Eagles striking

My choice again, and for this week I proposed the recent Academy Games release, Strike of the Eagle. This covers the struggle between the Polish and the Soviets in 1920, although strictly speaking the term 'Soviet' didn't come into existence until 1922. I had played this recently with another gaming friend, and I thought that Eric would enjoy it.

SotE is, at heart, a block game in the Columbia tradition, played over a very good looking point-to-point mounted map, split into two fronts, north and south. The strengths (from 1-4 Strength Points - SPs) and types (Infantry, Cavalry or Leader) of the blocks are hidden, and they are rotated to reflect losses and/or additions. Unlike most block games, however, combat losses are not dictated by dice, but on a flat table, which dictates the losses inflicted for a particular attacking strength. All well and good, and pretty standard so far, but SotE adds 2 mechanisms.

The first is the orders mechanism used in A Game of Thrones. Each player has a number of order tokens that are used to command the armies, placing two orders per front. These include orders to move, defend, recover (steps), use rail, etc., and they are placed face-down, which provides an additional level to the fog-of-war aspect. You can see that orders have been placed on a group of blocks, but you have no idea whether they have been ordered to advance, defend, or fall back. Orders are revealed in a specific sequence, with the player with initiative deciding who plays first when revealing orders of a each type.

The second mechanism is the addition of cards, and it's a card supported game, rather than a card driven game (CDG). Each card has several potential uses, and as in most CDGs, can only be used for one of them. They can be used to increase the number of orders that can be placed on a front, in battle resolution as a combat modifier, to gain reinforcement points, or for the text on the card. This last can be either a historical event, a battle event, or a reaction card, which can be played at the times specified on the card for the defined effects (e.g. place additional orders, switching orders, prevent execution of enemy orders, etc.). Of course, the best cards are strong in all three options.

Each game turn has a card draw phase (draw 6, discard down to a maximum of 7), 5 Operations Phases (where the meat of the game is played), then a Reinforcement Phase. The Operations Phase is:

• Initial Card Play: each player may play a card on each front, starting with the non-initiative player for the northern front, initiative player north, then the same for the southern front; in the same sequence any played cards are revealed and the player states how they are being used, either for the Historical Event (after which the card is removed), to increase the number of orders for that front; or for reinforcement cubes, to add SPs at the end of the turn
• Order Placement: starting with the northern front again, the player with initiative declares who will place the first order, then they alternate until the full complement of order tokens determined from the previous step have been placed; then the same is done with the southern front
• Order Execution: Order tokens are resolved in the following sequence, with the northern front again being done first, then the southern front:
  • Forced March: initiative player decides who goes first; blocks move one extra space, but fight at half strength (round down); orders are either 'To' or 'Out'; the former is placed on the target are, and any blocks within range may move to that area; the latter is placed on the area with the blocks to be moved, and they may be moved to different areas
  • Recon: initiative player decides who goes first; if this is placed on an enemy-occupied area then the blocks have to be shown
  • Move: initiative player decides who goes first; blocks move 1 space for infantry, or two spaces for cavalry; once again, there are 'To' and 'Out' orders
  • Withdraw: initiative player decides who goes first; units in a battle area may move out of the battle area, but lose 1SP; cavalry may ignore the loss if only attacked by infantry
  • Battles: battles are executed from smallest to largest, treating both fronts together; starting with the attacker each player may play a battle event card, then chooses whether to play a combat modifier card from hand, for a +1 value, or to draw from the deck; blocks and cards are revealed, each side calculates total strength and compares this to the loss chart to determine the number of SP losses caused; steps are lost, step by step from the strongest block at that moment, the loser determined, and retreats and advances performed; adjustments to the initiative and VP tracks are then made, and you continue to the next battle
  • Reorganize: initiative player decides who goes first; one block in the area marked with this order may gain 1SP
  • Rail Transport: initiative player decides who goes first; up to 4 blocks in the area may move up to 8 areas following rail lines; blocks may be moved to different areas
• Supply: Blocks in areas that cannot trace a supply line to a Key City now lose 1SP per block; units that lose their last SP are removed, and 1VP is awarded to the opposing player; OoS blocks can only use Move Out, Withdraw, or Defend orders
• Victory Points: the VP track is adjusted for changes of ownership of Key Cities

OK, I've glossed over a few bits of chrome, e.g. Fortifications and Garrisons, but that's about all you need to know to get started. SotE is that simple it's brilliant. A wonderful amalgam of mechanisms that leave you with deliciously angst-filled decisions to make. Fog-of-war on top of fog-of-war. What are those blocks in that area? A couple of weak brigades or are they full strength divisions? What order has been placed on them? Are they defending or planning to advance? What if they're cavalry and Force March, how far can they reach, especially knowing that there's a Reaction Event card that allows cavalry to move through enemy blocks? Should I use this card for the powerful Historical Event, or keep it for more orders? Or for the high combat modifier? Delicious, delicious, delicious. Eric and I played through the first 2 scenarios in one evening, then for our upcoming full day of gaming chose to play the full campaign, it excited us that much.

Now, if I could stop there, this would win game of the year, decade, and century, and could be my first '10' on BGG, it's that good. However, I can't because the rules are just plain goddamn awful. Atrocious. Ridiculously bad. More holes than a holey thing. SotE suffers from, to paraphrase Mr. Ballmer, "Development, Development, Development". Or, rather, the lack of it. This game is 2-3 months short in it's development, suffering from an obvious lack of play-testing, editing, and even rudimentary proof reading.

When I first looked at SotE, I got as far as the first actual rule, discounting the component descriptions, setup, and overviews, before I found that the example of play contradicted the actual rule. That gave me cause for concern, and it got worse. Confusing terminology; terms used to mean different things in different places; examples that don't agree with rules; play-aids that don't agree with rules; game situations that aren't covered. Not just in the rules, but in the cards as well. When I first played SotE we spent about half our afternoon wrangling over possible meanings of the rules, and what to do in situations that weren't covered. When I played Eric we found even more situations that had us scratching our heads. At least by this time a lot of questions had been answered on BGG and in the FAQ/Errata. However, on one BGG thread the Academy representative admitted that he hadn't decided what the rule should be yet. WTF? You've published the game and you still don't know what the rule should be?

Eric opined that the problem is that the rules were written to fit in the available 8 pages, but I'm not sure that I agree. In my view the biggest problem is that the verbiage is just plain bad, and a good editor would solve most of the issues by being consistent in term usage and clearer in the prose, and still fit within the 8 pages. The second big issue is that more (and better) play testing was required, especially blind play-testing, to find those areas that weren't covered adequately. (Heck, even I could see major rules omissions just from reading them, without even having to play it.) Again, judicious word choice and phrasing would have addressed the issues identified, without taking up copious amounts of extra space.

So, after SotE, and the preceding Conflict of Heroes farce (where the game rules had a major makeover from the first game to the second, substantially changing the game play), I now would not buy another game from Academy Games that hadn't hit at least a second edition. I'm done with buying games where I have to throw the rule book out and print a set of rules that could, and should, have been done right the first time. Chad Jensen, with his exemplary Combat Commander ruleset, has shown it can be done. It takes a commitment to doing it right, and not just pushing the product out the door.

The big question is whether these are the worst rules ever? We've excoriated Prussia's Defiant Stand from Worthington Games, Fury in the East from MMP, and The Devil's Cauldron, also from MMP, in the past, but in my view, SotE takes the prize. Mostly, however, that's because I really, really, like this game (just in case it wasn't clear by now), and it's frustrating as all get out to see it substantially reduced by a shoddy job in the final stretch to publication.

Overall verdict: go play this game; just don't buy it until the second edition hits the streets.

Oh, and in our game Eric's Poles resigned when it was clear after 4 turns that the Soviets were going to win an automatic win. But that's not important right now.

Richard III

With possibly a single night to fill in, Eric wanted to try the latest release from Columbia Games, Richard III (BGG entry). This is another in their very successful and mostly excellent block games. Specifically, it follows very closely in the heels of Hammer of the Scots (BGG entry) and Crusader Rex (BGG entry), with only a few changes from HotS. However, a couple of those changes are fairly significant, especially the change to the combat hit resolution.

In HotS, each hit scored by an attacker was removed from the currently strongest defending block, evaluated hit by hit, i.e. 2 defending blocks, each with 3 strength points, receiving 2 attack hits, would lose a single strength point each. This also allowed you to roll for all units of a single class (A, B, etc.) and hit capability together, with the hits removed as a single group. In R3, however, all hits from a single attacking block are removed from the single defending block with the highest strength. This means that you have to roll each attacking unit individually, removing hits after each roll, so combat is a little slower in R3. It can also be rather devastating, as a good roll can see a unit removed from the map.

The second part is the way that blocks can be switched from one side to the other by treason. Some of the nobles are rated with a '1', '2', or '3', which is the number of dice that have to be rolled in a treason conversion attempt, with all dice having to come up even in order to be successful. So a '1' rated block has a 50% chance, a '2', 25%, and a '3', 12.5%. The downside is that this is done as part of combat, and is another option in the fight/flee action choice, and only the king, the pretender, or one other Yorkist noble are allowed to attempt treason rolls, so it's not a huge part of the game.

The cards are used in generally the same way as HotS, with each player being dealt 7 cards in each of the three turns (campaigns), playing one card per turn. The cards are either actions or events (some also with actions). Each action point may be used to activate an area for movement, or used as to place a reinforcement block, which are placed in their home areas.

The game starts in 1460 with the Lancastrians in control of England, and nary a Yorkist to be seen. They land from France and/or Ireland, and their first aim is to get a foothold in England, allowing the placement of reinforcing blocks. From there they have to expand and push for the control centers, and London is a good target. The aim is to become king by having a majority of nobles on the board, with London and the two Archbishoprics counting one point each. Whoever is king at the end of the third year wins. It's good to be the king.

Victory can also be claimed by killing off all 5 of your opponents blocks representing their princes. Only 3 start on the board, and as they are killed off, the others are brought on to replace them. Of course, if you manage to get all your princes killed then you were probably going to lose anyway.

In our game I played York, and had a tough time in the southern landings from France. My foothold was more a toehold, and it wasn't looking good at the end of the first year. In the second year I landed a strong force in the north with some of my best blocks, which Eric promptly attacked, coming off by far the worst, as I had the superior force (in steps, and capability), attacking before him. We also had a fairly epic struggle over London, and by the time the dust had settled at the end of the campaign, England had a new king, of the Yorkist variety.

The third year saw more battles around London and the south, as Eric had a good swing at it, but the battles went my way. Up north my position almost crumbled after a spectacularly bad move on my part, but poor rolling on Eric's part saved the day for me, and I was able to keep the crown for the win.

Overall, quite a superb game, one of the best that Columbia have done. Good length (we played in approx. 2.5 hours), good gameplay, interesting decisions. Definitely one that will hit the table again and again. Whilst there has been some talk on BGG regarding the use of reserves in battles, and how that's not really historical for the era, I'm comfortable with the way it works out and it provides a great story (and I'm not normally one for a great story). As a game it provides all the angst of all the other block games, and it's just damn good fun to play.

Go buy this game, you'll have a blast!

In the meantime, as the Hube's Pocket continues, next on the table is MMP/The Gamers' Bastogne, another from the SCS collection, one that Eric and Chuck raved about when they played it out at the Sunriver WBC-W event.

But what about the Princes?

(edit: major gaffe on my part, swapping Yorkist for Lancastrian - misread the initial setup while writing the blog and just went with that rather than thinking. The below text is now correct.)

Due to some of the physical constraints Mike mentioned in his last post, we were in need of a one, maybe two-week stop gap until we could get OCS Korea onto the table. Fortunately for me, Mike had recently received a perfect candidate for this exact purpose: Richard III, Columbia's most recent block game covering the Wars of the Roses. This is designed by Jerry Taylor, the designer of other gems such as Hammer of the Scots and Crusader Rex. I'd been looking forward to this one for a while, but hadn't gotten around to actually ordering it yet.

For those not familiar, a typical “block” game implements a “fog of war” mechanism through the unit strength only being visible to the owning player. Stickers are applied to one side of flat square blocks that are stood on end during play. Think Stratego. Richard III is no exception. For those more familiar, you'll recognize the game's heritage right away. The core game engine is very similar to Hammer of the Scots.

The gist of the game is that the Lancastrians are in power, and the Yorkists are attempting to gain control. Most blocks represent Nobles and their retinues, but there are also militia, bombards, and mercenaries.

A signature feature of this conflict was the wavering loyalties of many of the nobles. This is most famously exemplified by Lord Stanley changing sides on the field at the Battle of Bosworth. As you would expect, Nobles can switch loyalties here as well.

A brief rundown of the game goes as follows:

There is a deck of 25 cards. 19 of the cards provide action points, and six are events. You're dealt a hand of seven cards at the beginning of a seven-turn campaign. Each turn, you'll secretly choose one of the remaining cards in your hand and both players simultaneously reveal them. Higher numbered action card goes first, though events win out. If there's a tie, the current Pretender goes first.

During your turn, you can spend your action points to activate spaces to move or recruit units from your pool. If both sides have units in an area after both players activate, there's combat. At the end of each turn, there's a supply check. You do this seven times, then there's a Political Turn between campaigns. This is where levies and mercenaries disband, you check if the Pretender has usurped the thrown, and Nobles return home. Whomever is the King at the end of the final Political Turn after the third campaign is the victor. It's possible to score an automatic victory if you can manage to kill all your opponent's heirs as well.

For those that have played Hammer of the Scots or Crusader Rex, here's where I see the important differences:

• Nobles can only change sides via a Treachery attempt during combat. This uses up the unit's attack for that round as well.


• In combat, all of the hits from a single unit must be applied against the opposing strongest unit – you don't apply them hit-by-hit. This really changes the dynamics of multi-unit combat.


• There isn't a “muster” option when spending action points. (you can't nominate an area for units to move to. Only from.


• If both sides play an event simultaneously, it doesn't end the turn.


• When the Nobles winter back home, it's more forgiving than in Hammer. Most Nobles have multiple “home” areas from which to choose.


• When you recruit a unit, you choose it from your pool. It's not random.

There's a few other things that differ, but those are the highlights.

The starting situation is very asymmetrical. The Lancastrians start on the throne and in control of nearly the entire map. The Yorkists have to move their way onto the map and gain a foothold. They also have, as a general rule, stronger units than the Lancastrians. So, the Lancastrians are basically holding on trying to keep the Yorkists from getting themselves established.

I haven't gone through and analyzed the map comparing home areas for terrain advantages or anything like that. There's likely some other advantages to two sides have that we didn't notice in one playing.

But I did come up with this much to say: This might be Jerry Taylor's best game.

Given the popularity and success of Hammer of the Scots, that's saying something. Time will tell on balance (Crusader Rex certainly went through some tweaks getting the balance right) but Richard III seems cleaner and more forgiving than Hammer while keeping all the decision angst. Crusader will remain a good game, but a distant third to the other two.

If you're into this sort of game, this comes recommended. If you're not sure, but have been curious, this is a great entry point. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm predisposed to liking games on the War of the Roses (I've painted many a longbowman figure in my day) so I might be overlooking a wart or two. And we have only played the game once. This is going right to the top of my Christmas/Birthday list, though and I'll be buying it if I haven't received it as a gift by then.

But we still don't know for sure about the Princes.