The Sharp End Gaming

I call this “ The agony of the 29th Panzergrenadier division .” I have often said to myself that if I ever come into money, I am going to try to buy the rights to the Command Ops game engine from its current owner. This is the only wargame I have ever said this about until now, please add  Piercing Fortress Europa  to that exclusive list. This is a sneaky good game which is currently on sale for $9.60 (regular price is $39.99.  You can purchase it here . I actually purchased it for around $6 after I leveraged my 6 year Matrix anniversary coupon and their Christmas sale. I also purchased AGEOD’s “To End All Wars” WWI strategy game and it’s DLC for $9+ (Christmas sale + discount coupon!). Back to PFE, in 2014 when the game came out,  Patrick Baker the  Armchair General  reviewer had this to say (emphasis mine) : Bottom Line Ultimately, although  Piercing Fortress Europa  is a niche game, it is a very good one. Gamers interested in explorin...

John Tiller's campaign series game for $9.99 at  Matrix Games Ltd.  is a steal. There are so many great scenarios. I have been playing a Fastov scenario this morning detailing the 25th Panzer Division probe into a Soviet armor formation in 1943. If my memory is correct, the division commander is killed and the reconnaissance battalion is wiped out. The Campaign Series game lays this meeting engagement out on a beautiful map with the full OOB (over 300 unit counters are present). I have considered setting up this battle before for Panzer Battles and Command Ops, so to find it in this title's scenario list this morning was very exciting! This is a zoomed out view of the northern portion of the Fastov map in the map editor. Each hex is 250 meters. In the image below, 25th Panzer is probing north towards Fastov along both sides of the Unava river. The scenario designer set a minor victory at 600 objective points and a major victory at 1200 points. You can technically achiev...

Danish Volunteers of Regiment 24 "Danmark" outside of Narva, Estonia 1944. Scenario Description: Siivertsi, Estonia 06:00 Hrs, February 13, 1944: Overnight, Soviet forces from the 2nd Shock Army have taken advantage of the frozen Narva river to establish a bridgehead opposite the village of Siivertsi on the western bank. The German defense along the river and at the northernmost end of the Narva bridgehead has collapsed. Pioneer Abt. 54 has fallen back behind the Narva defensive line but is only supported by 16 Company Norge Regiment of the 11th Panzergrenadier Nordland Division. A reinforced battalion, Kampgruppe Krugel, is racing north along the river road to crush the bridgehead before Soviet forces can consolidate it. Note about sourcing:  I've used a variety of online sources for this battle.  The participants vary depending on who you read.  I've relied primarily on the Axis History Forum for a description of Kampfgruppe Krugel and their role in briefly ...

American forces make contact at Villers-Bocage. Here are Five Suggestions For Firefight: 1.  Levels of difficulty: I have my hands full with the game’s AI right now, but it would be great to have a higher level of difficulty. 2. A way to access your OOB for a particular scenario.  For one scenario, I didn’t know I had armor coming until they showed up. 3. Multiplayer – As the Dad of two young kids, I don’t have much time to game online so I tend to gravitate towards titles with a low barrier to starting.  Firefight is the perfect fit right now for tactical gaming.  It would definitely have a longer shelf life for me if it had multiplayer. 4. A scenario editor or better yet a comprehensive map editor.  The ability to create scenarios would take some pressure off the game’s designer and would allow him to devote more time towards improving the gameplay. 5. A simple manual.  I think adding a manual to the Steam page would increase sales. I kn...

This @#$% just got real. My probe to the canal has run into at least a platoon of Panzergrenadiers. One of them has a MG that cut one of my squads in half.  I lost three men about five seconds into this scenario.  The MG squad is about to get 3 rounds of HE called down on it. Thanks to JC's post on Real and Simulated Wars this week about this $9.99 Close Combat clone called "Firefight," I dove in and purchased the game. This game has a total of 9 maps with eight scenarios per map.  The scenarios are all from the Western Front and they begin right before the fall of France in May 1940 and go through 1944.  If there is a 1945 scenario I've missed it.  The armies included are the British, Americans, French and Germans.  You apparently only play as the attacker which is fine by me.  I avoid playing tactical games where I feel like I am a Spartan at Thermopylae (unless it is a Stalingrad game).