Preview of 'The Soft Underbelly 1943-1945'
by
Dissimula Edizioni
Our very own Polydor has done a review of one of Sergio's earlier games:
FROM SALERNO TO ROME - A Wargamers Needful Things
My name is Sergio Schiavi, I live in Turin, Italy;
I started designing games (and making them) recently, my first design was Radetzky's March, released in 2019; it’s about of the 1849 campaign in Piedmont, a very short campaign that ends with the battle of Novara. Now I'm about to print the second edition of the game, much improved.
The following year I published From Salerno To Rome, about the Second World War in Italy, a decidedly complex game but which had considerable success, over 1500 copies sold.
In 2021 I released Give Us Victories, on the Chancellorsville campaign, a game that uses the same RM system a more refined. In the box there are two other games, one strategic and one tactical, and a system for playing the campaign alone.
I usually draw everything in my games: system, maps, counters, box; I fund them if I can with Kickstarter and then I produce them.
Some time ago I came across Yasushi Nakaguro's Bonsai games and was very impressed by them; I designed a small game inspired by his design: little format, very cheap but very deep and fun.
The Soft Underbelly is a very small, inexpensive, two-player game that typically lasts about an hour.
It concerns the Second World War in Tunisia, Italy and southern Europe, the period I know best.
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| Some of the Map |
It uses a very simple system where there are wooden blocks, which represent generic forces, and traditional counters, which instead represent specialized forces: tanks, planes, elite forces, fleets. The blocks, in addition to fighting, are used to buy specialized forces.
It is a game that generates a lot of tension, it does not admit mistakes; to win it you need a good strategy together with a little luck. It is asymmetrical: the Allied has many forces but must be able to make space to be able to deploy them all. The Axis, by contrast, must attempt to defend key areas, but inevitably must divide its scarce and costly forces widely. And eight turns pass quickly. There are events in the game that players can trigger by playing a chit: new reinforcements, premature end of a battle, partisans, and so on.
I also designed this game to bring new players as close as possible to our hobby and at the same time offer a good game, fast but not simple, on a little treated topic.
If it is financed, I intend to make others with the same system, on different themes, which I am already thinking about, including the Korean war 1950-53; the attack on Yugoslavia and Greece during World War II; the Norwegian campaign in 1940.
Among the next traditional projects instead, in September I will present a very large game about Husky and, later on, if I can, the continuation of From Salerno to Rome, which will be called To The Alps, which many are inciting me to draw.
The Soft Underbelly 1943-45:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/guv/the-soft-underbelly-1943-1945
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