The Hunted

Twilight of the U-Boats 1943-45

by

GMT Games

 The German U-boats experienced two 'Happy Times' in World War II. The first was right after the fall of France in 1940 and lasting into 1941. This took place in the North Sea and North Atlantic. The second Happy Time was directly after the the entry of the U.S.A. into the war. This took place on the east coast of North America. In the second Happy Time, 609 Allied ships were sunk to only 22 U-boats. Roughly one quarter of all Allied shipping sunk in World War II occurred then. However, those are featured in the first game of the series by GMT Games 'The Hunters'. This is the story of 1943-1945, and it is a totally different tale. In 'Black May' of 1943, 118 U-boats were at sea. The German Navy lost 41 of them in May 1943. The amount of Allied shipping losses continued to fall even before then. German Admiral Dönitz ordered a temporary halt to the U-boat offensive in order to come up with some ideas to stem the tide against his U-boats. This game is a solitaire simulation of U-boat warfare in the last years of the war. As with most of the German 'wünderwaffe' (wonder weapon), the weapons that were being developed for the U-boats came too little and too late.

 As mentioned, this is the second game in the series. I will have a link below to my review of the first game: 'The Hunters'. The series has actually been expanded to include the Italian Submarines in the newest iteration called 'Beneath the Med'. There is actually a fourth title in the series 'Silent Victory', where you play as an American submarine Captain against the Japanese. This is what comes with the game:

One ½” full-color counter sheet

One ¾” wide full-color counter sheet

Rules booklet with designer's notes

Five player aid cards, 2-sided

Six U-Boat Display Mats, 2-sided

Two U-Boat Patrol Maps, 2-sided

U-Boat Combat Mat

Eight U-Boat Kommandant Cards

U-Boat patrol logsheet

Three 6-sided, two 10-sided dice, and one 20-sided die

 These are the areas of the world's Oceans that you can patrol in:

Arctic

Atlantic

Australia

Brazilian Coast

British Isles

Caribbean

Indian Ocean

Invasion (Atlantic)

Mediterranean

North America

Norway

West African Coast

These are the U-boats that you can command during your patrols:

Type VIIC

Type VIIC/41

Type VIIC-Flak

Type VIID

Type IXC

Type IXC/40

Type IXD-2

Type IXD/42

Type XB

Type XII (hypothetical)

Type XIV

Type XXI

 The new weapons and U-boat improvements include these:

Decoys

Schnorkels

Homing Torpedoes

FaT Ladder Search Pattern Torpedoes

However, the Allies also have these counter measures:

Hedgehogs

Squid

Fido

Heavily Increased Aircraft Presence

 The player has the use of twelve different U-boat types. You will be facing both day and night combat encounters. To spice up your patrols you can be assigned these 'Special Missions':

Abwehr Agent delivery

Supply Delivery

Replenish

Minelaying

 The sequence of play (synopsis) is:

Consult U-Boat Patrol Assignment Table

Conduct Patrol

  Check for Encounters in Each Travel Box entered

  Check for Random Events

  Resolve Air or Ship Encounters (Enemy ship engagements is always voluntary)

  Attempt Repairs

  Return to Port

Refit U-boat

  Check for Crew Recovery or Replacement

  Check for Crew Advancement

  Check for Kommandant Promotion or Medal Earning

Take your crew and Kommandants life in your hands once again.

 Your goal in the game is to take your U-boat to sea and to sink as many Allied ships as possible, with the caveat of returning you and your crew home safely. The game adds some RPG elements to its wargame base, by having your Kommandant able to receive both promotion and earn medals. You can even be awarded the coveted Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds. For anyone who has played the first game, winning medals and just staying alive is a lot harder in this game, as it should be. The game does incorporate a multiplayer aspect. However, it is not you playing against the other player. You are essentially both playing solitaire and trying to outdo the other player on the tonnage of sunken ships you both inflict. 

 As in the first game, to add a little to the historical side of the game, you can play as a historical U-boat Kommandant. Each of the Kommandants come with certain enhanced abilities in the game. Alfred Eick for example, gives the player both 'Expert Gunner' and 'Vigilant'. Extra Gunner gives the player an additional -1 to hit targets. Vigilant allows the player a +1 on crash dives. These are the historical Kommandants you can play:

Alfred Eick

August Maus

Heinrich Timm

Werner Henke

Jürgen Oesten

Werner Hartmann

Albert Lauzemis

Robert Gysae

 The game components are pretty much exactly what you would get in the first game, 'The Hunters'. The counters are easy to read and very colorful. You will experience no eye strain while reading them. You also get eight counters with portraits of the historical Kommandants to add to the immersion level. The Rule Booklet is in large print, and is also in color. The 'Designer Notes' are interesting, because the designer (Gregory M. Smith) did not even want to do a follow-up game about these years of the war for U-boats. He felt the historic 'brutal aspects' of a game would be uninteresting to players. The first game had such an overwhelmingly favorable response, and the fact that so many players clamored for a 1943-1945 game, that he acquiesced. He states that he did not sugar coat the war or try to tip the game in the U-boats' favor. The seven double-sided U-boat Mats are the main game piece and the best piece of artwork in the components. The Patrol maps that you will use in your cruises are also very well done. The whole ensemble is meant to be both functional and good looking.

 The game is hard, and it is meant to be because that is how it was historically. However, we do not play these games, especially solitaire ones, to win all the time. We play them to try and simulate a certain part of history. I feel that the game captures the moment in time perfectly. If you as Kommandant are sent to the Indian Ocean your crew's life and your stock has just risen. Should you pull the short straw and are given the North Atlantic, good luck and may the fates be with you. Thank you GMT Games for allowing me to review this gem. A big thanks to the designer for listening to the player base and following up 'The Hunters' with this game. 

Robert

GMT Games:

https://www.gmtgames.com/

The Hunted:

https://www.gmtgames.com/p-590-the-hunted-twilight-of-the-u-boats-1943-45.aspx

My review of The Hunters:

https://www.awargamersneedfulthings.co.uk/2020/07/the-hunters-german-u-boats-at-war-1939.html

 

CASTLE ITTER

FROM

DVG

A little more than a year after the appearance of Pavlov's House,  David Thompson has put his excellent solitaire system to equally good use in this second game, Castle Itter.  Before I say anything else about its implementation, something definitely needs to be said about the historical facts that give rise to the game's sub-title; The Strangest Battle of WWII.  For me and I'm sure for many others, there may be other strange battles of WWII, but I think this certainly ranks as one of the strangest and one of the least known!

It's May 1945 near the small Austrian Tyrol village of Itter and, in almost classic Hollywood movie terms, a small group of assorted German and American soldiers, a handful of French political prisoners and an SS officer seek to hold out against an SS force until an American relief force arrives.  Nor were these any old political prisoners - of them two were former prime ministers of France and one was Charles de Gaulle's sister according to the research that I've done.  I say this because the named French counters that the game gives us differ to some extent from those in online documentation, particularly in the omission of de Gaulle's sister.  Also the fact that only one defender died in the battle, though that was the commanding Wermacht officer, may indicate a less than last ditch defence.  However, don't let that deter you from enjoying this thoroughly taught and engrossing game.  

If you're new to this site, I'd strongly recommend a read of my review of Pavlov's House, as I shall be making a number of comparisons between the two games.  The first is in the scale of each game as represented by the marked difference in the playing boards.

Here we have the three panelled board for Pavlov's House, which moving left to right takes us from the tactical to the operational scope of the game. In contrast, Castle Itter remains purely on a tactical scale and it's very much as if we simply took and expanded the left hand panel and added the German movement tracks from the central panel.  

Consequently, we have a much more intimate game concentrating on the various areas of the castle and its approach on the right via the Gate House and its lone defending tank, the most curiously named Besotten Jenny!

This change of scale brings in many differences.  Most obvious is that there are fewer rules and fewer options for you the player to choose from.  Instead of drawing a hand of cards each turn containing a variety of actions and having to juggle where you consider the main threats currently to be coming from across three locations, you can take five actions from among four choices: fire to eliminate an enemy counter, fire to place suppression markers, move from one area to another or turn a unit counter back to fresh from exhausted.

The result is a much quicker game to learn and a much quicker game to play.  It took several plays of Pavlov's House and constant referral to the Play Aid to get to know what the choices written on each card offered you.  Here you will have memorised your actions and the enemies after a single play.  But, DO NOT think that this makes the current game inferior.  Both are intense struggles.  Both demand that you prevent an enemy unit from reaching and breaching its objective building, though there are other ways to lose in Pavlov's House!

Though the terrain is obviously abstracted to a certain degree, there is far more sense of place here, as a glance at the board reveals.  Initially at set up, there are only German attackers, one rifleman in each of the twelve starting locations, and the five French prisoners lodged in the cellar, which in real life would be below the castle, but here is placed in the bottom left corner.

In the picture above, the rest of the game's physical components can be seen.  Above the board are the various markers: Action Tokens, Command Tokens, Disrupted Tokens, 1 Load Token [for loading the tank's main gun!] and Suppression Tokens.  Below it on the left are the range of SS counters [lots more riflemen, scouts, sturm troopers, machine gunners and mortars].  In the centre are three reinforcements for the defenders, to their right the German wermacht defenders and then on the far right the American defenders.

A closer look at the main part of the castle

Every single item is substantial from the glossy mounted board to the large, thick individual counters.  As with Pavlov's House, many of the defenders are named and, in a touch that contributes to the atmosphere of the situation, have special attributes identified by a capital letter.   Some of the rank and file German defenders have low morale which is offset by the presence of an officer in the same location.  Four of the five French prisoner defenders can inspire others in the same location by adding a die to their attack value.  Those Americans marked with a T for tank can make use of several special locations [mainly on the tank itself] that significantly boost attack and suppression dice, while the senior Wermacht officer has the sacrifice ability to die in the place of one French defender who becomes a casualty. 

Most of the Defenders

Once again these unit counters are of a very satisfying size and robustness which makes both for ease of handling and ease of reading the information on them.

The rule book is a model of clarity and personally I'm pleased with the decision to move to an A4 format which makes for ease of handling.  It's a glossy well laid out product with numerous full colour examples to support every detail of the game from set up, explanation of counters and cards and every action that can be performed.

It is a very straightforward game to get into.  A turn involves the five actions taken by you, followed by drawing three cards from the German deck and carrying out the instructions on them. The first four turns are swift and particularly easy for you the defender as each turn you must use each of your five actions to place one of your defenders on the board and perform an action with them.  At this early stage of the game, this will mainly be placing suppression markers.  

The curiously named tank, Besotten Jenny, fully crewed

From then on the fun and thrill of the game is deciding on what five actions to take and then awaiting the resolution of each of the three German cards which must be drawn and executed one by one.  Your two aggressive actions are firing at a single enemy unit or placing suppression markers that can be used to fire at an enemy unit only when it is first placed on the board.  

Once one of your units has taken an action, it is flipped to its exhausted side and it then takes an action simply to turn it back to its active side again.  Moving a unit within a location is a free action thus allowing the chosen unit to do something else, but moving from one location to another is a complete action.  Soon some of your men are going to become disrupted and, yes, it takes an action just to remove a Disrupted marker.

You have a few units that have the special Command ability to perform three actions on other units that occupy the same location.  Mainly these will be used to remove a Disruption marker or refresh an exhausted unit.  But such affected units are marked with Command markers to show that you can't then use them in the same turn.

Always there are more actions needing to be taken than the five you are allotted and as the various SS units begin to encroach nearer and nearer on their allotted paths to the castle, the tension is ratcheted up.

Here are some of your worst enemies.  The machine gunners and mortar teams cannot advance to take the castle, but remain on starting points for the opportunity to lay down fire when the appropriate cards are drawn, while the Sturm units are the most difficult to kill of your opponents that will be advancing down the avenues of attack!

All the SS actions are governed by the turn of three cards each turn.  These cards are a range that mingle the introduction of units that can advance and those that are stationary, but can fire along with a variety of actions directed to suppress units, damage the fabric of the castle or seek to destroy your one and only tank.

All these involve dice rolls that often seem to have a mind and will of their own!   As these rolls are based on two D6, with the expected range of 2-12, laying down suppressive fire on areas 6-8 is advisable particularly early in the game.  But typically always expect the unexpected.  Having built up just such a defensive shield against those areas, I was subjected to a series of low rolls of 4s and 5s that had the enemy units streaming in on the opposite side of the board.

I've had the tank survive all rolls against it and at other times seen it brew up along with a full complement of soldiers destroyed with it.  My leading German officer has been sniped at and killed as my first casualty, while a terrace full of soldiers has come through unscathed.

Here is one of my more ignominious defeats, as the SS breach the castle. Technically you lose immediately 1 unit makes it into the castle, but I couldn't resist seeing how bad the effects of the killing card play was and, as you can see, three units have breached my defences, with two more lined up behind them.

All in all, I've found Castle Itter a fast playing, nail-biting experience, very easy to learn and highly rewarding to play.  What's more, should you find it easier to survive than I do, there is an excellent Tactical deck of cards that can be introduced that turns the screw from merely difficult to insanely impossible!  Don't say you haven't been warned.

I've no hesitation in recommending this as an addition to anyone's collection and count Pavlov's House with Castle Itter as a perfect pairing. 

 1941 RACE TO MOSCOW

FROM 

PHALANX

At last a follow-up to the successful Race to the Rhine [pub. 2014], as Phalanx Games has just launched their Kickstarter . The only surprise is that it's taken five years to launch this elegant sequel, in terms of real time, and prequel in terms of WWII.  Both games are interesting hybrids of the war gaming and Euro gaming stables.  Personally, both for topic and for game play, 1941 Race to Moscow is immediately more to my preference.  

For those of you unfamiliar with the games, they offer a three player game that can also be played two player and solo.  For Race to the Rhine, the rivalry between Patton and Montgomery is a well documented fact and to provide a third player by including General Bradley is not wholly inappropriate.  However, Race to Moscow has an even more immediately easy and logical division by simulating the three-pronged invasion of Operation Barbarossa by Army Groups North, Centre and South.

In broad terms the two games, as might be expected, share very similar features.  The map board is covered in a series of oval-shaped point to point areas, linked by coloured arrows.  The colour of the arrow determines which player/s may use that connection.  In contrast to the portrait orientation of Race to the Rhine [RttR], Race to Moscow's orientation is a landscape one. 

This change has made little difference in the number of areas each player has to fight their way through to reach their respective goals of Leningrad, Moscow and Rostov.  What I think is a greatly improved feature is the background of a geographic map instead of the bland, plain tones of RttR.  This gives a stronger war game feel, with a sense of real armies manoeuvring over terrain that grows steadily more inhospitable. 

This is reinforced by the second improvement which is the change from the all-wooden blocks to tank and infantry armies, aircraft and navy, trucks, trains and the variety of three supplies [food, fuel and ammunition] all being rendered in plastic.  Understandably, those who regard wooden pieces as aesthetically better may not share my view.  However, though my review copy [for which once again many, many thanks to Phalanx] is a prototype, I think everyone would agree that most of the components are already of an impressive quality.

A minor detail I'd recommend, to help make recognition clearer, is that the tanks used for each of the panzergruppes either be distinguished more obviously by size or by a different shape of base just as the Field armies are.

I particularly like the three supply elements: food, ammunition and fuel and the trains and trucks that transport them.  All of these can be seen in the next picture, along with the Southern Army's aircraft and cardboard aircraft and HQ markers.

Identical to RttR, each Army has a card with spaces for up to six supplies and marked with its own specific initial load.  Field Armies begin with three ammunition, a single fuel and two food supplies, while Panzergruppes carry three ammunition and three fuel at start.  As is appropriate, Field Armies are much slower, moving only a single space at a time [unless they spend a food supply to move an additional area], while the panzers can move up to three spaces.

Each player has their own deck of Pursuit cards, while all three share the single Soviet deck.  Unlike RttR, each player has to fight their way from the start through a line of spaces containing Soviet markers.  As an Army enters such a space, it has to draw and reveal a Soviet card; all of which will have icons showing what supplies the player must spend to defeat the card.  The stronger the enemy the more supplies you have to spend to do so, but the more likely you are to gain a victory medal whose acquisition will contribute to one of the two ways of winning the game.  A conquered space also then gains a control marker of the appropriate player's colour: black for Army Group North, white for Army Group Centre and brown for Army Group South.

The front line of Soviet markers

Beyond this front line, you are more likely to enter a space that doesn't contain a Soviet marker.  In this case, a player draws a card from their own Pursuit deck of eighteen cards.  With these, you'll encounter a mix of minor losses or gains or historical events [the latter essentially serve as no effect cards!].

Each player's goal for an automatic victory is to be first to take control of their Objective city, as mentioned at the beginning of my review.  Rather oddly, each player can win an automatic victory by taking Moscow, which seems a little hard on the player of Army Group Centre for whom capturing Moscow is the one and only auto win!

If nobody succeeds before the last Soviet marker is placed on the board, then victory is determined by who has gained the most victory medals by that point.  I like the dynamics of this, as each player balances gaining medals against making progress towards their automatic win condition.

A major part of this effective system of checks and balances is that as the final phase of a player's turn, they must either remove another player's control marker [this must be chosen as the first priority, if possible] or place a Soviet marker on the board.  If  this latter is what you have to do, at first the logical thought is simply to choose a placement that will hinder an opponent.  [By the way if you're playing solo, there's only one person to affect and that's you!]

However, though you may well be slowing an opponent down, you're also giving them the slim chance to gain another victory medal.  Besides, what you do to others will undoubtedly be done back to you - retaliation is definitely the name of the game here!

Also you must remember that the game will end if all Soviet markers have been placed on the board.  As the game begins with only six markers not on the board and by the end of a full turn, up to three new markers may have been placed on the board, it's obviously essential that a fair degree of attacking areas containing Soviet markers must happen.  A corollary to that, of course, is that a player who's in the lead may actively seek to end the game this way.  So there is a constant interaction between players, as part of what I've called the checks and balances of Race to Moscow of game play.

So far, I've concentrated on the aspects that create the atmosphere of a war game with a sequence of conflicts.  However, just as the battles have to be won by expending your precious supplies, all the other possible actions you can choose from focus on replenishing those supplies and transporting them to your armies as the frontline advances.  This is no mean feat and will tax you to the limit.

Army Group Centre begins to haul supplies forward

It also adds just as much both to the tension of game play and to the overall sensation of waging a military campaign.  This is no dry exercise in resource management, but a dynamic part of fuelling your attacks and advances.

The railhead from which to gain more trains

The one major element I haven't so far referred to is the rule book.  This is slightly harder to assess mainly because, as a prototype copy of the game, it comes as a simple A4 paper booklet in black and white.  Overall, it does an adequate job of presenting a clear set of rules with a reasonable number of examples and illustrations.  However, the latter pictures being black and white are nowhere near as clear and helpful as ultimately the coloured versions will be.  Currently, the major lack was the excellent section that explains all the pictorial symbols on the many cards in play.  I certainly had no problems interpreting most of them, but that's said from 40+ years of board war games.

So some of my following judgements are based on the contents and quality of the glossy and lavishly illustrated rule book for RttR.  First of all, that contained a thorough section elaborating on all those symbols I've referred to in the previous paragraph.  Secondly, the rule book for RttR contains some of the most extensive and clearly detailed examples of play I've come across.  For a newcomer whether to war games or Euro games, this made learning the game a very easy step by step process.   Consequently, I'm fully expecting the quality and accessibility of Race to Moscow's rule book to replicate this same high standard.  

A minor point is that the decision has been made to move to an A4 format for the final version rather than the larger square format familiar in several of Phalanx's games.  Personally I prefer the A4 format, as do many of my gaming friends, but as always that is a matter of personal taste.

Overall, this is a game that I want to play because of its visual appeal, its topic and its game play.  I can enjoy a solo session as well as a two-player one, but the full highlights of this game for me will always come from the contest of all three players.

V-COMMANDOS: RESISTANCE

from

TRITON NOIR

Back in March 2017, I reviewed a new game, V-Commandos, and a totally new system from this small independent company, Triton Noir.  I was greatly impressed by what I saw and played.  Unfortunately, I missed out on their first expansion,V-Commandos: Resistance, but not on the second expansion, V-Commandos: Secret Weapons which I was able to review in early 2018.

Now thanks to Triton Noir, I've got the chance to bring that missed opportunity to you with their reissue of their first expansion.  As my previous two reviews are too deep in the depths of our archives for me to provide an easy link, for those of you unfamiliar with the games and system or simply want to refresh your memories, we're republishing them all together.  

As before, like the core game, there is a duplicate set of cards and a duplicate rule book, one in English the other in French.  In terms of content and rules, both expansions follow an identical pattern.  Three new OPERATIVES are presented: the SABOTEUR, SPY and S.O.E. AGENT and five new OPERATIONS; named KNIGHTHOOD, CHECKERS, VICTORY, FLAIL and STEAM. 

A feature I've liked throughout is that these Operations are presented on double-sided pairs of cards.  Each pair gives the title of the operation along with its geographical location shown on a small map, a brief flavour-full piece of situation information, a diagram of the locations needed to play this Operation and finally specific conditions for some of the locations.  

I couldn't resist using this set as a illustration as it includes the Eiffel Tower and the note "This monument must not be damaged!"

What you may notice is that there may not be special instructions for every location involved in a particular Operation.

Finally the game contains a set of cards that show the specific layout of each location, as in these taken from Operation Steam.

The shaded areas are interiors and the unshaded are exterior locations.  Specific objects, enemy counters, alarm points and where your units and enemy units enter are all clearly identified

An important point is that this is an expansion and so the core game is needed to provide some of the parts you require.  Tiles and counters are essential from the core game and instructions are given for replacing core units with new ones. The latter are presented in  a separate rule book that also introduces new rules, usually linked to the new characters, the new enemy units and new items of equipment.   Something I really like is that each expansion has been designed to mix only with the core game, unlike some games where you need all the expansions plus the core game to create what you need. 

Considering the essence of stealth at the heart of the original game, the topic of Resistance had to be high on Triton Noir's list for inclusion.  As it's also a topic dear to my heart, I think this is marginally my preferred choice of the two expansions.  However, this is a purely personal reaction to the topic, as both expansions offer excellent additional value - high on atmosphere and action.

Whether there will be further additions is unknown, but if I can't have more of WWII, then on the horizon hopefully next year will be Triton Noir's foray into another secret world that of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood of Venice.  This should more than satisfy anyone's craving for skulduggery and lethal action and those of you who would have liked to see miniatures in V-Commandos will be more than pleased to welcome them in Assassin's Creed

Overview

Conflict of Heroes: Guadalcanal was released in 2016 and is a squad-level, tactical, hex and counter wargame. The Pacific Theatre of WWII holds a massive interest for me; despite my living a figurative stones throw away from a lot of European WWII history.  I am just in awe of the willing and persistent sacrifice of both sides' combatants in a theatre that arguably comprises the most bloody battles of WWII, Guadalcanal included. To say I was eager to review this game would be an understatement.

CoH:Guadalcanal focuses on the landings of the US Marines onto the strategically important island of Guadalcanal and their subsequent defence of the island and the vital airfield it offered to the Americans. This action was at an early part of the Pacific War and is the first major allied offensive against the Japanese who had been enjoying a string of victories as they successfully invaded large chunks of real-estate in the South Pacific.  I think it is useful for wargamers to understand the context in which any wargame is set and Academy Games have done a fantastic job setting-the-scene with a rule-book littered with designers notes and a three-page [campaign introduction] that describe the strategic situation in which the players cardboard chits find themselves.

Inside pages of rules and firefight book

Gameplay

The game contains 12 firefights that play out the Marines defence of Guadalcanal against increasing numbers of Japanese forces. The rule-book follows a programmed instruction method whereby players can read a scant 9-and-a-bit-pages of rules before playing the first fire-fight (I estimate that includes about 3 pages of examples and designers notes). 

If you are an experienced wargamer, there are lots of similarities to other rule sets that will enable you to be up and playing very quickly, for example the Line of Sight and blind hex rules were very familiar and the overall terrain defensive modifiers are almost exactly the same as in other tactical-level wargames. These similarities are all wrapped in a combat system and turn structure that is completely unique, as far as I can tell, to the Conflict of Heroes line. The rules are also very well written and littered with a plethora of gameplay examples, it was a rare case where I had to look up a rule in which either it wasn’t immediately obvious from reading the rule or there wasn’t a relevant example to clarify the situation.

The first firefight

Many good wargames reduce the IGOUGO problem by allowing an opponent to Op Fire a moving stack or react to a move. CoH completely removes the IGOUGO problem by alternating turns between players after every action is resolved. The players only have 1 active unit at a time and 7 action points to spend on that unit. The different actions cost a different number of action points and when they are all spent, or if a player decides to activate another unit, that counter is flipped to its 'spent' side. I really like this mechanism, it not only indicates which units have already moved (my memory is very grateful) but it removes any down time as you're only waiting for your opponent to make one action e.g. a single unit moves one hex, before it rolls back to you. It also means that as a player you're constantly having to evaluate whether your plans remains sensible in light of your opponents last move or whether you should adapt and activate a different unit, potentially losing Action Points.

All combat actions are quickly resolved by 2d6 modified by unit attributes and the environment. The combat system is very intuitive, easy to teach and if you're reading the rules by yourself, to learn. In essence you add the firing units Attack Rating to 2d6 for your Attack Total. The Defender adds any defensive modifiers from terrain to their Defence Rating. If the attack value is greater than or equal to the defence value that unit is hit. When a unit is hit another counter is placed face-down underneath which will affect the units attributes and available actions. Two hits on the same unit eliminates that unit. That's essentially it, although the action cards do add a nice layer of immersion.

The Action Cards

The combat system is really quick and I didn't feel that it was missing any crunch that we wargamers often yearn for. Attacking units use one of two Attack Ratings printed on the counter dependent on whether their target is a vehicle or personnel target. Defending units use one of two Defence Ratings printed on the counter depending on which direction the attack is coming from.  In my experience the direction individual units are facing is rarely modelled in wargames. Here, it is seamlessly integrated into the combat and adds a level of tactical consideration that I enjoyed e.g. should I activate this unit to turn and face the encroaching enemy and receive the best defence possible thereby losing my opportunity to attack with this other unit?

In overall terms of complexity this game is a little lighter (and maybe more fun?) than GMT's Combat Commander series, which does suffer a little with the IGOUGO problem. To stretch a bad analogy, if Advanced Squad Leader is like completing and filing your own tax return (some masochists enjoy it), Combat Commander would be like planning a monthly budget and realising that you've actually got money left over (always nice to see), CoH:Guadalcanal is like getting lucky after taking a punt at the betting shop (Let’s try that again…). In my face to face plays of this I felt like I was having more fun for a very similar level of enjoyment when compared to Combat Commander series.  If I did score games this game would get top marks for fun and also for the amount of [historical backgrounds] provided for each firefight. Academy Games have a reputation of releasing fun, educational games and in that they've excelled themselves with CoH:Guadalcanal.

Fully loaded box

One of my biggest dislike of many wargames, and I still play them so it's not that big, is that in a lot of them the players have a perfect knowledge i.e. the players can see all terrain and unit attributes and plan accordingly, there is no fog of war. This is not necessarily a bad thing in a wargame as long as the scenario is balanced, you're then playing against your opponents tactics and trying to mitigate the randomness of the dice. However, there is an extra level of immersion when you're fighting with fog of war modelled. CoH does a good job of this as your opponents do not know what effects their hits are having on your units and players can attempt hidden movement, or even setup hidden, in cover terrain. This is a very important tactic of the Japanese player and when it works it is, depending on your perspective, either a beautiful moment of bravery or an excruciating loss. Unfortunately, you're not provided with anyway to mark hidden movements but the rule-book recommends to print out maps from the Academy Games website to record hidden units on. You can also download all of the firefights and rule-books for the entire CoH system and expansions which I think is a good sign for the level of support that this game continues to receive.

Firefight 4 - Japanese have held out so far...

There are very clear differences between WWII-era military forces of America and Japan, their moral, funding, equipment, ethos etc. feel different in reality and should feel different when playing them in a game. In this game, and many others, I am always pleased to see those differences being part of the game system. Apart from the usual elements of Attack Rating and morale or Defensive Rating being different depending on the unit and nationality you also get a pool of hit counters specific to each nationality. I should highlight that in each firefight the Japanese player has to add from 1 to 5 'No Hit' counters into their mix. This is a great boon to the Japanese player effectively giving their unit an occasional additional hit, or more, before it is destroyed. This is a subtle yet very effective way of modelling the apparent bravery/personal disregard of the Japanese troops under a 'banzai charge' for example.

However, the biggest change to the CoH system is the addition of Bushido Points for the Japanese player. This allows the Japanese player to achieve firefight-specific objectives to get Bushido Points which give them more Command Action Points (CAPs) per round. CAPs are distinct from Unit Action Points and allow players to interrupt their ‘activation’ and use other fresh units to immediately react to their opponents actions.  This is a necessary escape from the on-rails Unit Action Point system and it gives players a real feeling of making important and timely tactical decisions.  The Japanese player should always have an eye on those point-awarding objectives.  The Command Action Points also permit easy balancing of the game when pitting players of vastly different experience of the game against each other, which I found really useful when introducing the game to newcomers and it is not often considered in wargames.

Command Tracks and Players Aid

Components

The counters, which break the wargame mould of 1/2" and 5/8" counters, are a glorious 1" of real-estate to pick up and stack, as with all CoH games.  On a purely physical accessibility measure this wargame beats any other that I have seen. I can see wargamers with poor eyesight being able to play this when other wargames are no longer legible. Additionally, Academy Games have provided a hard plastic organiser in which to store all the counters. This is hands-down the best stock insert I have ever seen in a wargame; other wargame publishers should take note. There is more than enough room in it for all the counters from the base game and the expansion to be, not just stored, but even organised into nationality, unit type and even system counters by type as well. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that, after the outlay in time and money of storing other wargames' counters.

Left to Right: ASL, Combat Commander, Conflict of Heroes

Best Insert Ever

The maps, of which you get 4, are satisfyingly geomorphic and depict the terrain in a photo-realistic style, the trees even have shadows!  Initially, I didn't like the artwork on the maps, thinking that it was just getting in the way and too busy, but these criticisms largely evaporated through game play. The only minor gripe with the components that did remain is that the hex sides and hex numbers sometimes were too dark to immediately discern them against heavy jungle hexes but this was not a significant hindrance.

Into Mirkwood

The Expansion

The expansion adds 5 firefights and several more units with which to play with. The first firefight of the expansion - The Last Banzai, The Fight for Henderson Field: The Second Night, picks up where the 11th firefight of the base game finished, i.e. at the end of the first night during the Fight for Henderson Field. This is a really nice touch and provides players with sense of continuity between the base game and the expansion. These two scenarios are however 4 player, behemoths and I couldn't arrange a 4 player game to cover the two firefights so we played two-player and still had a blast.

Some of the expansion components

Criticisms

In an ideal world I would have liked the expansions firefights and units to have been included in the base game as they feel like an integral part of the base game. The game is excellent without the expansion but the expansion’s firefights have to be printed from the Academy Games website. The OCD collector in me would have liked them to be in the same book or at least a book of the same paper and print quality as the base game’s firefight book. You only get a single page of paper introducing the new units and rules for mine along with a single punch-board of tokens which costs $25, this feels a little steep.

Prior to each round starting, which is made of any number of player turns, the players roll 2d6 for initiative which determines who is going first. This can be altered be spending Command Action Points but this mechanism felt a little arbitrary and I recall one player looking a bit annoyed that they had lost the roll six times in a row. C’est la Vie!

Conclusion

I really enjoyed this game, and not just for its theme. The combat system is simple yet it captures everything that I would want and it exposes the nuance in different fighting attributes of both forces whilst remaining balanced. It could almost be classed as introductory wargame but even a veteran wargamer would find a lot to enjoy in this system.  There are no game-slowing table look ups and your actions and decisions come around so quickly, sometimes it’s a relief when the Round ends and you can take a short breather; I want all my wargames to have this quality. I will still evangelise for Combat Commander, but now I may be inclined to offer this up as a more fun experience, i.e. less downtime, fewer rule look-ups and plays quicker than other tactical squad-level games.

I would like to thank Academy Games for the review copy of this game.

Publisher: Academy Games

Players 2 – 4

Designer: Uwe Eickert, Gunter Eickert, Dean Halley

Playing Time: 60 minutes to 120 minutes

MSRP: $90

You can currently get the Guadalcanal and US Army Expansion bundle from the Academy Games website for a sale price of $80.

Check Your 6! from The Lordz Game Studio brings the air combat board game of the same name to the digital world. Although the board game includes many expansions covering various theaters and eras, this initial release for PC focuses on the classic Battle of Britain clashes between the RAF and Luftwaffe. Check Your 6! uses a we-go turn-based system where each side plans out the orders for all of their aircraft and then hit go to see what happens. However, it's quite a bit more complicated than just that, as we will see. 

When planning your movement for a turn, there are multiple factors to consider: where your aircraft is now, where you want it to be on the next turn, or three turns from now, and of course where the enemy aircraft are. Movement includes steering left and right, altitude adjustments, fancy maneuvers, and the ever critical speed. Climbing will slow you down, and diving will similarly speed you up. Going faster isn't always the best option, and so one must think ahead when setting a course. Sharp turns can also slow an aircraft to a dangerous point, forcing you to be judicious with such maneuvers. Mastering movement is a critical part of every engagement; unless you get your aircraft into the proper position, you will have no chance of taking a good shot and doing some damage.

When attacking an enemy, several variables are thrown together to give you a percentage chance of success. The angle and speed of the aircraft involved play a role, as well as the distance between them. It's quite difficult in this game to get anything resembling a sure hit unless you are able to maneuver perfectly into position behind an enemy. Often you will be forced by circumstances to take lower percentage shots and hope for the best. Assuming an aircraft is hit, there are all sorts of things that can happen next. Simple hull damage, engine damage, crew casualties, a fire starting, or no damage at all. These variable results can make for some moments worthy of cheer, as well as frustration when things don't go your way. 

The 18 scenarios available can be played from each side, and all of the ones I played were at least partially based on some sort of real life sortie. You reward for winning a scenario is a nice text blurb describing the real historical result of the action. Otherwise the scenarios are not linked in any way, and you can play them in any order. On the plus side, these scenarios feature much more than simple fighter vs fighter combat. Often one side must defend some kind of objective on the map like a bridge on the ground or bombers in the air. Variable placement of units for each side means that a given scenario could play out somewhat differently from one attempt to the next. 

There are numerous different aircraft available for each side, and each one has it's own strengths and weaknesses. I know we all want to command a full squadron of Spitfires at every opportunity, but sometimes they just aren't available and you have to make due with what's on hand. Adding a little variability among similar units is how each pilot has their own experience rating. Better pilots essentially "move" last, and so get a chance to adjust their initial orders after seeing if an enemy zigged or zagged.

Check Your 6! takes a few hours to really give you a good feeling for the flow of air combat. There is a tutorial which explains the controls well enough, but doesn't give you enough time to really understand how to conduct a dogfight. Thus, I found the game frustrating at first, but then grew to enjoy it a bit more as I gained some experience. You must be able to foresee how running your fighter at full throttle means it will overshoot that bomber it was trying to get behind, or how sharply climbing to meet the foe will leave your guys with no speed remaining to make a sharp turn. I certainly learned these lessons via the school of hard knocks.

The flow of the combat can be bogged down a lot when you are tweaking movement and facing, and considering the future positions of a dozen different aircraft, but I imagine there are more than a few players out there looking for the exactly that level of control.

The game won't dazzle anyone with it's graphics, animation, or sound, but for a board game to digital conversion it looks okay for something that will probably be ported to iPads and the like before long. One thing I found odd were the blurry ground textures, especially in missions where you are attacking ground targets.

Overall, I can't really give a broad recommendation for the game, though fans of the board game should be pleased and if you are really interested in turn-based combat and WW2 aviation, you'll probably enjoy it. That isn't to say that Check Your Six! is a bad game by any means, it simply suffers the common fate of many physical-to-PC conversions, in that games which feel dynamic and immersive on a table can feel a bit clunky and slow on the PC. 


Check Your 6! Can be purchased directly from Matrix Games or on Steam.



- Joe Beard