Wargamer Weekly: The Endsieg Times By Joe Robinson

It feels like it’s been a while since we’ve had one of these – they’ve definitely been a bit less consistent. As we approach the end of the year I realised I had more holiday left than I knew what to do with, so I’ve been taking some Fridays off (with two more to come). I don’t always plan to have this weekly update ready ahead of time, as sometimes I opt to just have a singular bit of news instead to tide everyone over.

Amway, I’m here today, so let’s have a look and see what’s been going on lately. As far as the site goes, it’s been a mixed week:

Men of War: Assault Squad 2 had a surprise DLC drop, and Bill walked us through the pros and cons of converting your 15/18 mm miniatures down to 10 mm. We also published a list of the best war games covering modern warfare, Cold War, and WW3 scenarios.

Meanwhile, in the world of wargaming…

Carrier Battles Heads to Desktop

Do you remember Carrier Battles 4 Guadalcanal? It was originally released on iPad in 2016, and earlier this year an iPhone version was also released. We've mentioned it a couple of times, but Ben Moores reviewed it for the group as a whole over on Pocket Tactics.

Well, now the developer has launched a Kickstarter to not only bring the game to PC/Desktop, but to Android as well. The PC version specifically is going to have a new interface, a redesigned map and improved AI, along with new scenario content. We imagine the Android version is going to be more of a port than a 'new' version, but we'll see. As Kickstarter pages go, this is certainly one of the better presented, and it contains all the information you could need to make an informed choice regarding whether to back or not. Let us know if you do!

At the time of publication, they'd raised about £1,500 out of a goal of £17,500, with 35 days to go.

Order of Battle: Endsieg Announced

Matrix Games have announced the final entry in their “krieg” trilogy of expansions for Order of Battle. This latest expansion will the biggest and longest they’ve done to date, with 16 unique scenarios that are part of a branching campaign tree, an example of which you can see here.

Covering the final years of the war, Order of Battle: Endsieg offers powerful weapons such as Tiger II heavy tanks, Jagdpanther tank destroyers and Me-262 jetfighters as well as several new specializations. But beware, the enemy has brought many deadly new weapons of their own!

Endsieg’s campaign starts in 1943 during the 1st Soviet offensive in the Donbass, through to the 1944 Leningrad-Novgorod offensive. If you lose, the action will also shift to the Battle of Anzio in Italy. The second part of the campaign sees the player transferred to the Western Front as they try and hold back the allies pouring off the beaches after Normandy.

Unity of Command 2 Dev Diary 18

The latest dev diary for this highly anticipated game (which we’re unlikely to see this year, my gut tells me) dropped on Halloween. It covers a range of updates, none of which really tie together in a singular theme, but it’s good to see things coming along. The screens, as always, look gorgeous. Here’s a summary:

“History Mode” for finished games. Allows you to look at the complete picture for replays.

Road & Rail movement buffs implemented.

A ‘turn 0’ deployment phases which allows you to purchase reinforcements.

IN-game messages to keep you up to date with game events, as well as tracking HQ xp and upgrades.

Modding has been tested, with an example given as replacing the unit icons with NATO counters.

It’s all looking rather exciting it has to be said.

Is Combat Mission: Shock Force 2 Out Yet?

No, but I think they’re coming to realise that they can’t hunt down everything that’s not working with the game on their own:

At some point we're just going to have to live with a release that has the potential for minor glitches like this then release a patch. It's either that or keep this thing in the oven at the 99% complete stage for a while longer. I don't think anybody wants that, so we're going to get this thing wrapped up very soon.

Welcome to game development, gentleman. Glad you could join us.

And now for something completely different…

Stumbled across this the other week – The War Blog seems to be a sight where you can purchase print-and-play hex wargames that cover varying scenarios, from modern day conflicts to historical clashes. These scenarios can also be played online, and there’s a subscription fee that gives you unlimited access.

They’ve got a Patreon you can check out, otherwise the official website is here.

That’s all for this week’s update. Hope you have a good weekend!