Available for pre-order: Yaah! #11, with Strike For Berlin

Coming in April!

Strike For Berlin is a revised version of my earlier game Freikorps. It has had the same level of revision to it as Konarmiya got to become Red Horde 1920: that is, a new interleaved sequence of play, new map and terrain analysis, new order of battle research, loads of new and improved optional rules and variants.

Map and counter art by the very capable John Cooper, who also did Red Horde 1920 and Winter Thunder.

And yes, Strike for Berlin‘s map will join with Red Horde 1920‘s so that you can play one long hot summer of Central European war, from Kiev to Berlin. Essentially you start with a game of Red Horde 1920 and play until Warsaw falls, then you carry on with renewed proletarian vigour… to strike for Berlin!

Yaah! magazine #11 is now available for pre-order, at $35 ($3 off the normal price):

https://flyingpiggames.com/products/yaah-magazine-issue-11

Copies of Red Horde 1920 are also now on sale at $29 instead of $35, so you can buy a copy now and practice while waiting for the sequel game.

https://tinybattlepublishing.com/products/red-horde-1920

This is my second appearance in Yaah! magazine… my first was in issue #2, which had my games Army of Shadows and Uprising, as well as the rules for Guerrilla Checkers and a short article by me on the value of abstract games (From YAAH! #2: Thinking About and Through Abstract Games)

https://flyingpiggames.com/products/yaah-magazine-issue-2

By the way, if anyone is balking at the price of postage, downloadable copies of all the above are available through Wargame Vault, at usually less than half of the price of the physical product.

http://www.wargamevault.com/browse/pub/9307/Flying-Pig-Games

http://www.wargamevault.com/browse/pub/9069/Tiny-Battle-Publishing

Coming soon: Strike For Berlin!

Chunk of the playtest countersheet. Proper counters will be done by John Cooper, who also did Winter Thunder and Red Horde 1920.

Elongated blurry slice of the playtest map. Proper map will also be done by John Cooper.

Yaah! magazine #11, which I am told will probably ship in March 2018, will have my game Strike For Berlin in it. Opening blurb to the rules:

STRIKE FOR BERLIN is a simulation game of a hypothetical invasion of Germany by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic’s (RSFSR) armed forces in 1920.  The game is for two players, one representing the irresistible forces of proletarian revolution (called the Red Player), and the other the (hopefully) impervious alliance of anti-Bolshevist forces that would have been arrayed to oppose such an invasion (called the White Player).

The game begins just after the Red Player’s forces have won the Battle for Warsaw in mid-August 1920.  Sensing that “over the corpse of White Poland lies the road to worldwide conflagration” (Tukhachevsky, leader of the Red forces, in a communique), the leadership of the RSFSR has decided to go for broke and seize Berlin, capital of a Germany in political and economic disarray.  However, it is already late summer and they cannot sustain a military effort of this size past the onset of bad weather at the end of October. The Red Player has just ten weeks to change the course of world history.

This is a complete makeover of 1998’s Freikorps, just as Red Horde 1920 was a complete makeover of Konarmiya. 176 counters, 17×22″ hex map. Same updated and revised system, and like Red Horde this one has lots of optional rules to vary the game, including: armoured trains; the Trotsky Train (making a reappearance); the Red Baltic Fleet; Entente units and the Royal Navy;  different deployments and structures for the Reichswehr; Danzig – what of Danzig?; and Red conscription on the march.

And of course, just as with their predecessors the two games can link, so you can play one long game from May to October of 1920, on a combined map that stretches from Kiev to Berlin.

I just handed in the files for this game, so no better samples or even kooky cover art to show… but when it’s time, you can pre-order your copy here. Price will likely be $40 but there’s usually a 10% pre-order discount, and the PnP version is generally less than $20.

https://flyingpiggames.com/t/yaah-magazine

Wargames for Christmas (via Players Aid)

Over at the Players Aid blog, Grant Kleinheinz presents his annual list of ten interesting and innovative wargames released this year to give (or hope to get) for Christmas.

Colonial Twilight is on the list, and Red Horde 1920 gets an honourable stocking-stuffer mention!

Other games on the list that I’ve tried include GMT’s Time of Crisis and Hollandspiele’s Supply Lines of the American Revolution, a very interesting work by Tom Russell.

https://theplayersaid.com/2017/11/22/10-wargames-to-buy-your-wargamer-for-christmas-2017-edition/

Last year’s list ( Xmas Xhopping List)   had The Scheldt Campaign on it, so I must be dong something Grant likes!

A couple of Red Horde 1920 videos

A guy on Youtube named “Bad Karma” has posted two videos of him inspecting and playing Red Horde 1920:

Unboxing, or rather unbagging.

And in this one he plays through one and a half semi-improvised turns, explaining all the ins and outs of the game’s phase and combat systems as he goes.

Thanks for filming your game adventures!

Some more videos from The Players Aid (unboxing this time)

I’ve been finding other Youtube videos that the guys at The Players Aid blog have been making of my work. These are unboxing videos, where the maker of the video opens the box or bag and talks about what they find inside – necessarily, mainly first impressions of rules, map and counters.

First, Winter Thunder from Tiny Battle Publishing.

And Red Horde, a more recent release from TBP.

Next, The Scheldt Campaign from Hollandspiele.

And finally, the unboxing video to Colonial Twilight, to go with their longer video on their impressions of play.

Thanks so much for doing these Grant!

 

Red Horde 1920: interview at The Players Aid blog

Grant Kleinheinz of The Players Aid blog interviewed me about Red Horde 1920. Pictures, and a silly anecdote too!

https://theplayersaid.com/2017/08/21/interview-with-brian-train-designer-of-red-horde-1920-from-tiny-battle-publishing

Meanwhile, Mark Walker liked the idea of a Freikorps revised to the same standard and I have spent the last week bashing that one into shape. I tested it on the weekend with Akito, and he found it interesting. It will be quite a bit different from the earlier version, yet more of the same.