Wargamer Weekly: The Calm before the Storm By Joe Robinson

The thing I like most about my job is not necessarily all the games I get to play (usually for free), but rather the articles that I get to see go live. It’s not even articles I write myself – I’ve got plenty of excellent wordsmiths on the team now, and some of them come up with some really great stuff that’s honestly a joy to read.

Next week should be a good one – we’ve got a really in-depth guide to waging war in Imperator: Rome, and Jack’s got some UBoat impressions to share with us as well. That’s not to mention reviews and news we’ve got in the pipeline as well. Honestly, I’m at a point where I have nearly too much content, but that’s a fantastic place to be in.

Meanwhile, in the world of wargaming…

Rule the Waves 2 Out Now/Soon/Now

Rule the Waves 2 is still scheduled to release sometime today. Latest intel is that it is dependant on the new storefront that NWS have also been developing. Provided that all goes live without a hitch, we imagine you can start purchasing the grand-strategy naval war game sequel later today. If not, things will be delayed into Saturday.

Our review will be going live as soon as we can get it done – NWS have said they’ll send us out code once the game is live so it’s likely to be a couple of weeks before we can bring our own thoughts to the table. In the meantime though, there is a free demo that’s been available since the start of the week if anyone wants to give it a try.

Armored Brigade

A new minor update has been released for Armored Brigade, fixing a few things from the newly added nations as well as adding in two new scenarios that use those new factions. Here’s the changelog:

Fix: The Italian 75mm and 80mm recoilless rifles had misnamed sprite resources.

[database] AT rifle grenades 'maxTargetSpeed' increased from 7m/s to 50m/s.

[database] Italian MMG teams changed from 7.92mm to 7.62mm.

[scenarios] Add two new DLC scenarios: 'In the Shadows of the Alps' and 'Crossing the Torre Line'.

[ui] Increase the terrain info pop-up default delay to 1500 milliseconds.

John's finished our review of the DLC pack, which will be published on Monday.

Hearts of Iron 4

Dev Diaries have resumed for Hearts of Iron 4 with more information as to what’s coming on the horizon. The next patch – 1.7 ‘Hydra’ – is going to be focusing on how Fronts work, and also looking at rebalancing the Germany vs. USSR set-up.

It’s an interesting read, although the dev’s desire to make it so that Germany wins by 1945 without allied intervention has caused some stir. Accusations of ‘ahistorical’ are flying all over the place, but to be honest history, especially the military history of a global conflict, is complicated. Things panned out the way they did, because they did, and it’s hard completely dismiss the Allied presence as it relates to the Eastern Front.

Regardless of the truth of the matter, there’s actually no point in designing a scenario in a WW2 (Germany vs. USSR) that completely ignores the Allies. It could lead to a scenario where the Allies don’t have to do anything, and Germany still loses, or worse, the Allies don’t do anything and Germany wins, thus making them impossible to take-down. Either way there’s severely reduced agency for anyone playing an Allied power.

Panzer Campaigns Gold

Wargame Design Studio have finished the final three Gold updates to the few remaining Panzer Campaigns games. Tobruk ’41, El Alamein ’42 and Tunisia ’43 have round off the last of the Mediterranean theatre games, meaning that all 22 games in JTS’ iconic series have been given the Gold treatment.

We’ve got the Colonel working on a review of El Alamein for next week, and we’ll try and do articles on the others as and when I find writers who are interested in covering them. In the meantime, Wargame Design Studio are free to start pursuing their own projects again.

That's all we've got for you this week. As always, if you spot anything else let us know in the comments!