NEW RELEASE
La Bataille de Berlin 1813
Marshal Enterprises' (ME) latest game, La Bataille de Berlin 1813, recreates Napoleon’s efforts to capture Berlin in the summer of 1813 and knock the Prussians out of the Sixth Coalition. The game includes three different major battles: Blankenfeld; Gross Beeren; and Dennewitz which pit the Prussians under Prince Von Bulow and their Russian and Swedish allies against the French Imperial forces under first Marshal Oudinot and then Marshal Ney.
Kharkov Battles: Before & After Fall Blau
Kharkov Battles: Before & After Fall Blau is a standalone game covering the second & third battles of Kharkov that can be combined with its predecessor, Fall Blau! Independent scenarios cover Second Kharkov, Third Kharkov, and Operation Star. Or extend and combine with Fall Blau with the following scenarios: Soviet “Little Saturn” Operation or extend entire campaign through 5 February 1943. This game uses a modified version of the classic Operation Typhoon/Victory in the West system which uses a randomly drawn strength chit pull for strong units to determine their combat value.
REVIEW
Game Series Comparison: OCS vs. EFS
Wise Guy History takes us through a comparison of the Operational Combat Series (MMP) and East Front Series (GMT Games).
REPLAY
Typhoon! The Drive on Moscow, 1941
Wise Guy History provides this session report for Typhoon!, published by GMT Games. The session covers Scenario 1: Last Gamble for Moscow, as the Germans look to orchestrate a final push towards Moscow.
INTERVIEW
Interview with Tony Birkett and Chip Saltsman
The Players' Aid interviews Tony Birkett [Designer] and Chip Saltsman [Developer] for The Third Winter: The Campaign for the Ukraine, September 1943 – April 1944, from Multi-Man Publishing.
5 Questions with Sound of Drums GmbH
Brant Guillory interviews Sound of Drums, a brand-new company launching their Kickstarter campaign for History of the Ancient Seas. Based in Switzerland, with part of the team in Germany, these fine folks are joining the growing number of new publishers from Continental Europe.
OTHER NEWS
Grognard Holiday Shopping and Sales
Whiskey Charlie, Episode 31 features a roundtable discussion with Maurice Fitzgerald, Kev Sharp, and Nate Rogers covering various publisher specials and games.
Has it been Five Months Already?!
Oh my goodness, where has the time gone? It's hard to believe it's been five months since our last CSW Brief (issue 5). What happened? Well, things got beyond hectic in terms of workload and hosting CSW Expo this summer, so we took a momentary pause with our newsletter and news desk activity. Still, that's not an excuse for such a lengthy lapse, and we do apologize. Our goal is to finish the year strong with more frequent news updates, and yes, more issues of this CSW Brief.
In terms of news desk updates, you will see that for the first three days of November alone, we have surpassed our average news story count for each of the last four months. So we are already in the process of ramping up our activity, and we thank you again for your understanding.
This August, we were pleased to host CSW Expo in Tempe, AZ, and return to organized in-person gaming after nearly a two-year hiatus. Orchestrating a venue with social distancing measures kept us on our toes. In the end, everything ran smoothly with 170+ attendees (half our normal capacity). Thanks to Stuka Joe for producing this video that shows some of the action taking place. We are now setting our sights on 2022 for an Expo event in Dallas (new date and venue TBD), and we plan to host our Tempe event in August. We will share more details as they become available.
Lights, Camera, Action!
In the meantime, we have some good news to share (per the screenshot above). We rolled out a new service to help you catch the latest videos produced by, at last count, 38 hobby content contributors. You will find a new "Videos" link in our main site navigation, where we curate and display the latest videos in real-time. Here, you will find new videos every day, and on active days, you may find as many as 15 videos appearing in a single day alone! It's fantastic to witness the amount and quality of videos produced to support our hobby. We are so pleased to provide you with a single destination to catch the latest videos. Please be sure to check out our new Video section at least once a day, if not more often, as we update in real-time as each video is posted.
We hope you enjoy this new real-time video curation service. Again, it's great to be back with another issue of the CSW Brief. Enjoy!
John Kranz