Wargamer Weekly: A New Year, A New War By Joe Robinson

2018 has arrived, and with it, the promise of a glorious new age of wargaming. Maybe… I dunno man, I just work here. Now that we’re back in full swing though, it’s time to renew the weekly updates. There’s a lot to catch up on from the start of the year and we may not have picked up on all of it, but let’s crack on with the week’s wargaming wrap-up!

Matrix Games/Slitherine

It’s been a surprisingly active start of the year for the transdimensional wargames company, split between a couple of new announcements and a veritable horde of updates

2015’s Campaign Series: Middle-East 1948-1985 has received a massive 2.0 update which contains 50+ updates, features and tweaks. You can read the full change-log here, and you can also read our 2016 review here. The game is also 50% off until January 25th.

Matrix’s rather excellent The Operational Art of War IV has also been updated to version 4.0.1.23, with the highlights being a new scenario, fixes to the Combat Planner and easier scrolling. You can read the full change-log here.

Strategic Command WWII: War in Europe is also getting a fresh coat of pain. Version 1.11 brings with it a lot of changes, which you can check out in the mammoth change-log here.

In terms of new announcements, there’s two things that you might be interested to know:

A new game called March to Glory is coming from Shenendoah, now that they’ve finished up with Gettysburg: The Tide Turns. It puts the player through 14 of the most iconic battles in the Napoleonic Age, and features turn-based tactical combat across an uneven grid map, as well as a promotion system that’ll allow you to forge your army to your specific needs/whims.

Finally, Wars of Succession, the mysterious AGEOD game that seemed to have disappeared down beta black-hole for a while, has finally resurfaced with a release date. You’ll be able to lead Europe through the 17th Century on January 25th. You can read some hands-on impressions of the game as it was in 2016 here.

We’ll end this segment with a small spotlight – 2017 was a big year for Order of Battle, with plenty of expansions, and if this post is anything to go by they’ll be plenty more to come! A new community-related thing is going to be announce for the series next week, but for now check out this ace Unit Navigator tool that will let you browse through all of the units present in the game.

Job Alert

While this is still Matrix/Slitherine news, thought we might as well give it its own section – they’re hiring! They want an “experienced” Producer to join their team at Epsom. A long with making games or at least pretending you’re making games, you also get to hang-out with me.

This LinkedIn post has all the details, if you’re interested in a career move.

Paradox Interactive

Steel Division: Normandy ’44 was one of our highlights of last year, and it’s gotten a lot of support since launch. Word has come from the front that a new piece of DLC is on its way – Back to Hell. This premium update which will include 7 historical missions, 4 new Divisions, 58 new units and will also launch aside a free co-op missions pack. You can read more about it here, and the update will be out on February 13th, priced £11.39.

Stellaris has also formerly announced what it’s new 2.0 expansion will be called – Apocalypse. Warfare as you know it in the sci-fi 4X grand strategy game will never be the same, and neither will our sense of time and work ethic. You can read more about that here, but this week’s dev diary also looked at the new pirates and marauder system that’ll be coming as part of the expansion.

Upcoming

Battalion 1944 is due to hit Steam Early Access soon, as is Panzer Strategy. These are two games we’ve had our eye on for a while, so we’ll let you know more about them as information comes in.

A lot happened over the past couple of weeks, and we’ve probably missed a few things – seen anything else you want to share with our readers? Let us know in the comments below! This article contains coverage of games developed by members of the Slitherine Group with which we share an affiliation. For more information, please see the About Us page.