Wargamer Weekly - Dakka Dakka By Joe Robinson

The thing I struggle most when writing this column is that I'm perpetually paranoid that I've forgotten something. It's like going on holiday - what did you leave at home this time? Case in point: I had to go back and add extra items to today's write-up, as I noticed new stories had dropped when I did the final 'Have I Missed Anything?' sweep. TWICE. Speaking of holidays - I've got a couple of Fridays off coming up as well as a longer break starting the second week of September.

After that I promise to stop going on holiday and ruining your schedules. As always, if you feel like I have missed something out, don't hesitate to just drop me a line.

Meanwhile, in the world of wargaming...

Slitherine/Matrix GamesCom 2019 Briefing

To our shame we weren’t able to drop-by and see Slitherine at GamesCom, but we caught up with them this week to get a run down of what they were talking about at the show:

Panzer Corps 2 is looking like it won’t be released until early 2020. As far as we understand it’s pretty much feature complete, the team is just in the final polishing stages, so we’d probably put money on perhaps a January release if not before Christmas.

The game’s main campaign covers the entire war from Germany’s perspective, 1939 - 1945, and even has some branching story lines and ‘what if’ outcomes where Germany does better than they historically did. We also got some shiny new screenshots.

Close Combat: The Bloody First on the other hand is definitely going to be out before Christmas. We were given some rough windows but I don’t want to get anyone too excited. Before December is likely though. There’s not must more to report on that over what we’ve written about previously. Again, some new shots showing off different parts of the game. I think we mentioned this last time we wrote about it, but using cell-shading to silhouette the units definitely addresses one of the earlier concerns I had about the game when I played it.

Other than that, the rest of it was mainly due to with things like Fantasy General II, which is due out next week anyway (our review is in progress) and their sci-fi 4X strategy game Astra Exodus, which isn't due out until 2020 either and something our sister website will likely cover.

Hearts of Iron IV Resumes Dev Diaries

You can tell Summer is here, not because of the sweaty, oppressive heat beating down on your back, but because Paradox Interactive stop doing dev diaries for like a couple of months. We’ve been without Hearts of Iron 4 updates for what seems like forever, but the team is back now and have let us know what their plans our.

This week’s diary focuses on the changes coming to France’s Focus Tree. The dev team conceded that France is not the nation most in need of a FT re-work, but it’s on that fits into the plans for the upcoming new expansion more easily. Our predictions of a France/USSR combo expansion have probably been dashed, as other rumours suggestion the USSR is getting its own expansion (and FT rework, we imagine).

Still, any news is good news and we’re excited to see where Hearts of Iron 4 is going from here post-Man The Guns. We’re expecting to get some news at PDXCon in October, if not before.

General Staff is making Progress

Dr. Sidran’s ambitious General Staff wargaming project has been slowly working its way up to player testing, and it looks like we may be seeing something concrete within the next couple of months. In a blog post that dropped at the end of last week, he talked about how the specific challenges of creating the AI slowed the project down a bit, but it looks like everything is now in order.

If you go to the last paragraph you’ll see what we mean. The game currently sports nine battlefield maps and 15 armies, and Sidran has now started getting his Steam Store registration underway. His aim is to use Valve’s platform for PvP testing, which he anticipates will start in about sixty days.

Panzer Campaigns Japan ‘45 Version 1.01

Wargame Design Studio have released the first main patch for Japan ‘45, which released a couple of months ago. It makes several tweaks to how the AI handles the scenario, as well as Order of Battle Changes for the US and the Japanese. You can read the full change-log here.

The free Panzer Battles Demo has also been upgraded to Version 1.01.

Second Front

Not much to report on here but the developer got in touch asking me to throw them a quick mention. Second Front is a hex-based, turn-based tactical WW2 game that seems to be at the squad level. It’s currently in development.

There’s a YouTube channel with a lot of different preview videos you can check out, and a fairly active discussion over on Grogheads, if you’re interested.

Armoured Commander II

Just a quick note to say that AC2 got a new dev build earlier in the week, and just this morning now has a new Release Candidate for Alpha 7. A lot of bug fixes apparently but Rev has stopped posting change-logs so we don’t know what they are.

Aeronautica Imperialis Pricing

Our token but of Table-Top news today looks once again at Games Workshop’s upcoming aerial combat/dogfighting game, Aeronautica Imperialis, set in the planetary skies of the Warhammer 40K universe. Our friends over at Bell of Lost Souls have released a break-down of the specific kit options and their prices for this new product line.

Aeronautica Imperialis: Wings of Vengeance looks to be the base set you can buy that comes with two factions and some miniatures, as well as the core rulebook and all the other bits you need to play a basic game. It’ll be priced at $90. There is also the Aeronautica Imperialis: Rynn’s World Air War Campaign Book is exactly what it sounds like, and will be priced at $35. As for the rest:

Imperial Navy Additional Model Kits:

IN Marauder Destroyers ($40)



IN Thunderbolt Fighter ($40)



IN Marauder Bombers ($40)

Ork Air Waaagh! Additional Model Kits:

Dakkajet ($40)



Fighta Commas ($40)

Accessories:

Aircraft & Aces Imperial Navy Cards ($27)



Aircraft & Aces Ork Air Waaagh! Cards ($27)



Themed Dice Sets ($17 Each)



Rynn’s World 90cm x 90cm Play Mat/Board ($42)



Ground Assets & Objectives Set ($40)

For our part, Charles is expected to be getting his hands on some kit ahead of the general release on September 7th, so we’re looking to have a review or at least a feature looking into this new game sometime around the w/c September 10th. Pre-orders state this weekend.

That’s all we have time for today - let us know if you spot anything else, otherwise have a great weekend!