We’ve never produced an actual WWII game excepting for the micro game that came bundled with the first and only issue of the Empires of History Magazine. That was a Stalingrad game. We’re going to re-release that game as a stand alone game using the new style game units and cleaned up rules under our Compact Game line. The newer evolution of that line took the games to full color maps and full color units on chipboard (but still cut outs) and the price got bumped from $4.95 to $7.95. So far we’ve release Jutland, Ramesses’ War and Fallen Blackhawk: Somailia in this style as well as upgrading the Barbary Coast War, Beyond Hadrian’s Wall and the Battle of Thermopylae. The Battle of Stalingrad will soon join it.
We’ve been working with our Empires of History: WWII game for a couple of years now but it hasn’t left internal play testing yet. Still needs some more balancing. A game that big and involved takes a long time to get right.
On the space front we have a couple ideas in the works. We’ve recently put a bid in on a fairly significant sci fi property and if we can hammer that out, that’ll become a line of space board games done under the same game play style of our Empires of History game line, but with more stats and rules emphasis on the ships.
If the license doesn’t pan out we eventually plan to put out the Empires & Overlords space setting as a stand alone board game. That is the space setting that is tied to Button Wars but the primary game will be playable as a strategy board game and will not require any button wars pieces. It will have a secondary option of being used as a Button Wars campaign gaming map too. This game will have ship development tech, ships, fighters and mecha. It will also have a variety of ground troops. The game will come with a variety of planetoid templates…maybe as many as 20 of them. Each major “homeworld” planet with significant population will hence be its own zone world map that can be fought over. Homeworld defenses, both orbital and planet-side can be used. Ultimately a good sized fleet should be able to pound a planet and its people to oblivion from space, but it may take a few turns and otherwise tie down the fleet. And if you toast everything from space there is nothing less to conquer and hence no economic benefit. Should prove to be an interesting game. We have a preliminary map for the game on the Button Wars web pages already, though it was drafted a few years ago, so don’t take it for being the final map.
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com
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