sim and more of a combat RPG, except that in place of a moderator/GM, they have The Rulebook. I mean, when you've got rules for snow (falling, on the ground, deep, and drifting depending on the wind); for setting fires (with a table of your success chance depending on terrain, date, and weather) and how the fires spread; for ski troops, including carrying their skis when not in use; for horse-drawn wagons, including special gallop rules... I dunno, feels nearly RPGish to me.
(And do those computer games really go into that kind of extraneous and semi-relevant detail?)
Combat Mission is a bit more streamlined, but Steel Panthers had quite a lot of "chrome." Steel Panthers definitely has snow and its effects on combat, fires and fire spreading, and ski troops. Wagons are in the game, too, but I don't know that there's any special rules for them beyond being slower transport vehicles. It really is the closest thing to computerized ASL there has ever been.
Actually, here's a Steel Panthers war-story to demonstrate: one of the first times I played the game, I was leading an engineer company supported by some light tanks across a small river to assault a town. The bridge was too heavily defended to get across, so I sent several squads downriver where they used their inflatable rafts to cross. Half of them I send to destroy the bridge's defenders, using smoke grenades to advance under cover, and assaulting the positions with satchel charges. The other half I sent to destroy some buildings, again with satchel charges, to make a clearer path for the tanks to advance to the objective once across the river. I can't imagine the time that would have taken under ASL, but in SP it took about 15 minutes.
Add on benefits like true fog-of-war, and the WEGO system of Combat Mission, and you get something that just seems overall superior to me.
I have a warstory too, back in the days, me and my steel panther junkie friend, wanted a bit more.
So we generated 12 maps in a 4x4, with airstrips and other landscape, had each buy 3 armies for a certain amount of points, then duked it out, and you got some points depending on what you held each round, to update your army.
We had great fun a xmas doing that, Combat mission had the incredible 'campaign' modes, that enable us to fight multiple fights with the same armies over a certain amount of terrain, so it was kinda what we wanted those years earlier with our steel panthers.
Afterwards I've always longed for similar, I must admit Close Combat 2, was limited, but much fun tho, not that I ever managed to win against my friend doing germans.
Still, today, I would like to see more expanded scopes, and campaign gameplay, as a guy said, what takes 1 hour to do in ASL is done in 1-2 mins by a computer, and it makes it just more fun.
Sadly Battlefront made Shock force, and It currently works as a doorstop.
I think they offer different experiences. In theory the mechanics of Steel panthers and Squad leader for example are very similar, in practice the games play differently because of the forced slower pacing of the paper version. You feel yourself going through each factor and somehow the focus is smaller and more personal on each unit. Likewise when playing the computer version my minds focus changes to the higher time level. it just feels different but equally enjoyable.
By the way Conflict of Heroes is truly excellent as a boardgame. I just bought Combat Commander Pacific (yay Burma!) and it looks like a great system too. I am hoping to play soon.
Yea, I was going to mention that Conflict of Heroes is just all around solid.
I'm all for tight tactical settings. As some guy said in some other post here, why can't we have our grog games with awesome gfx sniff.
I mean, Company of Heroes is cool, but in the end just another stressful rts. I need time to think man.
For me, the optimal is WEGO, such a beautiful concept, the excellence of turn based fun, combined with not having to sit and wait on each others turn, it just is a marriage made in the trenches.
Shame on Battlefront...shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame.
I'm happy hearing CM2 is coming tho, since I moved into the bushy countryside of nowhere, I have no buddies to play with anymore, but tha internet may still save me.
It's hard to define the line between "grognard game" and "beer & pretzels game" (the old term for non-grognard). In general I think it has to do with how steep the learning curve is, to be honest, though the level of historical accuracy is often a factor as well. "Grognard" games usually require reading the manual a few times and then learing by doing for quite a few hours before you understand the basics of how things work.
On the other hand the opinion of what has a steep learning curve can vary. The Total War series games are arguably historical, at least in a broad sense, and can take time for a new player to really grasp. But most wargamers wouldn't consider them to be "grognard" games. At the same time they aren't "beer & pretzels" titles in the same sense the old "Clash of Steel" game was. And "Steel Panthers" did well outside of the grognards even though it's arguably as detailed a representation as the Squad Leader board games.
So who knows. I just have fun with the ones I like. :-)
Yup, and now my lack of $7.50 is going to make me walk away from my house. I even bought via digital download, paying the premium, because I didn't know any other way. Where's my bailout?
The reason I bought AACW is because the interface didn't make me vomit, like where I ended up with the last, truly new grognard game I played, which was Uncommon Valor. Uncommon Valor eventually made me mad because the Grigsbinterface was so fiddly that the people who won were usually those who fiddled with the interface the most. While AACW has a lot of information, the interface of the buttons you push is really all in one small group that's relatively easy to figure out with really good feedback. The fact that drag-and-drop works also makes me happy, because I get a perverse amount of joy out of arranging regiments in divisions.
Last edited by XPav; 01-31-2009 at 03:03 PM.
Yeah, Conflict of Heroes is easily my favorite squad combat board game right now, though CC:E is pretty close.
Steel Panthers would be a lot more awesome if I could actually parse the combat results individually rather than having them automatically go by at a predetermined rate (and see past results, etc.). Still a great game though, this thread is reminding me I've never set it up on this machine...
Two excellent games, and different enough to make them both worth owning / playing.
Funny how things are so different for different players. I love Uncommon Valor, think the interface is very easy, while I cant stand the AGEOD games, none of them...I've tried them and I just cant get into how they work or look.
Are there any good strategic or operational level pc games based on the North African campaigns? I'm not finding much.
You can always get TOAW3, which has plenty of North African campaigns, but it's kind of generic.
I'm actually reinstalling that at the moment. I just hate hate HATE the interface. Those buttons on the right side are a nightmare.
I would be interested in this as well.
Battlefront has Gazala in it, havent played it though....
http://www.matrixgames.com/products/...ls/Battlefront
Oh, wow. Some graphics mods improved TOAW3 to a point where I can bear to look at it. Campaign for North Africa 40-43 is mine now!
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