The summer issue of Yaah! is bigger, better, and gamier than ever before, as we make the move from 60 to 72 pages. That's twenty percent more space in which to wax poetic about the games we love, and that enables us to go deeper and broader, with more crunchy detail, more things to play, and a little something for every taste.
We get the party started with an in-depth look at GMT's popular COIN series. COIN fan and BGG stalwart Roger Leroux, of "Roger's Reviews" fame, looks at each of the four titles in turn. He also spoke with series mastermind Volko Ruhnke and A Distant Plain designer Brian Train. They're all of them smart guys, and I think there's nothing better than sitting back and listening to three smart guys yakking. The result is the longest and meatiest interview we've ever run.
A number of historical consims get coverage this time around: the incomparable Ania B. Ziolkowska overcomes an aversion to gaming the First World War when she gets To The Last Man! on the table; vintage hexsides-and-hand-grenadier Brad Smith goes old-school with Victory Games' The Korean War; ye old editor soliloquizes solitaire English Civil War title Cruel Necessity; the tireless Robert Smith, (AKA Smitty) makes his Yaah! debut with a snappy little piece on the Battle of the Atlantic.
The love for Double-ya Double-ya Two continues with this issue's game, and our cover feature-- Mark Stille's Into the Pocket! As the cover proclaims, it's an honest-to-gosh, hex-and-counter, odds-and-CRT, column-shiftin', panzer-pushin' Eastern Front WWII wargame. Can three desperate Panzer divisions punch a hole in the Stalingrad Pocket big enough to save the encircled 6th Army? Or will they be overwhelmed by a seemingly endless supply of Soviet forces? It's good ol' fashioned historical wargaming at its finest, harkening back to the era when gamers were gamers, and the fate of the world hinged on a +2DRM with 3:1 odds!