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I have some news for Line of Departure subscribers especially. Unfortunately it's not good. Today I got a bad diagnosis at a doctor's office, and my driving will be curtailed for the foreseeable future. No, it's not a DUI, nor is it connected with substance abuse. It's my heart, and it's been malfunctioning in a frightening manner. I have to get on the schedule with my invasive cardiologist, yes that's a…
ContinueAdded by Jim Werbaneth on September 3, 2019 at 1:39pm — 9 Comments
I'm still working three jobs at the moment, teaching at two, and consulting for another company. So unemployment isn't giving me more time, far from it.
What's giving me extra time is that I keep on getting sentenced to Facebook Jail. I got a day before, for posting a meme of a cat that looked like Hitler, then after my suspension was lifted, they decided that there was nothing wrong with it. I was also suspended for a day, for a cartoon that made fun of the Ku Klux Klan. This…
ContinueAdded by Jim Werbaneth on August 20, 2019 at 7:57pm — 8 Comments
Added by Jim Werbaneth on June 10, 2019 at 8:46pm — 1 Comment
Line of Departure Issue 82 (Spring 2019) is now available for purchase. The articles include a review of Forgotten Legions (Compass Games), along with analysis of Oil War (SPI), Acre (Decision Games), Ring of Fire (Moments in History), along with Tobruk (Avalon Hill). To read the Bully Pulpit editorial and see the full table of contents,…
Added by Jim Werbaneth on April 14, 2019 at 7:30pm — 1 Comment
Added by Jim Werbaneth on November 18, 2018 at 9:32pm — No Comments
I'm currently in Raleigh NC at my mom's house, visiting for another few days. Last week, I had the privilege of being interviewed by Brant Guillory for his GrogCast podcast on his GrogHeads site, covering disparate topics including my game design work, game development, and how it all overlaps with my college-level teaching. This was all conducted in the gaming area of…
ContinueAdded by Jim Werbaneth on May 11, 2018 at 8:45pm — No Comments
The newest issue of Line of Departure is now available for purchase. Its lead review is of No Middle Ground from Against the Odds, followed by analysis of Age of Empires II HD from Steam, Guilford (GMT), and the venerable Avalon Hill game PanzerBlitz.
To read the full table of contents, and the issue's Bully Pulpit editorial,…
ContinueAdded by Jim Werbaneth on April 29, 2018 at 5:59pm — No Comments
I just got back from the Post Office, and dropping of the last copies of Issue 80 to go out to the subscribers. Here is the article list:
ISIS and the New Modern: A Review of Islamic State: Libya War
by Jim Werbaneth
Islamic State: Syria: A Preview
by Javier Romero
Insurgency Among the Stars: Simulating Revolutionary War in Freedom in the…
Added by Jim Werbaneth on July 25, 2017 at 1:30pm — No Comments
The eightieth issue of Line of Departure is being printed right now. The lead review is of Javier Romero's Islamic State: Libya War, and he contributes a preview of his upcoming Islamic State:Syria too.
Next, there's an article that I wanted to write for a long time. It is an analysis of Freedom in the Galaxy as a game of insurgency and counterinsurgency, a model of revolution as understood in the real world but placed in a science fiction milieu. Another article covers strategy…
ContinueAdded by Jim Werbaneth on July 23, 2017 at 9:00am — 1 Comment
Does anyone want to take an online course on the Civil War, starting on May 22, and last ten weeks, through La Roche College? I'm the professor, and the textbook is James McPherson's Battlecry of Freedom. There would be no paper, and the grading is on ten discussion boards and two exams. To get the three college credits, you'd have to register at La Roche College as a student. It might be possible too to do so as an auditor, without going for the credits. I've taught this twice before…
ContinueAdded by Jim Werbaneth on April 26, 2017 at 4:09pm — 1 Comment
The popular "Backwards Subscription" offer is back, this with eight recent magazines, Issues 71 through 78. These cover a wide range of games, with topics from the ancient world to the far future, and scaled from microtactical to grand strategic.
Read more about them here:
And order…
ContinueAdded by Jim Werbaneth on April 1, 2017 at 10:07pm — No Comments
As I've been talking about for a while, prices for Line of Departure went up today, for the first time in about eight years. Now, if you look inside copies of some of the TPS games, you'll find a subscription flyer for the magazine, with the old prices of $22.00 per year for American and Canadian subscribers, and $27.50 for those elsewhere in the world.
As a special offer, I'm going to honor those prices for TPS gamers only, through April 2017. If you have one of those flyers,…
Added by Jim Werbaneth on March 1, 2017 at 1:37pm — No Comments
For the benefit of teachers and especially students, I just set up a page with links to all the academic papers I wrote for my last venture into graduate school. These are still on the Line of Departure Online Features Articles page, but for the sake of convenience, they are all now organized in one…
ContinueAdded by Jim Werbaneth on February 13, 2017 at 11:38pm — No Comments
Issue 79, marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of Line of Departure, is now on the market. This is also the third in the magazine's history to have the theme of Americans at War. This issue contains the following articles:
Return to the Third World War: A Review of the GMT Games Edition of MBT
Fictional Battles, Fictional Game: Battalion-Level Battles of World War III,…
ContinueAdded by Jim Werbaneth on January 22, 2017 at 7:19pm — 2 Comments
No, this is not a political post, not really.
Tonight, I sat on a panel with six other voters recruited by Trib Total Media, the publisher of the old Pittsburgh Tribune Review and currently the Valley News Dispatch and Greensburg Tribune Review, at the Media Innovation Center of Point Park University in Downtown Pittsburgh. My perspective wasn't as a professor of political science, but one of a group of typical voters. One guy was a business owner who voted for Trump, three were…
ContinueAdded by Jim Werbaneth on January 10, 2017 at 9:30pm — 2 Comments
As I work on Line of Departure Issue 78, I have come to the difficult decision that due to rising printing and postage costs, I'm going to have to raise prices. This is the first increase since 2008, and I hope that it is the last one for quite some time. Here are the new prices, effective March 1:
Four-Issue Subscription to the United States and Canada: $30.00
Four-Issue Subscription to Everywhere Else in the World: $38.00
Individual Issues to the United States and…
Added by Jim Werbaneth on January 8, 2017 at 2:42pm — 1 Comment
I just updated the Line of Departure Online Features site. The major part of it involves the latest addition, an academic article that I wrote about a year ago on the logistical foundations of the Union offensive in Virginia in 1864. As I note on the site, this is probably going to be the last historical piece I write…
ContinueAdded by Jim Werbaneth on December 11, 2016 at 12:30am — No Comments
Officially, this was conferred last month, but the diploma only arrived today. My course concentration was World War II, but with an elective each on command and leadership in the Civil War, and on the American Revolution. Interestingly, the latter was taught mainly from the British perspective, which was both interesting and refreshing. I did not write a…
ContinueAdded by Jim Werbaneth on September 26, 2016 at 6:30pm — 7 Comments
Issue 78 of Line of Departure has been mailed to the subscribers, and the first issues should be arriving at their destinations now. The articles, all by me, are:
Gunflashes in the Night: A Review of Iron Bottom Sound III
Six Days of War: Middle Eastern Battles in 1967: Sword of Israel
High Definition Addiction: The Return of Age of…
ContinueAdded by Jim Werbaneth on June 29, 2016 at 10:00pm — 1 Comment
I remain pleasantly surprised by the way that people remember my old articles on Firepower from the Avalon Hill General. Some of them go back thirty years, and people remember them and still play some of the scenarios.
Therefore I am extremely happy to see Darren Breidigan's efforts to scan these articles and make them available again on Boardgame Geek. These are done with my express approval, indeed encouragement.
The first one is "The Pact: Central European Conflict and…
Added by Jim Werbaneth on January 8, 2016 at 8:47pm — 3 Comments
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