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!
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.
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.
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.
Podcast: Into the Woods and GBACW
For Episode 5 of We Intend to Move on Your Works Pierre and I discussed the latest entry into the venerable Great Battles of the American Civil War: Into the Woods from GMT Games. This was our first experience with the series, although we have both played other games by Richard Berg who originally created it. To spoil things a little, we did not particularly enjoy our time with Into the Woods but despite that I think we managed to have an interesting discussion about the game and how it represents history. Please be aware that we discuss some pretty heavy stuff in places, including slavery and racism.
Review - Men of Iron by Richard Berg
I have written and thought more about Richard Berg’s Men of Iron than I have any other wargame I’ve ever played. The Men of Iron tri-pack was the game that brought me fully into wargaming. It was my first hex and counter game. While not my most played game if individual plays are measured, in terms of hours invested it almost certainly is. I have a relationship with this game series is what I’m saying. When I first bought that tri-pack I didn’t have any plans to write a review of the games therein. I’ve documented many of my individual plays of certain battles and that was my plan to continue going forward – not writing up literally every play but certainly every scenario that I thought I had something to say about. However, as I play more Men of Iron, I keep thinking about what I love about the system and what frustrates me about it, and I’m increasingly tempted towards making my own version of Men of Iron. That has nudged my thoughts more in the direction of what I think is the appeal of the system and what its failings are, and at a certain point that’s basically just a review so I thought I’d put that down on a page, and once I’ve done that I might as well share them with the world.
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.
My Top 8 Games of 2022!*
It’s the time of year for Top X lists and as a sucker for the format I couldn’t help but doing one myself. Now look, let’s get this over with straight away: I obviously haven’t played every game that came out in 2022. In fact, I’ve played barely any. I only just got really into historical wargaming this year, so I’ve had a big back log of games to experience. I’m not going to even pretend to list the best games that came out this year. Instead, this list will be my top eight games that I played for the first time in 2022. I chose eight because I’m one of those people who likes to arbitrarily pick a number between five and ten for my top X lists, no other reason. Ranking them has been painful, and if you asked me again in January I’d probably change the order, but at time of publication these are my top eight games that I played this year!
Men of Iron: Nájera 1367
The Battle of Nájera, fought on the 3rd of April 1367, was the last great battle in the prestigious career of Edward, the Black Prince. While not his final campaign, that dubious honour belongs to the siege and sack of the city of Limoges in 1370, it was his final field battle and great victory. While the battle itself was a resounding success for Edward, the 1367 campaign and its aftermath was overall a complete disaster, which achieved little in the long term and likely lead to the Black Prince’s death and the resumption of the Hundred Years War during a period of marked French ascendancy. Because of this contrast between the success on the day and the disaster over the longer term I think the Battle of Nájera is an interesting lens through which we can explore how medieval warfare is often represented in wargaming and how that perspective can unintentionally distort our understanding of the past.
First Impressions: Arquebus – Cerignola 1503
Coming right off the heels of playing my first game of Blood and Roses I arranged to play fellow member of Team Crossboys Russ Wetli in a game of Arquebus that same day. I had a hurried skim of the rulebook to try and pull-out what elements were different from previous Men of Iron titles, which was thankfully a relatively painless process even without the volume specific rules highlights I was accustomed to from the Tri-Pack. There’s a lot to be said for playing games in a system. It makes it much easier to pick up the next game in the series since you already know about 80% of the rules, but on the other hand it also becomes increasingly easy to mess up that last 20% the more games you learn! This was Russ’s first experience playing Men of Iron and I wanted to be sure I got as much right as possible, and for the most part I think I succeeded. We picked the Battle of Cerignola to play because it was by far the shortest and simplest scenario in the box and neither of us was up for an epic multi-hour clash that evening. I also ensured that he had the full Men of Iron experience by having him play the side that lost the battle historically. Nobody ever promised that Men of Iron would be fair.
First Impressions: Blood and Roses – First Battle of St Albans 1455
I’m very interested in pretty much all things medieval warfare but I have to admit that within that category the Wars of the Roses would rank near the bottom. I am not totally uninterested in the subject, but an assortment of miserable nobles all killing each other to see who gets to be King of England isn’t my preferred topic. It has some interesting moments, and I find Edward IV to be an interesting monarch, but overall it doesn’t fill me with excitement. This meant that while Blood and Roses promised to be a very interesting entry in the Men of Iron series, I haven’t been rushing to get it to the table. However, with the whole Men of Iron series having been chosen for this month’s Club de Jeu on the Homo Ludens Discord I decided to take a plunge and try and play a battle from every (published) entry in the series, which meant finally trying Blood and Roses. I picked the First Battle of St Albans as my entry point in part because it was a small battle that plays in under an hour and in part because the idea of more urbanised combat in a Men of Iron game was really appealing. I’m glad I did because I think First St Albans (as we’ll call it from now) is a great entry point into the Men of Iron series and a fun little battle in its own right!
Infidel – Antioch 1098
For my second game of Infidel, I decided I should pick something a little more straightforward than Arsuf, much as I enjoyed it, and Antioch looked like it would fit the bill. It also helped that I’ve found the Siege of Antioch fascinating since literally my first year as an undergraduate in college. It’s also a bit of a weird battle so I was curious to see how designer Richard Berg adapted the Men of Iron rules to fit the fragile alliances and unusual deployment process that defined the climactic battle of the two sieges of Antioch.
First Impressions: Infidel – Arsuf 1191
I was finally able to secure the big table for an evening late one night and I took the opportunity to unpack one of the really quite large maps that come with Infidel – the Men at Iron game focused on the Crusades. I’ve long been fascinated by the history of the Crusades, so I was very excited to try Infidel, but it was already getting late by the time I started setting up, so I picked my scenario in a rush. The scenario options in Infidel are intriguing – some of them are battles I expected, but there are some absences and inclusions that surprised me. Dorylaeum, Montgisard, and Arsuf all make total sense. I was very surprised to not see Hattin, Saladin’s most famous victory, and I have to confess I didn’t immediately recognise the Battle of Harran. Still, one of the fun things about playing these games is seeing what aspects of history someone else thought were the most interesting to include. I also have to say that the bibliography at the back of the scenario book was pretty impressive – multiple books by John France and not even one mention of Runciman! You love to see it.
In the end I settled on Arsuf – it had an interesting looking deployment and it’s both a battle I think is quite interesting and one I know a fair bit about. I then set about setting up the game – a bit of an involved process given the scale of the map but one that was pretty satisfying all the same. It was only after I’d laid out the armies that I noticed the note in the booklet that told me that Arsuf was quite a complicated battle with several important rules amendments and new rules involved to make the Men of Iron rules system fit the historical battle. Reading those rules and having played it now, I don’t think the new rules were as intimidating as I’d initially expected. That said, I definitely got a few rules wrong as it was both my play of Infidel, and I was playing the most complicated scenario! It was a lot to juggle!
Men of Iron First Impressions: Agincourt 1415
I felt a wave of nostalgia when I first opened up my copy of the Men of Iron Tri-Pack from GMT – the new release that packages three of legendary game designer Richard Berg’s classic medieval hex and counter wargames together. It’s not that I’d played this game before, or any of the previous versions. I hadn’t even played a hex and counter wargame before, not really. My nostalgia stems instead from games I played with rather than played, and memories from my very early childhood.
You see, my father was something of a wargamer back in his day. He owned copies of classic Avalon Hill games like Gettysburg and Civil War. Some of the earliest photos of me as a child show him balancing me on one knee while he pours over a classic wargame, played solo in the basement of the house my parents were renting. As an older child my brother and I would occasionally coerce him into unpacking a game and trying teaching us how to play – as Virginians we couldn’t help but take at least a little interest in battles that took place in our home state. We never successfully played them, we were far too young and the games too long, but he gamely made an effort, and they were fun evenings even if we ended up making up at least half the rules ourselves. The closest we ever got to playing one of the classic Avalon Hill games was Civilization, a perennial favourite during the intermittent blackouts that accompanied major storms in the autumn. That game would be unpacked, the rules hastily learned, and the opening turns played before it got too dark, and we were sent to bed. We would leave it out with a plan to finish it tomorrow, but usually the power would be back, and it was far more tempting to play Super Nintendo instead. The more serious wargames never even got that far.