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Thematic Integration in Board Game Design by Sarah Shipp

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Thematic Integration in Board Game Design by Sarah Shipp

Trying to explain to someone who doesn’t play board games why this game about trading feels thematic but that other game about trading has a pasted-on theme is, in my experience at least, a ticket to a conversation that both of you lose interest in once you’re far too deep into it to easily back out. That is why I don’t envy Sarah Shipp’s task in trying to define concepts like a board game’s theme and when theme integrates well with a game’s mechanics. This is the sort of thing that is intuitive to many who have spent time in the hobby – they know thematic games when they see them – but despite what some American jurists might believe this is not particularly firm ground for a working definition. In Thematic Integration in Board Game Design Shipp sets out not only to define and explain these concepts in a manner that can serve as a foundation for future discussion, but then to also provide advice to designers on how best to effectively integrate their game’s theme with the mechanisms and rules.

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The Army of the Heartland by John Prados

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The Army of the Heartland by John Prados

In the niche within a niche that is operational games on the American Civil War the Great Campaigns of the American Civil War (GCACW) series looms above all others. Despite arguably draining much of the oxygen from the field it does not hold a monopoly on the topic. John Prados, the designer of Rise and Decline of the Third Reich among other legendary titles, threw his hat into the ring before GCACW had even fully materialized. The Campaigns of Robert E. Lee was published in 1988 by Clash of Arms games, the same year as Joe Balkoski’s Lee vs Grant – generally considered the predecessor to GCACW – was published by Victory Games. While Stonewalll Jackson’s Way, also by Balkoski, was published in 1992 by Avalon Hill, ushering in the GCACW, it would not be until 1996 that Prados provided his own sequel: Army of the Heartland, also published by Clash of Arms. Comparing Prados’ games to GCACW is instinctive: both are operational games on the ACW by legendary designers with established pedigrees that were released at approximately the same time. They also share certain design ideas, most notably random movement and the unpredictability of whether an attack will even happen let alone go well, but at their core they are very different designs. Rather than a cousin for GCACW, I see similarities between Prados’ series and another legendary series that first appeared in 1992: Dean Essig’s Operational Combat Series (OCS).

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Most Anticipated Games: 2025 Edition

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Most Anticipated Games: 2025 Edition

It’s almost Lunar New Year (shout out to fellow Year of the Snake people), so what better time to take a moment and look to the year ahead? Last year I did a most anticipated games list, and since it was pretty good fun, I decided to do it again! First, though, I want to reflect for a moment on last year’s list and see how I did both in terms of predicting what came out and what I managed to play.

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The Korean War by Bruce Cummings

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The Korean War by Bruce Cummings

The greatest gift a work of history can give is to take a subject that you thought you knew something about and to show you that either your knowledge was far from extensive or it was fundamentally flawed. Years ago, Andrew Ayton and Philip Preston’s book on Crécy complicated the narrative of that battle to such a degree that I’m still reeling from the discovery. Bruce Cummings’ history of the Korean War has achieved a similar feat. This slim 250-page volume radically reframes the war in a way that challenged all my base assumptions about what I thought I knew and has made me think about the Korean War in a completely different way. I’m not sure that I will ever be the same. In complicating the war, Cummings’ digs up hard truths that many would prefer to forget, and which are largely absent from a bittersweet if essentially triumphalist narrative of the war that prevails in many other accounts. This book is essential reading, but at the same time I’m not sure if its impact can be felt as keenly if you haven’t already read at least one other book on the subject which makes me hesitate to recommend it as the best introductory history of the topic.

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2024 in Review – Top 8 Books

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2024 in Review – Top 8 Books

I like to set myself a goal for the number of books I will read in a given year. In previous years this was fifty books, but I found that this constrained my choices as I often passed over big doorstopper volumes because they take too long to read which could imperil my chance of reaching my target. In 2023 I dropped my goal to forty books and barely hit that target, and 2024 proved to be an exact repeat – sliding in to the finish in the last weeks of December. For 2025 I may drop down to thirty-five to allow even more room for the kind of dense books I enjoy. However, I am also hoping to read more fiction, which generally goes much faster than the kinds of history I usually read. I’ve recently been getting more review copies of academic books which has been great (academic books are expensive!) but it also means I’m reading more dense history books and I need to put some more lighter fair in there as well.

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Wargames According to Mark by Mark Herman

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Wargames According to Mark by Mark Herman

It looks like we are entering something of a golden age when it comes to serious discussions of tabletop games – at least in book form. I’ve had the pleasure of reading a respectable pile of new books on the subject over the past year, including several on historical wargaming. Last year saw the publication of Maurice Suckling’s textbook Paper Time Machines and Riccardo Masini’s philosophical treatise Historical Simulation and Wargames, and, last but not least, renowned designer Mark Herman’s personal memoir/philosophy/reflections on his own design process for historical games.

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2024 in Review and My Top 7 Games of the Year*

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2024 in Review and My Top 7 Games of the Year*

Last year was one of meandering and trying new things to the detriment of repeat plays – my BGStats end of year report indicates that I played 48 different games, 42 for the first time. For all the new games that I played, I don’t feel like all that many really stuck with me a year later. I faced a few disappointments in terms of games I was initially excited about failing to deliver, and I played some old masterpieces which I enjoyed but maybe won’t make my favorite of all time lists. Trying so many new games also meant that I rarely spent as much time with each individual title as I would have liked. For 2025 I am hoping to spend more time with most of the games I play, digging a bit deeper into the designs rather than playing just enough for a review and then sticking it back on the shelf.

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Halls of Hegra by Petter Schanke Olsen and Lanzerath Ridge by David Thompson and Nils Johansson

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Halls of Hegra by Petter Schanke Olsen and Lanzerath Ridge by David Thompson and Nils Johansson

I play a lot of games solo, but I don’t play very many solitaire games. I’m not exactly sure why that is. I’ve had some of my best gaming experiences multi-handing a hex and counter game, but I’ve yet to find a dedicated solitaire game that has gripped me in the same way. As a result, I don’t play that many dedicated solitaire games, but I am also not beyond hope that I have simply not played the right one(s). With that in mind, I couldn’t help but notice the praise that has been heaped on both Petter Schanke Olsen’s Halls of Hegra (published by Tompet Games) and David Thompson’s Valiant Defense series (published by Dan Verssen Games) - in particular Lanzerath Ridge, a collaboration between Thompson and Nils Johansson. Both focus on lesser known actions in World War II where beleaguered defenders withstood ferocious Nazi onslaughts before eventually succumbing. While World War II is far from my favorite topic, I do enjoy killing the odd Nazi and I have something of a penchant for both niche topics and siege games. Since both games have a shared theme, I figured it might be interesting to review them together.

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Luzon: Race for Bataan by Matsuura Yutaka (OCS Review)

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Luzon: Race for Bataan by Matsuura Yutaka (OCS Review)

A system like Dean Essig’s Operational Combat Series (OCS) has a rightfully intimidating reputation. I’ll confess that if you’d asked me a year ago if I was ever going to play OCS, I would have told you absolutely not. It has some legendarily large games, with huge stacks of counters (a personal bugbear of mine), and playtimes that are measured in days not hours. The rulebook clocks in at over forty pages with three columns of text on each page – while it may not be the longest rulebook, I’ve ever read it is certainly in competition for that dubious title. As the name suggests, this is a system for operational warfare, one that focuses primarily on World War II but has strayed into at least one other mid-twentieth century war. You must manage individual supply points to take actions and balance stacks of counters to cover your air power, artillery, combat units, leaders, etc. There’s a lot going on is what I’m saying, and as someone who has only minimal interest in playing games about World War II it just did not strike me as something I’d want to try. I put all this up front at the start to hopefully provide some context for the news I must bring you: I am afraid that I think OCS might be great.

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Playing at the World 2e, Volume 1: The Invention of Dungeons and Dragons by Jon Peterson

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Playing at the World 2e, Volume 1: The Invention of Dungeons and Dragons by Jon Peterson

Few books have impacted me quite as much as the first edition of Jon Peterson’s Playing at the World. A 700 page self-published brick of a history on the origins and influences of Dungeons and Dragons was exactly the kind of deep nerd lore that I craved. I devoured it while working on my PhD, and even snuck in a little reference to it on my footnotes. Now long out of print, it was a book I would recommend but with many caveats around people having to really be into this kind of thing specifically. Thankfully, Peterson has seen fit to put together a revised second edition, now available via MIT Press, and Playing at the World has never been so approachable. While a weirdo like me can’t help but miss some of the first edition’s idiosyncrasies, even I must admit that this is altogether a more polished history of the origins of D&D and roleplaying games in general.

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Paper Time Machines by Maurice W. Suckling

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Paper Time Machines by Maurice W. Suckling

Paper Time Machines, which takes its title from a famous quote from commercial wargame pioneer James Dunnigan, is the latest volume in a burgeoning scholarship on tabletop gaming and in particular historical tabletop games. Within this new niche Paper Time Machines stakes out an interesting territory. Functionally, it is a college textbook covering a variety of aspects of the form, history, and design of historical board games. Teachers and professors will, of course, find much of value in this book for forming their own lessons, but how interesting is it for a non-academic reader?

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Washington’s War by Mark Herman

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Washington’s War by Mark Herman

It’s strange that it took me this long to try Washington’s War. Its predecessor, We the People, was my first ever historical wargame – an outlier in my journey, as I wouldn’t enter the hobby properly until decades later. Given my fondness for that game, I should have grabbed Washington’s War during one of my previous attempts to get into wargaming, but it took until the most recent reprint for me to finally get We the People 2.0 to the table. Unfortunately, that interlude was so long that I’ve now forgotten much of the nuance in the 1.0 version, so I cannot make any profound comparison between the two versions. Maybe further down the line I’ll open my battered copy of the original and give it a go, but for this review I will largely limit myself to the version that is currently available. That’s no bad thing, though, as Washington’s War is an excellent game that, while it shows its age in places, delivers a satisfying experience without losing itself in complexity. The genre-defining originator shows that sometimes old games can continue to remain relevant even after their systems have been adopted and updated by countless others.

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WItMoYW ep. 12 - Rebel Fury by Mark Herman

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For episode 12 of the We Intend to Move on Your Works Podcast Pierre and I played the latest hotness - Rebel Fury by Mark Herman. We are big fans of Gettysburg, the C3i game that originated the system used in Rebel Fury, but we emerged from our time with this game a little skeptical of some of its changes. But will our skepticism override Alexandre’s desire for a good bargain on an interesting looking game? Listen to find out!

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Yokai Hunters Society by Chema González - Review and Free Scenario

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Yokai Hunters Society by Chema González - Review and Free Scenario

Yokai Hunters Society is a light RPG by Chema González, based on Tunnel Goons by Nate Treme. I picked it up on a whim about two years ago because the premise looked cool and the print on demand version is very affordable (as is the PDF edition, which you can get from https://punkpadour.itch.io/yokai-hunter). It sat on my shelf before last year when I had a chance to run a Halloween one shot for my usual RPG party plus one more player who was entirely new to tabletop RPGs. I figured this very simple system would be a great way to play something on Halloween without it being overly taxing.

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Louisbourg 1758 by Mike and Grant Wylie

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Louisbourg 1758 by Mike and Grant Wylie

I struggle with what to do about games that are just fine. Not so good that I can pour praise upon them for hours at a time, nor so bad that they have multiple avenues of badness for me to explore. These are the games that I would understand if someone told me they enjoyed them but would give side-eye to anyone claiming this was their favorite game ever. Louisbourg 1758 is certainly among this august-ish company. It’s a perfectly fine block wargame, but it doesn’t quite stand out from its peers, unless maybe you happen to be a huge fan of the siege of Louisbourg. Usually when faced with this situation I just don’t write anything about the game – if I can barely muster the energy to say something interesting, I can’t really expect anyone to find the time to read it. However, this isn’t very satisfying and I feel represents a small failure in myself as a critic. In an attempt to tackle this problem, I’m going to try and curtail my usual verbosity and give a very quick first impression of Louisbourg 1758 outlining what I think is interesting and why it ultimately didn’t hold my attention.

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Historical Simulation and Wargames by Riccardo Masini

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Historical Simulation and Wargames by Riccardo Masini

Riccardo Masini’s Historical Simulation and Wargames dragged me back to memories of my undergraduate degree, but not to my history classes. Instead, this book reminded me of studying philosophy, and for that reason I believe it to be a work of philosophy first and all other things secondary. Its opening chapter is virtually pure philosophical discussion on the theory of games, including the kind of specific definitions of terms and ideas one would expect, and while other chapters do at times conform in shape to more historical analysis across the wide expanse of the book’s scope its wanderings have an altogether more philosophical flavor. This is not a criticism, merely a description - an attempt to outline what the book is so readers can set their expectations.

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A Year(ish) Abroad

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A Year(ish) Abroad

On the 13th of September, 2024 I moved to South Korea.

Not permanently, at least I don’t intend for it to be, but for at least the next year this is where I live. My partner has a job at the local university, my daughter is in the kindergarten, and I’m doing stay at home dad stuff plus whatever freelance work comes my way (hey, if you’re looking for an editor or historian, get in touch).

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The Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge by Joe Starita

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The Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge by Joe Starita

The Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge is a fascinating book and an excellent example of how authors can find interesting ways to structure a historical narrative. Dull Knifes was recommended to me by a public history colleague who knows a lot more about American history than I do, and I bought it for my father-in-law for Christmas some years ago. I came across it recently while staying with them and decided I should really read it for myself. It’s a very easy read, at least in terms of the writing – Joe Starita’s background is in journalism and he’s an excellent writer – but content wise it can at times be challenging and emotional. The Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge examines the lives of a single family of Oglala Souix Indians, highlighting one person each across four generations. In doing this it merges a wider history of the Oglala Souix/Northern Cheyenne with the specific lives of these men to create a work that is greater than the sum of its parts.

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WItMoYW ep. 11 - Glory III by Richard Berg

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We’re Back to Berg baby! After a mixed experience crossing the mountains, the boys are trying one of Berg’s takes on Antietam, arguably the most influential battle of the American Civil War. Originally published in 1995, the same year as the first GMT edition of Three Days of Gettysburg which would spawn the modern era of GBACW, and substantially revised in 2002, Glory is a light hex and counter from one of our favorite designers. Will we like it more than GBACW? You can probably already guess!

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Plantagenet by Francisco Gradaille

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Plantagenet by Francisco Gradaille

Any long running game series faces the risk of stagnation. While Levy and Campaign is only on its fourth volume, there are near countless future volumes in the works and it could easily expand to equal it’s predecessor COIN in terms of size, and so naturally we begin to wonder do we really need all these games? Can each new addition sufficiently differentiate itself from what came before? Plantagenet answers this question by being far more than a simple rejigging of the core system, this is practically a ground up rebuild. It takes mechanisms designed for the thirteenth-century Baltic and reshapes them to suit fifteenth-century England, casting off several core systems in the process and adding whole new ones. The final product is, surprisingly, probably the most approachable Levy and Campaign game yet and a stunning marriage of mechanism and theme. While Plantagenet fails to top the post in terms of my own personal preference for Levy and Campaign games, it is a phenomenal design and has reinvigorated my enthusiasm for Levy and Campaign as a whole.