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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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We Intend to Move on Your Works Episode 6: Longstreet Attacks

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Apologies for the delay - we started playing Longstreet Attacks back in July to mark the 160th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, which is why this game breaks our chronology, but the game took longer than expected and then the editing took even longer than that. Thankfully this episode is a good one, so hopefully that makes up for the delay, and we aim to have the next one with you much sooner!

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Remembering Pearl Harbor

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Remembering Pearl Harbor

Before he passed away in 2014, my grandpa wrote down a few short pieces about some of his memories from the years 1941-51. These were written for a cousin of mine as a way to record and share some of his stories. For most of my life he had been relatively quiet about these topics, but as he passed through his 80s and into his 90s, he opened up a bit more about it. One thing that struck me, though, was how when remembering Pearl Harbor and the entry of America into WWII what stuck in his mind 60 years later was not FDR’s speech or the horror of an attack on America. It was what America did to its own people. The stories below reflect the specific circumstances of growing up in relatively diverse rural communities in central California, and how what happened there shaped his memory of December 1941.

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Le Jouvencel by Jean de Bueil, trans. Craig Taylor and Jane Taylor

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Le Jouvencel by Jean de Bueil, trans. Craig Taylor and Jane Taylor

Le Jouvencel is an interesting work and a great example of the complexities of medieval literature. It is a semi-autobiographical work of fiction written for, and with input by, one of the greatest commanders of the end of the Hundred Years War. Jean de Bueil, who is credited as the author although it seems he at a minimum had help writing it and may in fact have only provided feedback on the writing of others, wished for a text to teach a new generation the art of war and to encourage fellow members of the nobility to pursue a life of combat rather than one of courtly or purely political life.

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Grand Havoc by Jeff Grossman

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Grand Havoc by Jeff Grossman

Blind Swords is quickly climbing the ranks to be among my favorite hex and counter systems. The chaos of the chit draw, the unpredictability of the CRTs, the manageable footprint, and the elegant presentation from Revolution Games have all wormed their way into my heart. Longstreet Attacks showed me the potential of the system, but in a form that didn’t totally agree with me. The Day Was Ours showed me that it could do approach to battle and the chaos of First Bull Run. After playing that I was pretty sure that I would prefer Blind Swords as a single counter sheet experience – low counter density leaving me plenty of room to explore the map. It was with some trepidation that I punched the two counter sheets of Jeff Grossman’s Grand Havoc. Would this cement my love for Blind Swords, or would it be another Longstreet Attacks, an almost hit that doesn’t quite land? I’m delighted to report that it was the former – Grand Havoc delivers a larger scale Blind Swords experience and seems to resolve pretty much all my misgivings about Longstreet Attacks. This is a great game, and I’m excited to talk about why.

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Agincourt: The Triumph of Archery over Armor by Jim Dunnigan

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Agincourt: The Triumph of Archery over Armor by Jim Dunnigan

When I read the subtitle “The Triumph of Archery over Armor” I knew I had to play this game. That sentence is like red to my bullish need to overshare the history of archery with anyone and everyone. That it was also a classic game from Jim Dunnigan, published by SPI, and thus a piece of gaming history made it all the more interesting. Luckily, I was able to secure an in-shrink copy from avid collector and all-around good guy Nils Johansson. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this game, I had never played a Dunnigan or SPI game before, and I was pleased to find some very intriguing design ideas in this box.

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Race and Reunion by David Blight

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Race and Reunion by David Blight

Every so often I read a book that so overwhelms me with its breadth and depth of information that I wish I had already read it twice in the hope of clinging to just a little bit more of its knowledge. Race and Reunion is such a book. David Blight documents the aftermath of the American Civil War, when two previously warring factions had to come to terms with still being part of the same country and make sense of the bloody years that had just passed. Conflicting ideologies competed to interpret the events of the Civil War, sometimes with violent outcomes, and in the end they created a vile system of white supremacy and oppression alongside unfulfilled potential. How emancipation transitioned to Jim Crow isn’t the core focus of the book, it is far more expansive than that, but it would do as a pithy summary.

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The Worthington Civil War Brigade Battle Series

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The Worthington Civil War Brigade Battle Series

Worthington Publishing’s Civil War Brigade Battle Series by designer Grant Wylie is a rules light hex and counter system on, you guessed it, American Civil War battles at the brigade scale. It also should not be confused with The Civil War Brigade Series (CWBS) from The Gamers, which is also a brigade level hex and counter system but is far more complex and also much older, with its first published entry from 1988 as opposed to Worthington’s system which began in 2019. It’s a little confusing. Worthington’s system currently spans four games, three by Grant Wylie and published by Worthington and one game by Pascal Toupy and published in French wargame magazine Vae Victis. There are already plans for quite a few more entries as well. These are rules light games, the system rules are eight pages long with each game adding at most one page of extra game specific rules on top of that. They also generally play in two to four hours. These are fun games for fans of hex and counter Civil War gaming and are also a great entry point into hex and counter gaming for anyone who has always wanted to try them but has been hesitant to do so. They are probably not going to blow your mind, these aren’t radical designs the likes of which you’ve never seen before, but I’ve had a lot of fun playing them and if simple hex and counter is your cup of tea then I think you’ll enjoy them too. But you probably didn’t come here for the tl;dr, you came here for some nitty gritty detail, so lets get to it!

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A Tale of Two Crécy

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A Tale of Two Crécy

Crécy is a battle I am both fascinated by and terrified of. I have read so much about this battle, and yet I still feel like I have only the most tenuous grasp on what happened that day in Ponthieu. It is one of the most famous and best recorded medieval battles, but the abundance of sources has produced such a confusing mess of contradiction and myth that untangling it could be the work of a lifetime. Many historians have offered their opinions on what happened, but there is still significant disagreement on elements of the chronology, the array of both armies, and even the battle’s location. Still, for all the hair pulling that thinking about Crécy causes me, I can’t help but be fascinated by it and the attempt to understand what happened at what might be the Hundred Years War’s most important battle (potentially rivaled only by Poitiers a decade later, really). If the English lost Crécy it is likely that they would not have been able to afford to keep the war going, but their dramatic victory, while it yielded only moderate success in its immediate aftermath, did much to sustain the war and encouraged Edward III to continue pursuing his claim to the French throne. With that fascination in mind, I decided to play a couple of games on Crécy that I had sitting on my shelf. Below are my general thoughts on both. As a note, I’m going to try and keep this brief because my options are really to skip over this topic lightly or to lose myself to it for months, and as much fun as the latter could be I simply haven’t the time.

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Armies of Deliverance by Elizabeth Varon

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Armies of Deliverance by Elizabeth Varon

For over thirty years James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom has stood as the gold standard single volume history of the American Civil War. Recently, a friend recommended Elizabeth Varon’s contribution to the genre, Armies of Deliverance, as a possible successor, or at the very least valuable supplement to McPherson’s venerable classic. Having now read Varon’s book I have to say that it is a very impressive piece of scholarship and a thoroughly enjoyable read. It certainly could act as an alternative to McPherson’s hefty tome, but with the caveat that it depends on what exactly you want out of your history of the American Civil War. It would be wrong to say that Varon is doing the same thing that McPherson did – these are two very different histories with different approaches, and both offer valuable insights into the war and the people who fought it.

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Review - The Day Was Ours by Matt Ward

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Review - The Day Was Ours by Matt Ward

When I was initially looking for more Blind Swords games to try, I passed over The Day Was Ours because I thought that I had no need for another game on First Bull Run since I own and love Rick Britton’s Manassas. This was doubly true when I considered that The Day Was Ours didn’t even promise a faster playtime; I can only manage so many 5+ hour games in my life. That changed on a recent trip across the Atlantic to visit my parents. I was looking for a game I could possibly play with my dad, and I realized that Blind Swords was a good option because it would fit easily in a corner of the house, and I already knew how to play it so we could set up and get playing quickly. I also wanted to pick a topic my father already knew reasonably well, and First Bull Run fit that bill admirably. I’m glad I did because I was really impressed with The Day Was Ours. I am not without some reservations, but overall, I had a great time and I think I will manage to find room on my shelves for another First Bull Run game after all. Who knows, this may even be the beginning of an obsession.

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Podcast: Into the Woods and GBACW

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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.

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Crécy: Battle of the Five Kings by Michael Livingston

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Crécy: Battle of the Five Kings by Michael Livingston

If you were to ask me to explain the Battle of Crécy to you, I would most likely make some kind of sucking noise, stare into the middle distance, and say something like “Oh boy, where do I even start?” Despite, or possibly because of, being one of the most famous battles of the Middle Ages, the story of Crécy is hopelessly difficult to unpack. The sources describing the battle are so extensive that Michael Livingston and Kelly DeVries published an entire book, the invaluable Crécy Sourcebook, that just contained ones from the roughly fifty years after the battle. There is so much information around Crécy and so much of it contradictory that putting together a coherent narrative is a challenge for even the greatest of scholars. That also means that it is a battle ripe for reinterpretation. Enter Michael Livingston, of the aforementioned sourcebook, and his new history of the battle, Crécy: Battle of the Five Kings. This is a new popular history of the battle wherein Livingston advances some probably quite contentious views on the history of Crécy.

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Review - In Magnificent Style by Hermann Luttmann

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Review - In Magnificent Style by Hermann Luttmann

The (hopefully) final entry in my Confederate Solitaire Tirlogy is a classic game from Hermann Luttmann, a name familiar to anyone with an interest in games on the American Civil War. Originally released by Victory Point Games, In Magnificent Style received a deluxe reprint from Worthington a few years ago. This is one of two solitaire games on Pickett’s Charge, where the player tries to outperform Pickett, Pettigrew, and Trimble in their disastrous assault on the Union position on the third day of Gettysburg. I don’t really want to bury the lede, I think this is a gross subject for a game. Despite that, I had quite a lot of fun playing In Magnificent Style – stripped of its topic this is a very enjoyable light solitaire game, but that theme severely degrades my ability to enjoy playing it. Before we get to the heavy stuff, though, let’s talk a little about the game’s mechanisms and why it’s fun!

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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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Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam by James M. McPherson

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Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam by James M. McPherson

I have immense respect for authors who are able to do more with less. While it cannot be denied that writing a massive, multi-volume epic history of a subject is an impressive achievement, I am often more enamored with historians who manage to convey nearly as much in a fraction of text. I recently read Stephen Sears’ impressive tome of a history on the battle of Gettysburg, and there can be no denying that it is impressive, but it is James McPherson’s far shorter history of Antietam that has left me stunned with what it achieves.

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Podcast: Discussing the Lost Cause with Beyond Solitaire

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I was lucky enough to be invited to appear on Dr. Liz “Beyond Solitaire” Davidson’s podcast a few weeks back. We discussed my ongoing project on the Lost Cause in historical wargaming as well as a range of subjects, including why we are drawn to difficult subjects and why we might want to play and write about games we know that we won’t actually enjoy playing. It was a great discussion and I think provides some excellent context to the We Intend to Move on Your Works project. You can listen to the podcast via all main podcast distributors or you can watch it on YouTube below:

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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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Review - Men of Iron by Richard Berg

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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.