Nils Johansson — Blog — Stuart Ellis-Gorman

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.

First Impressions: Equatorial Clash by Marc Figueras

Equatorial Clash is not the kind of game I am usually drawn to. It’s a modern warfare game depicting events in the 1940s that uses NATO symbols for its units - usually I run from games like that. However, two items drew me to pick it up when I was placing an order with SNAFU games, SNAFU being an excellent online retailer in Spain and publisher of their own line of small to small-ish games. The first, and most striking thing, was the art design by Nils Johansson. Nils is definitely one of if not the most interesting graphic designers working in wargames at the moment and any time I see something he has worked on it will immediately draw a second (or third…or fourth) look from me. The other element was that this was about a conflict I had literally never heard of. Far from being the more conflict of the mid-20th century, this game is about the Peru-Ecuador border war of 1941. Given its amazing appearance and obscure topic, how could I not try it?