Ato Annual 2018 Sea Monsters

Description

Next up from ATO will be the Annual Edition with Sea Monsters! in it. To face monstrous ships at sea, possibly harboring radical technologies, can make any sailors blood run cold. The designers featured in this issue have drawn on their own nautical fears and fascinations to explore what really (or could have) happened.... Sea Monsters! offers FOUR complete simulations that will provide hours of challenging play and comparison. And as always, the Annual features an "extra-size" magazine, with an in-depth look at the history behind the games, plus other articles. Look at all you get! Iron and Fire is a moderate level complexity game covering the battles fought by the Peruvian Ironclad Huáscar during the 1879 War of the Pacific against Chile. It basically outclassed everything it met and gobbled them up - but there was only one (think of the SF classic, Ogre, but on the waters this time). First Strike! looks at, well, the first strike by carrier aircraft in military history, the British air raid on Christmas Day, 1914, against Cuxhaven. The goal was to not just strike at the Zeppelin sheds, but also hopefully lure out, engage and destroy any elements of the Imperial German Navy that were at sea at the time or came out to strike back at the raiders. Under Ten Flags starts early in 1939 when the German merchant raider Atlantis made its way into the South Atlantic to sink and capture Allied cargo vessels. Its crew used their skill in disguising the appearance of the vessel to aid its encounters or avoid enemy warships. The journey of the raider Atlantis lasted for almost two years, traveling over 100,000 miles in 602 days. XXI is a solitaire game set in 1943 that challenges the player (acting as both Speer and Dönitz) to organize and complete construction of a fleet (or at least “enough”) of the new German Type XXI submarine. However this new sub is far larger, more complex, expensive, and resource and manpower intensive than previous submarines. Just a few of these new Type XXIs will do nothing. Only a radical transformation in shipbuilding techniques to mass produce the design - backed by the ruthless will to succeed - will enable this “wonder weapon” to arrive in time.... Make yourself the proud owner of this challenging look at what men would face to ensure control of the seas.