Wargame Review

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A Greater Victory by Steve Carey

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A Greater Victory by Steve Carey

Initially, South Mountain wasn’t a topic that captured my imagination – McClellan’s somewhat underwhelming victory that precedes Antietam doesn’t exactly get my blood boiling. Last year I played John Poniske’s Fire on the Mountain, on this very battle, and while that game ultimately left me underwhelmed it generated a potential interest in its subject. To confirm that suspicion I turned to Blind Swords, one of my favorite hex and counter systems, and its treatment of South Mountain, designed by Steve Carey and published in 2022. A Greater Victory is an excellent addition to the Blind Swords system – there were even times when I thought it might have secured the position of my favorite entry, but I’m still not sure it has claimed that honor just yet. Nevertheless, it is an excellent game that gave me new insight into aspects of Blind Swords that I hadn’t fully appreciated before.

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We Intend to Move on Your Works ep. 13 - Army of the Heartland

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We Intend to Move on Your Works ep. 13 - Army of the Heartland

Episode 13 and we’ve finally reached the end of 1862! Honestly, this took us much longer than I initially planned but I think the longer journey was worth it. For this episode we played John Prados’ Army of the Heartland, his fascinating and slightly messy take on operational Civil War logistics. We both ended up liking it far more than we expected. You can listen to it on either Spotify or YouTube, I hope you enjoy!

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Labyrinth: The War on Terror by Volko Ruhnke

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Labyrinth: The War on Terror by Volko Ruhnke

I was twelve when the War on Terror began, not quite fourteen when American invaded Iraq. The political and global climate created in the aftermath of 9/11 defined some of my most formative years – the time in my life when I first became aware of politics and tried to become politically active for the first time. By the time Labyrinth was released in 2010 I was in my twenties and living in Ireland. Labyrinth isn’t unique in being about a still ongoing war whose conclusion was far from determined when it was designed and published, but it is still a rarity within the hobby. That it was on such a major conflict, and one whose casualties extended well beyond a traditional notion of battlefields, certainly drew a lot of attention to it, as did the fact that its designer Volko Ruhnke was an analyst with the CIA at the time. Playing it fifteen years after its initial release, after America’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 marked what is often considered the end of the War on Terror, is an interesting experience. This is not exactly a historical game, it was not made with enough distance from the events it covers for any real historical hindsight, but it captures a certain perspective on events of the time that we can look back on now and try our best to evaluate. It’s also an incredibly well-designed card-drive wargame (CDG).

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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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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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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. 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.

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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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WItMoYW ep. 10 - Fire on the Mountain by John Poniske

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This episode Pierre and I branch out into the Maryland Campaign, with John Poniske’s take on the Battle of South Mountain, published by Legion Wargames. This is a hex and counter tactical game with a beautiful Rick Barber map and unusual rectangle unit counters. We liked but did not love it, and had some thoughts on some last minute errata that was introduced post-publication. I hope you enjoy it!

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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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SDHistCon 2024 Second Front - Interview on Reviewing Games

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I was recently lucky enough to be interviewed by Andrew Bucholtz from the team behind San Diego Hist Con about how I came to review historical games and my own philosophies and opinions on reviewing tabletop games. The interview was recorded live as part of their online SD HistCon 2024 Second Front convention and the recording has been saved to their YouTube Channel.

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Successors (4th Edition) by Mark Simonitch and Richard Berg

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Successors (4th Edition) by Mark Simonitch and Richard Berg

Originally published in 1997 by Avalon Hill, Successors was built on the foundation laid by 1993’s We the People, the first Card Drive Wargame (CDG), but its most immediate inspiration was Mark Simonitch’s Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage released in 1996. There’s something about this era of CDG design that really stands out when looking back - the somewhat Go inspired element of political control and the emphasis on point to point movement always stand out to me. I’ve never played Hannibal, although I’ve heard it’s amazing, but I am very familiar with We the People and I could see both its influence and how Successors moved beyond that simple foundation to make a far more robust game. Successors also brought something new and exciting to the table: more players. So far as I’m aware this was the first multiplayer CDG and it laid the groundwork for Here I Stand, one of my all-time favorite games. Given this history, as well as the fact that it was co-designed by Richard Berg, a designer I am fascinated by, I was very excited to finally play Successors. The deluxe 4th edition from Phalanx Games had sat on my shelf for at least 18 months sadly neglected until earlier this year when I finally managed to get it down, punch it (find out I was missing a piece), and play several games of this majestic and sharp masterpiece of wargame design.

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SPQR: Deluxe Edition by Mark Herman and Richard Berg

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SPQR: Deluxe Edition by Mark Herman and Richard Berg

I am a massive fan of Richard Berg’s Men of Iron system, but I bounced off Great Battles of the American Civil War (GBACW) pretty hard. This meant that I approached SPQR, the second volume in the Great Battles of History series, with both excitement and trepidation. Men of Iron and GBACW were originated by Berg, while in contrast Great Battles of History started as a Mark Herman design before it became a collaboration in subsequent volumes. I want to recognize that up front, because in this review I will probably be talking a lot about Richard Berg because it is his hex and counter designs that I am more familiar with – I know Herman’s card driven games better than his traditional hex and counter designs.

There is no denying the legacy of GBoH, I can see its legacy in many of the games I have played, including Men of Iron and Ben Hull’s Musket and Pike, and tracing that lineage as I was playing it was really interesting. This is a system with an impressive legacy to go with its significant heft in terms of scope and rules weight, I can see why it has more than a dozen volumes and a significant fanbase. In my case, I had an interesting time playing SPQR and I’m glad I’ve tried it, both for its influence on later designs and for aspects where I think it is still superior to those games, but at the end of the day I don’t think SPQR is a game for me. In this post I hope to explain what clicked with me and why ultimately I decided to pack it back into the box and pass it on to someone else.

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Korea: The Mobile War by Jim Dunnigan

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Korea: The Mobile War by Jim Dunnigan

First on my docket for operational games on the Korean War is the original, Jim Dunnigan’s design from 1971. This doesn’t seem to be a particularly beloved title these days, based on BGG ratings and anecdotal evidence I’ve gathered on social media, but as the first game on the topic (as far as I’m aware) and one that was published within twenty years of the war’s end, I couldn’t help but want to try it. I can’t say that my experience was comprehensive, I played the opening scenario and just dabbled with the system, but I have some initial thoughts just from pushing counters around for a few hours.

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We Intend to Move on Your Works ep. 9: GCACW

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For episode nine of We Intend to Move on Your Works Pierre and I dive deep into Great Campaigns of the American Civil War with Stonewall Jackson’s Way II. We have a lot of thoughts in this one, I hope you enjoy listening to them as much as we did recording them!

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Norman Conquests (Men of Iron V) by Ralph Shelton (and Richard Berg)

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Norman Conquests (Men of Iron V) by Ralph Shelton (and Richard Berg)

I am a certified, card-carrying Men of Iron obsessive so of course I was excited when I heard a new volume in the series was coming out. That excitement was dampened slightly by the knowledge that since original designer Richard Berg had passed away, he would not be continuing the series himself. Still, carrying on that legacy was an all around positive even if I had slight trepidations about what that would mean for this new entry. I am pleased to report that while it is not a perfect game, Norman Conquests is an admirable addition to the Men of Iron series. At time of writing, I have played all but two scenarios in Norman Conquests and I have thoroughly enjoyed myself. I am saving the remaining scenarios because I like to savor my Men of Iron experience. It’s not like we get a new entry every year, you know.

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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.