Hi All

I am about to do the final in game scrub.  Most of the proofing is now in my hands (another day or so and it will all be there – not much point in starting till I have it all).  At starts continue to progress… more soon!

Cheers

John

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Clumping Loudly….

Hi All

As of last night all counter art was in final draft for the game.  The files went out today for proofing which I hope will be painless as we have already made major efforts to fix issues.  At Starts are still in progress – and I will be devoting my attention to them as of tomorrow.

The core elements of my work now are finalising the game files, and sorting out the printers.  That task will be done shortly, as will the closure of pre-sale.  Thankfully the game has come together rather nicely!
Regards

John

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Blitzkrieg II

“Don’t Spit at Them. Smash them!”

Blitzkrieg Version 2.0 is the revised, expanded, and re-released TSWW Game covering the War in the West from 1939 to June of 1943.  Fitting in between Mare Nostrum to the south, Barbarossa to the east, and Balkan Fury to the south east, it takes players from the German invasions of Poland, Scandinavia, France and the Low Countries, racing across the globe to the climactic hunt for the Bismarck.  With typical TSWW depth, you can try and end the war in a few brief and bloody campaigns as the Axis powers, or you can hang on until time, space and every growing power gives the Allies hope for final victory.

Mapping at the strategic level will reach across the North Atlantic to the Caribbean, and will most likely include the South Atlantic as well.  Regular mapping will include Iceland for the first (and only) time in the TSWW series, reaching from the bitter wastes of the North Atlantic to the icy northern reaches of Norway, and from the balmy Mediterranean coast of France to the searing plains of Poland, over a minimum of 20 typically high quality TSWW maps.

Orders of battle spread across 20 or 24 counter sheets will include German, British, French, Vichy French, Italian, Belgian, Swiss, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish Polish, Soviet, US and Eire forces deployed in the European theatre.

In the At Starts, as well as small learning scenarios and major campaign modules, a massive grand campaign will be included, tying the monsters of war together.  Mare Nostrum, Blitzkrieg II and Barbarossa will be given a unified OB unlike any other ever published before in the TSWW series (or elsewhere that we can find at this scale) permitting those who wish to fight a war, not a battle or two, the first real chance to do so at this scale.

Modified rules, upgraded mapping, expanded timelines, multiple battles, campaigns and the beginning of the end… Vast does not begin to describe the experience….

Available now from £300 (plus VAT in the EU) inclusive of shipping on pre-order

Purchase your guaranteed copy today from this website.

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LIBERATION

“You are about to embark on the Great Crusade”

Liberation is the TSWW Game of the Western Allied invasion and liberation of Western Europe.  It commences in July of 1943, with the invasion of Sicily, Operation Husky, and finishes with the Allied dash for the Elbe line. The Star of Liberty, the key note item of the box art, will be the Western Allied player’s guiding light as he strives to defeat the tottering but still potent forces of Nazism and Fascism in Europe.

Mapping will cover the UK, Benelux, France, Italy, parts of the Balkans, parts of Scandinavia and Germany all the way to Berlin, linking directly to Blitzkreig in the north and west, Vengeance in the East, and Mare Nostrum in the South. Much of the mapping is complete, and the areas not yet upgraded will not be a major task it is to be hoped.

With orders of battle covering the German, Royal Italian, RSI Italian, British, Canadian, US, Free French, Free Norwegian, Free Belgian, Free Dutch, Free Greek, Free Yugoslav, Titoist and Royalist Yugoslav Partisans, Italian Partisans, and the French Resistance, Liberation will be the most complete yet undertaken at the scale TSWW works at.  Significant works have been undertaken on these orders of battle with the USAAF, USN and the RSI Italians the only major elements needing resolved prior to pre-press work.

We anticipate 20 countersheets (5600 counters) to the usual very high TSWW specification of artwork and quality of print and die cut.

Mapping will spread over a minimum of 12 sheets, and probably a few more to include a small strategic display, but that is yet to be confirmed. It will of course be to the same very high standard as Day of Infamy and Singapore.

At Starts will of course include the grand campaign, Liberation, as well as Overlord, Husky, Salerno, Taranto, Avalanche, Wacht Am Rhien, Cobra, The Breakout, Canda’s First, Reaping the Whirlwind, as well as the what if “Sledgehammer”.  As ever we will add more as time and data permit, and will provide learning modules and scenarios to guide players through TSWW.

Available for pre-order from £300 Plus VAT, Liberation will follow on in the tradition of Mare Nostrum, Blitzkrieg and Barbarossa as being amongst the very best games of their type ever done.

Purchase a guaranteed copy today from this site today….

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FALL BARBAROSSA

“The World will hold it’s breath….”

Hammering Down the Door!

Hi All

Barbarossa… The Release is Nigh!

It has been a short while since I last updated, so may I firstly wish you all a very peaceful, prosperous and Happy New Year.

I have been hard at work with Barbarossa, despite many upsets else where.  The game is approaching completion, with one Soviet Countersheet left to create prior to Generics and of course final scrub on the Rules, Charts, OBs, Counters and the all important at start booklet.

In the rather stylish box will be:

24 or more countersheets covering the Soviets, Germans, Italian, Free French, British, American, Norwegian, Bulgarian, Finnish, Croatian, Hungarian and Romanian Forces involved in the campaign in the east.

20 Maps (2 are strategic in scale for the all important Murmansk Convoys) covering the whole of the European Soviet Union, mating precisely with the northern and eastern edge of Mare Nostrum, and slightly overlapping both Blitzkrieg and Hakkaa Paalle with the Arctic maps tagging on in the very far north. All are laminated in a similar fashion to Singapore, and include the best data we have on the USSR and its western regions at this time.

Rules book showing you how to play the system.  There are minor changes to some elements of the system for ease of play, and a few additions to properly show the challenges of operating in the depths of the USSR.

Soviet, Western Allied, German, Axis Minor nations OBs (for the Grand Campaign), comprising about 350 pages of orders of battle in total.  These provide June 1941-June 1943 orders of battles for most powers, and for those where they are an excerpt, provide the forces you require to fight the war in the East.  The sheer scale of the campaign will be apparent when you examine the massive forces deployed.  In our view, with some 10 man years of research involved, they are currently as good as we can make them.

At Start booklet – this is in development but will include a variety of learning, basic, intermediate and vast scenarios and modules teaching and then leading you, the player, through the depths of the Great Patriotic War until June of 1943.  Within the game are we hope a number of firsts, to include a possible Hungarian/Romanian war (which almsot occurred on several occasions) and a number of smaller campaigns or battle areas which will enable those of you who have limited space to play the war in the east.

Charts – these are close to completion (as usual we leave the paperwork to the last moment to try and encapsulate all the items we need) and will be around 40 sides.

UIC/Terrain Key – this is essentially done although I may at the last minute decided to amend them to minimise content whilst easing interpretation for the player.

2 D10 Dice as ever!

In addition to all of this, the game will be shipped in two possible box lids.  The first is shown here, the other uses the Reich flag as its basis.  No political statement is intended or accepted as a result of the art work.

We will be pushing Barbarossa to press in the next 10-14 working days.  I am extremely sorry for the delays, which are largely my fault as I either was unable to work for personal reasons, or underestimated the complexity of some of the counter art (it is very hard to find a counter across 6 or 8 sheets to back print it!). However things have moved much faster in many ways and the game is actually playable in full at its current state.  Playable would not mean complete, so I will get it finished before it goes to the printers.

In terms of scope and scale, I am not sure anyone has released a game of this magnitude before.  The efforts I and my team of superb researchers and assistants have put in would have to be seen to be believed, starting 10 years ago as a basic research project, and coalescing in the finished game.  I have lost count of the calls, emails, discussions, books, papers, maps, website pages, unit histories, and general histories that I and my team have bought, read and analysed to assemble the product, and as such I am very proud of the sum of the parts in front of me.

That said, we need to complete, and it is time to announce retail pricing.

The General’s Edition (including the Arctic Maps until sold out), plus the QM edition in the already stuffed box will be £500 plus VAT, inclusive of shipping.

Pre-order clients who wish to upgrade will pay £120 plus VAT to do so thus saving some more money if they do not already own the Arctic Maps.

The Colonel’s Edition will list at £425 plus VAT if in the UK or EU, inclusive of shipping

The Lieutenant’s Edition will list at £360 plus VAT if in the UK or EU, inclusive of shipping

The Quartermaster’s edition will list at £100 plus VAT if in the UK or EU, inclusive of shipping

Thank you all for your support and patience.  It has been a long road but the destination is nigh!
Regards

John Bannerman

Director, developer, researcher, coffee maker and artist!

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Clumping Loudly….

Hi All

Barbarossa continues to progress – slowly at the moment as I am dealing with RN ships for the Arctic convoys (each one needs time checked for its rating).  As more CS get to draft status I will upload more snippets…

Cheers
John Bannerman

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Hi All

As I think you will see massive progress has now been made in the counter art for Barbarossa.   Pre Sale is in effect closed and prices will be fixed at full retail in the immediate future (doing the art has delayed this).  It looks immense to me and I hope you all love what you see.  More on this soon….

Clumping Loudly….

Clumping Loudly….

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Hi All

As you know I only update when major information changes are available.  So, Barbarossa is, with the exception of the construction and RR engineers in the German OB complete in terms of research and basic OB development.  I will be away for a few days visiting Martyn and going to Malta to recharge my batteries – but hope to complete the engineers mentioned whilst away.
Once that is done I need to assemble the unified Soviet OB (it is in several files) and then generate the counter art.  It will not take too long to get to conclusion now.  Thank you all for your patience.
Regards

John Bannerman

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Hi All

With the exception of a very special deal we will be putting up at the end of the week Mare Nostrum is now sold out.  Thank you all for your incredible support – I REALLY appreciate it…

Regards

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Hi All,

We wanted to update everyone on the status of I Shall Return. We are deep into the research phase of this very intriguing game and making very good progress toward wrapping things up. At this time the 1941/1942 scenario research covering the Japanese capture of the Philippines is complete and the only thing that remains is to build the actual scenario. This scenario will include optional Allied units delivered by the USS Pensacola convoy as well as early war weapons like the B-17C/D and the A6M2-11. The Japanese will have a lot to do in this scenario and will be under severe time constraints to finish things up so that their army and navy can be released for use elsewhere.

For the September 1944-September 1945 time period, the research for the Axis and Allied air orders of battle as well as the US Army, US Marine Corps and US Navy ground orders of battle has been completed. We are now deep into the Japanese ground order of battle research for this period and expect this to be completed over the next several months. The naval orders of battle for 1944/45 have been started and are approximately 50% complete. What that then leaves is the May, 1942 through September, 1944 Japanese order of battle (which will consist mainly of occupation and anti-partisan ground units) and the Philippine Army, Philippine Constabulary and guerilla forces order of battle. Late war weapons will include the B-29, the B-32 (one squadron equipped with this aircraft during the summer of 1945), Iowa and Yamamoto class battleships and US Navy aircraft carriers equipped for night fighting. Some interesting units that will appear in the game include the IJA 2^nd Tank Division, the Alamo Scouts, the Takasago Volunteers and the Chinese Anti-Japanese Guerrilla Force. Depending on where we are counter wise, we may also cover the Love II operations which involved landing an Australian corps consisting of 3 infantry divisions and a reduced tank division in northern Luzon (despite MacArthur’s objections!).

We still need to build a final scenario list but the current thinking is as follows:

• The 1941/42 campaign scenario
• A December, 1941 one turn scenario covering the destruction of the Far East Air Force
• The 1944/45 campaign scenario
• A 1944 scenario covering ground/air operations on Leyte
• A 1945 scenario covering ground/air operations on Luzon
• A 1944 scenario covering the Battle of Leyte Gulf
• A 1945 scenario covering the capture of the Visayas and Mindanao
• A “what-if” scenario covering an assault on Formosa in early 1945

The Formosa scenario is based on a 1944 study conducted by Nimitz’s staff and assumes that Luzon was bypassed in favor of obtaining a strategic bomber base closer to Japan and to influence the ground war in China. We are looking forward to getting this game into your hands as soon as possible!

Dennis and John

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