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APRIL 14, 2008 It is time for another update of the site with what everyone likes best: Free content. This time there are two new articles on classic games. One is a look at a game in which economic development is key and conflict to be avoided, Tropico. This game takes a rather tongue-in-cheek look at Latin American and Caribbean political stereotypes, but can be quite a challenge, and provides more addiction value as most proper wargames. Read about it here, or from the articles page. The other is a review of Matrix Games' recent retooling of Harpoon Classic, in the form of Larry Bond's Harpoon - Commander's Edition. As a fan of the series from the very beginning, this was a mandatory article for me, and especially since I reviewed the Matrix edition of Harpoon 3: Advanced Naval Warfare last year. You can find the new article on Harpoon - Commander's Edition by clicking here, and for comparison the project on Harpoon 3 here. MARCH 5, 2008 I'd like to thank John Kranz for starting the ConsimWorld Social Networking site. I joined right away, and you can find my personal page here. Plus, I started a group centered around Line of Departure, plus the games I design, develop and publish. And by Line of Departure, I mean Line of Departure/The Wargamer too. Click here to join. This promises to be another important part of the Line of Departure multiverse, with exclusive features. The first one is a blog, starting with comments on the legacy of the late Gary Gygax. There will be more. FEBRUARY 16, 2008 It is time, in fact a little past time, for a new issue of the Line of Departure print edition. Issue 61, officially dated Winter 2007, contains four main features, all written by me:
Finally, the magazine includes a developer's preview of Joan of Arc's Victory, an upcoming medieval strategic game to be published by Turning Point Simulations. Line of Departure Issue 61 is available for purchase now. JANUARY 6, 2008 Happy New Year, and Happy Gaming to everyone. This first update of the new year is a major one, and focuses on real time strategy [RTS] gaming. There are two articles: One reviews The Asian Dynasties, the latest expansion for Age of Empires III, and the other examines StarCraft and why it should be considered one of the greatest RTS games of all time. Click here to read the article on The Asian Dynasties, and here for the one on StarCraft. Both can be found as well on the Articles page. Also, after a long absence, scenarios return to Line of Departure/The Wargamer. This is Terran vs. Zerg battle for StarCraft and the Brood War expansion, with the player taking the side of the Terrans and the computer playing the role the malignant Zerg. That can be downloaded from the Scenarios page. Enjoy! OCTOBER 10, 2007 The sixtieth issue of Line of Departure's print edition is on its way to the subscribers now. In a conscious attempt to call to mind the first issue of the magazine sixteen years ago, the first two reviews deal with naval games: Jutland from Avalanche Press and, for the computer, Matrix Games' Carriers at War. The other reviews, by guest writers Paul Dangel and Robert Dellwood, look at two games from Multiman Publishing: Guadalajara and the ASL Starter Kit #3. Another article, by me, examines a pair of recently-introduced alternative magazines, Battle-Market and Panzer Digest. The final feature looks at the design foundations of Avalon Hill's modern-era tactical boardgame Firepower. The issue, along with all back issues and subscriptions, is available immediately, including through PayPal transactions. AUGUST 9, 2007 I am very happy to announce that the original, print edition of Line of Departure just won the Charles S. Roberts Award as the best amateur wargaming magazine of 2006. It is the first time that the magazine has received it in over fifteen years of publication, and it is a singular and unexpected honor. I owe a great deal of thanks to the readers, to everyone who voted for my work, and not least, to the owners and staff of Wargamer.com. Over the past eight years, through various incarnations as The Gamers Net and Military Gamer Online, the same people have given me the the resources to run an affiliated Line of Departure web site. The magazine and the site are both Line of Departure, so I can't separate the generous support given to my online activities from the publication of the magazine. Tonight I am also making two new additions to Line of Departure/The Wargamer as part of an update planned before the award. As the staff developer for Turning Point Simulations, I wrote a preview of a title now in development, titled Stalingrad: Pivot on the Volga, from the veteran Canadian designer Hjalmar Gerber. In addition, Bill Ash follows up his work on the ZunTzu gamebox for A Master Stroke with a module for the VASSAL engine. Once again, Bill comes through so that the game can be on every computer monitor as well as every game table. JULY 23, 2007 There is some very good news about Rommel at Gazala and A Master Stroke. First, both were nominated for the Charles S. Roberts Award as the best desktop-published wargame of 2006. There were six nominees altogether, and one one was my design, the other by Paul Rohrbaugh and published through Line of Departure/The Wargamer. So for those of you who showed your appreciation for the games by voting for them, thank you very much. There is more news about A Master Stroke. It is now supported for online gaming on the ZunTzu software platform. Though supported by donations, ZunTzu is a free download. So is the gamebox, hosted on Line of Departure/The Wargamer. As with the errata, living rules, and one-piece deluxe map, it will remain available from the Master Stroke download page. JUNE 24, 2007 This is a two-fold announcement. First, Issue 59 of Line of Departure's flagship, the print edition, has been published, and is in the hands of the subscribers now. This magazine carries three game reviews, of Air Assault Task Force from Shrapnel Games, Action Front! Watchtower from @gamesonline, and Twilight of the Ottomans, from Decision Games and Strategy & Tactics magazine. There is also an analysis of the Avalon Hill edition of John Prados' classic World War II Eastern Front boardgame Panzerkrieg. Besides what is in print now, Line of Departure Issue 59 looks at things to come, with my developer's notes on The Hammer, a tactical Dark Ages game for Turning Point Simulations, and World at War: Eisenbach Ridge, World War III tactics for Lock 'n Load Games. Line of Departure/The Wargamer sees a new addition too. This is my article on Matrix Games' release of Harpoon 3: Advanced Naval Warfare. You can find that on the Articles Page, or by clicking here. APRIL 14, 2007 The additions for today are in the Articles and Supplements departments. The article is a review of The Warchiefs, the supplement to Age of Empires III. The supplement, actually a very large one, is Gary Greenhalgh's major addition to Clash of Arms' Fear God & Dread Nought miniatures rules. You can read the Warchiefs review here, and download the Command at Sea data sheets, in Excel spreadsheet form, here. JANUARY 28, 2007 It's a new year, and a time for a new issue of Line of Departure's print edition. This one leads off with a major review of Avalanche Press' boardgame U.S. Navy Plan Gold, from the Great War at Sea series. That is followed by a review of a computer game, The Operational Art of War III, from Matrix Games. Next are two analysis pieces of classic boardgames, Invasion Sicily from GMT, and Soviet-style tactical doctrine in the MBT and IDF games from Avalon Hill. There is also the Bully Pulpit editorial. Interested gamers can find the relevant purchase information, as usual, on the printable order form, and the special PayPal order page. I should also mention the new design and development role described in the Bully Pulpit. For the last several years, Against the Odds has been the leading professional boardgame magazine in the industry, and I have had the distinct privilege of writing for them. The same people behind Against the Odds are now starting up Turning Point Simulations. Like the original Star Trek, TPS is on a five-year mission. This one is to publish twenty board wargames, four per year, covering the most decisive battles of history, as listed by Sir Edward Creasy and updated by Colonel Joseph B. Mitchell in the wake of World War II. The games are going to be small in size, with a hundred counters, and a map of 11" x 17" in size, with a short rules set. Systemically, the games will be simple and clean, making them accessible to beginners, but strategically interesting enough to keep veteran board wargamers engaged. The physical quality is going to be high too. Most unusual in this day and age, the maps will be mounted, and customers can expect the same design and artistic standards they have come to expect in Against the Odds. My role is to be the staff developer for the series. In addition, I have committed to designing an operational-level game on the Sadowa-Königgratz Campaign of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Other designers working on games are among the industry's elite: Richard Berg, Paul Rohrbaugh, Hajlmar Gerber (a prolific DTP designer for the late and lamented Microgame Design Group), Ed Wimble and some surprises. Others will be new and promising talent who will be the recognized elite. It is a very exciting project, and I am thrilled to be a part of it. OCTOBER 19, 2006 The latest addition to Line of Departure is Issue 57 of the print edition, as promised two weeks ago. The first of the subscribers' issues went into the mail today, and the rest are in my car right now, ready to go. For all the details on the magazine, click here. The supporting web sites have been updated for some time, including OnLine of Departure Support, so players can go there to get the American battlecruiser counters to go along with the article connecting them to the classic naval game The Royal Navy. Those are free. For those interested in purchasing a copy of the magazine, or a subscription to the print edition, it can be done by PayPal through a special page. Line of Departure also does business the old-fashioned way, and a printable, snail-mailable order form can be found here. OCTOBER 13, 2006 A Master Stroke, the free operational-level boardgame on the last battle in Burma, now has its own dedicated download page. There, you can get the game, the optional one-piece map, and the little bit of errata for the game. Additionally, A Master Stroke is supported by living rules, available there as well. It should be noted too that the full download of the game will always come with the most complete edition of the rules, the errata, and any updates to the components. That is effective immediately. Finally, I expect support to continue for a very long time.
Players can always discuss the game with designer Paul Rohrbaugh on the Line of Departure Board of the ConsimWorld Discussion Forum. A Master Stroke is released, and the response from the players is excellent. Now it is time to talk about what comes next in the Line of Departure Multiverse. The next step for A Master Stroke is to build a dedicated download page, in addition to the links on the scenario page. This will give gamers one place to find errata and "living rules" as well as the most recent iteration of the game, incorporating them. However, to date thankfully there is almost no errata. For the print edition, I am happy to say, the Fall 2006 issue has gone gold. All of the attendant pages on the OnLine of Departure site have been updated to reflect this, and readers can go right to the Bully Pulpit editorial now instead of waiting for their magazines to come in the mail. There are four features to Issue 57, all written by me:
These ships are the Lexington-class battlecruisers laid down by the United States Navy. Historically, four were scrapped in accord with the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, and two, the Lexington and Saratoga, were completed as aircraft carriers. This feature includes free, full-color counters that can be downloaded from OnLine of Departure Support, representing all six ships, as both initially designed, and in the form that the Navy finalized, and subsequently cancelled. Take a look:
Of course, with the counters on the server and available, players can get the real thing at OnLine of Departure Support. Line of Departure Issue 57 will be printed, mailed, and in the hands of the readers by the middle of the month. I also continue to design games. I just finished the map to Fort Niagara 1759: The Art of Siege in the French and Indian War, which I intend to be my next self-published boardgame after Rommel at Gazala. Wargame veterans from the seventies no doubt remember SPI's Art of Siege quad; Fort Niagara 1759 uses a variation on the system it used for Lille, billed as the classic early eighteenth-century siege. There will be a lot of updating though, to reflect a generation's worth of advancement in the game designer's art. Most importantly, I expect to use cards to reflect the more unpredictable aspects of the siege and the outside events that influenced it. This will not be a card-driven game though, not by any means, just a game that uses cards as one component among several. The Lille system uses a hexless map, and that will not change with Fort Niagara 1759. Here is a preview of the map, showing the fort, minus the position circles (which were added later):
This site will continue to get a lot of attention too. Look for more articles, more scenarios, more supplements. Finally, I'm now taking part on Wargamer.com's Forums. You can find me there as Jim_LineofDeparture. I keep on promising to deliver more scenarios. In a way, I'm keeping that promise. In another way, I'm not. What I put before you today is a complete, free board wargame, courtesy of the prolific game designer Paul Rohrbaugh, already a key Line of Departure contributor, both here and to the print edition. The game is titled A Master Stroke: The Battle for Meiktila, March 5-14, 1945, and it covers the climactic battle in Burma between Sir William Slim's Fourteenth Army and the rearguard of the once-vaunted and still quite determined Imperial Japanese Army. It is different than most situations in Southeast Asia in World War II as Meiktila was not in the mountains or malarial jungle, but in the central plain of Burma, where Slim could best employ his armor. A Master Stroke features an artistic approach similar to that used in my Rommel at Gazala, but with some added touches, including color-coding of unit symbols so that players can tell at a glance which battalions belong to which divisions. As with Rommel at Gazala too, the map is in three sections, to make it easier to print, though a one-piece map is also available as a strictly optional download. Once assembled, all you have to provide is a six-sided die, and an opaque container, such as a coffee cup, to hold the activation markers. The only caveat is that it, and the optional map for that matter, is a big download, at 5.13 MB. So a broadband connection is highly recommended. A Master Stroke can be found on the scenario page of Line of Departure/The Wargamer. It is admittedly of a much greater magnitude than any scenario published, or likely to ever be published, here, but the scenario page is probably the best place to put it. Download, assemble and enjoy. AUGUST My busy summer and busy year continue, now with the publication of the Summer 2006 issue of Line of Departure's print edition. This one is entirely dedicated to board wargames, with a heavy emphasis on those published in the magazines. There are two game reviews. The first is of Cactus Throne, the strategic-level title on the short reign of Maximilian in Mexico, from Against the Odds magazine. The second looks at Valley of Tears, Mark H. Walker's game on the brutal tank battle in the Golan Heights at the start of the Yom Kippur War, made available as a digital download from Armchair General. I normally put in at least one feature with scenarios, variants, optional rules, or some sort of other supplement in every issue, "Tales of the Surcouf" covers that. Avalon Hill's Submarine game includes a counter and data for the giant French boat, but no scenarios. Since the Surcouf was accidentally sunk in a collision before it could engage in a true war patrol against the Axis, that is understandable. My article gives a short history of the submarine and a couple of hypothetical scenarios. The final article also deals with World War II. It does not concentrate on a single wargame, but instead is a more generalized look at Allied strategy, specifically choices of invasion areas, in games on Operation Overlord and the subsequent drive across France and into Germany. As always, I put the editorial, called The Bully Pulpit, online too. I'm not through with the year either. There are still print edition issues to be published, articles and other projects to be posted here, and games to be designed and published. It is with great happiness that I announce my entry into a new field of business. As of today, I am producing my own desk top-published board wargames. To support that worthy enterprise, I opened a new web site too. The first title is Rommel at Gazala, covering the battle in the Western Desert that crushed the Eighth Army, gave Tobruk to the Axis, and earned a Field Marshal's baton for the Desert Fox. It comes with all kinds of extras, most concentrated in a twenty-four-page Battle Manual. The game also sports backprinted counters, a relative rarity in the DTP world, with lighter colors on the flipped, reduced side to provide a quick visual cue to their status. Unlike other publishers, my games do not come as printed material. You supply the printer, the ink and the paper. They come in the form of Adobe pdf files, either e-mailed to the customer or shipped on a CD-ROM. In addition, I make an extra effort to make the components as printer-friendly as possible, including presenting the maps in overlapping sections printed on normal letter-sized or A4 sheets. Gamers should not have to search for a special printer capable of handling large sheets, or spend a lot of time fiddling with settings and configuration for the equipment that they do have. The electronic format also gives me the power to hold down costs. That means that Rommel at Gazala is priced at just $10.00 by e-mail, a little if you choose to have it mailed to you. The DTP publishing site went online tonight, with an extra bonus; it is also a one-stop shop for purchasing the print edition of Line of Departure. At the same time all the existing web sites will remain in business, including this one. Especially this one. You can could on Line of Departure/The Wargamer to keep you informed about news regarding Rommel at Gazala and all of my subsequent DTP efforts.
I'm certainly busy anymore, and you see the results before you now in the form of two more articles for Line of Departure/The Wargamer. One is a major review, this time of War Plan Orange, the hypothetical 1920's follow-on to the War in the Pacific game that I reviewed in the last update. Read all about War Plan Orange by clicking here. The second is briefer and something of a change of pace. As the vast majority of my wargaming has always been with cardboard or computer, miniatures gaming does not get a huge amount of attention here or in the print edition, but this time I'm breaking character for a change. You can find that one here. As always, these and all the other articles published on Line of Departure/The Wargamer can be found on the articles page. It is time to add some new material to this site, and I decided to do it in a fairly big way. I have two new articles to add, both written by me, one of them a major project. That is an extensive analysis of the computer game War in the Pacific from Matrix Games. This is shaping up as an all-time favorite of mine, one of the rare computer games that will have a life comparable to that of the better board wargames. Read all about here, or go to the articles page first. The other looks at a favorite RTS title, Age of Empires III. The article looks at the strategies of using explorers in the New World, and you can read it here.. One of my goals with Line of Departure is to publish four issues of the print edition each year, and also upload the equivalent of at least one extra issue to Line of Departure/The Wargamer. That's the minimum. Hopefully these projects are a start. Issue 56 of the print edition will be published this summer, and there'll be more articles, supplements and player's aids for this site. I haven't designed any scenarios in a long time, at least none published here. Maybe it's time to change that. A new edition of Line of Departure's print edition, the fifty-fifth, is on its way to the subscribers as I write. The lead review is of Battle of the Little Big Horn, the new boardgame on Custer's Last Stand from Khyber Pass Games, followed up by a review of Shrapnel Games' computer game The Star and the Crescent, on operational combat between Israel and the Arabs since 1956. There is also a major article on GMT's Musket & Pike Battle Series, centered on the English Civil War and the Thirty Years War; the topic of the article is how to play the defense. Finally, Paul Rohrbaugh becomes the first outside contributor to OnLine of Departure Support, with solitaire rules and new variants for 3W's World War I naval game The Far Seas. He has been contributing to Line of Departure/The Wargamer since late last year, and this new feature is very similar, with rules in the magazine and downloadable counters on the web. As always, if you wish to subscribe to the print edition, or buy this or any other issue, you can do so from the OnLine of Departure order page. I accept PayPal too, and there is a page for that here. So, what is next? Line of Departure Issue 56 is on the menu, of course. So too is a transfusion of features to this site, as I want Line of Departure/The Wargamer to be the equivalent of at least a full issue every year. Check back for further developments and other news as well. Today, I am mailing the latest issue of Line of Departure's print edition to the subscribers. The lead review covers the Crown of Glory game of Napoleonic grand strategy from Matrix Games, and the magazine concludes with a major article on Victory Games' classic boardgame The Civil War. In between are two features covering the Great War at Sea series from Avalanche Press. One is a streamlined system for charted the more extensive systems of minefields present in the vital but out of print Northern Waters game, and most probably applicable to its projected replacement, Jutland, as well. The other is an overview of Northern Waters itself. I wanted to get this article into the magazine before Jutland sees publication in order to place the latter into context of the series as a whole. Now for the really important part of the announcement. If you wish to subscribe to the print edition, or buy this or any other issue, you can do so from the OnLine of Departure order page. I accept PayPal too, and there is a page for that right here. Today I am happy to present to you another major update to Line of Departure/The Wargamer. This has been a very busy year for the magazine and this web site, and will remain busy until the ball drops and we go to 2006. I have met one of my goals, which was to make a year's worth of material this site the equivalent the equivalent of at least one issue of the print edition. That is, to produce effectively a full year of the magazine for the subscribers, and effectively give away an extra issue. Today's additions come from Gary Greenhalgh and Paul Rohrbaugh, a name that most board wargamers should recognize due to his prolific work as a designer and developer. So I am honored to publish his work, in this case graphics. People do not necessarily know him as an artist; now you do. Gary Greenhalgh makes a return appearance after his excellent naval projects published in the section in Supplements and Player's Aids in June. Again, he adds to the Command at Sea miniatures system, this time two American dreadnought classes: The Alaska battlecruisers, and the cancelled Montana class of battleships. Finally, I contribute something of my own. It's a review of Land of Legends, a fantasy strategy game from Shrapnel Games. The last time I reviewed one that company's games, it was a simulation for hardcore historical gamers. This is a little different, and worth a look with a different but open eye. As always, if you have any feedback that you would like to direct my way, please feel free to write, or visit the Line of Departure forum on the ConsimWorld Forum. One of the more important business changes at Line of Departure over the last year has been the introduction of sales on bundles of back issues of the print edition. I have four running right now, including two begun today, just in time for the holidays of your choice. The two new ones are complimentary to each other, and each has nine issues. One special centers on GMT's Great Battles of History series, which I have been reviewing and otherwise writing about almost since Line of Departure's birth. The other covers other ancient games, including such favorites as Caesar (Alesia) and The Siege of Jerusalem from Avalon Hill, and West End's scholarly Imperium Romanum II. Both run through December 31. Check them out, along with other specials on SPI games and boardgames on The Great Patriotic War, here. In what must be record time since the previous one, I have the announce the newest issue of Line of Departure's print edition. The Fall 2005 edition leads off with a major review of Chennault's First Fight, from Against the Odds magazine. I hadn't covered a topic centered on aerial warfare, and this is the first review of a game from Against the Odds, so the article is a fresh focus in two ways. The second review is of Matrix's Napoleonic computer game, Campaigns on the Danube. Though Matrix products are frequent subjects of Line of Departure in all of its forms, it is quite unusual to even see a computer game with a Napoleonic theme. The third article looks at a NATO-Warsaw Pact game from twenty years ago, in what turned out to be the last flowering of the Cold War: The Third World War: Battle for Germany, published by GDW. The final piece returns to the lead article's air theme, with a new British fighter for Avalon Hill's old Richtofen's War boardgame. Players can download new counters to accompany it as well from the OnLine of Departure Suport web site, and as always, they are free. The magazine is finished, printed, and right now in the care of the United States Postal Service for delivery to the subscribers. Along with all back issues and subscriptions, it can be purchased from the OnLine of Departure order page. I am aiming to get out one more issue by the end of 2005. Also, there will be new projects on this site, free for everyone. I am very happy to announce the publication today of the fifty-second issue of Line of Departure's print edition. The lead article is a review of the latest issue of Panzerschreck magazine, which until now was an innovative amateur publication with complete wargames inside. Now it's an equally good professional magazine, with complete wargames inside, now with color printing and die-cut counters. Check out Line of Departure Issue 52 to read more about it, and the boardgames Brandy Station and Race to the Vistula. Science fiction returns to the print edition with my article on Avalon Hill's edition of Stellar Conquest. This game is one of the best in the genre, and as a boardgame it presages much of what we now know and enjoy from 4X and RTS computer games. The centerpiece of the magazine though is a long look back at SPI's game of armored tactics in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, October War. My article examines the game on its own, as well as in the context of its contemporary designs, and as a late member of the PanzerBlitz family. Look for optional rules introducing Soviet-style doctrine for the Arab armies and for refinements of October War's system for small unit panic. I further invite players to check out a new feature within the OnLine of Departure Support page, previously used to provide free computer game scenarios in tandem with the print edition. Now, I am using it to present downloadable full-color supplements for board wargames too, and just as free of charge as before. This time around, the product is a set of neutral markers for October War, which were either provided in small numbers or not at all with the original game, as it was squeezed into magazine format with a two-hundred-counter limit. I did the art myself, and you can expect to see more of that both on OnLine of Departure Support and the recently upgraded Supplements and Player's Aids section of this web site. As always, I want to know what you the loyal readers think. That goes both for the new issue, and the free counters. Fee free to e-mail me, or log on to the ConsimWorld forum for Line of Departure. Right now, my primary goal is to assemble Issue 52 of Line of Departure's print edition, with the aim of getting it to the readers by the end of the month. Secondly, I'm trying to get the word out as much as possible about Line of Departure. Call it marketing, call it promotion, but it's necessary to keep this enterprise going for another fourteen years. What you see on this site is a taste of what is in the print edition. I work hard on Line of Departure/The Wargamer to be sure, and do the best that I can, but it's the print edition that ultimately brings in the revenue to keep things going, and transforms the entire Line of Departure Multiverse from a hobby to a business. To date, the overwhelming share of the revenue has come from subscriptions and single-issue purchases, both of which can be made through this order form. Also, last year I began accepting PayPal, which has proven to be a major convenience for customers; click here to take advantage of that. This year I began offering specials on bundles of back issues, which have proven popular with new customers and existing friends who want to complete their collections, or have special interests in specific game systems, publishers and eras. Finally, there is eBay, where I operate under the name jimw_line_of_departure. How is that for an obvious moniker? On occasion, I auction complete sets of Line of Departure print edition issues, and less frequently, games from my own collection. For news of these offers, and all other talk revolving around Line of Departure in all of its forms, please visit the ConsimWorld Forum, and look for the Line of Departure section in the Magazines Forum. If you're going to read it first, you're going to read it there. Thus ends my interlude on my business model. If you would like to support Line of Departure, please consider yourself invited to do business through any of the above means. At the same time, for fourteen years I've been delivering the goods, and sincerely hope to give you your money's worth, so you can get more from your wargaming. Today, I'm very happy to present two new articles to the Line of Departure/The Wargamer web site. The first is a review of Shrapnel Games' The Falklands War: 1982, the first historical implementation of the ATF: Armored Task Force computer game engine. It is also the most recent game in the series, and is so new that this might well be the first review you read of it. The other looks at Battles in Normandy from Matrix Games, released late last year. Both games are sequels to ones already reviewed in the print edition of Line of Departure, with Raging Tiger, the immediate predecessor to The Falklands War: 1982, being covered in the most recent issue. Speaking of which, my next priority is to put together the next issue. Stay here for the news when it's ready to go. I am very happy to present to you three new projects for Line of Departure/The Wargamer. The first is my review of Gary Grigsby's World at War, the first article here with actual screenshots. They'll be more articles soon. The other two are by my good friend and fellow naval enthusiast, Gary Greenhalgh. For Command at Sea, he presents new destroyers and dreadnoughts for the British and Japanese navies in World War II. His second is a comprehensive reworking of all the ranges for main armament in Dreadnoughts & Battlecruisers. Together, these represent a major achievement on his part, and a huge amount of effort. I hope that the naval gamers are as pleased as I am with them. This leads to a change in Line of Departure/The Wargamer. Because I'm putting these projects in what was the Player's Aids section, I've decided that that term just isn't good enough anymore. So now it's the Supplements and Player's Aids section. That should open the door to more optional and supplementary rules, which have long been a part of it, plus more new units, and perhaps even more.
Subscribers to the Line of Departure print edition should start receiving their copies of the new Spring 2005 issue over the next few days, as I took it to the post office today. Issue 51 is the first theme issue since late 2001, this time concentrating on game reviews. This might not sound very revolutionary, except that in the fourteen years that the magazine has been in operation, none has ever been devoted solely to game reviews. Until now. There are four games, three board wargames and one for the computer, covered. The lead review is of Devil's Horsemen from GMT, followed by the most recent installment of Avalanche Press' Great War at Sea series, Cruiser Warfare. The third boardgame is a DTP offering from Khyber Pass Games, Maiwand, addressing a late nineteenth-century battle between British and Indians against Afghans near Kandahar. Finally, computer wargaming returns to the pages with Raging Tiger, the tactical game on the next Korean War from Shrapnel Games. If you are a subscriber, please let me know what you think when you receive your magazine. If not, then please consider subscribing to what is still the flagship of the Line of Departure Multiverse. In addition, I recently launched the first sale of a set of back issues, at an attractively reduced price. This sale is for ten issues containing articles, scenarios, options, and player's aids for Avalon Hill's MBT and IDF modern tactical games. Though the publisher is gone and the games out of print, these remain some of the more popular among Line of Departure readers. Click here for details on prices and ordering. Finally, there will be some new features added to this site in the next few weeks. As it stands now, both computer and boardgames will be covered. Stay tuned for further details. I know that it's taken me a while to keep my promise to update Line of Departure/The Wargamer, but I had some downtime for reasons of health. Things are a little better now, and I was able to write two new articles for this site. They cover Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great, Matrix Games' fusion of miniatures and computer gaming, and the Rise of Nations series from Microsoft. Please check them out from the articles page. In the last four months I also published two new issues of Line of Departure's print edition, making fifty in all since I began this enterprise in 1992. Both deal exclusively with board wargames, including such current titles as Gringo!, the most recent title of the Great Battles of the American Civil War, and published by GMT. There are also articles and player's aids for U.S. Navy War Plan Orange from Avalanche Press' Great War at Sea series. They also reach back to the past with I am Spartacus from Command magazine and The Emperor Returns by Clash of Arms. In another development, I answered the subscribers' requests to accept payment via PayPal, through this page. Stay tuned for more features and more news about Line of Departure. WELCOME
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