Small But Perfectly Formed – A Boardgamimg Life review of W1815

 

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 By Paul Comben

Designer Hannu Uusitalo

Publisher U&P Games at http://upgames.fi/home/

(some images courtesy of BoardGameGeek at http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/175360/w1815)

I cannot help but think that this game should be creating a bit more buzz than it actually is. There are certainly some enthusiastic posts on BGG, to go along with a few photos, but given the quality and innovation of the design, and that the favourable comments include one lengthy offering from Professor Philip Sabin (whose work, of course, involves both the design and study of conflict simulations), I think it time the hobby really sat up and took a look at what is going on here.

W1815 is by a Finnish company making its introduction via one of the cleverest, most interestingly different, and utterly engaging works I have set my eyes on in a very long time. Covering the well-trodden ground of Waterloo, you can learn this game in minutes, set it up in seconds, play it in a few more minutes…and then really want to set it up and play it all again. A dream of a game for conventions, for clubs, for holiday outings, for anywhere, I will say here and now that this is a game well worth seeking out and playing to your heart’s content – and yes, it is entirely and enjoyably accessible to solitaire play.

So what makes it so different?

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GET A GRIP…ON POLAND – A Board gaming Life Wargame After Action Report and Review of Visegrad

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By Russ Lockwood

Designer: Eric R. Harvey and David March

Publisher: Decision Games at http://decisiongames.com/wpsite/

“Me Putin. Me want Poland. Nice shirts there. Not that I wear any. But what’s the West gonna do? Nyetski, comrade. Nyetski. Trust me. After I take Poland, I put up a statue of Chekov — the Star Trek hippee, not the writer, and everyone will sayink what a great guy I will be, especially the Poles. No, really. They love me over there. Russian media sez so.

Actually, iz not my fault. The West pays for Russian natural gas, which happens to go through Poland. But the Poles start frackingk and reduce market for Russian gas. I merely suggested the Poles join a nice little trade association run by Russian companies. Vhat’s not to like?

Poles say deal is not zo good. Next thingk I know, Poles say moose and squirrel shut down the big pump station for maintenance. Lots of maintenance. Now, gas backingk up. Rubles fallingk down. Big NATO plotski. No, really. Russian media sez so.

Vhat’s to do? Take Poland. It’s like they’re askingk me. They love me over there. No, really. Russian media sez so.”

 

Such is the background (well, sans stereotype) for the wargame Visegrad, which is in Modern War magazine issue 16. The map stretches from Moscow to roughly the Rhine and Alps at 35 miles per hex, with one week turns and brigade-size units.

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A Minié View of Huzzah! – A Boardgaming Life Review

 

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By Paul Comben

Designer Richard Dengel

Publisher One Small Step

Be honest, how many strictly tactical level ACW games could you name…apart from this one, that is? Actually, I rather suspect readers could name close to all of them – which is another way of saying that there have never been all that many. I recall Devil’s Den and Little Round Top, to which I could probably add Baton Rouge, MacPherson’s Ridge, Gettysburg: The Wheatfield, and Battles and Leaders. There may be a few others, but we have never been exactly deluged with tactical recreations of Civil War mischief. And therefore, that a new company wants to devote some serious attention to this sort of subject matter, and that the intention is to feature some lesser known and smaller Civil War battles as well as key portions of the big fights, is something to offer a welcome to.

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Flawed Commander Nimitz? A BoardgamingLife Review

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By Paul Comben

Publisher : DVG Games http://www.dvg.com/

Let us imagine for a moment a book on the battle of Waterloo – a subject wherein, of course, we are somewhat spoilt for choice. This book, with a big portrait of the victor of Waterloo on the cover, is called something along the lines of “Wellington’s Campaign in Belgium” or maybe “Wellington and The Hundred Days”; but when you open this same book, and then scour its contents from page one to page four hundred, there is not a single mention of Wellington at all. His forces move; objectives are gained or lost; but neither actively nor passively is The Iron Duke ever referred to. Odd; in fact, rather disappointing; not quite what one would have expected.

And I begin this way just to stress one particular point – there is precious little Chester Nimitz in Fleet Commander Nimitz; he is there in the title, and his portrait adorns the box lid and rules cover, but he is not coursing through the contents. Yes, it is his theatre of command, and it is his forces and his enemy’s forces on the counter sheets, but the man himself, in character, style, the level of his command decision-making, his relationships with key subordinates and with the government at home, is more of less entirely absent – just like Wellington is in our book. I am not saying this to stick the knife into the game from the start, but simply to offer a statement about my perceptions and values in the area of game design. I have certainly voiced a plea for a more accented and colourful command presence in previous articles, and I find that FC Nimitz makes a lot of those points for me by being entirely bereft of the very things I would like to see.

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JULIUS CAESAR – A Boardgaming Life Review and After Action Report

 

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By Russ Lockwood

Publisher Columbia Games

 

Julius Caesar by Columbia Games is a game that  I always  thought  deserves  more attention than it has received.   It has an intriguing , puzzle like quality to it which takes several  plays to really  grasp the deep thought  required to play well.   With that in mind,  TheBoardgamingLife presents Russ Lockwood’s  Review and  After Action Report of this overlooked gem .
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Umpiring the Empire-TheBoardGamingLife Player Aid for Le Vol De L’Aigle

 

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by Harvey Mossman

Approximately one year ago I umpired a game of Flight of the Eagle over the Internet.  It was a very interesting experience, both for me as the umpire and for the players who had to deal with true fog of war and 19th-century limitations on communications.  You can peruse my game review and a follow-up article which is a narrative of the campaign.  But I will dedicate this article to the lessons learned being an umpire for Flight of the Eagle.

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My Forty Years on the Eastern Front: A Boardgaming Life Game Survey

 Paul Comben

 

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Well, here we are with the stock-in-trade of the hobby – whatever else has been designed, and wherever else it took us, you cannot think of the hobby without the Eastern Front in World War Two. From small unit actions, where the brutal simplicity of combat, mano-a-mano, is conveyed in rules that can break your foot if you drop them, to grand operational and strategic designs that come with everything save a yellow briefcase, the hobby has done it every which way for decades.

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Legion of Honor – A first look by TheBoardgamingLife

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Designer: Richard J. Kane Sr. and J. Michael Ruttle

Publisher: Clash of Arms Games

by Harvey Mossman

I doubt there is a respectable wargamer who hasn’t thought what it would be like to wear the uniform and march proudly in the ranks of the Grande Armee, following your esteemed general, Napoleon Bonaparte into glorious battle?  Well now Legion of Honor,  the eagerly awaited game from Clash of Arms, allows you to don your shako and live the life of a Napoleonic Grognard.    Where else can you re-create “the life and times of a soldier in the Army of France under the Republican Empire of Napoleon with each player assuming the role of a young Grognard of boundless ambition but meager means.”  The game tries to capture an era when war still had an extraordinary yet brutal pageantry, where the individual soldier still believed in Glory, Honor and the chance to gain Notice from their beloved general.

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Gettysburg’s Gettysburgs: A Boardgaming Life Review

By Paul Comben

 

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Let’s face it, some of us have had more than forty years of marching down the Chambersburg Pike, and we have all done it with great games, fair games…and the occasional piece of absolute rot. We have sought to take the high ground, defend the high ground, move around the high ground (if the map would let us), and fight out the great turning point of the Civil War with systems as variable as the holiday road works on the English M6.

How many Gettysburg games have there been since the late Fifties? God knows. What I am more certain of, however, is that plenty of us have played plenty of them; and like London buses, if you missed the last one, there will be another along in a minute – even if it is going somewhere you would rather not.  I cannot think of London without the buses, and I cannot think of the hobby without the Gettysburg games. So here is a run through of all the Gettysburg titles I have ever played; a celebration of a lifetime spent rolling the dice, losing Lee under something, and not understanding what any given rule actually meant.

And with that, I start in 1972… with something from 1964.

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