Home of Wargames Live NEW GAMES!

Slitherine just finished with their Home of Wargames Live Event and there was quite a bit of new stuff to take in. From interviews to game previews, the talk was very professional and very interesting. The future of digital wargames looks bright. Here are our favourite announcements!

Warhammer 40k Battlesector

I’ve personally had a lot of fun with both previews of 40k Battlesector, but the trailer showed some stuff off that I haven’t had a chance to interact with yet. The army building and upgrading gives it a bit of a tabletop vibe, but the gameplay is still very computer wargame feeling, which isn’t a bad thing. Dealing with proper Line of Sight, optimal weapon ranges, and the relentlessly attacking AI is definitely fun, but feels more like a PC wargame than the tabletop. There is a cool photo mode to get some great screenshots to show off. It’s been a lot of fun to play the previews, and our full preview will be coming soon!

Combat Mission Cold War

Bil Hardenberger from Battlefront emphasized the sandbox nature of Cold War, with several years and therefore different styles of warfare to implement in scenarios. They’ve also included a wide variety of equipment for the different factions and terrain types. Also, cluster munitions for the first time (oh my!) I can’t wait to get my hands on it!

Distant Worlds 2

The supposed Stellaris Killer! No release date yet, but apparently it’s coming along. It was great to see the game in action for the first time. The graphics are looking great and it’s nice to see the full zoom from galaxy to home world and back. The ship design screen looks expansive. Like I could get lost building ships for hours. Same for the research and technology tree. There is just so much there. Clone troopers? Yes please. The preview dealt with some pirate problems, and it sounds like the diplomacy and military systems are pretty involved. When the devs talked through an invasion of an independent world, I thought it might really do what I want a game like this to do. I really hope Distant Worlds 2 lives up, because I’m hankering for a new deep space game. Also, giant space spiders!

Starship Troopers Live Gameplay

We finally get to know more! Mostly Single Player focused RTS game controlling the Terran Army and attempting to not get your guys ruined by tons of bugs. This is a game based on the movie license, but looks like its trying to keep the film’s tongue in cheek anti-militarism and over the top violence. Check out my first preview/rant about the different versions of Starship Troopers. There is some emphasis on pushing outwards to capture radio towers, which give you resources .It’s looking like a fun defensive focused RTS, but it’s also clear that the game is far from finished at this point.

Valor & Victory

This is my favourite tabletop squad level game, and I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on a proper digital version. It’s a great system and it looks like there is a lot of scenarios and the possibility to make new scenarios after launch. From the talk given by Lance Craner, V&V is almost ready with just some AI tweaks and writing to handle.

WEGO World War II: Stalingrad

A Wego hex based wargame covering the battles around Stalingrad. This looks really interesting to me. Orders are given by both sides and then executed at the same time. I can’t wait to see how this works out with multiplayer. If it does what I think it should, I can see this really taking off as a new way of playing hex wargames.

Campaign Series Vietnam

Oh I’ve been waiting for this for so long. It looks like the wait has been worth it. The Campaign Series has a lot of depth to it, and it looks like they aren’t skipping on the amount of content that is going to be present in this one. The inclusion of the French-Indochina war period is especially welcome.

-Rapid Fire New Games!-

Master of Magic

Master of Magic is a reboot of a classic 4x fantasy game helmed by the developers of Thea the Awakening, Muha Games. Master of Magic has its own well developed fantasy world to draw from. Players take on the roll of a wizard battling to become the best wizard of them all. The development team has some experience doing this kind of game, so I’m glad it’s in their hands. There is city management, army composition, and most importantly, massive world altering spells. There are five schools of magic, and depending on how many books a wizard has in a school, more or less spells are available. There should be some fun spell manipulation. It’s currently in early alpha, but looks like a promising reboot of an old classic!

Scramble: Battle of Britain

Scramble is a WEGO dogfighting wargame that pits squadrons of WWII aircraft against each other in an innovative system. Players issue orders, then play out in real time, and at the very end they get to see the entire dogfight play back in its entirety. That sounds like a great feature to me, and the 3D art and design is beautiful. Players get a set amount of time per aircraft to individually deal with its flight path, its pitch, roll, and all that while planning for future combat. With a multiplayer feature allowing for split control of different squadrons, I’m looking forward to this as a great multiplayer game. There are also campaigns, and squadron management, aircraft customization, and a lot of other upcoming features like gamepad support. But the focus is on match play with other humans. Really one to keep an eye on.

Broken Arrow

Wow this looks good. From a new team headed by a veteran of Eugen of Wargame/Steel Division fame, this looks like an interesting new bit of competition in the real time modern war wargame space. They say they’re trying to find the sweet spot between action and realism, and I really hope they get there. The visuals are amazing at this point. This is a combined arms game with a lot of detail, including unit customization. There are shore landings, air insertion of men and vehicles, and even tactical nukes.

Stargate Time Keepers!

-Joe Fonseca