Europa Games and Military History

Tag: news (Page 1 of 6)

Christmas in Velikiye Luki

After the conclusion of this years staff rides to the battlefields of Bennigton, Fort Henry and Prospect Park, we now return to our regular schedule with news from Ken Newalls Scorched Earth game. Three turn reports in a row means we’re approaching the end of 1942, and the chickens have finally come home to roost for the Axis, with the 11th Army being in grave danger of being encircled around Velikiye Luki by a resurgent Red Army.

After this, we will take a break to recuperate from our excursions and march off some of the excess baggage we collected as a result of the excellent food found in New England.

The Year of the Gold Dragon

We’re grateful for being able to provide you with yet another War in the Desert game report. This one was played and written up in the summer of 2018 by Bill Jenman. Since the game was mainly played to test some modifications of the Malta status number, the second half of the game report, from March 1942 onward, is summarized, nevertheless it makes for a good read. You can find it as WitD AAR No 3 in the archive, as always.

Iterum ante portas

It is December 1941, (again). An unusually mild winter sees the Germans firmly in possession of Moscows suburbs after a gruelling campaign, while in the North forward detachments have finally reached the Murmansk railway line. Further south the Germans have occupied vast swathes of the Ukraine, though Odessa and Sevastopol still hold out against the fascist invaders…

In other words: we managed to upload Ken Newall’s new game report up to JAN I 1942, and it shows how helpful images are to understand the overall strategic situation – at least for a visual animal like me. Enjoy the read!

After completing the newsletter archive in the Generalstab Library some months ago there was still one issue missing: ETO #57. I have the basic TOC, but no authors, and was unable to find a copy of the newsletter anywhere. Since Arthur Goodwin was the editor at the time, I’ve contacted him directly, and will update if I recieve a reply.

We’re still being plagued by some technical problems, but in the making are two more game reports from War in the Desert, and it might be time for some more link additions soon.

Like distant rolling thunder

Fire in the East/Scorched Earth truly defined the term “monster game” new when they came out. At more than 3.000 counters and maps large enough to cover a small basement floor, the game dwarved the competition. SE’s complexity and size also severly limited the number of games played, so we are very proud to be able to present our second game report of a FitE/SE game. The report of an ongoing game started in April 2018 is being written by Ken Newall, who again deserves our gratitude for allowing us to publish it here.

Since’ we’re currently experiencing some technical problems witrh the website, the menue isn’t done yet, but should follow in the next few days, along with more content.

Um, who am I kidding, It might be weeks. But we’re working on it.

Seasons in the Sun

We continue our publications from the rich trove of articles kindly provided by Carlos Perez from belliludi.com.  An excellent overview on the state of Spains Army at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, we have Alberto Arzaneguis essay on The Spanish Army in 1936 in the department of Order of Battle research.

Additionally, a kind gamer provided us with an Index of Gary Stagliano’s newsletter Nuts & Bolts, which we’ve also published today. The individual game indices are also updated, so you have comprehensive reading lists to every game. Enjoy!

 

Rounding up

While the generals talk I’ve slowly reached the limit of this years ideas and plans, and/or the limits of what I can post online without running afoul of copyright laws.

This is probably a good moment to repeat my mantra: This website lives by its contributors. If there is anything online you think violates any copyright laws, I would be very grateful if you let me know, and I will immediately remove the offending content. I do not make a single cent from this website, so I would very much like to avoid legal issues.

So, probably the last news for a bit untill the jubilee comes around (Generalstab turns 20 next year!):

  • Line of Communications pages online – Luiz Duartes fanzine, despite folding after only six issues for the want of submissions, was the indian summer of Europa and the best attempt of putting the game system on a footing without a publishing game company. Seems so long ago.
  • Two more links, one a more self-referencial (and incomplete) bibliography of publications by the Great General Staff (obviously none of them related to World War Two, but some still excellent sources, most of them available online), the second one to a similar, but way more sophisticated project collecting links to books available online about german and prussian history. And Prussian history comes with a lot of military history, so even though the books are german, even some of the map sections alone are worth a look.
  • Referencing the games is mostly done, means most games have a section listing all articles devoted to the game.

Be safe!

A Spanish End

Ken Newall finally shared the last turns of his epic game report from his For Whom the Bell Tolls game. I can only again thank him for his efforts, the awesome writing and the permission to host this great report here. And Kudos for Ken to actually follow through to the very bitter (at least for the Loyalist side) end.

Also I noticed that I still hadn’t gotten round to fix Robert Williams TDDH-report which, even though its from 2000, still makes a fantastic read. And it makes me sad that Samurai Lightning will never see the light of day. So there it is now, re-upped, Links fixed and all the posts in working order again. There is still some cleanup to do from the great migration, but then there always is.

 

Scanning Europa, one chart at a time

A big thanks today goes to Stefan Farelly, who sent me scans of the War in the Desert Charts and Counters. Another gap filled on the way to a complete digital presence of Europa on the webs (minus the sensitive copyrighted parts, of course). Thank you, Stefan!

Also, I’ve progressed to No. 52 in the TEM index, and am done with uploading, renaming and tagging the images for Gregory Bartels newest game report – so I should be able to publish this in the next weeks. Aas far as I can tell now, after that there will be a break in available material, so do not expect too many updates ion the future.

 

« Older posts