Königsberg

by

Revolution Games

 Normally, I try to stay away from games that one side cannot win outright. So, gaming the end game of World War II in Europe, especially 1945, is usually something that does not end up on my table. With these types of games, you have to do better than your historical counterparts did. Most of the time it is just holding a hex or hexes up until the end of the last turn, while inflicting more casualties on your enemy than was historically accurate. On the Soviet or Allied side you are trying to finish the war earlier than it did historically, or in this case taking Königsberg earlier and inflicting more damage on the Germans. You should not, as the Germans, in any game based somewhat on reality, be able to defeat the Russians in 1944-1945. You can only prolong the inevitable. However, I have even played games about trials so I will keep an open mind as I am playing.

 We will start with the facts, and "just the facts Ma'am". The game comes in a Ziploc bag and contains:

22'x34' Map

280 Counters

Twelve Page Rule Book

Color Player's Aid Card

 You could play the game as a three player one, with a player taking one of the 2nd or 3rd Belorussian fronts. The Russian player who has taken the most victory hexes would be the winner. That is, of course, if it ends in a Russian victory.

 For those of you so inclined, there is also a Vassal module available.

 The game takes place in East Prussia and northern Poland from January 13th to February 1st, 1945. The number of turns in the game is ten. The playing time is estimated at four to ten hours. The scale of the game is five miles/eight kilometers per hex. The units will go from brigade to corps size. The solitaire suitability is listed as high. You will need to supply a six-sided die along with a chit pull container.

 The map is very well done, and is of high quality. The terrain and defenses etc. are clearly marked. Everything from the CRT to the turn record track is on the map. So it should be easy for almost all gamers to have a place to set it up. The game length, especially during the learning phase, will probably mean you will have to leave it set up for at least a day or two, depending upon your free time for gaming.The counters are 1/2", and are easily readable and compare to the best counters I have seen in a Ziploc or wargaming magazine. Depicted are Soviet Guards units, Volkstrum units, along with air units which are mostly for the Soviets, and the Admiral Hipper even shows up on the German side.

 The rule book is in black and white, and it shows no examples of game play. On the other hand, the game rules are of a pretty standard fare for hex wargames, so unless you are a complete tyro you really don't need too much hand holding. The German player controls all his units, but the Soviet player is split between the 2nd and 3rd Belorussian fronts. So the German player gets X activations each turn while the Soviet player gets activations for both fronts. During the chit pull, you will pull a Command Chit for whatever Headquarter unit, and then the sub-units of that force can move and attack etc. The game also comes with independent units on both sides. These can be activated by any active Headquarter unit in range, meaning that independent units can be activated more than once per turn. German HQ units can activate three independent units, while Soviet HQs can only activate two independent units. A HQ unit has their command radius listed on their counter. The way I read the rules is that you do not count the hex the HQ is in when tracing command. There are a few optional rules, ie. using the rebuilding 20th Panzer division, or two other small German forces. 

 Within the last two years I have had to adjust my thinking about block wargames and a few other things. Once again, I have been shown the errors of my ways. Playing a wargame that you can 'win' only by the victory conditions is actually entertaining and still teaches you a good amount of history. Playing as the Germans, you will have to keep your wits about you, and accurately judge when to cut and run. Do you try to save those surrounded Panzers, or do you just make a defensive line farther back? The Konigsberg area in East Prussia is where many of the German Junker (noble) families come from or at least are close to. The German officers were probably trying to save every inch from the Russians. Playing that way as the German player will have you beaten in no time. Playing as the Russians, you play pretty much historically. You can not even worry about casualties, and just keep storming ahead trying to overwhelm your opponent. I would think a nice touch to the rules would be the following: If the Russian player does not gain X amount of victory hexes in X amount of turns, that player gets a knock on the door from the NKVD and it is a German victory, just to give the Russian player that much more incentive.

 This is a good medium sized game, and relatively easy to play,  about a much overlooked historical period. Anyone who wants to be in the German or Russian shoes in 1945 should give this a try. Equally, anyone who thought like I did about gaming lost causes should rethink this and other gaming possibilities.

Robert

The Anatomy of Glory

Napoleon and His Guard

by

Henry Lachouque and Anne S. K. Brown 

 To many eyes, this book might seem strange. The reason being is that the Battle of Waterloo is almost a footnote in it. As a matter of fact, it only takes up ten pages of the book's 570+. Many of us have heard over and over about the Imperial Guard's last battle and what happened (or didn't). We seem to forget that the Guard came from Napoleon's original consular Guard long before he crowned himself Emperor. So this book fills a large void in most peoples' shelves about the entire history of the Imperial Guard's existence. This book shows the history of the Imperial Guard from its inception, and continues through the different campaigns it fought in. From the heat of Spain to the snows of Russia, the Imperial Guard was the rock that most, if not all, of the rest of the Imperial Armies relied upon. 

 The book itself is filled with tons of black and white, and a few colored pictures to show the Imperial Guard and all of the Generals etc. that come up in its glorious history. It is also filled with anecdotes and quotes that you will find nowhere else. Napoleon speaking to a grenadier on guard duty before Austerlitz said "Those chaps across the way think they have nothing to do but gobble us up'" The grenadier replied "we'll serve 'em the meal the other way round". Battle stories like these are aplenty, but the book also shows what the Guard did in peace time. 

 The history of the Imperial Guard is really the history of the actual men of the Guard. One, Lieutenant Markiewicz  of the Polish Light-Horse lived in three centuries. Born in 1794, he fought in the Russian campaign, was decorated in 1813, and was still alive in 1902. Napoleon III based his tainted Imperial splendor on his famous uncle, and he based his Army on a new Imperial Guard that was only a shadow of the first one. These men ate and slept near Napoleon. The earned the title 'Grognard' (grumbler) from being outspoken in his presence. Many he knew by name and remembered where they had fought together. For more than a decade, the bearskin hats of the Imperial Guard struck fear in its enemies. Only two days before Waterloo, the Imperial Guard was used in its role as a finisher of battles by smashing through the Prussians at Ligny. This was unfortunately to be its last victory.

 This book was actually first published in 1961. Thank you Frontline-Books for bringing this classic back into print. It is a work that is monumental in scope. It is a must have for anyone interested in the Napoleonic era to have on their shelf.

Robert

Book: The Anatomy of Glory: Napoleon and His Guard

Authors: Henry Lachouque and Anne S. K. Brown

Publisher: Frontline-Books

Distributor: Casemate Publishers

Midway

by

Turning Point Simulations

 Midway was a battle that should not have been lost by the Japanese. They had an overwhelming amount of ships and planes. Unfortunately for them, they were also suffering from what has been called 'victory disease'. Admiral Yamamoto's plan was to crush the remnants of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and sink our carriers, which were untouched by Pearl Harbor. The Japanese had just suffered a black eye from the Doolittle Raid. In actuality, the raid did only pin pricks of physical damage. The damage to the Japanese ego was much greater. The Midway invasion was planned to force the U.S. Navy into a showdown to protect Midway island. In fact, it turned into a debacle for them because the Americans had broken their naval codes. So the U.S. Navy knew exactly what forces and roughly when they would be near Midway. Even then, if not for an errant search plane on the Japanese side, things could have turned out differently.

 So what do you actually get with this Turning Point Simulations  game? First, you actually get two games. One is the on the well known battle I have been droning on about. The other is about the planned, but aborted, Japanese invasion of Midway Island. The game comes with a twelve page rule book. There are rules for laying smoke, submarines, Japanese seaplane bases, and many others. This is not just a beer and pretzels game. The rules continue with ones about CAP (combat air patrol) AA fire, and it even has a rule about what 'wave' each carrier airplane unit is in. This would represent when each unit showed up, if it did at all, and attacked. 

Counters

  The map is hard bound. It has two separate sections. The first is a hex grid of the ocean around Midway Island. The second is a battle board used for surface actions when two task forces are occupying the same hex. There is also a stiff paper map on which to play out the invasion of Midway Island. The counters are large and easy to read. American carrier fighters and torpedo bombers only have a movement allowance of two hexes. Almost all of the Japanese carrier planes have a movement allowance of three hexes. This simulates the historically longer range of the Japanese planes. Just as in the carrier war, you have to find your enemy to strike them. For each enemy task force you roll a die to see if they have been spotted or not. A submarine or CV (carrier) in close proximity increases your chances of spotting. The battle board is used when you have a task force in the same hex as the enemy. After four of his fleet carriers went up in smoke, Yamamoto was desperately trying to engage the U.S. Naval forces in a surface action. The U.S. task forces have to stick and move like a boxer, and avoid any of the enemies Sumo charges. As the U.S., you are David fighting Goliath. The battle was decided historically in about five minutes' time. Anything could and did happen during this early part of the war. Some of the U.S. carriers were equipped with radar, but it was still in its infancy. 

U.S. Deployment sheet

Japanese Deployment sheet

 I an very impressed with this game. There is so much stashed away in here compared to others in the same price range. Most, if not all, of the routines of carrier air battles are here. The only two parts of the battle really missing are the sending out of search planes one at a time, and the weather in each hex, although the die rolls for spotting each turn do make up for the vagaries of these two points. This is my third Turning Point Simulations game, and to me it was the best so far of the three. I was not really a big fan of board games on carrier operations. Until this game, I felt that a computer rendition of carrier operations was the way to go. 

Midway Island invasion map

Robert

YAAH! Magazine Issue #9

With The Wargame: Donetsk The Battle For The Airport

by

Flying Pig Games

 Many different companies have issued their own wargaming magazine down through the years. Some, like 'The General' from Avalon Hill, were just extra scenarios and write ups about their own company games. Other wargaming magazines were about the hobby as a whole. Many of these magazines came with a game. I am not sure why, but a lot of the times it has seemed that gamers looked down upon magazine wargames. It has never made sense to me. A lot of the magazine wargames were designed by the same people who gave us boxed games. I went out of my way to buy a bunch of the magazine wargames I no longer had when I got back into board wargaming about fifteen years ago. One thing that the wargames from magazines had over boxed games is that it seemed like the publishers would go out of their safety zone with these games. Meaning that we would see a lot more battles, and especially obscure ones, than we could get from boxed wargames. This was more prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s than now. With the advent of Kickstarter and only publishing games that make the cut now, we have been seeing more obscure wars and battles in the boxed game selection. 

Map

  The magazine itself is eighty pages long, and it is in color. The pages do not feel like a normal magazine page. They feel more substantial, like a page from an oversized book. The first article is on Flying Pig Games newest game, 'Armageddon War'. One of the things about its rules is that there is no CRT. It comes with custom dice instead. The articles continue with 'Comancheria' from GMT Games, followed by 'Finnish Civil War' from Compass games. In total there are seven separate articles about different games from different publishers. Next up, we have add on scenarios for several different games. There are three scenarios for Flying Pig Games '65', and one for 'Night of Man'. The section ends with six scenarios for 'Command And Colors Ancients', and these are the battles of Arthur. Yes, that Arthur.

Back of counters

  The last part of the magazine is dedicated to this issue's game 'Donetsk'. It is about the different battles for the Donetsk airport. This would be between the Ukraine and separatist forces with the separatists having Russian help. The background history takes up five pages. The actual game rules are another ten pages. This is followed by more than a page of 'game notes'. The game comes with four different scenarios for you to play. The back page of the magazine is a full sized player aid card for the game. 

Front of counters

  The game comes with eighty-eight unit and action etc. counters. The counters are not like Flying Pig Games usual ones. These are thin even by magazine game standards. They are however, fully functional and easy to read and distinguish between. The map is 11x17, and has hexes (without full hex lines) that are marked from rows A to X. The map is well done and if not a work of art a lot better than some I have seen. Some of the counters are squad size (8-15 men) while heavy weapons and leaders represent three to five men. AFVs and trucks etc. are represented singly. The hexes have a scale of 150 meters per hex.
 

  The game's turns are broken into two phases. The first is the activation phase, and this includes:

 Remove all Smoke Markers
 Remove all Pin Markers
 Resolve pending Fire Support from the previous turn; Ukranian          player first and the results applied simultaneously.
 Plot and check current Fire Support; same as above
 Determine the Initiative Player for the Action Phase

 The Action Phase consists of:

 Initiative Player activates units
 Non-Initiative Player activates units
 Players continue alternating unit activations until no units on both      sides are left to activate. Players cannot pass to save activations,      they must activate at least one unit even if the unit performs no        actions.

 The fire support each side will have will be listed in each of the four scenarios. There are rules on 'wrecks' and also on the setup of heavy weapons. There are even some buildings that are multi-level and rules to deal with that. The game was designed to try and replicate modern warfare, so that it takes into account that today's killing distance is much greater than in earlier battles. A player's initiative is gradually eroded by unit loss. So going in guns blazing might win you one of the airport buildings, but then cripple you for the rest of the scenario. Victory conditions for most of the scenarios rest only on capture of some or all of a building's hexes. 

 

 In all, it is a pretty good little game. Those of us who are used to thinking in sweeping terms, and suffering a lot of casualties will have to readjust their thinking before starting this game. The game gives a good representation of today's massive firepower; in fact, even a small amount of casualties are often seen as excessive in the 21st century (as they should be).

 I was impressed by the articles and the fact that the additional scenarios didn't just belong to games made by Flying Pig Games. The game was one that has a somewhat limited replay value, but for someone who is interested in the conflict or has not played a game with new weaponry it is well worth the cost. The other issues have contained these games:

Beast At The Gates - U.S. Civil War
Lion Of Malaya  -  World War II
Steamroller - Tannenberg 1914

Robert