Napoleon Returns 1815

by

Worthington Publishing

 The Waterloo Campaign, Gettysburg, and the Bulge are the trifecta of wargaming. If we grognards only had games on these three campaigns/battles, we would have enough to fill our shelves and play for a very long time. Of the three campaigns, in my mind Waterloo is the one that is the most of a toss-up. There are so many 'what-ifs' to the campaign. Napoleon who always, up to then, was conscious of time ( Napoleon's quote "I may lose a battle but I will never lose a minute), was an incredibly large part of making war successfully. He seemed to completely forget it in the Waterloo Campaign. He and his army were definitely affected by the 'slows' during the campaign. You can ascribe this to ill health, or any number of other things. At Ligny, the French had a chance to crush Blucher. After Ligny, the next day the French Army sauntered after the Prussian Army instead of herding it like cattle. The rainstorm the night before Waterloo, and Grouchy not 'marching to the guns' are more examples of 'what-ifs'. Enough of the history. Let's see what Worthington Publishing has put in the box:

Mounted Map 

18 French, British, and Prussian Corps Cubes

25 Small Yellow Wooden Markers

1 Six-Sided Die

2 Full Color Player Aid Sheets

2 Full Color RuleBooks

68 Battle Cards

5 French Objective Cards

 The map is meant to look like an old parchment map. It succeeds at this very well. It is a mounted map, and looks and feels to be able to live through as many games as you want to play on it. Movement on it is from point-to-point. Infantry Corps normally move one point, and Cavalry normally move two. The Corps wooden cubes that I received were uniform in size, except for the French Cavalry block, which was slightly larger. Friendly gamers playing the game would have no problem with this. If you are playing with someone who uses this to deduce where that block is, get yourself another gaming partner. They would also mark their cards. The Player Aid sheets are of strong stock, and slightly laminated. One side shows the setup for the pieces on the map. The other side gives the Sequence of Play etc. The back of the Combat Cards show a weary dejected Napoleon who is obviously suffering from piles. The front of the cards show a small painting from the different parts of the campaign. The Rulebook is eight pages long. It is made of paper with a bit of lamination on it, like a well done magazine. It is in full color and has examples of play included. All in all, the components are first rate.  

  The game is based on each corps' Cohesion Points. These can be deducted for Combat Losses, Extra Movement by Infantry (Forced March), and Retreat. So Cohesion in this game represents morale, combat losses, and fatigue of each of the Corps. Combat in the game is totally reliant on the Combat Cards. Each corps is worth 'X' amount of combat cards. Here is what it says in the Rulebook about Army Commanders and Corps:

"Below the army commander is a list of the corps in the

army. Each corps is listed by the corps name and its

leader name. Shown for each corps is the number of

combat cards that corps adds to combat if present, which

may be reduced based on its current cohesion point

number. Each corps has a tactical rating that determines

its ability to reinforce combat at an adjacent location and

its ability to counterattack during combat if no army

commander is present and if its Tactical Rating is used."

"Each corps has a set amount of cohesion points showing

how many cohesion reductions that corps can take in

movement, combat, and retreat before it is eliminated

from game play. Track cohesion by placing one of the

yellow cubes at the highest cohesion level for that corps

to begin the game. When a corps takes cohesion point

reductions, move the yellow cube the appropriate

number of spaces down the corps cohesion point track.

If a corps reaches cohesion point below 1, it is eliminated

and remove the corps unit from the game board. Shown

at the approximate halfway point on the cohesion track

for each corps is a mark that shows when the corps

reaches this level, any combat that it participates in, will

draw that reduced number of combat cards."

 Is the game a detailed simulation of Napoleonic warfare? Of course not. It is a game, very delightful and easy to play, but hard to master game. Does it give the player tons of choices on an operational level? You bet. You can play a few full games of it on gaming night. The components are simple, yet well done. The game mechanics can be described the same way. Thank you, Worthington Publishing for allowing me to review this game. My normal hex and counter obsession would have never let me really look at the game. 

Robert

Worthington Publishing:

Worthington (worthingtonpublishing.com)

Napoleon Returns 1815:

Napoleon Returns 1815 — Worthington (worthingtonpublishing.com)

NWS Wargaming Store

A Wargamer's Best Friend

 Naval Warfare Simulations is rightly known for its excellent line up of computer naval warfare sims. Among them:

Steam and Iron: The Great War at Sea

Steam and Iron: The Russo-Japanese War

Rule The Waves

Rule The Waves II

Warship Combat Navies at War

 What a lot of people do not know is that they also publish their own board wargames and miniature rules on:

www.navalwarfare.net

 It is my assumption that consumers do not realize that they run a wargaming store, and it is one of the best on the internet. Their prices are great, especially for slightly older games (although they are also good for new releases). They do not sell used board wargames, like some sites, but they sell minty fresh new in the shrink wrap games that a lot of people are paying way too much for on the 'used' market. 

 Their customer service is second to none. I have read almost no accounts of there being a problem buying from them. The two I believe I did read were taken care of right away, and actually had to do with the game's publisher, and not NWS. I have been dealing with them for years, and actually did some reviews of their computer naval wargames (I will post links below). On their contact page they have links for email, FB, and their help desk. 

 So, before you click buy on any used wargame make sure you check out the prices, and service, on NWS Wargaming Store. They have around 1500 items in their store now. They also cater to the miniature wargamer. 

Robert

NWS Wargaming Store:

NWS Wargaming Store

Naval Warfare Simulations:

SHOP | NWS Wargaming Store

Rule The Waves review:

Rule The Waves by Naval Wafare Simulations Review - A Wargamers Needful Things

Steam & Iron The Russo-Japanese War review:

Steam And Iron the Russo-Japanese War - A Wargamers Needful Things

 Aden

by

Tiny Battle Publishing

  Tiny Battle Publishing promotes itself as 'Tiny Package, Big Fun'. We are privileged to see some truth in advertising. I have reviewed several of their games, and that is exactly what you get. These are not simple beer & pretzel games either. They are well thought out and a joy for both the advanced wargamer or a newer one. This is the blurb from Tiny Battle about the game:

"The civil war in Yemen has been going on since 2015; fought between the government, a rebellious faction, and their respective allies. Each group claims to be the legitimate government of Yemen. The fighting uses everything from World War 2 leftovers to modern ballistic missiles, with Saudi Arabian troops and US drone strikes helping the government and Iranian arms aiding the rebels.

Aden is a 2-player (but very solitaire friendly) hypothetical campaign for control of this southern Yemen port city, a combined company- and platoon-level game where each battle takes place over the course of one or more days. Difficult terrain splits the east and west of the city, combatants often retreat to avoid taking losses before surging back, and making the most of your scattered leadership is the key to resupplying your people and sustaining an offensive. Units activate with a unique dice system, and combat is centered on an add-or-subtract dice method reminiscent of Greg's Armageddon War. 

The game remembers that Aden is a functioning city, with key points that will be strategic objectives in scenarios or have special combat effects. Destroy an enemy in sight of the international hotel where the media are staying? Extra victory points. Enemy is holed up near a major mosque? You cannot call artillery on them."

 This is what comes in the small package:

An 11 x 17 inch map of the city.

Seventy LARGE 1 inch counters for the government, rebels, allies and status markers, 

A 32-page rulebook with a six scenario campaign for control of the city, each player playing both sides to see who does it best.

 When Tiny Battle says large, they mean it. This game will become a hit at the grognard's retirement home for sure. The counters are naturally easy to read, even without my glasses. The map is colorful, but not garish. It also has equally large hexes on it. Terrain and line of sight is simple to see and work out. The rulebook is thirty pages long. It is mostly in black and white, with some color pictures of units and examples of play added. The Turn Sequence is:

1. Recovery Roll

2. Activate Units

3. Firing

4. Movement

5. Gone to Ground

 I really like the 'Gone to Ground' rule. it is very helpful for the weaker units. Here is what the rulebook has to say about it:

"A unit that has 'Gone to Ground' is basically hiding. It loses this status if attacked in Close Combat or if it does anything on its activation other than stay put. It cannot Opportunity Fire, but it also cannot be seen or attacked by enemy Units (including Artillery). This is a way for an outgunned force to avoid getting shot at but still control a hex. You have got to go in and dig them out the hard way. Going to ground is useful for the player who is on the defensive, or a player on the offense who is trying to retain control of an Objective hex that they have taken from the enemy." 

 The designer, Greg Porter, also designed 'Armageddon War: Platoon Level Combat in the End War. So you know that this game has a heavyweight pedigree. Armageddon War was also reviewed by me and I will put a link to the review below. 

 Aden as a game is small, but that does not mean it is simple. The Rulebook comes with six scenarios, but you can make your own easily enough. Command and control is a big part of the game. An Activation of up to four Units is possible if you have a Command Unit in the four. So, each side typically makes the enemy's Command Units high profile targets. 

 This is a game where you have some Units that are using high grade military vehicles, but not by highly trained army Units. The Rulebook states that the Saudi forces lost more Abrams than the entire amount lost by the USA in both Iraq Wars. Aden is a good small unit size game, with also a small game footprint. Setting up and putting away the game takes no time at all. The scenarios are easily played through. There is no need to have the map set up and taking up space somewhere. Thank you Tiny Battle Publishing for allowing me to review this little gem. 

Robert

Tiny Battle Publishing:

Tiny Battle Publishing

Aden:

Aden | Tiny Battle Publishing

Flying Pigs Games 'Armageddon War' Review:

Armageddon War by Flying Pig Games - A Wargamers Needful Things

 Korsun Pocket 2

by

Pacific Rim Publishing

  This is the Designer Notes for Korsun Pocket 2 that is on pre-order from Pacific Rim Publishing. The original Korsun Pocket is considered a milestone in wargaming history, and is worth hen's teeth now. Thank you Jack Radey, and Pacific Rim Publishing for allowing me to post this.

"Designer’s Notes 

Korsun Pocket, Little Stalingrad on the Dnepr, was my first effort as a game designer.  I fell in love with Jim Dunnigan’s and Joe Balkoski’s “Wacht am Rhein” back in the latter part of the 1970s.  Immediately, I was thinking, “Gosh, that would be interesting on the other end of the war…”  As I ruminated on the thing, the Korsun Shevchenkovsky Operation came to mind.  I began to dig into it, and found it was just about the right size battle, and a very interesting situation.  Whereas the Battle of the Bulge was pretty much a straight penetration and exploitation, Korsun Shevchenkovsky was an encirclement.  Both sides would be attacking and defending.  Great.

So I began digging, and found immediately that it is easier to research a game where at least one side wrote up their reports in English.  But I taught myself some German, learned the Cyrillic alphabet and began to learn a little Russian.  And I was aided by David Serber, who went to the archives in Washington and returned with a lot of German microfilmed records, and Leslie D’Angelo, who translated a chunk of Grylev’s “Dnepr, Karpaty, Krym” from Russian for me.  Colonel John Sloan provided me Rotmistrov’s account of the battle, I translated part of Degrelle’s disgusting little book “Le Front D’Est” from French, and found the marvelous map collection at UC Berkeley.  The game was proclaimed a masterpiece of research, and its researcher and designer a master of all things Great Patriotic Warish.   Well…

Marx once described a fellow philosopher as “standing out like a high peak, due to the flatness of the surrounding terrain.”  Wargame companies who were intent on staying in business did not devote a year to research for a game, no matter how big.  The reputation I got has carried me far, but looking back, I do blush from time to time.  But the world has changed… The Soviets, who documented EVERYthing, and valued their WWII experience as their national treasure, from which they drew their military doctrine, kept their data very close, and even Soviet historians had difficulty accessing it.  So there were a lot of aspects of the battle that remained blurs to me.  I had the basis for some guesswork, but some of it was based on SPI’s writings, and much of that was either grossly in error or was misunderstood by me.

But since those days, first perestroika and glasnost caused the archives to open for a while, before the sad passing of the USSR set in motion events that led to their reclosing.  But the archives are all on war-time acid-based paper, and someone in the Russian staff realized that in twenty years or so they would be sitting on the world’s largest pile of dust.  So they have begun scanning it and dumping it onto the internet… by the trainload.  So when I asked my friend Charles Sharp to look into my guess that 4th Guards Army had attacked for three days and gotten nowhere at the beginning of the offensive, within 24 hours I had a rough summary of the Combat Journal of this army for the relevant days in my inbox, recounting precisely where the problems had been.  Color me gob smacked.  And then Helion Press brought out “Stalin’s Favorites – 2nd Guards Tank Army” (they were 2nd Tank Army at Korsun before they became a Guards army), with more detail on the strengths, losses, and activities of this army than I could have hoped to see in my wildest dreams.  I have not completely re-researched the battle, this would require either exploiting the friendship I have with people who could do the massive amounts of translation that it would require, but I have gained a much more detailed understanding of the events of January and February, 1944.  Consequently while you will recognize the basics of the game, there have been some changes, both based on better knowledge of the battle, and on some small knowledge of game design I have gained.

What’s the same?  The basic Dunnigan/Balkoski combat and movement systems.  My changes in the approach to Zones of Control, visibility, weather, etc.  The broad outlines of the battle.  The scenario structure.  Much as one longs for a scenario for just the pocket, the notion of using all four maps just to play a small scenario seems silly.  The map is pretty much the same, with a few additions.  The rules about tanks are the same, but require some explanation.  Why does a battalion of Panthers, say, with a tank strength of 4, break up into companies but still each has the same tank strength of 4?  Shouldn’t it be less per company? After all, it’s less tanks…  My thoughts, strongly supported by some friends who served in the armed forces, are that the difference between NO tanks, and a FEW tanks, is infinitely larger than difference between a FEW tanks and A BUNCH MORE tanks.  The actual tank strength numbers, unlike the attack and defense strengths, are based on the effectiveness of the tanks weapons and armor.  A tank with a bigger gun and heavier armor is inherently scarier and more destructive than more numerous tanks which have great difficulty damaging it.  Tank size figures in to this too.

What’s different?  Well, when I designed Korsun Pocket originally, I thought, “Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics.”  And an encirclement battle was going to require a more detailed treatment of logistics issues.  So I did some research and constructed a whole elaborate system for keeping track of supplies, and artillery ammunition (which makes up the bulk of supply tonnage).  As game systems go, it worked, and pretty much produced the results I was seeking, namely that both sides were plagued by supply problems throughout the battle, as well as the supply challenge that a large encircled force produces.  But looking back I fear that the operative words were “worked” and “plagued.”  After the game came out, I figured out a truth of design.  Time is the enemy of wargame design.  Time is a constant, you only have so much of it to spend gaming, so much time you can get a team together, so much time that table will be useable.  If there are a LOT of playing pieces in the game, it will take a lot of time to move them.  A game with only a few pieces in play can have complex detailed rules.  A game with a lot of pieces in it is already pushing the time envelope.  Adding more work for the players… something will have to give.

So I set out to create a new and cleaner supply system.  But being me, I dug into the research and found four credible sources who gave daily tonnage requirements for a full strength infantry or rifle division in combat.  And got numbers that said 300+, 200, 100, and 20 tons a day, respectively.  The 100-200 range seemed the most common number.  True, none of these units was anywhere near full TO&E, but the fact is a badly worn infantry division will retain most of its artillery, even as its line infantry is worn to a nub.  And artillery ammunition accounts for over 80% of the supply tonnage required.  Worse, the 20 tons per day, derived from the deliveries by air to the pocket, are very well documented.  I was pulling my beard out trying to come up with a compromise, so that a supply point would actually mean something in tonnage terms.  And then…

I stepped back, squinted so I could not make out the details, only the broad outline of the problem.  And it came to me.  Doh.  The bottom line truth is that while both sides experienced all kinds of problems getting supplies from railhead to fighting units, they succeeded in doing so sufficiently well to fight the battle.  Only the pocket forces faced destruction when their supplies were cut off, first by land and finally by air.  No complex systems, book keeping, supply points, or other fancy footwork required. 

Similarly the air rules took a haircut.  Bottom line, again, fighters were unable to prevent enemy air from having an effect on the battle, so why include them?

One other change evident is the counter mix.  KP 1 had some holes that I filled with fudge.  Some of the fudge has since failed to live up to the tasting.  So: no more Ferdinands (it turns out the Soviets used the term “Ferdinand” to describe any assault gun), JS-2s, or T-34-85s.  There weren’t any in the battle, they came out of my ignorance.  No more killer cavalry units, they have been tamed a bit.  No more tanks organic to panzer grenadier battalions, nor are the tanks that were part of 5th Mechanized Corps mushed into the motorized rifle battalions.  This is a far better OB for both sides, I believe I have it all. 

There is a matter that the players will have to ponder.  In the order of appearance, there are a number of situations where units are required to exit the map, some of whom return, some do not.  These units were usually withdrawn due to requirements for them somewhere outside of the scope of the game.  Since players have no control of these events, this seems more than reasonable.  The oddest may be the peregrinations of most of 5th Mech Corps, who immediately after the drive to Zvenigorodka, are forced to withdraw to the west, to reinforce a portion of the off-map front threatened by a German counterattack.  After a difficult march, they were turned around and marched back onto the map area in the game, as by this time the Germans had ended their attacks and were shifting their panzers east, towards the Korsun Shevchenkovsky area.

But another matter entirely were the various inter-formation transfers that are called for in the order of appearance.  While the Germans, sorely lacking in reserves, were known to pull a couple battalions from one division, attach an artillery battalion and maybe a company of antitank and another of engineers to a neighboring division in need of beefing up, the Soviets did a lot less of this.  The exception would be their tank brigades, which would sometimes be detached from their parent tank corps and attached temporarily to another corps, or to a rifle corps or army when there was not an immediate need for a tank concentration.  Then there is also the question of major reorganizations that happened historically.  Towards the latter part of the battle, 27th Army of 1st Ukrainian Front was transferred to 2nd Ukrainian Front, in order to put the forces around the pocket under a single headquarters.

All of these decisions were historically made within the scope of the player’s discretion and in response to the developments in the battle.  If the Soviets never formed pocket, would the inter-front transfer of 27th Army have happened?  Would corps have transferred between armies had things gone differently?  With this in mind, the players may choose to ignore all the transfers between on-map formations, or leave them up to the decision of the players – you could transfer 27th Army to 2nd Ukrainian Front, but you may decide not to.  However, all withdrawals from the map are still mandatory."

Pacific Rim Publishing:

Pacific Rim Publishing (justplain.com)

Korsun Pocket 2:

Korsun Pocket 2 | Pacific Rim Publishing (justplain.com)