Wargamer Weekly: Real Politics By Joe Robinson

It’s been another good week here at Wargamer HQ - I've really been pleased with the range of articles we've had go up on the site. I hope you've enjoyed reading them as well. As we approach the end of of the month you should see output here increase, although there will be a lot of experimentation. I want to write up more news as it happens, but that'll mean they'll be less of it for these weekly articles.

This then means the format of the weekly article might have change, but I've got ideas I want to play around with. Header image is Realpolitiks 2.

Meanwhile, in the world of wargaming...

Matrix Games/Slitherine

Nothing majorly exciting from the publisher this week, although they have announced they’re offering a free upgrade to the physical edition of Panzer Corps 2 for one week after launch, provided you bought the game via the Slitherine Store. All you’ll need to pay is postage.

Task Force Admiral Development Update

The February 2020 dev update for Task Force Admiral has landed. Once again, they talk about a wide range of things, most of which seem to be surrounding the visuals but there’s a section about the actual ‘war game’ part as well, which is good to see.

Burden of Command Development Update

Almost didn’t spot this, but it seems we’ve finally got something substantial to report on regarding Burden of Command. This week has seen a couple of videos go live on their YouTube channel, one looking at different art things they’ve finished, but more crucially the second video talks about various milestones for 2020. Allegedly, the war will be over by Christmas.

Rule the Waves 2 Patch 1.18

I was thinking a lot about Rule the Waves 2 when I was writing up my Aurora piece yesterday. They’re not really the same game, although they seem to possess a similar focus for long-term planning. Also, they share the more spreadsheet-like design philosophy.

The 20th Century naval war game has just been updated to Patch 1.18. This is a smaller update, so there’s not a huge amount that’s new, although you can now choose to continue searching for enemy fleets after a period of no contact, if you want to.

Steel Division 2: Fate of Finland

We totally missed the fact that Steel Division 2’s newest expansion pack was released this week. Usually we get told about these things because someone’s offering review code, but that didn’t happen this time. Regardless, Charles is on the case and we’ll bring you back our thoughts as soon as possible.

As well as the new DLC, which deals with the Finnish front in 1944, a number of free features have also been introduced. There’s an Auto-Deployment feature, as well as an expanded Rules of Engagement feature that will let you set default behaviors for units.

Realpolitiks 2 Announced

This is a more ‘serious’ grand strategy political sim, so we thought we’d drop a brief mention here. The original Realpolitiks was released in 2017, but it’s not got great steam reviews. Still, it seems like an interesting enough sandbox with which to live out your modern-era power fantasies and the sequel looks like it’s doubling down on all of that. Let's hope it can do a better job.

You can read more about this game over on our sister website, Strategy Gamer, where the news first broke.

One Page Rules 3D Print Models

The chaps over at OPR reached out to us regarding some news they have - they’re releasing some new 3D printable models! For Tier 3 Patreons, you can download an exclusive Battle Sisters Champion model, shown here:

This will be exclusive to Patreon subscribers until the end of the month. After that, it will be available via OPR’s CGT Trader page for a higher price than what it would cost to subscribe to Patreon. They’ve also just re-released all of their previous Battle Brothers designs for free as well via the same store.

In other news, they’re releasing a new version of their Campaign rules, which have been adapted to work with Grimdark Future and Age of Fantasy, as well as each setting’s skirmish variants. The full change-log is available on the same announcement post.

Other War Game Releases

That's all we have for today - enjoy your weekends!