As we are nearing the Christmas season, it’s the perfect time to start considering what gifts we, strategy gamers are going to be gifting ourselves in the coming months! There’s a lot of stuff coming out, and let’s start right away by the best of the bunch!
Decisive Campaigns: Ardennes Offensive Launching This Week
The reason this Strategy and Wargaming news is arriving so late this Sunday is because of this delicious take on the Battle of the Bulge. From late Friday night until Saturday, I’ve been busy shuffling around American and British battalions trying to stop the late-war German onslaught. Intuitive controls, easily available information, and a focus on smaller operational decisions make Ardennes Offensive a joy to pick up, learn and play without the need for in-depth manual scouring and youtube tutorial surveying. The game officially launches on the 18th of November.
Combat Mission Cold War Out on Steam and Matrix Next Week
Finally, wanna-be Fulda-Gap assailants can get their hands on Combat Mission: Cold War on Steam. In the last couple of years, the developers at Battlefront have been collaborating with Matrix and Slitherine Games to bring their seminal tactical wargaming franchise to Steam. The release of their newest iteration on the pc gaming store of choice is sure to bring the series to the attention of more absent-minded wargamers. Combat Mission: Cold War is coming out on the 16th of November.
Terra Invicta Delayed
In all honesty, I don’t know what to expect from Terra Invicta. It’s made by the guys behind the Long War mod but it’s lacking the granularity of X-COM‘s tactical battles, opting instead to go full grand-strategy with space battles and I’m not sure how their pedigree translates from one approach to the next. What’s interesting are the factions players will command and the different gameplay opportunities they seem to present. Yes, be boring and go save the planet again against the alien menace. Or just live out the fantasy of being a business mogul profiting from the arrival of otherwordly creatures. That’s a promising future. Maybe you’ve got a fantasy for dominance and extraterrestrial BDSM? Enslave your people to the martian overlords. Anyway, the news bit here is that Terra Invicta is getting delayed until the second quarter of 2022 for the team to focus on fine-tunning.
Nuclear War Simulator is Scary
No idea what this is, but the fact it has a “professional edition” is enough to scare me to the core.
Armored Brigade is 40% Off
Yes, Armored Brigade is a great game in its own right but have you ever played it with the AB 1943 mod? Yup, that’s right. There’s a World War 2 mod for the absolutely incredible Armored Brigade. And slowly, AB is becoming the entry point for those desiring a grand-tactical world war 2 experience rather than a cold war scuffle. The mod is active development, with K-taco, the author of the mod saying “Campaigns and scenarios in the not-too-distant future. Working on the next faction first, about 60% done”. So, with the entire franchise 40% off right now, it’s the perfect opportunity to jump right in and start invading Germany, be it prior to the 1950s or after.
There’s got to be something Warhammer-related in these weekly updates, no matter how hard I try to get away from it. Warhammer is everywhere. Look at the trailer.
Mental Omega Is Out Now After 20 Years
I haven’t played Red Alert 2 for the better part of twenty years, to be honest, but judging from 90k views on the Mental Omega Trailer there’s still quite an active scene for it. The first game I’ve ever played on PC was the original Age of Empires II and the second was Command&Conquer Red Alert 2 and while 10 year old me actually finished the campaign, there’s no way I could imagine myself dedicating the following 20 years to this single title. Apparently, the absolute Chads behind Mental Omega disagree, so they went on to create an (o)mega campaign with over one hundred missions. The trailer is absolute gold and the amount of ridiculous “futuristic cold war” (if that makes any sense in this day and age) going on is just…*Italian chef kissing hand gestures*. There are flying saucers, ray and laser guns galore, massive land battleships, double the size of average tanks, some things that look like plasma cannons, mechs, and exoskeleton troops, just look at this description of the Colossus tank: “The Colossus is certainly one of the larger Epsilon ground units, towering over most tanks. Surprisingly mobile and well-armored, it can easily take on multiple foes with its psionic blaster cannons.”
Strategy and Wargaming 