Simple, pimple

Next on the table was my choice, and, after playing complex treatments of various battles and campaigns, I wanted to try the new Martin Wallace war game, Test of Fire. This is a simple treatment of the first battle of the American Civil War, Bull Run (for you Yankee northerners) or Manasses (for you Rebel southerners). 

And ToF is certainly a simple game. With just 5 pages of rules it’s easy to pick up. The player rolls dice at the start of the turn (4 for the Confederate player, 5 for the Union), and that dictates the actions that can be performed that turn.

1 – Draw a card

2,3 - Activate an area with artillery for fire

4,5 - Activate an area for movement

6 - Activate an area containing a leader for either artillery fire or movement, as above

Artillery fire is pretty simple. Choose the area with an artillery unit; choose the target area; roll 2 dice, with a 5 or 6 scoring a hit; roll each hit to determine effect, a 6 being a loss, anything else means 1 unit in the target area has to retreat.

Movement is equally simple. Any units in the activated area may move to any adjacent areas. However, there are some border limits, with the normal limit being 2 units. Rivers and some rough terrain borders allow only 1 unit to move across per movement action; Roads allow 3 units to cross. These are all marked on the map.

Combat happens when there are units from both sides in an area, and may be performed at the end of any action. Note the 'may' in that sentence, it's where one of the game choices come in. If you have 2 movement actions available, you could perform one move then perform combat, and if the area is clear, activate that area for movement again. Or you could choose to use each action to move units into the enemy held area, and then perform the combat. After all actions are done,any area containing units from both sides must have combat.

Combat resolution, as you might expect, features yet more dice. First the defender, then the attacker rolls 2 dice for each unit, up to a maximum of 6 dice. As with artillery fire, each 5 or 6 scores a hit, except now a loss is scored on a 4-6, and a retreat on 1-3. The attacker applies his losses and retreats before rolling his combat. If there are units left from both sides after combat, then the attacker has to retreat back to his originating area(s).

So, as you might expect, getting lots of move actions are vital to force the river crossings and take the hills, where the border limits are reduced. Otherwise you're going to have only a single attacking unit against all those likely defenders.

Finally, the cards. As usual in these sorts of games, they just perform wacky stuff or otherwise add benefits. They may allow extra dice to be rolled in artillery fire or combat; cancel a retreat; perform extra moves; cancel an opponent's action die; or allow a roll for victory and end the game (rolling less than the number of units your opponent has lost).

With a projected game time of 45 minutes, our plan was to play this twice, playing each side. However, I missed one critical rule (that the 'standard' area border limit was 2 units, not 3 units), so we restarted after being 30 minutes into the evening. Second time around, my union forces found the 'Ford' card quickly, which allows the border limit on one river crossing to be increased by 1, and was able to force the Rebels off Sudley Hill to take the first victory area. From there it was a grind along the river to take the second victory area before the game ended, which is when one player runs out his card deck, with a simple majority of the three victory areas required for a win. This full game took around an hour, as we futzed a little with the rules, and we chose not to turn it around, having played enough.

OK, this isn't a game that any even semi-serious gamer is going to base a play date on. It's simple to the point of being simplistic. It makes no real effort to model command and control, and the combat system is laughable to any grognard. However, if you have 45 minutes to kill, or are playing with kids or non-wargamers, I can see this hitting the table. It's easy to pick up, and the action dice dictate your options in any single turn, so you're never overwhelmed by potential options and decisions.

Yet, even at 45 minutes I think it outstays its welcome by around 10-15 minutes. Other than a few choices on the card plays, everything is dictated by the dice, with very few real decisions to make. And that's a lot of dice you're going to roll. So many, in fact, that I'm not sure that any decisions you make have any real bearing on the outcome of the game.

If I were going to a gaming retreat, I think I'd throw it in the bag. For those occasions when you don't have time, space, or the mental capacity, to play anything deeper. It just might come out then.

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.

A few is more than two

On the table this week, at Eric's request, was A Few Acres of Snow (BGG entry), a newish title from Treefrog Games, by Martin Wallace.

Now, there are a couple of things here that you probably need to be aware of before we go much further. First, I am a Wallace fan boi. Rampant, in fact. His game designs just hit my spot. Age of Steam, Steam, Brass, Age of Industry, Automobile, Gettysburg, Last Train to Wensleydale, Perikles, Prices of the Renaissance, Byzantium, Liberté, Rise Of Empires; some of my favorite games of all time. And yet, his more recent designs have me troubled. A Test of Fire looks lighter than light. I didn't even bother ordering Discworld: Ankh-Morpork after reading the synopsis. Could it be that he's falling out of favor with me? (Collective intake of breath from all those who know me.)

The other thing to be aware of is that I am not fond of deck building games. Well, it's not really just deck building games, but a lot of these more recent card games just leave me cold. Dominion, Race For The Galaxy, 7 Wonders. I can barely tolerate Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer and Thunderstone. I just find them totally tactical, and very prone to luck of the draw, with not really much you can do about it. (I find RftG to be especially prone to draw luck, and find that my card draws are totally opposite to whichever strategy I'm trying to follow at the time, regardless of how I try to roll with the draws.)

So, given a potential waning of interest in Wallace games, and a dislike of the central mechanism, just how did A Few Acres of Snow sit with me?

The physical presentation of the game is good. Mounted board, with good graphics, showing a point-to-point rendering of the game area. There are wooden cubes and discs in the player colors, representing villages and towns, and a neutral color to represent fortifications. There are the standard Warfrog/Treefrog plastic chips for money. The Limited Edition, available to subscribers, replaces the cubes and discs with houses in two sizes, and the plastic money chips with wooden tokens. The cards are of decent quality, and consist of two types: Location cards, representing a named location on the map, its connections, and the method of transport connecting them; and Empire cards, which have various types of benefits, e.g. Traders, Military, Leaders, etc. Both types of cards may have symbols at the bottom that are used in the player actions, e.g. boat, ship, wagon, settler, fur, gold, military. Some Empire cards are only used for their symbol. There are also a few neutral Empire cards (Settlers, Fortification, and Native Americans) that may be bought by either player.

There are many special Empire cards that I'm not going to go into, or we'll be here all day. Players have their own deck of cards, and don't have the same collection of Empire cards in their decks, so the sides have a different feel to them, e.g. the French player doesn't have a Settler card in his Empire deck, so one tactic for the British player is to buy up the neutral settler cards. The Location cards are the same for both players, and are added to the deck as the locations are captured on the board.

There were also lots of mentions of symbols there, and Location cards for the larger locations, e.g. Quebec, Montreal, have lots of symbols on them, but can only be used once before they hit the discard pile. Out of the way locations may have only a single symbol. So choosing how to use your more flexible cards drives a lot of the game.

Generally, you have four types of actions that you perform, and you have two actions per turn. The first type is to improve your empire, by capturing a new location, or improving an existing location. The former is done by playing a Location card, and card that matches the transportation type that connects it and the target location, which may be either a Location card or an Empire card. Some locations also have a settler symbol on the map, so also need a settler symbol card to be played. This allows you to put your village in the location, and add the Location card to your discard pile. Improving a location requires the Location card and either a settler symbol card, to upgrade the village to a town, or a fortification Empire card and 3 gold to add a fortification.

The second type of action is to get more gold. Either play a single Location card for the gold symbol on it to gain that amount, or play combinations of Empire cards that allow gold collection. The French player may also play the Louisberg location for piracy, which steal 2 gold from the British player.

The third type of action is to manage your deck/hand. You may select a card from your available stock of Empire cards, often with a cost in gold; discard from hand; place a card in reserve; take the cards from reserve back into hand (which is a free action); or use special Empire card actions to remove cards from your deck or (for the French player) take a card from your discard pile.

The final type of action is to screw with your opponent. Raids are performed by playing an empire card that allows raids, and you may raid an enemy location adjacent to a location you control. (You can play multiple raid cards to raid further.) Your opponent may play a card that allows a raid to be blocked, but if not you capture the enemy token, and any town is downgraded to a village. You can also ambush, which if not blocked removes an Empire card with the ambush symbol, generally military, from your opponent's hand, and it goes back to the available Empire cards and has to be repurchased. Then there are sieges.

A siege is started by playing a Location card that connects to the target location that you want to siege, the a card with the transportation symbol required, and a card with a military symbol. Each location has an intrinsic strength of 1, and fortifications add two to that. Regular infantry Empire cards have 2 military symbols, others have 1. So if a siege is started by playing, say, a 2-symbol card, the marker is put in the 1 space for the attacker on the siege track. The 0 spot and the 1 spot for the defender are colored grey, meaning the siege is unresolved, otherwise they're in the player colors. If the marker is ever in your color area at the start of your turn, then you've won the siege. If it's in the other player's color, then you need to play card(s) with military symbols to move it at least into the grey area before the end of your turn, otherwise the other player will win at the start of his turn. As an action you may play a single card onto the siege, moving the marker on the track for the number of military symbols on the card. The winner of the siege retains the loser's token, and may place their own village token, while the loser also has to remove one of the cards in the siege back to the available cards deck. Each player may have a single active siege at any one time. Fairly abstract, but pretty simple and effective, as you get a chance to react to the attack or defense, before the other player's turn, but you need to draw the right cards. This is where the Reserve comes in, as you can stack your military cards there, ready for attack or defense.

Now, that probably all sounds very confusing, but the rules are very clear (and a lot more verbose than my brief description). There are play aids for each player which covers the basics of each action, as well as the Empire cards available.

All well and good, but how is it to play? Our game had me as the French (randomly picked), and I focused on settling initially, and then fortifying and developing my gains. Eric tried a couple of sieges, but I managed to defend successfully, in the first by having my military in my Reserve before he started, and in the second by having a lucky draw of both my military cards immediately after he started the siege. I was able to raid extensively, sometimes keeping 2 Native American cards in hand to draw out his blocking card, which let me grab a few of his village and town tokens for VPs. Eric had a couple of successful raids, but mostly I kept a blocking card in hand.

The game end is when one player runs out of either village or town tokens, which Eric did first. However, the tokens I'd captured were enough to give me the margin, and I won by 8 points.

I'd actually played this once before, getting stomped as the British player, as my initial thoughts on reading the rules were reinforced by my game experience - deck building, yuck. However, when Eric asked to try it, and I started to read the rules again, I started to see some of the possibilities that I hadn't seen or understood previously. Lots of choice angst as you can't do everything with the cards that you want (or need) to do. I think having that first game gave me a huge advantage over Eric, as translating the rules into game board action takes some understanding and there's no better way than getting the experience while playing.

As the French player, gold is always a limitation, and there never seems to be enough to do what needs to be done. With the British player being stronger in military, keeping a reserve of Regulars Empire cards (which have 2 military symbols), and the cash to use them, seems important. The French player will be raiding a lot, trying to grab the villages and towns that mean VPs, and hasten the end of the game.

So, did this play change my attitude to the game? Yes, it did. Whilst I'm still not overly fond of the deck building mechanism, I now at least understand it a lot more than in my first game, and I can see some of the strategies and options. Whilst I don't think it will ever be my favorite Wallace game, I can see me playing this occasionally, and I can understand why a lot of people are really grooving on it.

Hey, it's a Wallace, did you really expect me to come up with anything different? My Wallace fan boi badge is intact.

PDS - take 2

One of the things Eric and I wanted to target was going back to games we'd previously played and giving them a second go. So far, due to so many great games that we wanted to play being published, we haven't been able to do this, but with the delays in starting our OCS Korea game we had a few weeks to fill in. And so we decided to get Prussia's Defiant Stand (BGG entry) from Worthington Games back on the table. In our previous playing (Eric's take, my take) we had a rule or two wrong, suffered badly from the DSDF, but generally really liked the game, despite some of the most atrocious rules ever.

This time around we kept the same sides, Eric as Frederick and the Prussians, myself as the coalition (Austria, France, and Russia/Sweden). In fact the game opened the same as our previous affair, with Frederick marching on Dresden. This time around we played that all face-up blocks on the battle board were 'engaged' and eligible to take hits, rather than hits having to be taken in the block class (Leaders, Infantry, Cavalry). The rules clearly states that any 'engaged' block is eligible to take hits, in fact it's in bold, but never identifies what is an engaged block. Anyway, Eric takes Dresden without too much trouble, while I play a waiting game, building up Austrian strength. 3VPs to the Prussians.

In the second year, the French and Russian arrive in turn 3, immediately pressing forward. The Russians besiege Konigsberg, the Swedes take Stettin. The French have advanced up to Dresden, and with an Austrian force and the aid of a card that allows two armies to both take part in the first round (normally one would be a reserve, joining in during the second round) I pound his forces into submission, but take a lot of losses in the process.

Meanwhile the Russians have captured Konigsberg, and start to move forward. I attempt a forced march, but roll 4 '1's in 6 attempts, and lose 4 steps. Not trying that again. The Austrians now push forward, and besiege Breslau. This is where we make our only real rules gaffe, and miss that both Breslau and Cosel are now out of supply, and should be losing steps.

Eric attempts to extricate his force in Cosel by attacking into Breslau, but against a stronger force he comes off the worse and only the leader makes it back to Gloggen.

I push the Russian Cossacks forward, and they capture the weakly defended Gloggen, but a large fight for it develops, as Eric counter-attacks, and I try to reinforce. Eric comes off the better this time and retains Gloggen, but Breslau falls to siege.

Going into 1760, we're both fairly weak, the victory track is at 4VPs in my favor, having just earned 6VPs at the end of 1759. Eric has some work to do to regain some VPs or he will lose at the end of the year, as 10VPs is a game-ending decisive victory condition. (You earn VPs at the end of each year for the enemy cities you hold.) However, it's now 2230, and we have to call it a night. It's going to be tough for the Prussians to come back from this one. Even if they capture a 3 VP city back, it just postpones the loss by one turn. But without Frederick, and generally weak on troops, it's going to be a hard fight just to survive this turn, and we agree that an Allied win is the most likely outcome.

OK, so after a second play, has anything changed? Not really, it's still a very engaging game. Good length, interesting choices, good mechanisms. A proper set of rules would go a long way to making this game more acceptable, as they are really bad, even in the 2ed. Some other gaming friends tried this with the 1ed rules, gave up on it, and won't try the game again. I feel that's their loss, but it's only a small one, as there are so many great games out there that they won't suffer from a lack of games to play.

And that's where I think that Worthington (and they're not alone in this regard) have kinda shot themselves in the foot. They've produced a fine little game that deserves to see some table time, but the rules were so bad that people won't play it. Why fight through the ruleset to find out whether the game is worth playing when there are many other games in the queue all shouting 'Play me!'?

I can see this game being great for a Sunriver WBC-W bash.

My only concerns are in play balance, as I felt I had a relatively easy time of it. Then again, that card that allowed me to bring in my two major forces in the attack on Dresden was major, as it allowed me to take out a strong force and Frederick. After that, building up and attacking to Breslau made that and Cosel out of supply, and it seemed like an easy win. Knowing that, the Prussian player may need to withdraw out of Cosel, or be a bit more aggressive in defending Breslau.

All it shows is that even after a second play we still need to get it back on the table again. And I'm pretty sure it will make it, despite those rules.

Some Spanish game

With the exception of Guadalajara (the SCS title, and that's the only reason I own it), I own no games on the Spanish Civil War, and there's a reason for that: I have exactly zero interest in that period. I know some of the vague history of it, but, to paraphrase, quite frankly, I don't give a damn. So, when Eric wanted to try España 1936, a game on the Spanish Civil War, as an interlude between TME and completing OCS Sicily, I wasn't enthused but was willing to give it a go. I could have put out a veto, but I could tell he was quite keen to try it.

A point-to-point, card assisted, Euro-style wargame, it looked fairly simple from a brief reading of the rules. There is also an advanced naval expansion, but we were going to play the base game. I was, however, somewhat concerned to find that of the 11 pages of forum threads on BGG, 6 were related to rules questions, and the FAQ appeared to be longer than the original rules. Turns out that most of this is due to the naval rules, which have enough holes to sink a battleship. (Ha ha, geddit? Naval, holes, battleship? Oh, never mind.)

The structure is pretty simple. The Nationalist player moves ground units and allocates air units to areas, then the Republican player does the same. This sequence is important, because units in a contested area can only move to an adjacent area, and that area has to be friendly controlled, so the Nationalist player can force the action somewhat. After that both players allocate leader units to areas, alternating placements, with the Nationalist player going first. Now combat is fought, area by area, again alternating with the Nationalist player choosing the first area. (I don't think this is a big deal, as areas don't impact other areas. There could be some supply impact, but as you can trace through a contested area even that's not a big deal.) After that comes the events phase where the players alternate playing cards for events, and finally area control is determined, and, on alternate turns, replacements are added to the map.

The cards are used in two ways. First, is for events, which are mostly for adding more ground, support, or air units to your army. A couple of cards for each player add a leader or remove an opposing leader, or add extra replacements.

The second way they can be used in the combat phase. Here they can be used as a bonus for yourself, or as a penalty for your opponent, either by adding/subtracting dice or applying positive/negative modifiers. Of course, the best event cards have the best combat modifiers, just to make the decisions that more

Talking of combat, it's pretty simple. The active player selects one of his generals to activate. This general can either go inactive, or start a combat, in which case the units in the area are moved to the battle display. Each combat round the attacking player selects one attacking and one defending ground unit, and then players may assign support units, attacking player selecting first, and the activated general has to be declared as a support unit in the first round of combat.

Each ground unit allows you to roll a number of dice in a combat round depending on its step strength (1, 2, 3 or 5), air units adding more dice, and armor and leader units (support units) also add die modifiers. Some ground units have modifiers built in (militia have a -1 and elite units +1). Combat is simultaneous, hits are scored on a 5 or 6, only affect the ground units committed to that round of combat, and each hit is a step loss. If the there are multiple ground units defending, then multiple rounds of combat will be required to clear the area.

Units (either ground or support) may only be used once, so you must have multiple ground units in an area to have multiple rounds of combat in an area. There is some cat and mouse on when to apply support units where there could be multiple rounds of combat.

All fairly simple, but with a fair amount of flexibility. For some reason it took me a while to get my head around that you could have multiple combat rounds without a leader for each round. (In fact you may only assign one leader per area.)

Winning the game is done in one of 3 ways. A sudden death win ends the game, either by one side controlling more than 7 Objective Cities (the ones with a yellow background) or by forcing the other side down to an area of fewer than 8 contiguous controlled or contest areas. If none of this has happened by the end of the 10th turn, then the Republican player wins if he has 3 or more Objective Cities. (Or is that 4? Whatever, you get the point.)

Enough on the mechanisms, how did our game pan out? Eric took the Republicans, and I opened by contesting Oviedo and Bilbao, and moving around the southern coast, aiming to get to Murcia. The former didn't go too well, but the latter succeeded. Eric pushed at Toledo, and managed to get a result. However, in the event card phase I removed one of his leaders, being fortunate to draw that in the first deal. This would leaver Eric with only two leaders to my five for most of the game, as I transferred two leaders from Africa, and played a card in turn 2 to add a leader to my pool. Here's the situation at the end of turn 1 (except that we missed the movement from Africa until after the pic was taken):



Turn 2 saw me sweep around the coast, contesting Murcia, as planned, and continuing to press Oviedo. My attack at Murcia didn't go too well, but Eric managed to grab Bilbao, so swapping cities for the same result in cities controlled/contested. End of turn 2:



Turn 3 saw my recently arrived Italians sweep up to Toledo, but despite lots of dice and modifiers I was unable to take the city. However, I was able to clear Murcia and Salamanca for a swing of 2 cities in my favor, although I did lose Zaragoza. This also allowed me to use 5 replacement points, adding several new units. I was starting to see my plan forming. End of turn 3:



Turn 4 saw Eric come storming back to Murcia, driving me out in one turn, while I switched focus to the north coast, finally clearing Oviedo, and capturing Bilbao. End of turn 4:



Turn 5, and I continued my push along the north coast, contesting Zaragoza, as well as diving back in Murcia. I managed to win back Toledo to give me 7 cities, and by playing an event card for replacements, I added 10 steps to my forces.



Turn 6, and I completed my plan, capturing Huerca and Guadalajara. This divided him into two distinct groups of areas, and with neither being greater than 7 contiguous areas I'd achieved the win. It came down to almost the final roll in Huerca, but if I didn't get it in turn 6, I was sure to do so in turn 7, as I had cards that gave me extra armies, and with the first move I would have been able to grab control on the extra areas required and pin him down so he couldn't take them back. We didn't bother doing the final few combats, as they were moot at that point.



From the first few turns played I realized that it was quite hard to capture 8 cities, as the other player just needs to get a unit in there to contest it. So I was planning on splitting his areas down the middle, whilst still contesting cities and appearing to be attempting to control them. In the end, his attempts to capture back Murcia was just what I wanted to see, as it really was unimportant, occupying the majority of his forces and generals. In the end game I sacrificed a couple of units just to make his areas contested, so he couldn't move out, so ensuring that I would retain control of the vital areas, especially Albacete which I see as a very critical area.

I had been browsing the BGG entry before Eric arrived, and there was a fair bit of discussion there about how hard it was to play the Republicans, with several players indicating Nationalist winds around turn 5/6. And so it was in our game. It looks like the Republicans are really up against it. Even the designer was saying that the Republican player has to play well, and it will take several games to learn how to do it best. The problem is a familiar one (and is similar to Twilight Struggle) - will the game get enough outings to allow for that experience? Ultimately, my answer has to be 'No'.

Whilst it's not a bad game, it suffers from being at too high a level. Almost everything is abstracted out, and, in the end, it felt almost like a pasted on theme of a typical Euro, and didn't feel especially like Spain in 1936. Change some of the icons and it could have been War of the Ring. This is a common issue with Euro-style games. (However, I suppose you could say that of a lot of games.) Sure, there was some challenge in the initial few turns, trying to figure it out, but after about turn 2-3 I felt I was getting further and further ahead, and Eric was in a downward spiral. I think the initial card deal was strongly in my favor, and with 5 leaders to 2 I was always able to force the action where I wanted. (Perhaps it's unfair to judge the game on our skewed experience.)

That said, those first few turns were pretty entertaining, although with the luck of the dice and the draw of the cards, I'm not entirely sure that what the player does has a huge bearing on the game. Contesting areas is pretty easy, so getting 8 Objective Cities is a challenge. Being able to plan where to attack, knowing the cards/events in hand you can do a certain amount of planning.

Overall, not one I'll be adding to my game shelf, and I'm not sure it will even see more play. Yes, it's a decent length for an evening game (we finished in 3 hours, easy), but unless you're playing regularly and figure out how to play the Republicans, you know you're in for a tick in the 'L' column. I think it needs some sort of bidding mechanism to balance it out, or playing two games back to back, to make it worthwhile. If Eric were to propose this again in 6 months time, I'd probably ask for something else (Storm Over Stalingrad and Iwo Jima: Rage Against the Marines are likely candidates), unless we had the time to play two games, in which case we'd probably be playing something else in the first place.

Talk about damning with faint praise.

Stalingrad, redux style

One of the things that Eric wants to do over the next few sessions is to go back and retry some of the games we've played over our time here. This is something I'm all for, as with a new game every week, and other gaming commitments, it's been a bit of a struggle to keep up, what with reading (sometimes almost indecipherable) rules, punching and clipping counters, etc. Fun, but a bit of work. So, when Eric suggested Storm Over Stalingrad (BGG link) I was more than happy to give it another go after our previous effort (Eric's take, my take), where we spaced a few rules.

Once again my bid was low, bidding 2 to Eric's 3, and I had the Germans, which was fine, as I was interested in trying them out again, to see if I could do any better than last time. I started with a decent hand, having 3 of the '10' value artillery cards, and with the SS troops only being around for the first three turns I wanted to use them as much as possible, so decided to start there. Once more, however, the dice refused to cooperate, as I rolled 2,3,3,4 and 6 for my first 5 attacks, averaging under 4.5 for the whole turn, while Eric responded with 7,9,9,11, and averaged around 8+ for the turn, leaving me with grabbing just the one area with the SS.

And it didn't get much better in future turns. Twice I made attacks with large groups, with strengths equal to the total defense of the area, but rolled 2 and 4. I did have a couple of good rolls, removing 2-3 units, but too often my killer stacks rolled weak, and the high rolls were on low strength attacks that consequently had little impact. All rolls are not equal.

However, I was able to drive my armor units to the river, to take one VP area, but I was totally unable to do anything else to expand that breakthrough, despite pouring all the reinforcements into that area. Time after time I saw Eric's 11 and 12 rolls force me back, and it was only in the fifth turn that I achieved parity on losses, having lost more units than he for most of the game, a situation that any German player in an East Front game cannot have happen and hope to have any chance of a win.

So it was that I came into turn 5, having gained control of only 2 of the 5 required VP areas, and after another 2 wasted artillery cards to low rolls, that 2 on the 12 strength attack, and an Overrun card that was met by Eric playing Mines to counter it, I quit banging my head on the wall, and resigned, something I was almost tempted to suggest after the first turn.

SoS is a great game, and I'm sure that it will prove to be a totally tense, nail biting affair, if we can ever get past the vagaries of the dice. And there are only 2 in the box, so it's not like I picked the 2 bad ones. We played through turn 5 in around 2 hours, so 3 hours, tops, for the whole game, a very decent length. I think this one will see a lot of table time in the future.

Returning to Stalingrad

Last week, Mike and I got Storm over Stalingrad back to the table as my choice. If you'll recall, we had played this area-impulse game a few months ago, and got three specific rules wrong:

We allowed Russian units to fire from the ferry terminals
We applied the terrain modifier to defense against units in the same area
We eliminated units retreating into full areas instead of retreating them further

We both wanted to try this one again played correctly. I bid 3 to Mike's 2, and got the Russians. That meant I had to control three of the seven VP areas at the end of the game. (If you remember, the game is 6 turns long.)

This time, we got all the rules right. We just forgot to not use Mike's dice.

The opening turn of this game is very critical for the Germans – they must make significant progress quickly, specifically on the Russian left, as the SS units are removed from play after turn 3. With all the reinforcements the Russians can bring in, the Germans must have strong positions from which to cover the SS removal or it's simply not going to happen for them.

So, what happens in our game? 1st turn, Mike averages a 4 on his attack rolls. This is on two dice. I averaged around a 9 in my counter attacks, and actually eliminated more units than Mike. In fact, I was able to stay ahead of the dead-unit count until mid-way through turn 5. Anyone even remotely familiar with East Front games knows that if the Russian units aren't dying in at least a 3:2 ratio over German units, they're not going to win and might even lose in epic fashion.

Midway through the game (turn 3 or so) Mike maneuvered down and took the 3rd-from-right VP area along the river. This gave him a point at which he could bring in reinforcements, and I believe every reinforcement he received the rest of the game was placed here.

In the end, though, it didn't matter. I held the two rightmost VP areas, and the entire left excepting the far left area. 5 of the 7. At best, Mike was going to be able to take one in the final turn, so we called it late in turn 5. Russia defends the city.

If you recall how combat works, you add up the firepower of all attacking units, add the roll of two dice, then subtract the highest defender rating added to the terrain value (if applicable). The way the numbers fall out, it's common to need 7s or 8s on two dice to start doing any sort of damage. Now, there's likely some selective memory at work here, but it seemed every time Mike needed only 4s or 5s, he'd roll a 6 or less. If he needed 8s or 9s, he'd roll 9s or higher. Rarely did it seem that he'd roll high when he needed low. (And, I specifically recall twice pulling three units off at once – the fact I remember it means significant damage wasn't happening often.) Meanwhile, I usually seemed to have enough to either stall his attack, or kill his units outright. All you need to do as the defender.

This is two weeks in a row where atrocious luck has severely damaged Mike's game. I'm going to be watching for when it happens to me.

Dice aside, this is an excellent game. You've got loads of decisions to make, and it's very simple to play. We were done in around 2 hours, and it wouldn't have been more than 2.5 had we played to conclusion. The bidding-for-sides mechanism at the start of the game addresses any balance issues a particular play style may reveal. Not aggressive enough with the Germans? Bid higher for the Russians, and suddenly the Germans don't need to take as much ground. Successful on the attack? You'll be bidding lower to play the Russians and the Germans will have to do more.

I haven't played Turning Point: Stalingrad yet (It's on my list, Jackson. Really.) but it will be very interesting to compare a more detailed game on the same subject using the same basic framework.

First Look at Prussia's Defiant Stand

(I've been fighting a massive head cold while writing this, so apologies in advance for any inaccuracies. I blame them entirely on the pharmaceutical industry.)

Mike wanted to get Prussia's Defiant Stand on the table last week. This is Worthington Games' block game on the Seven Years War released in 2006 (I believe). If you've played other block games, you'll recognize elements of many other games such as their own Forged in Fire, and Columbia's Crusader Rex and Hammer of the Scots.

The general structure of these games are you are dealt a hand of cards and each simultaneously choose a card for each round on a given turn. Various rules are used to determine who goes first each time, etc. Supply is checked at various intervals to ensure you don't get units isolated, and VPs are scored as you take various major cities on the map.

Many game-specific rules are used to simulate the events of the SYW. This conflict saw a newly preeminent Prussia fighting off Austria, Russia, Sweden, and France. England assisted financially (and in other theatres with troops and ships) but Prussia's Defiant Stand concentrates on the area in what is today Slovakia, The Czech Republic, eastern Germany, western Poland, and Austria.

Maria Theresa had just ascended to the Austrian throne, and Frederick the Great, king of Prussia, decided to force matters and invaded. This eventually brought Austria allies, and Britain joined in on Prussia's side to balance matters. The conflict quickly spread around the world. In the Americas, it's known as the French and Indian War. Major conflicts also occurred in India (the Third Carnatic War) and elsewhere. It was, truly, the first World War though it lost that title to the monumental conflict 95 years ago.

In the actual war, Russia and France joined in after the first winter of 1758. This is handled in the game by not activating Russian or French units until the 3rd card play of the 2nd turn. (There are 5 card playing rounds in every turn but the first) Also, Catherine The Great (Empress of Russia) died during the war – her heir, Peter III, was a HUGE fan of Frederick, and immediately pulled Russia out of the war – this essentially saved Prussia as a sovereign nation. In the game, this is handled by rolling dice at the beginning of the last three turns to see if Catherine dies. If she does, the Russian and Swedish units are immediately removed from the map. This starts as an 8-or-higher roll, but an extra +1 is added every subsequent turn.

Forewarning: the Deansian Statistical Distortion Field (an effect documented in detail in the past and elsewhere) was in full effect during this game.

Prussia's Defiant Stand is a good physical production. Attractive usable map; clear, well-made cards, and easy-to-read stickers on the blocks. The rulebook is physically attractive, but we'll get to the contents later.

There are three game mechanics that I feel differentiate PDS from other block games: Supply being checked after every round, Friction of War and related turn-sequence subtleties, and the combat sequence. Let's look at these items in detail.

The supply situation is checked after every card play (i.e. five times per turn) rather than at the end of every year. Each player simultaneously checks that every unit can trace through to a supply source. If you're in enemy territory, every city on the trace route must contain a friendly unit. Besieged fortresses can supply garrisons within, but at the cost of a step (this is a rule I think we missed the one time it likely came up.) In addition to the supply check, during this phase players can coalesce identical units in the same city. You just add the steps of one onto the other, and place the eliminated unit back into your force pool to be reused as a reinforcement later on. Finally, existing sieges are resolved in this phase. Roll a die, and add the number of steps under four left on the fortress. If the result is 7 or more, it surrenders, otherwise, it's reduced a step (but goes no lower than 1.) This means you've got a 50/50 shot at claiming a 1-step fortress. Something Mike managed to fail at in something like 8 of 9 attempts.

The turn sequence is a bit interesting. After you've revealed your chosen cards, the player of the lower-valued card chooses who goes first. Units/leaders are activated (without needing to state for what purpose) then the Friction of War table is referenced. This may keep leaders from moving, allow one side or the other to inspect blocks, etc. After this, then each player performs actions with their activated units. It does make for some interesting decisions if you're the one getting to choose who goes first. Knowing where things are going to be activated is valuable, but sometimes you want to get the jump on the other guy. A good feature here. My one complaint is that the Friction of War table blends in to the map so well, we frequently forgot to roll on it. And, as there's no aid card with the sequence of play on it, there was no effective visible reminder. It's an issue in learning the game, but over time wouldn't be a problem.

Finally, let's look at combat. There's a few tweaks in here from the typical block game. When opposing forces end movement in the same city, combat happens. The first side into the city is the defender, the other is the attacker. Combat is similar to other block games – one die per strength point of the unit, and it needs its combat value or higher on a d6 to hit. In many other block games, different blocks are rated A, B, or C to indicate when they fight in a round of combat – in PDS it's decided on the class of troop – leaders, infantry, and cavalry in that order. First you deploy – infantry and leaders are fighting, cavalry are formed up and not necessarily committed yet. Reserve forces are placed in reserve. Then you move to the first round of combat:

1. Defending Leaders fight


2. Attacking Leaders fight


3. Defending infantry fight


4. Attacking infantry fight


5. Attacking cavalry may move from form-up to charge


6. Defending cavalry may move from form-up to charge


7. Cavalry fight simultaneously. If one side has more cavalry than the other, the excess inflict their hits against opposing leaders/infantry.

Now, in looking back at the rules, I realized we played a rule wrong, and this is due to a failing in the rulebook. The rules say hits are applied to opposing “engaged” units, but “engaged” is never defined in the rules. You have to dig into the combat example in the updated rules to see that infantry are engaged in round one before they actually fight, and the initial leader hits can be applied to them. We didn't play this and applied all leader hits in the first round to the opposing leader. As leaders are out of the game when eliminated, this really affected the result. Particularly since Frederick (who inflicts hits on a 3 or higher) hit on 9 of his first 10 shots. I think he personally took out two leaders. As those hits should have been spread around, Mike would have had more leaders later in the game leading to more operational flexibility.

After round one, any cavalry that charged are moved to melee, reserves are deployed, and combat now becomes simultaneous. You continue fighting until one side retreats or is eliminated.

At any point during the combat, a side may choose to retreat the class of units due to fight. If they do so, the opposing class gets to fight unopposed. It's completely unclear from the rules if these hits are to be applied to all engaged units (including the units about to retreat) or only the retreating units. We played the latter, but the 2nd edition of the rules hint at the former. In either case, it's completely unclear.

Finally once one side completely retreats from the battle, if the other has a surplus of cavalry, one hit per extra opposing cavalry unit is inflicted in the pursuit.

So, what Seven Years War specific effects are added into the combat? There are three that I see. First is the lack of defender advantage after the first round. No problem with this one. Second is pursuit after combat ends – again, looks good. A superiority of cavalry in this era was important, and the 1-hit-per unit sounds about right. What I'm not sure about is the leaders-fighting-first bit. This was not the era of leaders (at the level represented by the block) fighting from the front. I can see that they're trying to model the effect of better commanders, but it seems a bit contrived. They say right in the rules that Leaders represent the generals, their staffs, artillery, and supply trains. Yet they're frequently the best fighting blocks you have. This doesn't sit well with me but I haven't come up with something better yet.

Finally, let's look at the rulebook. I want to say right off that this is not a complex game. How they could then manage to mangle the rulebook in so many ways is beyond me. Key terms (such as “engaged”) are not formally defined yet frequently used. There are two versions of the rules on Worthington's website – one is the original rules as included with the game, nicely formatted, and the other is a horrendously formatted .DOC file with updated rules. The updated rules are MUCH tighter than the original, but are physically difficult to read and still contain holes. One example comes to mind – at the beginning of the 1761 turn, you start rolling for the Tsarina's health. If she does not die in 1761 – and I quote - “Each subsequent year a +1 is added to the dice roll.” Is this cumulative? It doesn't say. In addition, there is a card that lets you add or subtract 2 from this roll. The card says “Play during the Tsarina's Health Phase.” As the health phase consists of a die roll, how do you play a card during a die roll? It's either before you know the result or after. And this isn't addressed anywhere that I've found.

I guess I do spend a lot of time complaining about rulebooks, but when you're doing what we've been doing (playing a game that's new to us nearly every week) you spend a lot of time in them. And it's not always fun time. After playing I asked Mike whether this rulebook was worse than Devil's Cauldron's rulebook and we decided it was – at least the TDC rulebook seems to have all the information in there, it's just finding it that's difficult. This one is simply incomplete, and the updated version helps in one way but takes three steps back with atrocious formatting.

In the end, though, this game has promise. Maybe it's just because I'm a sucker for the SYW overall, but I think this is a nice representation of the conflict in a block-game style. One problem strategic SYW games have is how to model Russia's exit. I haven't yet examined how Clash of Monarchs does it, but Friedrich's deck of fate is one way, and the Tsarina's Health die roll is another. It can be frustrating to have your plans wrecked by a single die roll, but you have to know going in that it's a possibility and plan accordingly. (It's been said that Friedrich should be viewed from the Allied perspective as having the game endpoint be before you start in the deck of fate and any time you gain through the deck is bonus time.) I certainly want to play this again sometime, and am will be adding it to my want list.

Freddy dies, Prussia wins

You know, sometimes I wonder why I bother to play these games, as the game experience is just atrocious, and this was another of those experiences. On the table was Prussia’s Defiant Stand (BGG entry), from Worthington Games, which I’d recently traded for. This is a combined block/CDG, very much in the line of some of the Columbia games. Decent game, good tension, nice presentation, but terrible rules.

Let’s start with the presentation. Nice looking box, well constructed. The map is mounted and is excellent. The blocks are, well, blocks. Mostly decent, without too many with obvious blemishes (which would allow identification of units/strengths), but many were significantly smaller than the others. Not a huge issue in and of itself, but those were smaller than the labels, which meant some trimming was required. Speaking of labels, functional, clean, but several had sticking issues, and are already coming away from the blocks. My biggest gripe is with the cards. While they’re printed on decent stock, they’re of a non-standard size, which make them a real pain in the butt for those who like to protect the cards with sleeves. Why not pick a card in a standard size?

Finally, we come to the rules. Whilst they have some nice graphics, they proved to be full of holes and unclear in places, especially around combat. Fortunately there is an updated set out on the web-site, and I would suggest that you not attempt to play the game without them. Whilst we’ve been critical of rules in other games, it’s even more heinous in this case as the game is pretty simple and straightforward, although it’s sometimes hard to tell from the rules. I’d hate to see Worthington try anything as complex as The Devil’s Cauldron.

Mechanisms are really very simple. The game is divided into years, with each year having 5 regular rounds and a wintering round. In each of the regular rounds players may choose a card from their hand of 7 for the year, which acts as their command card, allowing a certain number of operations/actions. These can be used to activate leaders (and their attached army units/blocks), individual units, recruit new units, or strengthen fortresses. Activated leaders can either move or marshal forces from nearby areas, acting like a magnet, attracting units to them. Cards also have events, and movement/battle effects on them, so often you have the choice to make on whether to use cards for operations or effects, possibly leaving yourself with having no command card to play in a round.

Wintering comes at the end of each year, and means that units have a strict stacking limit. (Effectively, it’s not really stacking.) A city by itself can support one block, a fortress 4 blocks, and a leader up to twice their current steps, with each location having the highest of the three, i.e. they are not additive. Any blocks in excess of this limit are removed, e.g. a city with a fortress and 5 blocks would have one block removed, as the limit is four blocks (for the fortress). Any cards remaining in hand at the end of the turn are discard, the deck is shuffled, and the next year starts.

So you move your armies from city to city, in a game of cat and mouse, until eventually opposing armies end up in the same city location, and a battle is fought. Units are split up into their different types, leaders, infantry, and cavalry, and placed on the battle board in their respective areas. Battle is fought in a series of rounds, with the defenders firing first in the first round. Leader units fire at opposing leader units, infantry at infantry, with the ‘to hit’ number on the block. (Mostly 5 for infantry, leaders range from 3 to 5.) If there are no units of the same type then they can fire at the other type, e.g. leaders at infantry. In subsequent rounds combat within a type is simultaneous, and losses are taken from the highest strength engaged opponent, regardless of type.

Cavalry is handled differently. They start the battle in a ‘Form up’ box, and may be committed against opposing cavalry, or against opposing infantry (for a +1 DR modifier) if you have more cavalry units in the battle than your opponent. In the subsequent round cavalry move forward to melee against their selected target, at the end of which they can choose to continue the melee or to move back to ‘Form up’ mode and start the process again.

When it comes to their turn to fire, each type may choose to retreat, leaving the battle, however, the opponent gets a final chance to fire. I felt this was a little too strong, for the level of the game, especially as there is also a cavalry pursuit rule. (If the victorious army has more cavalry units, they get to roll the difference, with '6's scoring further hits.) You’re going to take the same hits whether you fight or retreat, so you might as well stay and fight, and too often it meant the total obliteration of an army.

This may sound a little complex, but it’s really pretty simple in practice, and you get into the swing pretty quickly.

Fortresses and sieges are handled differently. Each fortress has a strength, and at the end of each round you perform bombardments, rolling 1d6, with a +1 modifier for each strength point below 4, requiring 7+ to capture the fortress, i.e. a 1 step fortress has a 50/50 chance of being captured. If the fortress is not captured then the besieging force loses a step. There is also the option to assault, but with an automatic step loss for each step of fortress strength, neither of us tried it.

Victory is measured in terms of VPs, which you gain by capturing your opponent’s cities, only some of which have fortresses, which need to be captured in order to claim the city. Gain lots of VPs and you may score an automatic victory, 10 required for the Allied player, 9 for Prussia. If no-one has scored an automatic victory by the end of 1763, the higher VPs wins.

There are a few additional rules to handle the bigger political scene. Prussia gets a VP in each of 1760 and 1762, if still in the war. If they are losing in terms of VPs at the start of the 1760 turn they receive 2 cards fewer per turn from then on, which reflects the loss of British support. For the Allied player, starting in 1761, a roll is made for the death of the Tsarina - a roll of 8+ on 2d6 means the Tsarina dies and Russia and Sweden are out of the game, although there are 2 cards in the deck that modify this roll by +2.

Pretty simple, huh? Some nice mechanisms, good chrome, all within a game that plays in around 4 hours. So I was looking forward to playing. Eric played Prussia, and opened by besieging Dresden with Frederick, following history. I marshaled some units and sent an army to attack him, attempting to raise the siege. And this is where my game started to go downhill. In the initial Leader Frederick rolled 4 hits on 4 dice (requiring 3+ to hit), killing my leader outright, and it got worse. I lost my entire army, losing 21 steps for against a loss of 12 for Eric.

In the next turn The French moved forward, Frederick tried to block and in the ensuing battle Frederick again rolled 4 hits from 4 dice, the French were annihilated, losing 26 steps against 13. However, this reduced Frederick’s force enough that I was able to follow up with an Austrian army under Loudoun and remove Frederick from the game. Another major battle lost in the same fashion meant that I had now lost 6 leaders to Eric’s two, and was barely able to command forces.

By 1760 the Russians had moved forward, and I was actually ahead in VPs, from using the Cossacks to threaten here and there, drawing forces away from his sieges allowing me to relieve them and sneak a point or two here and there. This meant that Eric’s hand was reduced to 5 cards. In the meantime I’d pushed him back from his incursion into Austria, besieging several fortresses, as well has having the Swedes push south. However, I proceeded to miss 9 out of 10 50/50 siege rolls in the turn, losing 9 steps in the process, and ending the year overstacked, so had to lose another 3 blocks.

At the start of 1761, I, of course, rolled 8 to remove Russia/Sweden from the game, the one time I needed the Tsarina card in hand was the one turn I didn’t get it dealt to me. With only 1 Austrian leader left on the board and little in the way of units left I resigned, as Eric would quite likely have scored an automatic win in that or the next turn.

Another decent game, made almost a farce by the dice. Whilst Eric had a little to do to score the win, mostly he just had to sit there and watch my forces implode. Even when I had a numerical superiority, I couldn’t get any results that mattered. Whilst Frederick is a tough nut to crack, scoring hits on 3+, in the first battle he scored on 9 out of 10 rolls, and twice rolled 4 hits from 4 dice to remove the opposing leader in one go at the start of the battle. Sigh. Still, the game itself is good, and I'm not going to hold this farce against it. Definitely goes on the 'Thumbs up' pile.

Oh well, never mind. I’ll be back next week for whatever Eric chooses

Virtually back to Iwo Jima

This past week Mike and I finally got back together for some gaming. My family schedule had rearranged a bit, so there were some delays after my business trip earlier this month.

We had also had a bit of a miscommunication on what we were doing Wednesday night. I thought we were playing Iwo Jima again (this time with the correct rules as opposed to how we botched it last time), and Mike thought we were doing a Vassal walkthrough. Given that the Iwo Jima Vassal module had been released earlier that day, we decided to combine the two. I'll talk about Vassal first, then Iwo Jima.

For those that don't know, Vassal is an aid for playing games online. Exactly what games you can play completely depends on people writing modules to support them. These generally can only be distributed with permission of the publisher as there's a need for copyrighted material to be included. Some companies, however, are extremely friendly to this sort of support, and may modules include the actual game art (in digital form, obviously) within the module. This comes as close as is possible to replicating the on-the-table experience on your monitor.

The level of detail included within a module is pretty much up to the module designer. Some (such as Afrika II) are very basic while others (Devils Cauldron, for example) provide so many aids and utilities, they actually improve the gaming experience. TDC's module, for example, allows you to do things such as display a leader's command range on the map, and highlight all units that are a member of the currently activated formation. Things you have to track manually when playing the physical game.

Vassal is one of a handful of gaming aids. Others include Cyberboard, Aide-de-Camp, ZunTzu, Wargameroom.com, and more that aren't coming to mind right now. To the best of my knowledge, Vassal is unique in that it combines two major features – it's written in Java so it works on any platform that supports Java, and it supports both live and play-by-email (PBeM) modes. The latest version (currently in beta – and the version we used last week) also imports Aide-de-camp modules. Vassal is available at Vassalengine.org. If you want the latest beta, click the forums link, then I believe the top forum area contains the link to the latest. Many modules are accessible from that website as well.

Mike had tried Vassal a while ago, but didn't enjoy the experience. At the time, the tools were relatively crude, and the smaller screen resolution gave him the feeling of looking at the game through a porthole. Not the best experience by any means.

Given the number of great longer games fighting for time and table space, PBeM is one of the ways to get these games played. Mike figured it was time to try it again, and wanted to walk through the system together so questions are more easily answered. I've been involved in email games quite a bit (including a handful of tournaments) so I was a natural to help him learn the system. The one thing I'd never done with Vassal, though, was play live – everything I'd done had been PBeM. So, it would be a learning experience for me as well.

The Iwo Jima Vassal module has a couple nice touches added to it. Concealed units appear about 50% translucent on the Japanese player's screen, and are (naturally) invisible to the American player. Moving a concealed unit using hidden movement also does not create a visible log entry. Finally, there's commands that reset all “fired” markers and return all American naval and air units to the support box. Nice time savers that we didn't actually notice until about halfway through. Also, each unit has a “lose one step” command that will move the unit to the eliminated box when it loses its last step.
In the actual game play, I decided to try a Japanese strategy I'd read on CSW and attempted to implement in our initial game. (And it would have worked better last time had we read up on the errata/clarifications.) Basically, don't directly contest the beaches – instead shell those areas mercilessly with all the artillery you can bring to bear. Ditto with the airfields. Fight for those, but shell them as well. As a result, I placed nothing on the beaches, but surrounded the beaches and airfields with artillery.

Mike started off with a very successful shelling of the landing beaches, and followed up with his invasion – I shelled and managed to keep beachhead markers off the map for most of the first three turns. After Mike's initial good results, his barrages started to tail off. In fact, he wasn't able to clear Mt. Siribachi until turn 7, the point at which we quit. The score at that point was something like 32-5 for the Japanese (40 is an auto-victory) and the Americans had no chance to come back.

There's errata on the game that says regardless of the terrain value of an area, getting a single artillery hit on an area is enough to remove Safe to Land and Beachhead markers from the board. Unless the US is able to clear the artillery from the adjacent areas, this is a rather easy target for the Japanese to reach. There are probably a number of ways for the Americans to combat this, but it seems to be a very tough go. Of course, the real thing was as well.

I want to give this game a few more chances – looking at the relative ease in which Safe to Land markers can be removed (and this is the primary way in which the US gets VPs) it looks to be slanted in the Japanese favor. It may simply come down to how effective the US artillery is in the first three turns. If the Japanese can simply have their artillery survive long enough, it becomes too hard for the US player to score enough points to catch up.

Over the web

One of the things that Eric and I have talked about for some time is playing games over Vassal. However, the limiting factor to this undertaking is that I've never used Vassal. I played around with it a little, but could never quite figure out what to do with it. So, our efforts this week were directed towards Eric teaching me Vassal, which, in the end, didn't take much time at all, as once you have someone to show you what to do, it really isn't that hard to figure out at all. We futzed around with Afrika II a little, as he showed me how to get modules, load them up, and get going with the various options. all pretty simple really.

With lots of time left in the evening, we decided to have another go at Iwo Jima. Over Vassal. This was a brand new module, only released that day, so it was great timing. It took a little bit to figure out what all the options did, so we got connected and familiarized and took off again, once more with Eric as the Japanese.

We started off with cloudy weather, so one US air unit is marked as Fired. Once again I pounded the beaches with my air and naval strength to great effect, but, once again there was nothing there. I moved ashore and tried to press inland a little, but received a bloody nose for my efforts. In the Japanese turn Eric barraged both beaches to remove beachhead markers.

Turn 2 sees more cloudy weather, as the Marines endeavor to stabilize their position. The barrages hit Mt. Suribachi and Tachiwa Point, attempting to remove his artillery that can hit the beaches, with moderate success. I attempt to move onto Tamana Hill, but again the reaction fire is very accurate. In Eric's turn his artillery have found the range onto Double Root beach as he score 5 hits in 5 dice, causing lots of casualties. However, his barrage onto Old Man beach whiffs, leaving the beachhead marker.

Turn 3, and more cloudy weather. A big air strike on Mt. Suribachi scores well and removes the artillery unit there, as well as hits on the other 2 units. The other strike on Motoyama Airfield also does well, but the caves take the brunt. I flood the beach with reinforcements, taking advantage of the beachhead marker. I try to move into Funami Dai, but the reaction fire is pretty devastating and I lose an armor unit. I also move into Motoyama Airfield, and don't suffer too greatly from the reaction fire. In the assaults, I score 1 net hit on Funami Dai, which forces one unit to retreat to Chidori Airfield, don't cause any damage on Motoyama Airfield. Other than successfully barraging both beaches for more losses, Eric doesn't do anything.

Turn 4, and some clear skies! The barrage on Motoyama Airfield causes 1 net hit, but the one on Funami Dai doesn't even cause enough damage to remove a cave (2 hits on 14 dice). The assault on Funami Dai goes well, and I take control. Eric successfully barrages all the beachheads and Funami Dai, the rotter, and then follows up by occupying Double Root Beach, the double rotter.

Turn 5, and back to cloudy weather. I barrage his units on Double Root Beach and Western Village into the eliminated box, while on the mega barrage on Ohsaka Hill I score 8 hits on 20 dice, removing another pesky artillery unit. I manage to get a unit onto Mt. Suribachi as his reaction fire misses, and also move onto Western Village to assault the mortar there, but miss totally. Eric's attacks on Mt. Suribachi kicks me out, but the one on Motoyama Airfield fails, and I score my first points of the game.

Turn 6, more cloudy weather. The mega barrage on Mt. Suribachi score 4 hits on 18 dice, so not much there. I save my big roll for Northern Airfield, scoring 4 hits on 6 dice, which are eaten up by the caves. I try to move into Tachiwa Point, but again the reaction fire is strong, and I retire out again. My assault on Western Coast scores 2 hits, and forces the mortar unit back another space. The Japanese barrages on Motoyama Airfield and Funami Dai again score hits, so no VPs for me. Eric has 31 at this point.

Turn 7, yet more cloudy weather, that's 6 out of 7 turns, when it's a 50/50 roll for clear weather. I hit Mt. Suribachi again with 20 points, and finally clear out his units. The barrage in Chindori Airfield misses, but I finally remove the mortar unit in Warbler Village. I'm now using '0' strength units to claim areas, because that's about all I have left. I also move units into Tachiwa Point and Chidori Airfield, and don't suffer too badly in the reaction fire, but my assaults don't do much. Eric barrages Motoyama Airfield. I roll 3 VPs for Mt. Suribachi, so I've now got 5 to Eric's 32.

At this point we have to stop, as Eric's battery is about to run out, but the game is effectively over anyway. Even scoring 10 points a turn I can't hit 40 by game end, and Eric is going to score big time for areas controlled at game end, for a convincing win.

Having such crappy weather certainly didn't help any, with 6 out of 7 rolls being cloudy (2-3, lose use of 1 air unit). I had 4 good barrage rolls, scoring 8 hits from 20 or so dice, but 3 of those were against areas with no units in them. Eric rolled decently, especially in the early part of the game, causing a lot of unit step losses, and that 5 hits from 5 dice on the second turn was especially brutal, taking out 5 steps. By the end of the game I had very few units left, and most of them were '0' strength.

And, incidentally, I did a quick analysis of the die rolls, and Eric made 107 die rolls, scoring hits on 42, a 39.3% rate, slightly higher than the expected value. I rolled 283, scoring hits on 98, for 34.6%, or just over average. Excluding my two initial barrages against the empty beaches, my figures are 82 from 239, or 32.9%, just below average.

Iwo Jima is a fun little game, a decent filler for an hour or two, and it's certainly a lot harder for the US player when you play by the correct rules, but that may just be due to playing wrong, as I'm tending to agree with the proposal that the US player needs to spend at least a turn or two just blasting things before attempting to land and do anything, otherwise the Japanese artillery just makes mincemeat of his forces. And with no beachheads that means no replacements, just to make it harder. No, a couple turns reducing likely artillery locations and Japanese marine units seems like the best plan. I'm sure it will see more play time to test that theory.

The Vassal session went well, although there were some issues with the module. However, these were limited to the controls for the US markers (beachheads, Safe to Land), which you were supposed to be able to activate by toggling the respective location, but they didn't work. No matter, you could just drag the markers from the control palette, so it wasn't a big issue. I'm not too fond of the log output, as looking back over it some of it is a bit cryptic, and it doesn't make mention of the placement or removal of markers.

Several years ago I played a game by one of the other game tools (Cyberboard I think, but it may have been ADC), and I wasn't too impressed by it. However, that was in the days of 1024*768, and I just couldn't get used to seeing so little of the map at any one time. On my MacBook Pro (1440*900) it was quite usable, although IJ doesn't have a large map, and when I stick it on the old 23" Cinema Display (1940*1200) it should be very usable. I'm planning on playing some more by Vassal, and have a couple of contacts already, even outside my regular band of gaming buddies.

But it looks great on the table...

There are those that will fondly look back on the days of Avalon Hill as the “golden age of wargaming.” To me, it's “golden” only if you consider golden anniversaries as celebrating something that happened a long time ago.

The real “golden age” of wargaming is now. The games being produced today have better production (okay, so they're not mounted maps...), better design, and a much wider experience in gameplay. No individual game is printed in the numbers Avalon Hill used to crank out in the day, but it wouldn't surprise me if the total number of games being produced isn't somewhere within at least hailing distance of what was being printed 30 years ago.

Preorder systems instituted by most companies insure that, for the most part, only the games people want are the ones that are printed. This has had an interesting side effect. The quality bar is much higher than it was long ago. “Substandard” games frequently either don't make the cut and are never produced, or they languish back in the queue as more popular games keep bumping them back. Many companies publish their rules in advance so prospective buyers have a good idea of how games will function and whether it's a game for them.

This has had the effect of making “wasted”gaming time a rarity. People are nearly always playing games they like as they knew in advance what the experience would probably be and shied away from games not up their alley.

This week's post is about the exception that proves the rule.

A few months ago, I got Warriors of God from MMP. This is (again) part of their IGS line of games that have been so successful. Titles such as A Victory Lost, Storm over Stalingrad, and Fire in the Sky have received numerous accolades and awards. I was particularly looking forward to this title as I don't believe there has ever been a game that attempts to cover the entire Hundred Years War.

It's a gorgeous production, and might be Mark Mahaffey's best map to date. The tiles (no, I'm not calling them counters – they're big and thick, so they're tiles) are beautiful and look good on the map. The rules are also very attractive, though I have issues with the font choice and layout in the combat examples.

There are two scenarios in the game – The Hundred Years War (1337-1453), and The Lion in Winter which covers the 1135-1258 time frame. In the first you get Jeanne d'Arc, in the 2nd you get Robin Hood.

WoG is another area-impulse game. The catch with this one is that, due to the incredible length of time the game covers (12 turns over 100 years), your leaders will die during the game while others come of age to replace them. Also, the number of impulses in a turn is random – you roll a contested d6 for initiative, and the winner gets the loser's die roll (+ 2 more) in actions. The loser gets one less. Leaders are rated for rank, bravery, and command. You get points for controlling areas, and killing or capturing leaders. Hitting 20 points give you an auto-victory, and it's a zero-sum thing. (There's just one VP scale, not two.)

I think that's enough background. Let's look at the turn sequence. I'm going to go into this in a rather large amount of detail because it is within the turn sequence that my issues with the game mostly lie.

Each turn has 11 phases. They are:

1. Determine initiative
2. Action impulses
3. Resolve battles
4. Determine area control
5. Raise troops
6. Deploy unassigned troops
7. Exchange captured leaders
8. Determine leader survival
9. Place incoming leaders
10. Dispose of leaderless troops
11. Adjust score

Initiative I've covered. There are modifiers for having your king in your home area, or not having a king. (Only a 3-rank leader may be king.)

Now, here's where things start to get odd.

Then you do your impulses. On an impulse, you move a number of leaders from one area to any adjacent area. Only one may cross obstructed boundaries, two over clear, and three over rivers. (Yes, you can move more troops over a river than across clear ground.) One may cross a naval boundary, except the British may move two this way in the HYW scenario. The exception to this is what they call the “flypaper” rule. It's basically pinned leaders in the same area as enemy, with the addition that a control marker counts as a leader for this purpose only. Number of troops controlled by the leaders in these contested areas is irrelevant for this rule. If you move into an area containing enemy troops, you become the aggressor unless there's already an aggressor in that area.

After impulses are over, you fight battles in areas containing both sides' troops. If one side controls the area, he may offer siege. (In other words, hide in his castle.) In this era, sieges weren't reduced to science, and in many cases it's actually harder to successfully siege than it is to win a battle.

In a normal battle, the highest ranking leader on both sides is commander, and you generally roll his command rating (or number of troops in the ares whichever is less) in dice, needing 6s to hit. The number of dice can be increased if you have longbowmen around, and the to-hit roll can be reduced if you have better bravery than your opposing ranking leader. Each hit reduces the other side by a like number of strength points. (Except knights can absorb two hits.) You keep going until one side either retreats or is completely eliminated. The exception here is that if the aggressor scores zero hits on three consecutive rounds of combat the defender may eject them from the area. When you're rolling, say, four dice needing 6s, that's not uncommon.

After all the battles are complete, there are no areas left containing troops from both sides. Now you determine area control. If the area is controlled by your opponent, you reduce it to uncontrolled. If it's uncontrolled and not the home area of a leader inside, you must roll his rank or less to control it. As most leaders have a rank of 1 or 2, this is not easy. If it is the leader's home area, you get it automatically unless there's mercenaries around.

After that's resolved, you raise troops in areas you control. You get troops equal to the area rating (1 to 3). They're simply placed in the area. After this, you deploy them. Unassigned troops can move across adjacent areas you control to any leader that still has the capacity to control them. (Leaders can control three times their rank in troop strength – though few can bring that strength to bear in a battle.)

After all troops are raised and deployed, any captured leaders have equal ranks exchanged and the remainder score VPs for the capturer. (or, you can ransom them should you have controlled spaces to spare.)

Following this you roll for leader death. Leaders have a number on their counter indicating the turn in which they arrive. Subtract this from the current turn number and roll higher to have the leader survive. (This is actually displayed on a large, unnecessary, chart in the middle of the map.)

After some of your leaders die, and they will, you get to place new leaders. You get two per turn, and there will be at least two neutral leaders available for entry as well. (It's also possible that routed neutral leaders will come back for your opposition in this step.) If you place the leader in his home area, he gets his rank in troops. If not, he may claim any unassigned troops in the area he's placed.

You now dispose of leaderless troops. Finally, score victory points.

In my opinion, Warriors of God (as currently written) is fundamentally broken as a strategic game. As it currently stands, it's little better than Chutes & Ladders. Before I go into why, let's look at the distribution of ranks for the leaders (in the HYW scenario only:

• French: 10 1s, 8 2s, 6 3s.
• English: 14 1s, 4 2s, 6 3s.
• Neutral: 24 1s, 24 2s.

First these are the rules involved in the problem:

1. You may not transfer troops between leaders. Ever.
2. Controlling areas is random and difficult. (At best, you have a 50% chance of controlling an non-home area.)
3. Troops may only deploy through areas you control.

When you determine control, in nearly all cases you must roll the leaders rank or less. That means, averaging out all leaders, that you'll successfully control an area about 26% of the time. So, if you fan out four leaders trying to control space in completely uncontrolled areas, you'll get one of them on average. So, it's hard to create chains of controlled territory, making troop deployment difficult at best.

Let's couple that with leader death. Leaders have a 1-in-6 shot of dying the turn after they arrive, and only 28% will survive beyond their third turn. (This isn't even looking at those killed in combat. This is simply attrition.) It's entirely possible for a bad run of luck to wipe out 2/3 or more of the leaders you have in play. Since troops have already deployed, you're likely to have a large number of unassigned troops hanging around. When you place your new leaders (likely only three) you have to decide whether to reclaim existing troops, or place them in their homes to get new ones.

The chaos that's caused by this sequence of events is something you cannot plan for. The resulting board situation you may end up could be nothing like you had at the end of the impulses. It is exactly like Chutes & Ladders with some illusion of choice. You try to put yourself into a “good” position, but if have a run of bad luck, it doesn't matter. You could fail to control any of the four connected areas you were going for, and lose four of the six leaders you have in play. You then try to scramble with your new leaders and save what you can of the situation.

This isn't a strategy game. It's a luck fest. The combination of deploying raised troops through controlled spaces before leader death rules kick in means you cannot plan from turn to turn. This sequence of luck has a larger effect on the game than your action impulses, making your choices simply illusion.

I've seen it suggested that if the luck runs against you, the game's over quickly enough that you can play again and it likely won't happen. Chutes & Ladders works about the same. And my four year old gets bored by that one.

My response is, why would you want to? There's 12 turns in the game. It's highly likely that your position will be destroyed at least twice during the game, and with the difficulty of controlling space and getting troops to new leaders, recovery is nearly impossible. It's no consolation to know that it will happen to your opponent, too. It actually makes the game LESS fun.

You might be able to fix the game. I'd start by trying two things: make it so troops can deploy through controlled spaces AND uncontrolled spaces you occupy. And I'd have troops deploy twice – once before leader death, then any orphaned troops can deploy again after. But I'm not spending the time figuring out if that will work. I've got far better ways to spend my time than fix someone else's design.

This game is getting great response on BGG, and is currently ranked as the #32 wargame, but I'm simply incredulous by this response. It's an utter luck fest that takes about 2 hours longer than it should. There's no way you can make any sort of long-term plan as you WILL be shut down by the system and will be lucky to recover. Age of Imperialism got destroyed by people when it came out for similar problems – why should Warriors of God get a good response? It's baffling.

I was predisposed to liking this game. It's a theme I enjoy, it's playable in an evening, it's gorgeous, and it's coming from a line of games that have been excellent to this point. But, simply put, Warriors of God is a horrible strategy game.

And, I'm not even going into the way the rulebook was written. Jon, I give you credit for warning me – if I didn't like the rulebook for Devil's Cauldron, I probably should avoid Warriors of God. At least TDC is a mostly good wargame. Warriors of God, however is decidedly not. Had MMP followed the GMT example and published the rules before release, I would have saved my money and angst. I've actually already sold my copy, so I've at least recovered part of that.

But I want those 2.5 hours back.