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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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The Bone Chests by Cat Jarman

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The Bone Chests by Cat Jarman

I really enjoyed Cat Jarman’s River Kings – it takes complex archaeological practices and makes them understandable to general readers while also presenting a different perspective on Viking history than most people will be used to. I was understandably excited when I saw The Bone Chests in my local bookshop – I was hoping for that same marriage of archaeology, science, and narrative. Unfortunately, The Bone Chests left me underwhelmed. It’s not a bad book, but it’s not the book I hoped it would be, nor is it really the book that is promised on the blurb on the back. It’s undermined by its structure and core pitch, and in my mind fails to live up to the potential set by River Kings.

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Fifty Years of Dungeons and Dragons ed. Premeet Sidhu, Marcus Carter, and José P. Zagal

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Fifty Years of Dungeons and Dragons ed. Premeet Sidhu, Marcus Carter, and José P. Zagal

We’re living through a particularly excellent time for scholarship on Dungeon’s and Dragons, and this latest edited volume from MIT Press is a real showcase for the vibrancy of that scholarship. I’ll confess that sometimes these edited volumes make me a little concerned – it’s a real challenge to keep a book like this on theme while simultaneously ensuring that each chapter (twenty in total in this case) is interesting to anyone who might pick it up. That’s not to say that other edited volumes I’ve read have been bad – but rather that I often find myself enjoying at most one-third of these kinds of books with many of the other articles just being okay or simply not relevant to my interests. Given the range of fields on display in Fifty Years of Dungeons and Dragons I expected to find parts of it to be a bit of a drag, and while I cannot claim that I loved them all equally I found myself enjoying every single one of the book’s chapters. This is an excellent edited volume with plenty to offer anyone interested in the history, study, and culture of Dungeons and Dragons.

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Chancellorsville by Stephen W. Sears

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Chancellorsville by Stephen W. Sears

I’ve always had a weird relationship with Chancellorsville, but I like to think it’s not entirely my fault. Growing up in Virginia it’s hard to avoid it, especially if, like me, you lived an hour away and your dad liked to take you and your brothers there on random weekends to get out of the house. Chancellorsville looms large in the mythic lives of Robert E. Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson. It was also top of the pile in the “what’s the biggest Civil War Battle” debates that were somehow considered small talk in my home state. With all that baggage, it was hard for me growing up to not develop a slightly contrary preference for battles like Gettysburg and The Wilderness. That meant that I never really dug all that deeply into Chancellorsville, and I let the battle’s myths define it rather than learning about it for myself. On a recent trip to my parents’ house, I decided to correct this and I chose my father’s copy of Chancellorsville as the method since I had previously been really impressed with Stephen W. Sears’ book on Gettysburg. I am pleased to announce that Chancellorsville is at least as good as Gettysburg and may even be a bit better. This is a great book.

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A Short History of the Wars of the Roses by David Grummitt

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A Short History of the Wars of the Roses by David Grummitt

I have mentioned a few times that the Wars of the Roses are not my favorite subject. For some reason they have never caught my imagination the same way the Crusades or the Hundred Years War have. However, I was really impressed with David Grummitt’s biography of Henry VI, which I read last year, and seeing as the Wars of the Roses are intertwined to some degree with the end of the Hundred Years War I figured I should read a little more about them. I was also previously impressed with the A Short History of the Hundred Years War by Michael Prestwich, which was part of this same series, so this seemed like a great place to brush up on the subject.

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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 - We Intend to Move on Your Works Panel

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My podcast co-conspirator Pierre and I were invited to present a panel on We Intend to Move on Your Works at the online San Diego Hist Con Second Front in 2024. In this panel, chaired by Andrew Bucholtz, we discuss the origins of this project, how we balance thinking critically about games with our own personal game preferences, and how we feel about the project so far. This was originally streamed live at the convention, but it is available as a recording on YouTube.

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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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Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground by Stu Horvath

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Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground by Stu Horvath

I was slightly worried when I first opened Stu Horvath’s Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground (Monsters from here) that what I had gotten all excited for was essentially an encyclopedia. Not that the existence of an encyclopedia of tabletop RPGs would be a bad thing, but they tend to be incredibly dry reading and I wasn’t excited to tackle one from cover to cover. Thankfully, while the format resembles an encyclopedia the contents are distinctly their own thing. The feeling that Monsters most closely evokes is that of having been invited into the basement of a genial but intense RPG aficionado to be walked through his collection one item at a time. The book oozes a sense of familiarity and enthusiasm that make coverage of even the driest, or most bizarre, RPG supplements a fascinating trip down a branch of the hobby’s history.

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Forbidden Lands by Free League Publishing – a GM’s review

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Forbidden Lands by Free League Publishing – a GM’s review

Forbidden Lands is a fantasy roleplaying game with an emphasis on exploration and survival that uses the Year Zero system from Free League Publishing. After a bit of a hiatus from tabletop RPGs last year I finally managed to scrape together a group of friends with availability for an in-person RPG. We’ve in theory been weekly but as is the way of these things it’s usually more like bi-weekly. The players are a mix of seasoned veterans and total newbies to tabletop roleplaying, and collectively we have all been having a great time. The Year Zero system is easy to understand but offers plenty of depth and the world of Forbidden Lands strikes a balance between offering a deep background to explore while also leaving space for improvisation and creativity. All of this comes in an excellent package that could be a great entry point into the hobby or, alternatively, a great new system for people who have only played D&D before. I think I’m in love, basically.

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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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Wargaming Korea: 1950-1953

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Wargaming Korea: 1950-1953

Partly inspired by some potential changes in my own life and partly because this year marks the tenth anniversary since my grandfather passed away, I’ve found myself with a newfound interest in the Korean War. I’m resisting the urge to turn this into a research/game project of a similar scale to We Intend to Move on Your Works, but I intend to at least dip my toe in and I would like to have a little structure as I dive deeper. With that goal in mind, I recently read The Coldest Winter and I’ve a short reading list to tackle over the rest of this year. In terms of games, I’m focusing only on operational games that look at the whole Korean peninsula – nothing tactical for the moment. I don’t want this to balloon into a huge life consuming project, so I’m only planning to play at most a handful of games.

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My Grandpa's War

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My Grandpa's War

Today marks the tenth anniversary since my grandpa died. He was 91, he had recently had major surgery and ended up going to hospice where he died peacefully. I was 3,000 miles away doing my PhD in Dublin, Ireland. Few people had as large an impact on me as he did. He taught me how to ride a bicycle but more than that he was just there for most of my childhood being himself. I have, unsurprisingly, been reflecting on him and his impact as this anniversary approached. When I was last in Virginia I found copies in my brother’s house of some memoirs he wrote in his final years, and I thought this would be a good time to share one: in this case, his memory of his time at war.

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The Coldest Winter by David Halberstam

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The Coldest Winter by David Halberstam

Due to a confluence of factors best discussed elsewhere, I’ve recently experienced a surge of interest in the history of the Korean War. While digging around looking for books on the topic, I heard a recommendation for David Halberstam’s book on the podcast Wargames to Go. Luckily my local library had it, so I picked it up, not fully realizing that it is nearly 700 pages long. This is a pretty dense book with a lot of terminology and specific military information but Halberstam’s background in journalism shows as he breaks down complex information well and keeps the story engaging without being too overwhelming. Overall, The Coldest Winter is a very good book, but I also think it is a book with some very clear limitations.

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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.