American Re

Washington’s War by Mark Herman

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.