Wargamer Weekly Version 13 By Joe Robinson

My new-found World of Warships kick has yet to abate, so I’ve plugging away at that in my spare time all of this week.  I finally unlocked Carriers, which I’ve been having a go with – they play very differently to the other ship classes, so will require a lot of sessions to master I suspect.  Haven’t needed to spend any real-money yet either, which is a plus.  If I ever get to that point I suspect I’ll just stop playing, mind. 

Didn’t get a chance to try much of the Steel Division 2 Beta this past weekend, but Beta Phase 2 is due to start soon, if it hasn’t already begun, so will try and see if I can add anything to Charles’ initial report next week. 

The UK Salute wargame convention is tomorrow in London’s EXCEL centre – sadly we’re not able to go this year, but if any of our readers are making the trip, we hope you have a good time. 

Meanwhile, in the world of wargaming…

Victory at Sea: Pacific

As much as VaSP has its struggles, we admire the developers for sticking with it and trying to make it the game it deserves to be.  The game’s latest update adds a ‘Custom Battle’ feature, which is great for fans of the original game where there was no Grand Strategy layer.  In our opinion, most of the remaining problems with the game exist within the tactical battles (and namely, AI handling), but playing through a campaign of VAS Pacific can take a while – it’s nice just to jump in and blow stuff up. 

Other fixes include tweaking to ship avoidance behaviour, crew rations and critical hit effects as well as some bug fixes.  We really hope the devs stick with this game a while longer. 

Home of Wargamers The Second

We assume Matrix Games/Slitherine’s last live-stream event was a success, because now they’re doing another one on Monday, April 8th at 6pm BST (the UK’s clocks have finally come forward as well).  It must have been so successful that they’re even planning on making it a monthly occurrence. 

On Monday you should expect to see the first ever video-footage from Panzer Corps II, as well as yet another new game announcement.  We’ll probably catch you all up on everything Tuesday morning. 

Hearts of Iron 4

Fresh off the release of Man the Guns, the dev team have shed some light on what they’re working on now.  1.7 ‘Hydra’, the next free update, is the new main priority, as well as work on the next expansion will launch alongside Patch 1.8 ‘Husky’. 

They’ve also just released Patch 1.6.2 which brings in a range of bug-fixing and tweaks for Ironclad’s new features.  You should read the devblog in full, as they also going into some detail as to their ‘wish list’ of features they want to try and tackle. 

WinSPMBT Version 13

After all this time, one of the best computer war games around has received a new patch, bringing everyone up to Version 13.  It brings plenty of changes for both free-players and anyone who’s bought he premium CD, but here is a summary:

100 New Scenarios

15 Revised Scenarios

2 Campaigns resurrected from old archives

2 Revised Campaigns

9 New or Revised Map files

76 New or Revised OOB Photos

1 New or Revised Game Interface Photos

280 New or Revised vehicle/aircraft Icons

93 Updated OOB Files

35 New or Revised Icon files

6 New or Revised Text files

109 Revised picklist files

2 New or Revised Game Guide Photos / Graphics

We suggest you check out the official post for the full breakdown.  We’re fans of the game here at Wargamer, as Martynas’ feature can attest.  Given that it’s free (with the limitations being minor inconveniences at worst), there’s no reason not to give it a spin.  It’s worth noting that the developers are not sure that they’ll do another update after this, mind. 

It’s been reported that one of Shrapnel’s other titles, WinSPWW2 has also had a 2019 patch released as well. 

That's all we have for you this week - enjoy your weekends!