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Posted on Dec 3, 2006 in Games PR

PR: Lock ‘n Load Publishing Signs Brian Train

Armchair General

Lock ‘n Load Publishing Signs Brian Train to Growing Stable of Designers

Henry, VA, November 17, 2006 – Lock ‘n Load Publishing, the sole publisher of Lock ‘n Load board games, announced today that Brian Train, designer of over twenty published games, will join a growing stable of war game design talent that includes award-winners Richard Berg and Paul Rohrbaugh.

Entitled Balkan Gambit, Train’s design uses a combination of formation activation and diceless, matrix-based combat systems to simulate “the Allied invasions of the Balkans that weren’t”. One of the great what-ifs of World War 2 in the Mediterranean theatre, at least to Hitler and the German High Command, was the possibility of an Allied invasion of Greece and/or Yugoslavia. In history, the Allies did nothing of the kind until Operation MANNA, the liberation of Greece in late 1944 after the German garrison had already withdrawn into Yugoslavia. But the Allies knew the Germans perceived such invasions as a credible threat and created several strategic deception plans, leading the Germans to move or keep critical troop formations in northern Italy and the Balkans when they would have been much more useful somewhere else.

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The game comes with four scenarios:

Operation BOARDMAN: In summer 1943, the British 8th Army is sent to liberate Greece and Crete. This was a deception to cover Operations HUSKY and AVALANCHE, the historical invasions of Sicily and Salerno.

Operation ZEPPELIN: In summer 1944, the notional British 12th Army attacks Greece and Albania while the US 7th Army attacks in Dalmatia, in concert with Soviet amphibious operations against the coast of Rumania and Bulgaria. This plan was part of Operation BODYGUARD, the overall deception plan to disguise Operations OVERLORD and ANVIL (the invasions of northern and southern France).

Operation GELIGNITE: Actual plans were drawn up to send the British 8th Army across the Adriatic in late 1944 or early 1945 to cut off the final retreat of German Army Group F and forestall any further Soviet advances towards northern Italy. The plan was shelved due to shortages of troops and landing craft.

Operation SLIVA (PLUM): Between 1948 and 1955, the possibility of a Soviet invasion to bring Yugoslavia back into the Soviet orbit remained the largest factor in Yugoslavia’s perception of external threat. This hypothetical scenario frames such an invasion as an intervention in support of pro-Soviet Yugoslavs, in the name of “fraternal assistance”.

The game will be available for pre-order before Christmas at www.locknloadgame.com .

“I really enjoy Brian’s designs” says Mark H. Walker, founder of Lock ‘n Load Publishing. “I’ve worn my copies of Algeria: The War of Independence, 1954-1962 and Operation Whirlwind out.”

Since opening their doors in September of 2006, sales for Lock ‘n Load Publishing’s discounted Band of Heroes (49.99 for a limited time), and pre-orders for the company’s P-500 games have been stunning. The first three Lock ‘n Load Publishing titles —Lock ‘n Load: The Swift and Bold, which features the British Paratroopers in Europe (circa 1944), Lock ‘n Load: A Day of Heroes, a simulation of the Ranger and Delta Team battle in Mogadishu in October of 1993, and World at War, an entirely new, platoon level Mark H. Walker design, which depicts the Third World War in August of 1985, are scheduled to go into production in winter of 2006.

The first computer game based on Mark H. Walker’s Lock ‘n Load franchise, Lock ‘n Load: Heroes of Stalingrad, will release in Q2 of 2007.