Tag: news (Page 2 of 6)

Chatter in the Forest

September 5, 2017 / chef / 0 Comments

Hi there,

while we are at the current speed of events, let me add another game report by Greg Bartels from 2013/14, an epic-length writeup of a short but eventful Campaign for Norway from Storm over Scandinavia. Gregs level of reporting is unparalelled in its detail, and while it might not be as entertaining as Robert William’s light descriptions, it is surly more enlightening if you want to learn the game in depth.

The Casino feels pretty sleepy these days, maybe since GR/D has absconded themselves from the Europa Group a second platform is not necessary anymore. If nothing happens in the casino, I will shut it down again in a couple of weeks.

Also, we’re now on twitter. Lets see how this works.

One Two Three Four!

August 31, 2017 / chef / 0 Comments

Todays Generalstab Archive News:

A new game report, published with the kind permission of its author, Brian O’Donnell. I long hoped he would be able to finish the write up – but even the existing reports of 1937 are much better than my own write-ups, so here you go: FWTBT game report No 5.
A new game report from old times. Watch – or better read on – as your truly manages to see the mighty forces of the Spanish Army defeated by a ragtag rabble of anarchists and socialist militias, led by a complete Europa novice – game report FWTBT No 6. It took me so long to publish it because I truly got put to shame here.
The Europa Magazine-pages are under construction as I have pulled out the old magazines to add the table of contents to each individual magazine page. So far, 10 have been done, so I should be finished somewhen around December.
New Link entries, too – a tribute to Sturmpanzer.com and the Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War. Their Write-up of the First one was so abysmal that I think they wanted to make extra sure no-one complained this time. So the resulting work with fifty volumes dwarfs that of some of the major combattants, not only by volume but of course also by the sheer level of detail.

I think I am gonna slow down in the next weeks again.

The Republic in Peril II

August 22, 2017 / chef / 0 Comments

More news from Ken Newall’s game report on For Whom the Bell Tolls: The last spring has come for the Spanish Republic. As the first green returns to the hills of the Serrania de Cuenca, the fascist forces finally have stretched the ressources of the Republic to its limits. While factional strife erupts in the streets of Barcelona the black- and brown clad columns of Generalissimo Franco descend from the hights, the optics of their Zeiss-manufactured german scissor scopes trained on the beautiful prizes along the Spanish coast: Valencia and Barcelona. In Andalucia, the unbowed Anarchist brigades slowly retreat from one hill to the next, pursued slowly but methodically by the nationalist brigades that keep up the pressure relentlessly.

This turn of events is especially tragic since the Nationalists only narrowly avoided a linkup between the forces of the Republic and the beleagured Gubernitos of the North last autumn. Demoralized after what was seen by many as the last chance for a defeat of the Insurgents, the Basques and their allies finally succumbed to Franco in the winter of 38/39.

Read the full reports here.

Gentlemen, prepare your E-Readers

March 16, 2017 / chef / 0 Comments

Just a small update: Besides adding more pages to Ken Newall’s game report of his solitary For Whom the Bell Tolls-Report I’ve also finally found some time to add the official Italian History of World War I to the link section (thanks again to Alex for the link!), and added links to the British Official History.

What E-Readers really need now is the ability to project a map onto a screen or wall while I am reading the battle description. Else I am just gonna keep reading on a laptop with a second screen attached.

Godspeed!

The Casino is open!

March 3, 2017 / chef / 2 Comments

As a little experiment I’ve installed some more plugins (breaking my vow to not overload the poor site with gimmicks) and opened some forums. You’ll find them in the main navigation under “Casino” – I thought that would be a fitting name. Also, I´ve copy&pasted&adapted some rudimentary forum rules, but in the end I will have little time and motivation to police, so it comes down to:

Be respectful
Do not do anything illegal
Talk about Strategy games.

If you need an extensive rulebook to understand these guidelines, the General Staff is not for you, and, since it is my little fiefdom, I will ban you, quicker than you can say Sturmgeschütz.

But aside with the nasty talk, I hope you´ll enjoy this little adition. I am still thinking on how to best add a files section, for now its a simply another forum.

New game report

February 13, 2017 / chef / 0 Comments

To start the New Year properly we have a brand new game report of For Whom the Bell Tolls, written by Ken Newall and reporting from his solitaire game featuring a variable start to the revolution. Thanks to Ken who allowed me publishing his reports here. Enjoy the read!

More DJ05!

September 30, 2016 / chef / 0 Comments

The epic Grand Campaign game of MtV/OT by Todd Jahnke reached May 1917 this Summer, with the Allied pounding furiously at the southern coust of Austria-Hungary while burning through their equipment at the Western Front. As usual, you find the reports for May I and May II in the Archive. Thanks to Todd, and enjoy your read!

Ludendorff gets his will

August 17, 2016 / chef / 0 Comments

We are grateful to announce that Eric Pierce has graciously given permission for his MTV Battle Scenario “Battle of Liege” to be published on these pages. The less-than historical achievements of the German side in the initial moves of several “March to Victory“-playtests have been discussed for years on- and offline. As usual, several fixes has been advanced and rejected.

Today Eric, one of the designers originally involved in the great War Series, shares his take on a more balanced (if the term is approriate for a steamroller stomping a small neutral neighbour into submission within a couple of weeks) approach to the first moves of any “Great War” game. Wether it manages to resolve the issues plaguing the German Juggernout – find out for yourself!

The tooth of time…

April 18, 2016 / chef / 1 Comment

…gnaweth at my posessions, just as it eats everything else. We had some water damage in the cellar, a broken pipe leaking directly into the box with my Europa-games carefully propped up on plastic boxes to protect it from water on the floor. When I came into the basement and noticed, the whole box was mouldy and most of my Europa-games are now a soggy slush of paper. And so it goes.

The insurance will cover the damage, thereby relieveing me from my new years resolution on selling them all on Ebay.

So, a little bit of Second Front may be salvageable, and so might be some maps and rules here and there, but most of my Europa is gone – making me realize again I didnt play those games actively in over a decade now. And since there are a lot and more personal pages now hosting game reports – wordpress enabling mortals to throw up a reasonably well-looking page in some hours – I think the Generalstab slowly ceases to be relevant and useful. I wont take the site down just yet, but dont expect a lot of updates coming. I might publish some more of Eric Pierce OBs – if I get his permission – and clean up the archive (in which some game reports are still a mess), but I dont have any bigger plans anymore. Which is not a bad thing itself, I will concentrate (yet again) on the military database. Maybe one day I can show you :)

Innofficial Innovations

January 29, 2016 / chef / 0 Comments

Hi everyone,
thanks to the kindness of Eric Pierce, I was able to add his well-reasearched new Order of Battle for the Soviet Union in the Winter War (1939-40) to the Academy pages. Of course its inofficial (When did the last official material get published anyway – 2002?), but in Eric´s words its “pretty close to what A.E. Goodwin would produce”. Which means it takes into acocunt all the new research and sources that have been published in the past twenty years and should be up to date, and on the same level as the TW OBs (if they ever see the light).

I took this as an opportunity to clean up the War Academy main page and insert some pictures. Hope you like it,