Steel Wolves Close to Playtesting

[mako88sb]

For those of you who enjoyed Silent War, looks like work is progressing well on the Atlantic version. Playtesting to start in the next few weeks. The main game will take you to May of 1943 with an expansion to cover the rest of the war made available later. Here's some of the features that have been added:

(By Stephen Jackson)
-> Prize rules

-> German surface raiders (warships and merchant cruisers)

-> Minefields that you lay and determine if they sink anything

-> Possibility to encounter Allied ships while in transit mode.

-> Much more dynamic war mix including a cup for loners.

-> Three different combat displays: Loners, Convoys, and Task Forces.

-> Fluid wolf-packs. They can form, disband, and reform with new
members.

-> Political interactions between BdU (Dönitz), OKM (Raeder), and Berlin.

-> Intel interactions: ULTRA vs Enigma and B-dienst.

-> Fw-200 Kondors

-> Expanding Allied air coverage and quality with time.

-> German supply ships and U-tankers

-> American and Spanish "neutrality".


Here's a quote from Brien Miller in regards to some of the components:

"Map is bigger: its 34x22 (IIRC) and was made so that we could capture both the North Atlantic, South Atlantic, and part of the Indian Ocean on it (as well as the Med). All around, this game pretty much doubles everything about Silent War, which is one of the reasons we tackled it second. There are 12 countersheets in this one, 8 with Submarines and 4 short counters. Italian and Vichy French submarines are included. We are aiming to ship it with a Vassal/CB (one or the other or both as can be arranged) modules. It will be a 3" deep box too."

No set price yet of course but I'm definitely going to take advantage of the pre-order.

Rob

[Janus]

Is this a boardgame or what?

[Raptor1]

Is this a boardgame or what?

It is

[mako88sb]

Sorry. I should of realized some people aren't familiar with these products' Here's Neal's review of "Silent War":

http://www.subsim.com/ssr/silent_war/review_silent_war.php

I've been playing the grand campaign the last few weeks and managed to reach the first tonnage requirements on my second attempt. I'm using the Vassal module which makes things a whole lot easier compared to finding a large enough space to have this set up for the estimated 200 hrs required to play it out. I just don't seem to be able to get enough time on Silent Hunter 3 & 4 to be able to really enjoy them but with Silent War, I can run through a weeks worth of patrols in about 1/2 an hour. Pretty neat game but the -2 torpedo's had me ready to pull my hair out a couple times. Finally reached -1 torps and things have improved quite a bit just with that little change. I imagine quite a few sub commanders where ready to fire some of those Bureau guys out of a torpedo tube with their ridiculous accusations that sub crews weren't using the defective torps properly.

Rob

[mako88sb]

Steel Wolves is now available. You can still pick it up at pre-order prices. Bit on the expensive side but about twice the game compared to Silent War so I'm really looking forward to getting my copy. looks like a cold war version is in the early design stages.

http://compassgames.com/show/product/steel_wolves

[TheSatyr]

I actually have it. Has over 1300 counters. One thing I've learned from Steel Wolves is that type VII U-Boats were death traps.(IF their stats on the various sub classes are anywhere near to being correct).

I also learned from Steel Wolves that Doenitz made a serious error in the types of subs the U-Boat force built. Instead of building the VIIs and the IXs he should have built type XIIs instead. The design was similar to the US Fleet Boats. Good attack rating and good defense rating.

Here are a few in game stats for some of the U-Boat classes:
Type VII-attack:4 defense:2 tactical:3
Type IX-attack:5 defense:3 tactical:3
Type XII-attack:6 defense:5 tactical:3 (These are used with a couple of optional rules).
Type XXI-attack:6 defense:6 tactical:6 (The game does end in 1943 but there is an optional rule that allows the use of a XXI. You lose it if it gets damaged though.).

Having just looked at the screen shots of some of the counters for Steel Wolves,it looks like the stats on the counters have changed between the time the screen shots were taken,and the counters in the release version.