Steam And Iron The Russo-Japanese war

                                                                     By

                                                       Naval Warfare Simulations 

 It all begins with a port. Now this isn't just any port, but Port Arthur on the Kwantung peninsula. A strange name for a Chinese port; its actual name started as Lushun. It was named Port Arthur because of a British lieutenant in the Royal Navy. The Japanese and Chinese fought the first Sino-Japanese war in 1895. At that time, the Japanese had seized the harbor without too much trouble and proceeded to make themselves at home. The Japanese had not figured on the Western powers and their view of the Asian situation. The Western powers banded together to force Japan to give up their spoil of war, Port Arthur. Then, to the Japanese loss of face, the Russians moved into Port Arthur a few years later. Port Arthur became the dirty gem of the Russian eastern empire. It was exactly what they needed, a fine port and also a warm water port on the Pacific Ocean. Vladivostok, hundreds of miles north, was ice bound three months of every year. So now the stage is set for the clash between the huge Russian bear and the rising sun. Those who look to Taranto in 1940 for the blueprint of Pearl Harbor in 1941 are slightly mistaken. The technical difficulties of using plane dropped torpedoes in shallow water were solved by the British in 1940, but the plan to attack another country's fleet without a declaration of war was forged in 1904 and Port Arthur. The Russo-Japanese war brings some interesting characters into its shadow, Teddy Roosevelt to name one.

  Commander Fuchida Mitsuo, when flying over Pearl Harbor in 1941 said "had these Americans never heard of Port Arthur?"

 The battle that is most remembered about this war is the naval battle of Tsushima. After the Russian naval forces in the Pacific were neutralized, the Russian Tsar sent the 'Second Pacific Squadron' from the Baltic all the way to the Sea of Japan. The amazing journey reads like an extremely long funeral march.

 Naval Warfare Simulations, who brought us Steam and Iron, and then its campaign expansion, are now responsible for bringing to life on the computer the Naval war portion of the Russo-Japanese war 1904-1905. The game starts with the sneak attack on Port Arthur already having taken place. The historical losses of the Russian fleet are already tallied. So it is up to you as Togo to command the Japanese Navy and to destroy the Russian fleet in Port Arthur before Russian reinforcements can make their presence felt. As the Russian naval commander, you must try to damage the Japanese fleet as much as possible and stop the Japanese army from being supplied from its home bases. This is a test bed for WWI. Torpedoes, mines, and battleships are used for the first time in large numbers.  

 This is the second part of Naval Warfare Simulations trilogy of the naval wars in the early twentieth century. The first was 'Steam And Iron', then 'SAI Russo-Japanese War', followed by their opus 'Ruling The Waves'.

 SAI RJW is a stand alone program. You do not need to have the original Steam And Iron to play. It has included within it a campaign game of the Russo-Japanese naval war and much more. You can also fight any of the six historical scenarios from the war. There is a seventh 'Beresford's Boast'. When the Russian Second Pacific Squadron was  going through the North Sea at night, they ran into a small flotilla of British fishing trawlers. Assuming them to be Japanese torpedo boats, they attacked the boats and caused some casualties. Britain and Russia almost went to war over it. British admiral Beresford boasted to the British government that he would attack the Russian fleet using only half his battleships to make it sporting.

 With this purchase you will also get a scenario and ship editor. This will allow you to fight naval battles from this time period anywhere in the world. Included are the naval forces for the following countries: Russia, Japan, Germany, Britain, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Spain, US, and France.

 You have a choice to command in several different layers: Admiral's mode with its command and control limitations, to Captain's mode where you can micromanage to your hearts content. 

 The addition of the editors and OOBs of the other nations give the game unparalleled replay value. The rules and the manuals are exactly the same as the original Steam And Iron. Please see my review of Steam And Iron for a more thorough breakdown of these. http://www.awargamersneedfulthings.co.uk/2016/08/naval-warfare-simulations-steam-and.html

 A well done game about the entire Russo-Japanese war is on my bucket list. For now I will have to play this for my naval fix, and Age of Rifles for my land. There is a book called 'The Tide at Sunrise' by Denis and Peggy Warner that in my opinion is the best and most complete on the whole war. It seems like I re-read it almost every year.


 Robert


Game: Steam And Iron Russo-Japanese War
Publisher/Developer: Naval Warfare Simulations
Review Date: 9/17/2016

 

  Firefight by Sean O'Connor

 

 Let us get this out of the way right now, Firefight is not Close Combat. This is not a knock on the game, but a factual statement. I have played most of the Close Combat games down through the years, and Firefight does some things that I have never seen in Close Combat. The game is aptly named. In Firefight, you can have long lasting offensive and defensive fire going on without suffering huge amounts of casualties. A British unit was under fire for five minutes of real time playing, and never suffered one casualty. Your troops in the game will search out and use cover as well as any I have seen in tactical games. 

 There are nine maps with eight scenarios you can use on all of the maps. There is no scenario editor, but the eight scenarios cover all of the years from 1939-1945 on the Western Front. So you get to play with a large amount of different troops and weapons. You hold down the right mouse button to scroll around the map. It has just been updated to version 1.1. One of the new new features is the mouse arrow showing the terrain height at that spot. You also get a summary at the end of the game now with a ranking between zero to three stars. You have the ability to zoom out to actually get red terrain height lines superimposed on the map. The artillery strikes are conducted by picking a spot with the left mouse button and holding it down until the mission ( high explosive or smoke) is selected. You will then see a circle with the words 'adjusting fire' in the spot. Spotting for artillery does not need a ground unit to be able to see the area. It works as if you are in a artillery spotting plane flying over the battlefield. Your guns will fire a few spotting rounds and then let loose a barrage of shots on the area, so your artillery strikes can be used up quickly if you are not paying attention to them. The only commands you can give your units is to move or fire. This doesn't mean they are sitting ducks while you are busy with another part of the battlefield. The AI in your troops, as well as the enemy, is very good.

 The sounds in the game are excellent. The sounds of the artillery strikes and regular weapons  just seem right. The only con is that you can only have the sound on or off. The con part of that is when moving your troops you will most likely get a shouted "MOVE" in your ear, which does get tiring after a while.

 This game started out as shareware in the 1990s and in some ways shows it's pedigree. It is a one man programming show, so do not expect to see a game released by a huge company. The visuals are fine for the game, but not up to some of today's standards. As a game for us grognards it is just fine. For someone who started playing wargames on a Commodore they look pretty good. The game right now is only $9.99 so it is a good bargain. The programmer has always been working on this labor of love, so it is possible to have more added to it in the future. A scenario editor would greatly expand its life expectancy on peoples' hard drives.

 This would be a great game for wargaming newbies to get into. The simple commands, and the fact that your troops won't die immediately with a boneheaded move on the players part, would make this an excellent first tactical wargame. The price tag adds to the attraction.

  One thing: for some reason I could not take a screenshot of the game's starting screen to show the different maps and scenarios. There are three for playing as the Germans, and five for playing the 
Allies.


  Robert



Game: Firefight
Programmer: Sean O'connor
Date of Review: 9/11/2016

13 DAYS

THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

FROM ULTRA PRO via JOLLY ROGER GAMES

I would love to be able to write this review without referring to Twilight Struggle, but as the designers themselves heralded it as Twilight Struggle [hereafter TS] in 45 minutes that's not going to be likely.

There are plenty of other reasons too.  Victory determined by who has gained most Prestige at game end, a Defcon track and the possibility of a player losing by triggering nuclear war; playing a hand of cards each turn and each card playable for either its events or placing influence; an abstract board to represent the areas to be influenced.  The Cuban Missile Crisis - one card in TS : a whole game in 13 Days. Nuff said - mini-TS or TS-lite?  Thankfully, it's better and worse than that.

To start with, it has a much smaller footprint.  The board is a mere 11 x 16 inches and though a map of the world hides mutedly in the background, the superimposed, large, rectangular boxes where the fight for influence takes place transforms the experience into a much more abstract form, especially  as three of the boxes aren't countries, but Television, United Nations and Alliances.  Calling these battlegrounds [however metaphorically true that might be] stretches my ability to sink myself into the atmosphere.

To be honest, atmosphere is what I think the board lacks and in that respect is much inferior to TS, but, like most CDGs, the cards are the main creators of the ambience.  In this case, a deck of 39 Strategy cards, 13 Agenda cards and one card titled Personal Letter [in effect the classic Advantage card which gives a bonus of one cube, when played alongside a Strategy card] which the US player possesses at the beginning of the game.  The Strategy cards are the key ones being illustrated with photos taken from the period, some of which I distinctly remember from T.V. news broadcasts and newspapers of the time, such as the meeting between JFK and Kruschev and most disturbing of all the shot of the ship carrying the said "Cuban Missiles".

By comparison the Agenda cards are disappointingly bland with either icons from the Defcon track or representations of faded map pictures.  Overall the quality of all the cards is adequate, but of a distinct thinness that does need sleeving, especially if, as a quick-playing game, it does get many plays.

The rest of the contents are a set of 17 small wooden cubes for each player in their respective colours of blue and red to mark influence in the battlegrounds, six wooden discs to chart Defcon status,  a yellow disc to mark the score on the  Prestige Track and a black disc to mark the turn and finally six small cardboard flag counters to be used each turn to indicate each player's Agendas drawn.

The rules are a small booklet of 9 pages for the rules themselves and 12 pages of a complete play through of a whole game.  That can be achieved as the game lasts a mere 3 Rounds with 4 card plays in each Round.  Yes, that's it; 12 Strategy cards are played by each side in the game.  In this respect, it is TS very, very, very lite!  But, more about those Strategy cards later.

Below is a picture of the board set up at the beginning of the game.

It shows the playing board with the 9 Battlegrounds: 3 Political [green], 3 Military [orange] and 3 World Opinion [purple] and the Defcon track [seen in greater detail below].

Unlike TS, the Defcon track has three columns to indicate how placing influence in the battlegrounds affects the respective Political, Military and World Opinion status.

The bottom of the Defcon track is printed with the starting positions of each players 3 coloured discs and if the resolution was good enough you'd see that they all start in the Defcon 3 zone.  Things have already hotted up before the 13 Days start.  If any single disc is still in the Defcon 1 zone in Phase 7 : Check Nuclear War that player loses, but what's worse a player can also lose, if all three of his/her discs are in the Defcon 2 zone in Phase 7 : Check Nuclear War.  This is a game that is very easy to lose, as each Round all discs move up one square on the table and every time you place cubes in one of the Battlegrounds on the map the relevant marker on the Defcon track moves up the number of cubes placed minus 1.  So, place three influence and you shoot up two squares on the appropriate track..

For me this is one of the best and well crafted mechanisms in the game.  It places you on the horns of a huge dilemma.  A major way to gain Prestige to win the game is from tallying the difference between the number of each player's cubes in a Battleground or the difference between the number of spaces of each player's discs on the Defcon track.  You have to place cubes in order to gain winning Prestige, but at the same time you are pushing yourself up the Defcon track towards potential defeat!  Lovely twist.

However, there is another twist that relates to the three Agenda cards [yellow-backed] each player draws at the beginning of each Turn.

just two of the Agenda cards

First the player uses his/her flags to mark on the board the  areas the three Agendas relate to, but only one of those three will be secretly chosen by each player and only the chosen ones will score Prestige points.  Again this feature of the game is a major one; it signals where a player's interests may be focused for this turn and allows for some degree of bluffing to try to misdirect your opponent from your target agenda.  Also, it is perfectly possible that your opponent ends the Round having been the more successful in fulfilling the conditions of the Agenda card and so gains the Prestige points instead of you.  Best of all you have to take that decision before you know what five Strategy cards you will be using to implement your choice.

This may not be to everyone's liking.  I can imagine some gamers, especially those who prefer absolute control to the vagaries of fate, would have preferred to make their choice of which Agenda card to be their chosen goal after seeing what cards they had to work with.  For myself, I love having to craft a plan out of what the draw has dealt me and in that respect 13 Days seems closest here to what I enjoy in TS.

three of the leading protagonists in the drama of history

First of all, in the deck of 39 strategy cards, each player has 13 in his colour and there are 13 United Nations cards.  With so few cards played, every single one is crucial and many of the dilemmas familiar in TS will be yours in 13 Days.  Each card has an Event and the number of cubes you can place or remove. These work in identical fashion to the War cards in TS.  If you play a card that is of your own colour, you have the choice of playing the Event or placing or removing from one Battleground on the map up to the number of influence cubes shown on the card.  If it is a United Nations card, you have exactly the same choice.  But if the card has your opponent's Event on it, your opponent has the choice of playing the Event [notice he/she can decline to play the Event] and then you place or remove up to the number of Influence cubes.

If you have been doing your maths, five Strategy cards drawn each turn and four played, what happens to the fifth card each turn?   This is the last of the important, innovative elements in the design.  That last card is placed face down in the Aftermath Location at the bottom of the board and provides the final whammy at game end.  The six cards are a final additional Prestige scoring - if the card is a Russian red one,  the number of cubes on it are added to the Russian player's score, if a blue  American card the number of cubes on it are added to the American player's Prestige, if a United Nations card nobody gets any Prestige points. 

You're probably thinking why on earth would a player not put a card of his colour in the Aftermath pile.  Well, it's a bit like the Space Race in TS, perhaps you had a card with an opponent's Event that at a critical point you just did not dare to play.  What can you do with it?   Bury it in the Aftermath pile and cross your fingers.

Obviously the decisions are more limited because, if you do not choose to play the card for its Event, there are only two things you can do either [1] add your cubes to a Battleground  or [2] remove them from a Battleground and there will be many occasions when you must simply take that negative choice of taking them away.  Why? Because it is the only way you can move one of your Defcon markers down the track and away from possible defeat!  However, you will find the action allowed by many of the Events to be especially useful, as they often modify basic rules in advantageous ways.

Before giving you my conclusions on this game, I need to mention the last item in the game box, namely the historical booklet which provides a concise  picture of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the significance of Berlin, Italy and Turkey which explains why all three are battlegrounds in the game, as well as a good explanation of the history behind all the Strategy cards.  For such a small game, this is an elegant addition and one I much appreciated.

So, fewer choices, fewer cards, fewer Rounds than TS, but always, always difficult, critical decisions and enjoyable absorbing play.  It may be a fairly quick game to play, but it is no filler, as I first thought it might be before I played the game.  Every game has been tense with all our attention focused unremittingly on the situation on the board.  Every card play is like a subtle fencing match with genuine opportunities for misdirecting your opponent

I have no hesitation in urging you get this in your collection.  It is an excellent design and exciting gaming experience that I know I shall play over and over again.

To find your nearest retailer in the UK or Europe who stocks 13 Days please click HERE

13 Days: Cuban Missile Crises

Kickstarter Campaign

RRP £34.99