Too Fat Lardies’ Sharp Practice v2 is so famous among historical gamers, you’d be tempted to no longer call it an indie. But this is my podcast, and it’s an excuse for me to have bants with the lads and try games I thought were interesting. I’ve declared all historicals (save for Flames of War/Team Yankee) to be indies, so here’s the Sharp Practice review.
Listen to the Fortified Niche episode.
Continue reading “Sharp Practice v2 | Fortified Niche!”Through the grace of Slitherine’s marketing department, I have, over the years, collected all the modern Combat Mission titles and their multiple expansions for free. Yet I haven’t reviewed a single game. Why? Because I never felt I like had played enough of anys single title to have an authoritative say about it. However! The games are very similar, running as they are on a single engine. With that in mind, I might just get away with reviewing all of them – the whole modern Combat Mission catalogue – with a single blog post.
Continue reading “Combat Mission review | Generalizing for leutenant colonels”Here at Fortified Niche, we’ve been fans of World of Fun Games as long as we’ve known of the company. Plexiglas standees solve the issues of both paper standees and regular miniatures! But our endless paeans always lacked a certain I-defintely-can-sais-qui: none of us had ever touched the stuff. This changed recently when WoFun kindly provided the awkwardly-named Start Pack Peninsular War 18mm – and threw in a few other frames besides. Does this mean I’ll turn my sycophancy to 11? Let’s find out.
Continue reading “Mo’ fun with WoFun | Peninsular War 18mm Starter Pack review”What if game rules were under thirty pages? That’s not sole privilege of OPR, you know. In this installment of This Came From The FLGS podcasting, I review zine-sized skirmish games: Space Weirdos for sci-fi gun-havers, and its more mature evolution Sword Weirdos for fantasy!
Listen to the Fortified Niche episode.
Continue reading “Space Weirdos/Sword Weirdos | Fortified Niche!”Have you heard of these peculiar plastic bricks that the Danes have made? They are called “Lego” and you can use them to both erect structures and craft engines, and create whole worlds for miniature plastic figurines to inhabit. And what, pray tell, would happen if such a plastic brick game was inspired by Japanese woodcuts of fights in giant armored suits – or even space-faring vessels? Why, you would get Mobile Frame Zero* and its kin, Mobile Frame Zero: Intercept Orbit!
Listen to the Fortified Niche episode.
Continue reading “Mobile Frame Zero/Intercept Orbit | Fortified Niche!”Star Wars hasn’t had much luck with movies lately, and the video game adaptations are a mixed bag. But, surprisingly enough, the miniature wargames are on an upswing! One of multiple such phoenixes arising from plastic ashes is Star Wars: Legion, the 28mm mass combat game from Atomic Mass Games, mostly known for a skirmish game tied to another terrible movie franchise.
Listen to the Fortified Niche episode.
Continue reading “Star Wars: Legion | Fortified Niche!”Longtime listeners will know that I’m a big “1 miniature represents 1 soldier” fan. Naturally, it took the Something Awful goons mentioning Eisenhower all of twice for me to get very interested in the World War 2 wargame of commanding entire division, with battalion being the smallest unit on the table. Naturally.
Listen to the Fortified Niche episode.
Try the Counterattack on the Mius TTS module.
Try the Operation Epsom TTS module.
28 hours has to be enough. Second (if not third) Flashpoint Campaigns game I’m getting off Slitherine – and the first one I’m [gendering] up to review. Because I promised the good folks online – nobody in particular really, just the general online population – that I’d do it. So here it goes: Flashpoint Campaigns: Cold War is the best Cold War game you can play on this, the publication day of the article.
Continue reading “Flashpoint Campaigns: Cold War review | Cold War Done Good”Would a Dungeons and Dragons miniature skirmish game allow you to hire its titular beast into your starting team? No! But Burrows & Badgers: Second Edition is totally cool with you hiring a badger – and is an excellent rule set besides.
Listen to the Fortified Niche episode.
Continue reading “Burrows & Badgers 2E | Fortified Niche!”This review came about solely ‘cos I watched the Master of Command developer videos. Previously, I did’t know anything about the Seven Years’ War, nor was I an Armchair Historian follower. But I was mildly interested in Fire & Maneuver, his previous title, and liked what I saw in those recorded dev streams. This encouraged me to beg for a game key. It was graciously provided and I immediately ran into unforeseen problems.
Continue reading “Master of Command review | The other Napoleonic war”
