Wargame

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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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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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Rebel Fury by Mark Herman

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Rebel Fury by Mark Herman

I’m not going to bury the lede, I don’t like Rebel Fury. Nobody is more surprised about it than me. I really like Mark Herman’s Gettysburg, the originator of this system. It’s not my favorite game ever, but a hex and counter game that emphasizes movement and doesn’t overstay its welcome will always find a space on my shelf. While I shamefully haven’t played the follow-up on Waterloo, even though it’s on Rally the Troops so I have no excuse, I was excited to see what Rebel Fury brought to the table. My initial impressions were positive – it kept that core movement system that I liked but expanded the play space to encompass a set of large (and gorgeous) Charlie Kibler maps. The added chrome seemed fine and offered the tantalizing prospect of a little extra depth to the game, so from my initial pre-release preview I was feeling positive. Unfortunately, once I got my hands on it and started playing more my experience began to sour. The changes to the original system started to grate and certain scenarios exposed some of the core’s weaknesses in less flattering ways. If it wasn’t for a certain game that shall go unnamed, I would say this was my most disappointing experience this year.

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Gettysburg 1863 by Grant and Mike Wylie

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Gettysburg 1863 by Grant and Mike Wylie

I set up the second day first. I did this because I wanted to tackle something that seemed a little more straightforward to put the changes to the system through their paces. I figured I would want to try the full battle at some point, which meant playing the first day, so for my experiment I chose the second day. Because Pickett’s Charge sucks. This was potentially a mistake – the logic was sound, but I forgot how boring I find playing the second day. Don’t get me wrong, from a historical analysis standpoint I think I prefer the 2nd of July, it has such drama and tension, but when it comes to wargames, I often find it tedious – mostly ill-conceived charges and brutal death. A tedium of attrition to resolve.

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Banish All Their Fears by David Fox and Ben Hull

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Banish All Their Fears by David Fox and Ben Hull

There was very little material available on Banish All Their Fears before its publication, and so it largely flew under my radar. However, when some images came out right before the game was printed and shipped it triggered something in whatever the wargamer equivalent of my lizard brain is and I got weirdly excited about it. I reached out to GMT Games about a review copy, and they kindly provided me with one. Then it sat on my shelf (as these things do) while other games took up my time. In those intervening weeks I started to develop some concerns about the game. For one thing, I finally tried Ben Hull’s Musket and Pike series and struggled to really get invested in it (despite how beautiful the latest version is). Worse still was the buzz around rules and printing issues on BoardGameGeek (BGG). I hadn’t found Musket and Pike’s rules that easy to follow, and if these were worse, I despaired that I would never actually play it. Nevertheless, when I managed to clear some other games off my schedule, I determinedly set about reading the rulebook and setting up the game. Over the past few days, I have been slowly playing through the Blenheim scenario (chosen because it seemed to have fewer errata issues) solitaire, and I have been pleasantly surprised by what I found. I think this could be a real gem of a game, and certainly one I prefer to Musket and Pike, but I do also have some reservations. I think it makes the most sense to start with some of my reservations first, as they inform much of my experience playing Banish All Their Fears.

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Wargaming Korea: 1950-1953

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Wargaming Korea: 1950-1953

Partly inspired by some potential changes in my own life and partly because this year marks the tenth anniversary since my grandfather passed away, I’ve found myself with a newfound interest in the Korean War. I’m resisting the urge to turn this into a research/game project of a similar scale to We Intend to Move on Your Works, but I intend to at least dip my toe in and I would like to have a little structure as I dive deeper. With that goal in mind, I recently read The Coldest Winter and I’ve a short reading list to tackle over the rest of this year. In terms of games, I’m focusing only on operational games that look at the whole Korean peninsula – nothing tactical for the moment. I don’t want this to balloon into a huge life consuming project, so I’m only planning to play at most a handful of games.

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Stonewall Jackson’s Way II (GCACW) by Joseph M. Balkoski, Ed Beach, Mike Belles, and Chris Withers

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Stonewall Jackson’s Way II (GCACW) by Joseph M. Balkoski, Ed Beach, Mike Belles, and Chris Withers

Few wargame systems have as much veneration from their fans as the Great Campaigns of the Civil War. However, despite its dedicated fans it still manages to feel somewhat obscure - a series that is often out of print and intimidating for new players to get into. For those in the know, this system has been a touchstone of the hobby since Stonewall Jackson’s Way was published by Avalon Hill in 1992. The series was originally designed by Joe Balkoski until 2001. When Avalon Hill’s catalog was bought up by Hasbro the series was taken up by Multi-Man Publishing (MMP) who worked with other designers (including Chris Withers and Ed Beach) to update the old Avalon Hill games into new editions with revised rules and graphics.

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Preview: Rebel Fury by Mark Herman

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I was lucky enough to be invited by Fred Serval to be his opponent for an early preview of the final version of Mark Herman’s latest American Civil War game: Rebel Fury. We played the Chickamauga scenario, which Mark recommends as the best starting point in terms of length and complexity. Rebel Fury expands on his game Gettysburg, originally published in C3i Magazine, but has a few neat changes. The combat system has been pretty substantially overhauled, with more factors to consider around unit positioning and support between units, but the change I liked most was how headquarters now have to postures they can assume, one which benefits them in battle but limits their command range and one that allows for a wider range of movement but cannot add a DRM in battle. This is a promising looking system and I’m keen to try more. You can see our full play through of the first two turns (just under half a full game) of Chickamauga here:

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Most Anticipated Games: 2024 Edition

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Most Anticipated Games: 2024 Edition

I have been hesitant in the past to write about my excitement for upcoming games, partly out of a fear of getting absorbed into the Cult of the New but more so because it can be very hard to know when a given game might come out. The publication pipeline is at best vague and there is always the risk of delays or unexpected interruptions to production. I find it easier to not get too excited about games until I can grab them with my spindly hands. Still, I am not immune to hype and this year I thought I’d indulge myself a little and write about the ten games I’m most looking forward to that should be coming out in 2024. As an addendum, to show that I’m not all about that new cardboard smell, I’ve also added a list of the five games I already own that I am the most excited to hopefully get to the table this year.

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2023 in Review and My Top 8 Games of the Year*

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2023 in Review and My Top 8 Games of the Year*

I’ve now been running this blog for two whole years, but somehow it feels a lot longer. I’ve been very pleased with how it has grown over the past year and I’m hoping to continue that growth going into 2024. I received several review copies of games this year which was really gratifying and allowed me to cover games that would otherwise have probably been beyond my budget - wargame blogging is not particularly lucrative. To mark the end of the year I want to reflect a bit on how I feel the last two years have gone and then, of course, provide my top ten games of the year. As per last year’s list, these will be games that I played for the first time in 2023 not necessarily games that were released in 2023 (although unlike last year this year’s list does is that were released during the year).

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Review - Mosby’s Raiders by Eric Lee Smith

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Review - Mosby’s Raiders by Eric Lee Smith

There are too many solitaire games where you play as the Confederacy. By my count there are at least seven. In contrast, I have found only one dedicated solitaire game where you play the Union. I find this imbalance a little distressing, and since I’m doing a project on the Lost Cause in American Civil War games, I think it behooves me to play some of them. I have previously reviewed Ben Madison’s Jeff Davis, and this week I’m going back in time forty years to what must be the first game in this suspect genre: Mosby’s Raiders by Eric Lee Smith. It would be a bit of an understatement to say that this game has something of a legacy. Eric Lee Smith was a co-designer on Ambush!, one of the original solitaire wargames, and also designed The Civil War 1861-65, potentially the most influential strategic game on the American Civil War. The confluence of an influential solo and ACW designer making a solitaire ACW game is certainly worthy of attention. What I found in Mosby’s Raiders was an interesting game portraying some less interesting history.

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Review - Longstreet Attacks by Hermann Luttmann

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Review - Longstreet Attacks by Hermann Luttmann

Few names loom larger in the, for lack of a better word, wargame-ology of current American Civil War games than Hermann Luttmann. A Most Fearful Sacrifice, his enormous game on the full battle of Gettysburg, has won countless awards and is easily among the most talked about games of 2022. Before that he was widely known for his Blind Swords system, which includes several battles from the Franco-Prussian War but is dominated by American Civil War games. Seeing as I am currently undertaking a tour of ACW designs it was inevitable that I would play a few Luttmann designs. As my entry point into the ludography of Luttmann I selected Longstreet Attacks. This wasn’t because I thought it to be the best entry into the system, many people have said it is not, but rather a choice based on the game’s subject. I wanted to play something Gettysburg to mark the 160th anniversary back in July and I thought playing a game about the second day on the 2nd of July would be appropriate. I managed to approximately time the beginning of my game with the timing of the famous attack, but the actual playing of the game took a fair bit longer than Longstreet’s disastrous assault did. I also think the figure of Longstreet and his position in the Lost Cause myth is an interesting one, and something that is very germane to my project.

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Teach and Play of Antietam 1862 by Grant Wylie

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Teach and Play of Antietam 1862 by Grant Wylie

Hot on the heels of my initial review of The Seven Days Battles, I joined Fred Serval to play an introductory game of Antietam 1862 - the first game in the same series. We played a quick game of the Bloody Lane scenario, a very small and quick playing introductory experience. We also chatted about our thoughts on the series as well as a variety of other games. You can watch the video below:

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Initial Impressions - Seven Days Battles by Grant Wylie

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Initial Impressions - Seven Days Battles by Grant Wylie

While arguably one of the most important battles of the American Civil War, the Seven Days Battles have not really ingrained themselves into our popular consciousness the same way battles like Chancellorsville or Gettysburg have. There are no doubt many factors that explain this, but I would hazard that one of them is that the Seven Days sits in an awkward middle between being more than one battle but not quite a full campaign. From a game perspective it also presents an interesting challenge to design for. The Seven Days, as the name suggests, was a series of battles covering a week of combat. During the Seven Days, Robert E. Lee, recently appointed to command of the Army of Northern Virginia, lead a series of aggressive attacks on the Union army of George McClellan which was stationed just outside of Richmond. Lee’s army suffered horrific casualties, but, thanks in part to McClellan’s own fears about Confederate military strength, it was able to drive the Union army back to the coast of Virginia. My initial expectation was that the battle would work best at an operational scale, which lead to me playing The Late Unpleasantness, which I found… underwhelming. Now I’m taking my second shot at the Seven Days Battles but this time as a hex and counter tactical game thanks to the latest entry in Worthington’s Civil War Brigade Battle Series.

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Arquebus: Fornovo 1495 by Richard Berg

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Arquebus: Fornovo 1495 by Richard Berg

It’s been a while since I played Men of Iron and I’d been been hankering to try some more Arquebus so I took a break from playing a small mountain of American Civil War hex and counter games for a brief holiday in sixteenth-century Italy. I decided to try the Fornovo scenario for the very boring reason that it was the first battle in the play book and I’m glad I did because this is probably one of the most interesting Men of Iron scenarios I have ever played. It reminded me of everything I really like about Men of Iron, as well as some of the elements of the system that I don’t think work so well. Those wrinkles weren’t enough to stop me from enjoying Fornovo a lot and putting it high on my list of scenarios I want to try again.

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Review - 1914: Nach Paris

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Review - 1914: Nach Paris

I played 1914 Nach Paris in something of a frenzy over the month of March and early April. Finishing a game one evening, setting up the next scenario and playing that the following night. It dominated my little gaming corner, pushing everything else to the edges. Night after night I struggled to learn to swim in this complex operational hex and counter game about the opening weeks of the Western Front of World War I, designed by Bertrand Munier and published by Vuca Simulations. That I played this so many times should give some indication about how much I’ve enjoyed my time with 1914: Nach Paris but this is a huge box and there’s a lot to unpack, both literally and in terms of the experience it offers. I hope you’ll bear with me for what will prove to be a meandering review through the pre-trench warfare of 1914 Northern France.