Category Archives: News

Pirates!

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Lots of great progress with our pirate game over this last year. This is really starting to come together!!

This has been a very tough design for us. We’ve been at it for years. We have 15-20 different pirate games now that really suck!!! lol…. If you need one, let us know. šŸ™‚

We are committed to only releasing games that work. Games we really like. Sure we can make them look great but how do they play? Are they really good games? After many attempts and nearly giving up, I’m happy to report that we have a very promising and sound structure for an epic game now.

Our combat system needs a few tweaks. We need to refine and dial in our ship composition some. It works as is but we have several redundant systems in the design now. It needs some streamlining.

I’ve been taking sailing lessons this fall. How can I in good faith design a sailing game if I’ve never sailed before?!! After a couple of months of real sailing, I worked on our Pirate design last weekend. I was truly shocked at just how good of a model this was for sailing. It does a really amazing job of capturing the correct feel of maneuvering boats in the wind. We nailed it!!

My instructor was amazed at how quickly I picked sailing up. I hit the ground running. It was almost like I already knew how to sail. Yeah, that’s because I’ve been playing our Pirate game!

I love it when we can work this kind of ‘realism’ into a game. It is realistic but not tedious. It teaches you something you can actually use in the real world but it is also great fun!! Those are the very best kinds of games.

When do expect this little gem to be released? We are hoping for winter 2022. We already have most of the hard parts worked out. Just need a little time to refine and clean up. I can’t wait!!!

All New Supremacy 2021!

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The all new edition of Supremacy is now available for Pre Order! Should be a short wait. We are hoping to begin shipping in about a month!

What’s New in this edition?

First off, all new minis!!!!

We love these things! We had planned to do these with our original Kickstarter but it was just too expensive then. Looking back, I’m glad we waited. These ended up much higher quality than we could have done back then anyways.

Let’s see, what’s next? Ah, new tracks along the bottom of the map! No more tedious change counting for constant transactions. It’s kind of cool for your first game to have a fist full of $100 billion and $1 trillion dollars bills but that gets old quick when you have to count change. This cuts a lot of work out of the game. More time to focus on the fun parts.

Now this 1 track along the bottom tracks everything in 1 convenient place. No more Strategic Reserve cards getting jostled around. This frees up a lot of table space. I really like how you can now see at a glance what everybody has. Everybody’s resources and missiles are now all on the same big track:

All new rules. Combat has been streamlined and simplified. Lots of little changes that bring this back to basics. There are several new optional rules that you can add in now. My favorite is the Alliance rule!

You’re my Ally? Ok, good because now it really counts. Guess what? You can’t suddenly backstab and attack an Ally. It is against the rules!!! You must formally withdraw from the Alliance first. That gives me a turn to get ready.

Next, we have real terrain. It adds a lot of realism with very little complexity. This gives the Defenders an advantage while defending in mountains, jungles, etc. As it should be.

What are all those blue lines? That is a monsoon weather zone. Bad weather can greatly hamper conventional operations in different zones depending on the time of year:

Playing with these rules gives you a lot more realism and accuracy for a ground war. This is very fun to play as just a conventional world war game without any of the nukes.

These new rules aren’t very complicated. They are also optional, so you can still play a clean and quick, classic game format for new players.

We expect high volume on this. We will ship them in the order we receive them. We’ll be buried here for awhile but will do our best to get them out in time for Christmas.

Yes, we are revamping all the expansions as well. First out will be new Minors. We are going to combine this with Fortuna. New Terrorists minis for Rising Crescent. Also a new Boomers & Bombers with minis to fill our the nuclear triad. Those are all in the works. I’d expect to see those coming out by spring. We have to work through this new release first. We’ll get there! =)

You can Pre Order here:

Austerlitz is ready!!

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From the very beginning with Pub Battles, we set out to game the impossible.Ā  If itā€™s gonna break, break it early.Ā  We have specifically targeted ā€˜ungamableā€™ battles like:Ā  Brandywine, Antietam and Little Bighorn.Ā  These games just donā€™t work on the table.Ā  No player would do what they did.Ā  Most designers avoid these battles.Ā  The ones that take them on simply handcuff the players to history.Ā  ā€œMake them do what they did!ā€Ā  That works in a way but itā€™s not very satisfying.Ā 

Austerlitz ranks pretty high on the ungamable list.  Weā€™ve been working on it for a couple of years now.  This battle really pushes the envelope, even for Pub Battles.  It did reveal a few gaps in our system.  Much of what we learned from Austerlitz became the 3.0 rules. 

As I look now at the Austerlitz scenario rules, Iā€™m shocked at how short they are.  Where are all the extra rules it takes to make Austerlitz work?  There arenā€™t any.  It mostly just works right out of the box, or tube if you will.  This is a great sign!

Whatā€™s next?Ā  Chancellorsville and Leuthen.Ā  With all the infrastructure now in place, these battles seem easy.Ā  Onwards and upwards.

It’s time to saber the champagne!!

Pub Battles: Germantown

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Now available to ship! This makes a very nice expansion to Brandywine. A full on battle using the same blocks. The map is much bigger. The maneuver options are much more open. The British are on defense here. The possibilities are endless.

Attack Upon the Chew House

The game with an open setup here at Germantown is endlessly fascinating. We’ll be doing a Blog and new video on how to do this.

Do I need the Update Kit?

Here is an easy way to tell. Look at your Brandywine blocks. Do you have a ‘Smallwood Militia’ included? If you have that piece, you do NOT need the Update. You are good to go!

Pub Battles Dice -Big Print

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If you’re like me, your eyes aren’t getting any better. I know. I hate it too! :/

We are testing out a new style of dice stickers. It is a cleaner and sleeker design: more graphical, fewer numbers, bigger easier to read font.

Big Print Edition Dice

I’ve been testing them out. I like them better. I guess the downside is that they look a little modern. They don’t have that old world, period look to them.

Standard Dice Now

We’re not sure yet if we want to make them available. What do you guys think? Do you like them better? Would you rather have these?

They are easy to change. The trick is to soak the dice in hot water for awhile. Then you just peel off the old stickers and wipe clean with a towel.

Pub Battles Videos

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We have several new videos out on Pub Battles, if you haven’t seen them yet. We’ve been very hesitant to do any because making good videos is very hard. Most wargame videos are like watching paint dry!

We’ve tried to keep most of these really short and to the point. Let us know how we did and if you want to see more. Watch our Youtube channel to see more coming out.

If you’re new to Pub Battles, here are some rules tutorials to get you up and running quickly. They can also be good to confirm you’re doing things right.

Tutorials

How to Play -Turns and Alter rolls

How to Move -Bombardment and Road Column

How to Resolve Combat

Beyond the Basics

How to Use Reserve Cards

How to Use Baggage Trains -Rules rundown with a demo of using them in a game.

How to Use Written Orders -Examples and how to use for Solitaire and Multi Player games.

Great Outside Demo

Pub Battles Demo

Move Update

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We got our stuff!!  Weā€™ve been unpacking and getting things setup this week.  All our main equipment made it in one piece and seems to be working now!  We are getting close.  It is looking like we will be ready to start rolling again on Monday!

We have a ton of back orders to go through now.  Weā€™ll start cranking through them in the order we received them.  We still see some delays in shipping but it looks like it is getting better.

Thanks again for your patience and support.  It wonā€™t be too much longer now!

Marshall

Relocation

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Hey everybody! Just a quick update on the progress of our move. +

First off, no we are not out of business!! Sales for us have been very strong this year. We are growing and doing well. Looking forward to getting up and running again once we get all of our stuff.

The contractors got everything done in time but our closing got bumped back a couple of weeks by the banks. That should have been the easy part. Go figure.

The movers loaded up all our gear and put it into storage temporarily. They loaded it all up and moved it to our new location a few weeks ago. Fine but there it still sits. :/

They are having trouble finding enough movers in this area to unload it right now. I’m not sure why. The virus may have some impact. So they bumped back our unload date to September 16th. I know!! We’ve been raising a ruckus over it but there doesn’t seem to be anything they can do.

Very sorry for the delay everybody. We certainly aren’t happy about it either. They have all our personal furniture and belongings too. So we’ve been camping out in our new house with air mattresses, camp chairs and cardboard boxes for furniture!! lol… Moving is always an adventure huh?

Well, it gives us a little extra time to clean and paint before the gear rolls in. We can be glad of that. We have been trying to anticipate the supplies we’ll need in advance so we’ll be ready once it arrives. We just got a shipment of paper, canvas and printer parts today.

Great example of how logistics can easily grind a whole operation to a halt. No worries. We’ll be up and on the offensive again soon. Hopefully within a couple of weeks now.

I know it’s frustrating when you ordered something new and it gets delayed. I want it right now!!! I can’t wait anymore. =) Thank you all for your support and patience.

Marshall

Philadelphia Campaign

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We are going to consolidate Brandywine, Monmouth and the new Germantown into one Campaign set. Ā 

Brandywine will be the main game that includes the blocks for all the battles.Ā  Monmouth and the new Germantown scenarios will be like the Waterloo expansions:Ā  Ligny, Quatre Bras and Wavre.Ā  They will just be maps and scenarios.Ā  No blocks.Ā  This will make them much cheaper and lower the average cost of the battles!

If you have the old Brandywine, no worries. We will send you an update kit for FREE with another order. We will list these on our products page when ready.