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Posted on Apr 14, 2020 in Boardgames, Front Page Features

Your Own Private Cold War. High Flying Dice Games ‘Cold Confusion: The Soviet Raid on Iceland 1985’. Tabletop Game Review.

Your Own Private Cold War. High Flying Dice Games ‘Cold Confusion: The Soviet Raid on Iceland 1985’. Tabletop Game Review.

Cold Confusion: The Soviet Raid on Iceland 1985. Publisher: High Flying Dice Games.  Designers: Paul Rohrbaugh.  Price $14.95-$28.95 (depending on options – zip lock or box, mounted counters, etc.) Passed inspection: Small, fast playing game of the Soviet raid on Iceland. Good replay value with variable reinforcements and set up. Card deck provides for a good fog of war. Failed basic: Unpredictable length of the game turn can be aggravating as players are constrained by the random appearance of the turn end cards. Personnel carriers are fire support vehicles and not used for carrying personnel. The first mention I can remember of Soviet troops invading Iceland was Tom Clancy’s novel ‘Red Storm Rising’. If the book did one thing, it was elevating the strategic importance of Iceland in the minds of thousands of readers. The novel delves into the invasion, occupation and eventual (spoiler alert) liberation of the island as one thread within the larger story of a ‘cold war gone hot’. Games focused on the invasion of Iceland...

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Posted on Jan 3, 2020 in Boardgames, Front Page Features

It’s a Red Storm on The Rise with Compass Games ‘Blue Water Navy’. Board Game Review.

It’s a Red Storm on The Rise with Compass Games ‘Blue Water Navy’. Board Game Review.

Blue Water Navy. Publisher: Compass Games. Game Designer: Stuart Tonge and James Derek Harris. Price: $109.00 Passed inspection: Provides a strategic overview of World War Three at sea, while retaining enough tactical detail of engagements to allow you to envision how the events unfold. The game does a good job of integrating all the aspects of naval warfare in a package that rewards coordinating attacks to maximize your strengths while minimizing your weaknesses.  Failed basic: Rulebook could be better organized for clarity. A table of contents and index would have been helpful. Including rule number references on the player aid charts would simplify looking up rules. You’ll need to be incorporate the errata into the rules and scenario book.   In 1979, General Sir John Hackett’s book ‘The Third World War’ laid out one possible scenario for what a war in Europe between NATO and the Soviet Union might look like. While written as a backwards looking retrospective of fictional events, it was a sobering look at the state...

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