"Ares" was a magazine put out between 1977-1984 by SPI that specialized in military wargames with a fantasy or science fiction bent. It was put out by SPI, who mainly made military wargaming guides of the usual type, e.g. recreating Caesar vs. the Gauls or World War Ii, but they noticed the incredibly popular rise of strategic scifi starship board games like Phil Pritchard's Lensman in 1969, and Starforce: Interstellar Conflict in the 25th Century in 1974.
The key trait of Ares is that each issue came with a strategy game inside of it, with an expandable fold out map you get by lifting the staples, and with small unit counters on cardboard placed inside you punch out. So for example, the issue of Albion would fold out into this:
There used to be a lot of interstellar space strategy board games that in terms of complexity, had borders blurred with tabletop RPGs; even Star Trek got one under FASA. The main reason these kinds of games went away is that they never had a huge audience due to their simulative complexity. Their audience was a sort of hodgepodge of Gifted Kids and ex-military veterans, and that audience fractured. Gifted Kids went on to tabletop RPGs and video games, particularly when, in the late 80s, home computers became able to do the kind of complex number heavy games of this nature.
Most issues of Ares are available from the Internet Archive, and with some creativity and cardboard, you can even print miniatures.
Chapters: 39/?
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), Hakoda & Sokka (Avatar), Hakoda & Zuko (Avatar), Bato/Hakoda (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka & Suki & Zuko (Avatar), Katara & Sokka (Avatar), Azula & Iroh (Avatar), Iroh & Katara (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Azula & Mai & Ty Lee
Characters: Zuko (Avatar), Sokka (Avatar), Iroh (Avatar), Katara (Avatar), Azula (Avatar), Hakoda (Avatar), Aang (Avatar), Suki (Avatar), Toph Beifong
Additional Tags: zuko/zhao (past), Zuko/OC (past), Zuko&OC (who is perhaps a little confused and misinformed), Sokka&OC (less misinformed, but equally confused), Suki &OC (no one is confused or misinformed), Hakoda & an increasing number of fire nation murder children, he did not sign up for this shit, azula/treason, Sokka/revenge, Angst and Humor, Slow Burn, Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Sokka (Avatar), Hurt Zuko (Avatar), Trauma, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Extremely Dubious Consent, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gay Zuko (Avatar), Bisexual Disaster Sokka (Avatar), Partially Deaf Zuko (Avatar), Partially Blind Zuko (Avatar), Forced Marriage, Blue Spirit Zuko (Avatar), Past Rape/Non-con, Murder, Canon Typical Racism, named character death (not gaang)
Series: Part 2 of All's Fair
Summary:
After the events of War Crimes, Sokka and Zuko have escaped Zhao’s warship and are fleeing across the Earth Kingdom. As well as unfamiliar terrain, they have to navigate their shared trauma, work out where they fit into the war, and their place in each others lives.
Sokka is aware that being friends with the enemy is going to bring complications, but he probably should have guessed that being friends with Zuko in particular, was going to be a bit like dunking your head repeatedly into a bucket of angry Fire Ferrets.
Katara is also grappling with the confusion of befriending an enemy, something that doesn’t prove as difficult as she had expected with the bond of shared, furious grief bridging old wounds. (Learning a new way to look at her bending doesn't hurt either)
Azula, struggling with the Fire Lord’s mistrust, encounters a few nasty surprises and has to make some difficult decisions. Luckily, she is a great deal better at making sensible choices than her brother.
I liked the openforge system enough that when I decided to make some more natural terrain, I carved up the foam board and attached individual squares to the bases so I could attach them with magnets and rearrange the battlefield to be different each time. After that, just followed a basic guide to grassy mini bases.
While the lines between tiles are quite distinct, I've found I rather like that as it's easy to judge distance without having to mark a grid or pull out a tape measure. Keeping tiles from 2x2 to 4x4 inches makes it easy to tell how many squares across it is without losing room for detail within the lines.