Bolt Action - Soviet Infantry and The God of War

Once again, my iron will and legendary restraint have been completely shattered by peer pressure. Thanks in no small part to members of our forum, I've fallen into my third Bolt Action army.

Russians. I'm still not really sure where to start with them, but I started with them anyways!
 

The seven-man veteran squad I ordered. I hope they got the ears right on my models.

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New Zealand Trip Diary: Part 5

Playtesting Caveman vs Mammoth. 

I spent a large portion of Day 5 with Pete Simunovich, part owner and founder of Battlefront.  He had business at an Olive Estate, and so invited me to drive out with him.  We talked for a long time about the inception of Battlefront, how it's grown, and where it's going.  We recorded the conversation so I won't try to paraphrase much, but again his passion for gaming is evident.  One recurring theme coming from everyone at Battlefront and Pete especially is "We're gamers, and so we want to treat our customers the way we as gamers want to be treated".

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Review: Battlefront Plastic Paras

The moment I heard my FLGS got in the new Open Fire box set, I ran down to the mall and picked up my box set.  I absolutely love every part of Open Fire, but by far my favorite unit in Open Fire are the US Paratroopers.  For most of us Yanks, the paratroopers of WW2 hold an almost mythical position in our minds.  Their heroics and bravery inspire and their courage ranks up their with that of the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae.  Its not surprising that when I interact with many gamers who are looking at starting their first Flames of War army they talk about getting US Paras.  Needless to say, their inclusion in Open Fire is exciting.  The following video also proves that US Paras are hardcore.

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New Zealand Trip Diary: Part 4

Some BF guys play Napoleon at War.

The majority of my 3rd day at the Battlefront office was spent learning about production and the business side of things.  I really had no idea just how much went into the planning, timing, and execution of releases.  I'll leave a lot of the specifics to later material (I recorded an excellent audio interview with Jeff from Malaysia, with input from Chris and JP), but there's a few items I'd like to touch on.

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A Quick Look at the Dunkirk House

This will be a very quick look, as most of you have already seen our review of the other houses here and here. One thing you will notice is that the house is very different than originally planned - see the article here.  To me, this is just fine and I actually think that the final house goes much better with the previous houses than the preview.

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Bolt Action - Steve's Desert Rats (900 points or so)

I know you all have kept up with Sonbae's excellent WIP posts showing off the work he'd done for me, but I was so excited to get them I had to photograph them for myself!  I've made an attempt to categorize and point them here, and have come up with around 900 points or so.  The infantry is all by Blacktree Design.  

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New Zealand Trip Diary: Part 3

Second day at the office.  Not a whole lot new to report, but hopefully some enlightening pictures.  We  nearly completed the interviews today- but even after spending a few hours with Phil, there's lots of stones left to overturn!

The morning kicked off with another in depth discussion about Soviet tanks from the playtesting night before.  Almost all hands were on deck and numerous solutions were presented- most of which were thought through to their conclusion and shown to not be a viable solution.  It was enlightening to witness and I got a real sense of both the frustration faced by the team, but also the desire to solve the problem.  Without doubt, soviet tanks present a real conundrum to the design team and there's no magic bullet solution.

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KV-1s Platoon

Yet another story of "I got it CHEAP!"  At some point, I picked up the KV-1s Heavy Tank Company (SBX04) in the flea market - I think at Historicon 2012 - for $25.  The plan was to paint these and sell them at the next HMGS convention, but Steven snagged them first.  I did manage a few pictures before he took them home.

I primed these with hardware store camouflage paint, since I was out of Soviet armor.

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New Zealand Trip Diary: Part 2

My second day in NZ, and first day at Battlefront HQ was quite enlightening.  I was fortunate to be able to witness a lot of different processes at various stages.

Firstly, Mike got to see the fruits of his labors as the advance copies of the new Market Garden books had just arrived.  Apologies to Mike- I spotted a mistake in a platoon diagram that ate at him the rest of the day, even though it was interesting to see how that occurred.  Mike showed me a working copy that did not have the error, and a much older copy that did.  At some point, the older version of a platoon diagram was linked into the final document, and slipped by final proofing.  Unfortunately, these things happen.  And besides- the rest of the book is awesome!  People are going to be very surprised by a few new forces and stats tweaks.

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Spartacus Review

Spartacus A Game of Blood and Treachery, by Luke Melia

We recently had the opportunity to play the new Spartacus game by Gale Force Nine.  The game is based on the Starz television series.  To quote the rulebook, “In the game, each player takes on the role of Dominus, the head of a house in Capua, a city in the era of Ancient Rome.  Each house is competing for influence.  Fight for dominance through a combination of political schemes and glorious battles on the sands of the arena.”

The game has good graphic design.  It represents the television show well with major and minor characters throughout the game in vibrant colors and screen shots captured in the rulebook and cards.  If you are a fan of the show, you will have instantaneous recognition of the characters and many of the subtle colorful references throughout the game.  The game itself comes with two sets of cards for play: the Intrigue and Market decks - token for gold, as well as house markers, a generous amount of dice, quick reference cards for the phases of the game, a arena battle board and of course four plastic gladiator figures. The plastic figures were really my only disappointment with the game.  Everything else is so well made and designed.  The figures, although in great poses seem to be a little flimsy.  I have thought about picking up a variety of metal figures and have them painted to give some additional visual effect to the game.   The game takes between two and three hours to play and has a maximum of four players.   The object of the game is to be the first player to have twelve “influence” points.  There are a variety of ways to gain and lose influence throughout the game and every player can affect not only their own influence, but their opponents as well.  You have several options for fast play games - every player can start with 7, 4 or even 1 influence.  The higher the number you start with determines how much faster the game will go considering you only have to get to 12 to win.  Now here is the kicker- The game is only $40!  I expected it to be at least $60 so on the value side of things, you just cannot beat this.

 A note of warning here:  This game is for adults.  There are expletives on the side of the box as well as the playing cards themselves.  There are also numerous adult innuendos and content throughout the game.  Sorry folks, this is not a “play with the kids” kind of game.

Game play is broken into four parts:

1.       Upkeep.  In this phases you refresh your cards, heal any injuries gladiators may have and balance your ledgers.  You flip any spent cards that may have been exhausted (flipped over) to use a special ability.  We had plenty of jokes while playing when you “exhaust” certain slaves to generate a gold piece.  (Wink wink, say no more)  Every turn, when you balance your ledgers, you receive one gold per ready slave and have to pay one gold for every ready gladiator.  Ready is defined as not injured or exhausted.

2.       Intrigue.  In this phase each player draws three cards. Then, starting with the Host, take turns playing schemes, cash in cards and use House special rules.  There are several types of intrigue cards: scheme, reaction and guard cards.  Scheme cards have a certain number of influence required to play.  Sometimes you may have to get the support of another Dominus (player) in order to play a card.  For example, the “Joint Venture” card requires twelve influence, but you only have nine.  You can make a deal with another to loan you their six influence temporarily to play the card.  You now have fifteen influence (not to count for victory conditions, just to help you play the card) and the card is then played.  This is really the essence of the game.  You can make deals, bribe and subvert other players.  Backstabbing is common and after the game I played I had a deep sympathy for the politics of ancient Rome.  At the same time you can play reaction cards which allow you to counter schemes or in some cases change events.  Last, but not least are the guard cards.  These cards can be used to counter schemes as well.  On every card there is a gold symbol on the bottom of the card.  You can opt not to play the card and cash it in to the bank and get the equivalent in gold to the value on the card.

3.       Market.  Players can trade, buy or sell assets with each other or cash them into the bank.  There is also an auction.  Four market cards are placed face down.  One at a time a card is flipped over.  Players now have the option of bidding on any of the cards which can be gladiators, slaves, weapons, armor and even special abilities.  Bidding is really neat in this game.  Basically you put a number of gold tokens in your hand secretly, and then all players place their closed fists over the middle of the table and reveal their bids.  The highest takes home the prize and in the case of a tie there is an easy way in the game mechanics to resolve.  Last, but not least is the bidding to see who will be the Host of the games.  Bidding is done the same way as in the normal auction phase.  Spoiler alert, you want to host the games.  Save your money to be able to win the honor.

4.       The last phase of the game is the Arena.  This is when bets are placed on the outcome of the games, combatants are chosen and two players fight a great little battle in the middle of what first appeared just to be a card game.  Combat flows smoothly and has really simple mechanics.  Since everyone has money betting on who will win and who will lose, I found every player really getting into the combat even when their gladiator was not in the fight.   For a moment I felt like a spectator in the Coliseum. 

We had never played the game before and literally opened the rulebook and started playing step by step.  The first round was a little slow as we were learning, but quickly picked up the game and things moved at a very accelerated pace.  This is a very competitive game and although you are fighting against each other to win there is a level of diplomacy that comes into every game as you jockey for influence and work together to take on the player who has more influence than you. 

The game is extremely tense as you scheme to gain influence the whole time watching over your back that one of your opponents is not about to put one over on you.   This game captures the spirit of the intrigue of the television show and really had us sitting on the edges of our seats.  I found the managing your gold and being the one who Hosts the game is of paramount importance to winning the game.   I wanted to include some thoughts on the game from Mike Proctor who also played with us at Fall In.

I enjoyed my game a lot. I think it is well worth the $40. We played a short game starting at 7 influence with the need to get to 12 to win. I think starting at 1 would make for a long game but still fun. Only thing is it is a four player game max and I am not sure it would really work with less. If you have the right crowd of people to play with this is an excellent game and I highly recommend it! 4 out for 5 swords for me!

Mike Proctor (mikep18103 on the forums)

I enjoyed this game immensely and look forward to playing again.  We have talked about this on the podcast, episode 47 Live from Fall In, so please listen for more details. Nothing beats standing up as Host with the power of life or death over someone’s gladiator and then giving them the big thumbs down!   I give this game 5 out of 5 stars.  It is a truly great game combining elements of miniature combat, diplomacy and deck builder games.  For $40 it is a no brainer and a steal.

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New Zealand Trip Diary: Part 1

After a very pleasant 12 hour flight on Air New Zealand (which, as an aside, is so Lord of the Rings themed it was a bit embarrassing), I touched down in Auckland.  Mike and James picked me up, and we went to a local cafe to chat.  Conversation ran the gamut, and I was happy that we all got on swimmingly.

Afterwards, Mike and I hung out for a bit before heading over to check out a game club in Western Auckland.  There I met Damien, Chris Townley, and Dan Linder.  The guys had rented a community center and set up 5 gaming tables.  Warmahordes and Malifaux were the main events, but I was also privy to one of the most exciting games of X-Wing I've witnessed!

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Spartacus Review

Spartacus A Game of Blood and Treachery, by Luke Melia

We recently had the opportunity to play the new Spartacus game by Gale Force Nine.  The game is based on the Starz television series.  To quote the rulebook, “In the game, each player takes on the role of Dominus, the head of a house in Capua, a city in the era of Ancient Rome.  Each house is competing for influence.  Fight for dominance through a combination of political schemes and glorious battles on the sands of the arena.”

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Bolt Action - AAR: Battle for the Oasis

Another 28mm Bolt Action game! This time I roped Sean in, and gave him the crash course. He decided to play the Germans, while I again took over the brits. We decided to play "Hold Until Relieved" with a desert Oasis in the center of the board. Again we come to around 900ish points.

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Bolt Action - Steve's Afrika Korps (900 Points or so)

I wanted to highlight the painting Sonbae did for me and talk about how I've organized the forces a bit.  Of course, I have no idea yet what I am doing with Bolt Action, so take all of this with a grain of salt!  Mostly I just bought some random dudes and had a buddy paint them.  Moving forward, I will add to the force and play a few times to see what I'd like in my repertoire!  All the infantry here are by BlackTree Design 

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We'll be taking a short break to celebrate Thanksgiving!

The WWPD podcast crew with our buddy Dan from HMGS

Here in the states it's time to be thankful and then eat ourselves silly.  With my pending trip to New Zealand, and all of us running around in preparation for the Holiday, we decided to take a short break from posting articles.  We've been generating content at a furious pace, and we already have the funnel filled back up to the top, but we're all ready to give our brains and typin' fingers a few days R&R.  Rest assured, come Monday, we'll be back on schedule and delivering daily content!

If you haven't checked out The Tapestry and Bolt Action.net you're missing out!  On most Mondays our little network publishes 3 articles (one on each site), and on Wednesday and Friday at least 2.

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Meet The Demo Armies: PHR

This is the fourth post in a series.

This is the final post introducing my demo armies for Dropzone Commander. Each army consists of the starter box as the core, and two additional blisters to add a third command battlegroup to each. This allows me to use the cards in the demo games and gives players a bit more firepower. At the bottom is a quick "cheat sheet" army list I have made for the army that lets the player's visually identify what i what, and uses only the stats and rules I feel necessary for a demo game (albeit a demo game geared towards folks who already have experience in other tabletop games).

Three battlegroup PHR demo army

The new additions - a command battlegroup with two command walkers and four scout walkers.

PHR demo army cheat sheet. Design by myself, stats by Hawk Wargames. Reposted with permission.

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Knock, Knock, Knocking on Hitler's Door

Knock, Knock, Knocking on Hitler's Door: Reconsidering the PaK 36

"Who's there?"

Going into the war, many armies fielded 37mm anti-tank guns, although these were already over-matched by the armor of many existing tanks. As such, troops were quickly recognized them as inadequate.  German soldiers even nicknamed their PaK 36 "Hitler's Doorknocker," as it could rarely do better than knock on the outside of tanks.

Back when Blitzkrieg first arrived, I too quickly dismissed these guns, but after a few games with them, my opinion has been changing.  Although still inadequate against many targets, they can go a long way towards protecting an intermixed infantry platoon, which as light guns they can now in v3 accompany at full pace.

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Bolt Action - AAR: Soviets vs. Germans: Hold Until Relieved (City Fight!)

Chris Boynton (ProfNexus) set the bar (not The BAR) pretty high when he sent me the first battle report from his group's recent Stalingrad event - but when he sent me his second battle report I was absolutely blown away! Enjoy! - Judson

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Somethin' Else Sunday: Grular for Freeblades

As a followup to the look at the Trillians by DGS Games, here is the Freeband I bought to face them in combat: The Grular!  As with the Trillians, these were all painted by Jeff (AKA Sonbae).  Thanks Jeff!

Description text in italics below taken from www.dgsgames.com


Multitudes of Grular roam the world in pursuit of adventure, plunder and battle. Young Grular are raised on stories of legendary freebands and their adventures. Joining a freeband is the primary path for Grular to rise above their birth earning a greater place amongst Grular society. To the Grular roaming the world is their chance at glory and glory is the reason for living. With the release of our new Grular starter box, you are one purchase away from marshaling your own Grular free band. Be among the first to experience the thrill of marauding across Faelon for the glory of your clan, Khan and all of Grular!

Kor-Khan

To earn the rank of Kor-Khan is an achievement reached by only the most elite warriors and entitles the bearer to lead the Khan’s armies on the field of battle. Kor-khans lead from the front swinging the vicious spikedrakh in one hand and a pulverizing flail in the other.

Mounted Marauder

The unforgiving expanses of Grular are the home of the Marauder. Tireless warriors riding the hardiest horses, Marauders are deadly warriors lethal firing their composite bows from the saddle and able to deal a serious blow up with their flails when charging into melee.

Krang

Krang are typically recruited from the orphans and other dregs of society. Krang are given training in two symbolic weapons – the spikedrakh and the anghara. Training emphasizes fast flurries of furious combination attacks. These skills make Krang a valuable and familiar site in the warbands of the Grular.

Gadarl

Unlike other shadow demons, Gadarl do not have the ability to simply appear as something else. However, they can actually transform physically into that with which they come into contact. They are some of the most dangerous of demons, because this transformation is not detectable through normal magical means.

Warlock

Warlocks delve deep into the mysteries of Shadow Magic exulting in the horror they can inflict in their foes. Twisting shadows to their will Warlocks frequently use their mysterious shadowspears to summon fearsome nightmares from beyond the boundaries of Faelon.

Bludgeoner

Becoming a Bludgeoneer offers many young Grular a chance for glory and promotion in war. The youth of the plains flock to the call of the Khans for infantry, hoping to escape the abject poverty of the many horse poor clans through bloody swings of a brutal flail.

Really looking forward to getting in a game of Freeblades!  

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Somethin' Else Sunday - FTL: Faster Than Light

I know we don't usually do 'Vidyo Gaims' around here, but Steve and I have been playing this so much we'd have nothing else to write about anyway!

The name of the game is FTL: Faster Than Light. You can find their website here.

Synopsis



It is tough to describe the game in terms of standard video game genres. It is a Real-Time (yes, you can pause it - thank the stars), Tactical, Space Adventure game that plays like a board game you never knew you wanted. You command a 'Freighter' or 'Corvette' sized ship, with 3-8 crew members, fighting & questing your way through 8 sectors of increasingly treacherous space. It is brilliant in its simplistic, yet random design and you will play a completely different game every time you fire it up. In common sci-fi parlance, it's Firefly/Serenity scale with Star Trek themes.

Oh, and it's only $10.


Plot

The 'plot' of the game is pretty straight forward - no real spoilers to be had here. There is a galactic civil war between the Federation and the Rebels, and a massive Rebel fleet is on it's way destroy an unprepared Federation fleet. You are a Federation captain and you have just discovered the Rebel fleet. Your job is to take your ship and fly through several sectors of space to reach the Federation fleet and alert them before it's too late. When you arrive at the final sector and alert the Federation fleet, the first wave of Rebels arrive right behind you. The only hope for the Federation is to have you find and destroy the Rebel flagship before the rest of the Rebel fleet arrives.

Okay, so that last line is kind of a spoiler, but you'll be glad I told you because that flagship is not to be taken lightly.

While the plot is very simple, it provides the game with a sense of urgency and allows the game to build the mechanics pushing you towards that eventual destination - even if you're not ready for it.


Gameplay

You start each game session by selecting your ship, and optionally naming your ship and crew members. Initially, you have only one ship design and layout to choose from. Through in-game quests and achievements, you can unlock 8 additional ships and 1 alternate layout for each of those ships, giving you 18 variations on the same starting point. Each layout/ship comes with a completely different 'floor plan' for your ship and a different set of crew, weapons, and ship systems.

Your Starting Ship: The Kestrel

Each ship comes with a set number of built-in systems with additional slots that can accommodate new systems purchased throughout the game. These include 3 'subsystems': Piloting (Helm), Sensors, and Doors; and 9 'main systems': Shields, Engines, Weapons, Life Support, Medical Bay, Drone Control, Teleporter, Cloak, and an Artillery Beam (only found on 1 ship). All ships come with the 3 subsystems installed, and most other ships will come with 6-7 other systems installed by default. This can lead to a variety of different tactics as you progress through the game.

For instance, the Stealth Ship begins with a cloak system, but no shields; the Engi Ship starts with weak weapons, but additional Drone Control slots; and the Variant Mantis ship starts with no weapons, but has a Teleporter and Boarding Drones.

All of these systems can and will be upgraded via the collection of Scrap, the main 'currency' in the game. You are also required to power all of these systems via a Reactor on the ship that is also upgradable. All systems and reactors have a fixed limit to how much they can be upgraded, and your reactor is not capable of powering all systems at full power all the time. The more you upgrade a system, the more it costs for the next upgrade.

What? No Marshmallows?

This leads into one of the cooler aspects of the game: power management. For example, certain weapons require a certain amount of power from your weapon system to charge and fire. Don't have a big enough weapon system? Can't turn it on. Don't have enough reactor juice? Gotta power something else down to fire it. More powerful weapons require more power. Since each upgrade costs you vitally important scrap, you need to plan your upgrades carefully.

There are also a variety of events that can cut power to certain systems, reduce total reactor power, and even crew members that provide an extra bar of power to whatever room they are in!

There are 6 races of crew available, with the most common being human (who have no special abilities). You can acquire or start with Mantis, Rockmen, Slugs, Engi (sentient robots), and Zoltans (those energy guys) - all of which have their own advantages and disadvantages, allowing them to fit into specialized crew roles.

Some of your systems (Helm, Weapons, Shields, and Engines) can also be 'crewed', which improves their functionality. Your crew members also gain experience with each of those systems, along with Repair and Hand-to-Hand combat, increasing their ability to manage those systems as they gain experience.

Your starting ship and crew are about the only things fixed in the game, as all 8 sectors of space you travel through are randomly generated each time you play. Technically, 18 sectors are randomly generated to create a webbed path for you to 'choose your own fate' (much like the old Star Fox games) and each of the sectors are classified as friendly, hostile, or 'unexplored nebula'. Each sector consists of 20-30 jump points that you travel to and from to reach the exit of the sector and then jump to the next.

A typical fight against a pirate vessel.

Each jump point contains a randomly generated 'encounter' - which (depending on the system) could be an enemy ship, a non-combat encounter, a distress signal, a store to trade scrap for weapons/crew/drones/ship systems, etc. Combat is carried out in real-time, with charging weapons, rushing your crew to repair damaged parts of your ship, and venting airlocks to suffocate fires. Your abilities in combat rest largely on the equipment your ship brings to the fight: a teleporter allows you to beam crew members aboard their ship to fight hand-to-hand, a drone control system allows you to launch automated attack drones, and that improved shield generator will allow you to resist laser/beam fire better. There are a lot of semantics that go into a combat, but all of them are pretty straight forward. There are a wide variety of weapons allowing for different 'combos' that may be more or less effective given your target. For instance, you might think teleporting your crew aboard an AI Automated ship would be a good idea (Who's there to stop you!?!) - until you realize there's no oxygen on the enemy ship!

Doom da Doom Doom Doom. Doomy Doomy Doom.....

"Non-combat" encounters are very well done. A situation is presented to you in a small text box, descriptive enough that it provides you with an interesting situation but short enough that you can read it in 15 seconds. Nearly all of these encounters come with two options, usually one to 'help' or one to 'leave be'. For example, there is an encounter where you receive a distress call from a nearby station - it is under attack by giant spiders. You can choose to leave them to their fate or attempt to assist them. Leaving them alone obviously has no risk, but also no reward. Choosing to help could land you some scrap, fuel, missiles, or even a weapon - or you could end up losing a crew member in the fight (with no reward). In addition to these two options, 'blue' options appear (called this because they are presented in blue text) that are available depending on the systems/equipment/crew races on your ship. In the provided example, if you have an Anti-Personnel Drone on your ship, you can send it down to the station to eradicate the spiders with no risk to your crew. These blue options are (thankfully) always superior to any of the standard choices.

Okay, maybe not always superior for everyone.

Some of the encounters spiral out into short 'quest lines', requiring you to visit specific jump points. Many of these quest lines require a particular piece of equipment or crew from a particular race, and since each store you find has a randomly generated set of crew/equipment/weapons/systems to sell you, you'll never be able to get everything in a single play-through.

In addition to the random nature of the game, you also have the Rebel fleet which is hot on your tail the entire game. In each system, the Rebel fleet moves across the map, pushing you towards the exit jump point. It's statistically impossible to visit every point in each sector - in fact, you'll probably only be able to hit half of them before you have to jump out. If you do get caught by those rebels, you'll be forced to fight a particularly powerful ship - and even if you destroy it, you earn no scrap for it (no time to collect it, you've gotta run!).

I'll see you in Hell!

The entire game is essentially a huge risk-reward equation that you slowly learn to maneuver your way through over the course of multiple play-throughs. Each play session lasts from about 15 to 90 minutes (although I did have an epic 2.5 hour game once), and it is HARD. There are two difficulty options, normal and easy, and I highly suggest starting with easy. If you don't, at least it won't take you long to figure out you need to switch. The only save game mechanism in the game allows you to "save & quit" - meaning you can't save the game before you fight those spiders, then load back if you don't like the results. This cutthroat mechanic, coupled with the 'hope' of a more 'player friendly' randomly generated world on the next play-through makes you hungry for the next game.

Personal Thoughts

Now why didn't I think of that....

I cannot believe how addictive this game turned out to be. When I think about my review here, it's hard to imagine that I wanted to play another round of it after playing for 90 minutes only to be utterly destroyed by the end boss. And then another round after losing my 90% of my crew aboard an enemy ship when it blew up. Or after that time when my ace gunner was eaten by giant spiders (they are no joke). Or after that time when an enemy missile hit my life support system and set fire to my ship, consuming all of the oxygen and killing my crew by asphyxiation. But it's that very challenge that makes it oh so difficult to pay attention to your wife, take out the garbage, or properly feed your 1 year old daughter.

You'll just have to play it yourself to find out. Did I mention it was only $10? And that you can buy it right here?

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Bolt Action - Bolt Action Radio Episode 4

Click Here for Episode 4!

 Dano and Judson get Alessio Cavatore to show up at The BAR - and man, turns out Alessio is a great guy to hang at The BAR with! Afterwards, the guys talk about Fall-In, the BoltAction.Net Painting Contest, and a tournament happening in Australia. You can't have a night at The BAR without a little Shop Talk. In this episode, the boys talk about how wrong their impressions and ideas from the week before were, then give you more truisms that will be utterly false next week!

 0:00 Dano e-Stalks Alessio Cavatore
1:11 Fall-In Review
1:24 Painting Contest
1:39 Cancon Event
1:56 Shop Talk - Before/After

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Know the Mission II: Defensive Battles

We're back with episode 2 of Know the Mission!  This one was compiled in large part by our friend Eric Riha, the Mathemagician.  

Without further ado: Know the Mission II- Defensive Battles

After our second attempt, the guys are finally able to get this episode "in the can".

In the second episode of Know the Mission, the dudes put "Defensive Battles" under the microscope.  We primarily talk about "No Retreat", but include "Hold the Line" and "Pincer" in there as well, thanks to their similarities.

Editor's note: I (Steven) mention Pincer having 2 ambushes.  It only has one!  Sorry!

Don't forget to listen using our new App!  Search the Apple App store or the Amazon App store for android.

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