Wargamer Weekly The Waves By Joe Robinson

After binging a bit too much Hearts of Iron 4 last week, I decided to take a break and go back to Afghanistan '11 to give the new Royal Marines DLC features a go. I dabbled in it when it first came out last year but I only tried the new narrative missions, which disappointingly don't actually make use of the new content (other than the Royal Marines faction itself).

I don't remember feeling so pressured when I last played A11, which is good I guess - it's certainly a unique war game. A shame that Every Single Soldier doesn't seem to be working on it much anymore.

I imagine I'll return to HoI4 soon however, as we've got a 'best mods' guide in the works and I'm eager to try a few of them out, once I know which are the good ones and when everyone updates their mods.

Meanwhile, in the world of wargaming...

Rule the Waves 2 Release Date

Rule the Waves 2, the sequel to one of our favourite naval war games, now as a solid release date. You’ll be able to spend exactly $34.99 on April 25th, which we understand is the same price the original Rule the Waves game launched for in 2015. Anyone who’s bought the first game prior to release date will be able to purchase the sequel for a $5 discount.

You can check out the late Jim Cobb’s thoughts on the original Rule the Waves in his review – the sequel promises more of the same, with an extended timeline and some extra features/bells & whistles.

Axis & Allies Online

You may remember us reporting that Beamdog, a developer known for making tactical RPGs, is now making a digital adaptation of iconic WW2 table-top war game Axis & Allies. Titled Axis & Allies Online, it now has a live Steam page and some early screenshots, if you want to have a browse.

The map is a perfect recreation of the 1942 2E map (although looking at it, I’m not so sure that’s a good thing-ED), with some digitised bells & whistles, and everything seems to be in place regarding the game pieces and gameplay mechanics.

Steel Division II Beta

So there’s good news, and bad news – the good news is, we now have a date the first pre-order beta session for Steel Division 2. It will include single-player and multiplayer content, as well as two divisions, and it launches on March 27th.

It will last 48 hours, and there will be additional 48 hour session in the weeks after at. Whether or not they will open the beta up to non-pre-orders remains to be seen. The bad news Is that now the game’s release date has been pushed back to May 2nd. It’s only about a month’s difference, and hopefully they’ll use the time wisely.

As an additional spot of good news, Eugen have also released the first gameplay video. Check out some skirmish action below.

New Clad in Irons content

We missed this when it was originally announced last month, but Totem are working on an Add-on for Clad in Irons: Philippines 1898 titled ‘Carolines 1885’. It’s an alternative history scenario involving the German Empire and the Spanish squaring off over the Caroline Islands in the Pacific, which historically was disputed between Germany, the UK and Spain, although the islands were eventually sold to Germany just before the turn of the century.

The add-on’s first dev diary talks about Spanish warships and shares some design concepts they have, so there’s not a lot more to know at this point.

JTS Bonanza

Wargame Design Studios seem to have been really busy recently, releasing updates for a bunch of Civil Wars Battles games. That means 12 out of the thirteen Civil Wars Battles titles currently in existence have been remastered, with only Campaign Overland left to go. The six most recent releases were:

Campaign Atlanta

Campaign Chickamauga

Campaign Corinth

Campaign Ozark

Campaign Shiloh

Campaign Vicksburg

The remaster for these (and the other) games is pretty extensive, so instead of listing it all out here we recommended you check out WDS’s official blog post on the subject. You can purchase the CWB games here.

In addition, a new Napoleonic Battles entry has been released in the form of Campaign Eylau-Friedland. Set in 1806 it covers the battles fought in Poland in the Winter of 06/07, where Napoleon faced off against the Russians and the Prussians. It features four campaigns, twenty two battles and over 200 scenarios. You can read more about it here.

That's all for this week - enjoy your weekends and let us know what you get up to!