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Holdfast: Pacific from Worthington Publishing is their take on whole Pacific Theatre of Operations during World War II. It is a strat...

Holdfast: Pacific Holdfast: Pacific

For your Wargamer, Toy soldier collector, MiniFig collector, military history nut. Reviews, interviews, Model Making, AARs and books!


Holdfast: Pacific from Worthington Publishing is their take on whole Pacific Theatre of Operations during World War II. It is a strategic block wargame and follows most of the previously tried and trusted mechanisms from the previous Holdfast line. I am disposed to like this game very much as it is set in the Theatre which interests me the most. 


All of the components are good. You get a full size mounted map board, lots of wooden blocks (many more than in the Atlantic game) in two colours, 6 nice chunky dice, a rulebook that consists of just 7 pages of rules and a chart of appearance for each player. I would have liked to have had a player aid with the Sequence of Play included or even printed onto the map-board itself. The graphic design on the board follows a simple and clean aesthetic and this simplicity flows into the rules as well. 

Simple and well-presented rules
In just 7 pages the totality of Holdfast system and the subtle variances each title has, is presented. There were a few edge cases which we couldn’t find in the rules but they were so ‘edge’ that I can’t remember them now. An application of common sense was sufficient to overcome my tendency to rules-lawyer.

The rule changes are what makes this Holdfast game different from Holdfast Atlantic (the only other Holdfast title I have played) and as a self-professed PTO aficionado, these game specific rules were really interesting: for example, in this game, submarines cannot be targeted. In my mind, this simple change models the relative effectiveness of submarines in the PTO compared to the infamous exploits of the U-Boat wolf-packs in the Atlantic.


Set up for the first turn
I also like the combat determination rule in this game. Prior to any combat taking place, players have to choose and simultaneously reveal whether they want air combat or surface combat first, in a contested sea zone. If the players desired combat differs each player rolls a dice, with modifiers, to determine whose goes first. In my mind, this is modelling the airborne radar and relatively poor fuel endurance (considering the size of the Pacific Ocean) of combat aircraft.  I may be stretching things here but in my mind it makes sense. 

Once combat starts in a sea zone be prepared to chuck a lot of dice. If you are familiar with most block wargames then you’ll know what I’m talking about. Individual battles often felt ‘swingy’ and sometimes after going in feeling like victory was certain, two battle rounds later you’re having to retreat, with the opponents forces largely unscathed. I don’t know how or why that happens, indeed my rational brain is telling me it didn’t happen; after all, it’s just probability. A few rounds of ‘bad’ dice can quickly curtail your plans. This swing does even out over the course of the game where you’ll have rolled the proverbial ‘buckets ‘o dice’.

Halfway through turn 5
Unusually for many combat games both the high and low dice results score. Results of 1, 5 and 6 are all good if you’ve rolled them. Normal hits that rotate a block down one strength point are 5 and 6. You disable an enemy unit on a roll of 1, forcing that unit to retreat to a friendly port at the end of a combat round. Because combat is simultaneous even ‘after’ being disabled that unit will still fire back, they just won't be firing in the next round. 

Another simple tweak to the Holdfast System in this game is asymmetric Repair Points. The Americans start slowly but receive extra RP each turn with which they can repair and replace damaged and lost units. In contrast, the Japanese player is limited to just 7 RP for the whole game. Their American player’s Order of Appearance also ramps up massively whereas the Japanese player dwindles into oblivion. As the Japanese, once a unit has been destroyed or damaged, it stays that way. 

American units sample (note the British carrier)

Japanese units sample

One thing that still baffles me about this theatre is that going into the war many senior Japanese military men believed they had no chance against the might of America. In the film Tora Tora Tora, Yamamoto delivers a famous and surely apocryphal quote:
 “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve”.
Any PTO game has a challenge to model the asymmetry between the powers and keep the game fun and challenging for both players. The asymmetry here is well modelled but in all but one of my games, the American player romped to victory. In other words, the balance is not quite right. Against two evenly matched players, the game favours the American player. However, if you like a challenge and are facing a relative Padawan in the war-gaming world, take the Japanese forces and try to eke out a victory.

 

American Order of Appearance and RP production
 
This game is a great opportunity fully explore a simple game system and be competitive without holding anything back against a newcomer, as long as they're the Americans. 

There are some optional rules which introduce Task Forces for Japanese player and Air raids on ports for both players. These rules I consider essential if the Japanese player is to be in with any chance of winning. The Task Force counters obfuscate your forces disposition and can even act as a dummy block. For me, these simple rules model the vastness of the Pacific and the relative difficulty of stumbling across your enemy (despite that happening on many occasions in real life).

 

Box Rear
I can’t separate Holdfast: Atlantic and Holdfast: Pacific in terms of my game-play enjoyment. They’re both good introductory wargames, although I think this a very small step in complexity up from Atlantic. I would choose this one over its Atlantic brother purely on theme alone.

"Pawn Takes Castle" - Tom Freeman


I can’t finish this review without talking about the box art. Pawn Takes Castle by Tom Freeman captures a brace of Dauntless SBD Bombers ripping into Akagi at the Battle of Midway. This piece dramatises the conceptual military shift, away from big battleships as the key weapon in maritime power and places it onto the tiny yet powerful aircraft.

This game is available from your Friendly Local Gaming Store, Holdfast Pacific has an RRP of $70 or £69.95 which feels a bit much considering the simplicity of the game but when you consider the amount of wood in the box that price is well justified.

Flying Circus Deluxe Bombers & Campaigns by Decision Games   Jadgeschwader I (JG I) of the Imperial Germa...

Flying Circus Deluxe Bombers & Campaigns by Decision Games Flying Circus Deluxe Bombers & Campaigns by Decision Games

For your Wargamer, Toy soldier collector, MiniFig collector, military history nut. Reviews, interviews, Model Making, AARs and books!



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 Jadgeschwader I (JG I) of the Imperial German World war I Luftstreitkrafte was nicknamed the 'Flying Circus', either because of its brightly painted planes, or due to the fact that it moved about the front in trains and was equipped with tents. Which of these is correct is lost to time. JG I was commanded for a while by Manfred von Richtofen, so the alternative name was 'Richtofen's Circus'. Unlike children, the Allied airmen were not happy when this circus came to town.




 Flying Circus Deluxe is the elder brother of Dan Verssen's game 'Down In Flames'. From what I have read there is very little difference in the original version of both games. Flying Circus Deluxe is actually the game 'Flying Circus', and the add on 'Bombers and Campaigns' all in one package.




 2017 has been a big wargaming year for me. It has also seen some experimenting on my part with game types I have never played. I just did a review of my first block game, and now this game is my first card game. I had thought that 'real' wargames had to contain maps, hexes, and cardboard counters. I could not have been more wrong.




 Flying Circus deluxe is listed by Decision Games as a 'fun and quick' game. This is proof positive that there is truth in advertising. This deluxe game gives the gamer the chance to play the basic or advanced games. The basic game is where the 'fun and quick' really shines. The 'Bombers and Campaigns' and some advanced rules put some meat on the bones of the basic game. It is still fun and fast. It just adds altitude and, naturally, bombers to flesh out the game. 





 The game's premise is very succinct; instead of follow the leader, it is shoot down the enemy leader. The game does not come with a play mat, but none is needed. 

 The game comes with the following:

110 Deluxe deck Cards (Bombers, Fighters, and Action cards)
Deluxe Game Rule Book
Six Full sized Campaign cards
Two Pilot Logs(you will need to make copies)
Thirty-Six Pilot and Altitude Cards
One Full Sized Die, and Six Small Die



 It also comes with a fourteen page booklet called 'The Great War & The Origins Of Aerial Warfare'. This is an excellent primer on the airwar of World War I. It also includes some plane pictures along with stats and a short history. The most recognized Allied and German Aces are also here with a picture and a short biography.




 The plane cards are stunning, and show pictures of the planes from above. They are easy to read, and the numbers that are needed for the game are plain to see.  These include performance, horsepower, and bursts. The pilot and altitude cards are much smaller, but still clear to the eye. These cards remind me of the small cards of sports figures that long ago came in cigarette packs. 




 Game play is as follows:

 Setup: You pick a year and points for each side in the basic game. Both sides secretly choose a leader, and the remaining points are used to pick one or two wingmen. Both your leader and the wingmen must be the same type of plane.

 The campaigns are:

The Battle of Messines
Passchendaele
The Battle of Cambrai
Operation Michael
The Second battle of The Marne
Meuse-Argonne Offensive

 The campaigns all take place in 1917 or 1918. The campaigns list the aircraft you can use, and also have other options for aces etc. 

 



 BoardGameGeek has a ton of resources for the game. They include a downloadable players aid card, and someone has done some rules so the game can be played solitaire.


  



 This is just a quick example of play using two 1918 fighters, Fokker DVII and Sopwith Dolphins. I used a die roll to see who went first. The English side won. The Sopwith Dolphin wingman is attacking the Fokker DVII leader. He uses an 'in my sights' card. The Fokker leader plays 'barrel roll' to negate the Sopwith's 'in my sights' card. The Sopwith next plays an 'out of the sun' attack card. The Fokker leader does not have any cards to use against the Sopwith's 'out of the sun' card. So the Sopwith gets a hit on the Fokker leader for two points. The Fokker leader's card is flipped to its damaged side, and one of the small die is used to show it has two damage points.
 



  The game is quick and easy to play. The only complaints I saw about the game were from its original version without the 'Bombers and Campaigns' add on. This deluxe version added in altitude and some other game mechanics that really makes the game better. For someone looking for a World War I aerial game that doesn't want to look at charts and tables for an hour, this game is perfect.The rules could have been a little more clear on some points. I used the items on BGG and some videos to fill in the blank spots in my mind. Once I understood the rules (which could have been me-remember, this is my first card game), I was able to play and enjoy the game fully.

Robert


Phoenix A Complete History of the Luftwaffe 1918-1945 volume I  by Richard Meredith  This book is encyclopedic i...

Phoenix A Complete History of the Luftwaffe 1918-1945 volume I by Richard Meredith Phoenix A Complete History of the Luftwaffe 1918-1945 volume I by Richard Meredith

For your Wargamer, Toy soldier collector, MiniFig collector, military history nut. Reviews, interviews, Model Making, AARs and books!



 by







 This book is encyclopedic in scope. It is based upon forty years of work and research by the author. In Volume I of this series, the author shows us German military aviation along with a good bit of civilian. The treaty of Versailles forbid Germany from having any military planes whatsoever. I will quote from the book:

 "No air arm of any kind was permitted (article 198) and all stocks of air material not already handed over to the allied authorities were to be destroyed (article 201). Even civilian was to be restricted "During the six months following the date on which the present treaty comes into force, the manufacture and importation of aircraft, parts of aircraft, engines for aircraft  and parts of engines for aircraft shall be forbidden in all German territory (article 201)".

 The book shows that in practice, due to the tumultuous state of Germany at the time, that many airplanes and parts escaped the Allies. These wound up in private hands, or the Freikorps (small private right wing and nationalist armies engendered to fight Communism, and try to take back some of Germany's eastern border). 

 Volume I is split into two sections:

The Years of Secrecy 1918-32
The Rise of Hitler 1933-35

Each of these are divided into:

Strategy and Command
Ministerial Activity
Technical Developments and Production
Infrastructure and Training
Operational Activity

 The book comes with fifty-six full pages of black and white photographs.

 The Author goes into the Treaty of Rapallo. This treaty on the outside was to normalize relations between the German Weimar Republic and the Soviet Union. Secret clauses of the treaty stated that Germany could use bases in the Soviet Union to develop military aviation, among others, in secret and away from the prying eyes of the western powers. 

 The book also shows how from day one Hitler wanted to not only rebuild German military aviation, but also wanted the Luftwaffe as strong as it could be. This was to deter the western powers from interfering with Germany due to the treaty of Versailles clauses.

 The author puts in many tidbits of history to flesh out the story. One example is Erhard Milch, later a Field Marshal, in charge of production for the Luftwaffe. To get around the fact that his father was Jewish, Milch had a signed paper from his mother stating that he was actually the product of an incestuous relationship with her brother! Many such historical pieces are seen in the book.

 This is only Volume I of three and I eagerly look forward to reading the others in the series. I can easily recommend this book to anyone interested in the early and pre-history of the Luftwaffe.

Robert

Publisher: Helion&Company
Distributor: Casemate Publishers

Over the past few years I've traveled the WW2 landscape with the Order of Battle series from  The Artistocrats,  and seen some exotic lo...

Order of Battle: Panzerkrieg Order of Battle: Panzerkrieg

For your Wargamer, Toy soldier collector, MiniFig collector, military history nut. Reviews, interviews, Model Making, AARs and books!

Over the past few years I've traveled the WW2 landscape with the Order of Battle series from The Artistocrats, and seen some exotic locales. The series, which started in the Pacific, eventually visited such rarely gamed battlefields as Burma, China, and a hypothetical expanded Battle of the Atlantic. However, the biggest, most popular battlefields cannot be ignored forever. The series from kicked off a multi-part German grand campaign with the Blitzkrieg pack a few releases back, which featured the early war conflicts in Europe and ended at the gates of Moscow. Now with the latest DLC, Panzerkrieg, we rejoin the Germans as the bitter winter of '41 sets in.


Although one might expect to play Blitzkrieg before Panzerkrieg, it isn't required. You can customize your starting force to a certain extent, or take the default army. I went with the latter option, and quickly realized it might be best to come into Panzerkrieg with a top notch army formed during a successful play through of the Blitzkrieg campaign. Which is to say that Panzerkrieg is probably among the most difficult campaigns available for Order of Battle, at least for me. I haven't played all of them, but I have finished several and rarely had much difficulty on the default settings. The challenge of the game usually came more from trying to complete all of the bonus objectives rather than winning the scenario, which was a given.

Your forces in Panzerkrieg, much like their real-world counterparts, are up against the ropes as soon as things kick off. The first few missions have you fending off Soviet offensives from multiple directions while also attempting to achieve various objectives, usually trying to save isolated German forces. Attrition will become a key concern in your campaign, just as in the real battles. While your troops are deadly, they can only fight so many battles before needing repair, but the Soviets have a seemingly endless supply of fresh units to throw at your lines. You will also have to deal with their far more effective T-34 and KV-1 tank units. I found that as the campaign wore on I simply did not have enough resource points to keep all of my units topped off and fully upgraded, as I would expect based on past campaigns for Order of Battle. About half-way through the campaign I realized my forces were just too worn out to continue, there was no way I could win the scenario I was up against.


Surprisingly, I found this to be quite refreshing. I had always considered this series to be just a little too easy on the default setting, and it fell into that trap of similar games where things snowball and tend to get easier the better you perform. I know there are several higher difficulty settings, but I personally prefer to play most games at the default setting to get the experience that the developers intended for the average player.

I had to stop and ask myself what went wrong here. Why did I lose the campaign when I have played this game quite a bit and felt very confident going through each mission? (At first). I thought back on my play and realized that I had been sending my troops out to fight battles that were unnecessary. Instead of simply accomplishing the objectives set out for each scenario, I had rather impetuously sent units out looking for fights when they should have stayed put at their post. Many of the early scenarios include numerous Soviet units that are beyond your area of operations, and don't need to be engaged. Seeking to rack up kills, and not considering the long war ahead, I had sent full strength units off to find trouble by attacking these enemy forces. Sure, I crushed them, but then I needed to spend resources repairing those units, resources that should have been saved for other units fighting to win the scenario. I also raced to complete my objectives as fast as possible, to my own detriment. Given 30 turns to complete a scenario, I had put the pedal to the metal and tried to finish it off in 20. This usually led to far higher casualties from units getting overextended or ambushed.


This is a campaign that needs to be approached with a bit more forethought than most. You need to accomplish your objectives in the present scenario, but also be looking to build up your forces, or at least maintain them, rather than grind them down in reckless battles. My defeat actually made me want to go back and purchase the Blitzkrieg DLC so that I could control my core units from the very beginning of the war and have a greater familiarity with them heading into the harsher (for the Germans) years of the conflict. Carrying a single force through what will eventually be three linked campaigns, expanding and upgrading it with better units and leaders, should be quite the experience. I can only imagine how much more difficult the scenarios could potentially be towards the end of the war.


I haven't gone into the details of exactly how the game works in this review, since I've covered that ground in previous reviews and not much has changed here on a fundamental level. All the units you would expect to see on the Eastern Front are present, from Russian conscripts to Panzer III's and Flak 88's. You'll need a balanced force to deal with all of the threats you will face on the ground as well as in the air. Losing control of the skies can make your day that much harder. In my failed campaign I simply could not afford to keep more than a couple of fighter units in the air, and the Soviet bombers took full advantage of it.

Although Panzerkrieg covers more familiar ground than most of its fellow Order of Battle campaigns, it offers up a fresh challenge to even veteran players. Of course, many players may have been looking forward to fighting through some of the most iconic battles of the war, like Sevastopol, Kharkov, and Stalingrad within the Order of Battle system. The series continues to deliver one of the best, most polished versions of the tried and true Panzer General flavor of wargaming to date. I recommend this campaign DLC for anyone who enjoys the game, just be prepared for some stiff resistance from the Soviets!


Available directly from Matrix/Slitherine through this link or on Steam.


 - Joe Beard









TO THE LAST MAN From the modern world of Urban Operations, the most recent simulation from Nuts Publishing , we 're moving back ...

TO THE LAST MAN TO THE LAST MAN

For your Wargamer, Toy soldier collector, MiniFig collector, military history nut. Reviews, interviews, Model Making, AARs and books!

TO THE LAST MAN


From the modern world of Urban Operations, the most recent simulation from Nuts Publishing, we 're moving back to one of their earlier products, To The Last Man.    Unlike their recent game of tactical warfare with its significant innovations and a fair degree of complexity, To The Last Man features WWI on the Western Front and paints its canvas at the strategic level with simple broad brush rules.

The box art which is continued on the rule and scenario booklets is stylised in an appropriate poster artwork for the historical period without being hugely eye-catching.  But I have to say that for me the immediate impression of the map was one of drabness.  
I liked the area movement style, but the effect made me think that the mud of Flander's fields had been too liberally applied to the map's palate of colours.  The outlines of each area are easier to see here in my photograph than when viewing them on the gaming table.  Fortunately there is only a small amount of essential information printed on it, as I found what there is even harder to discern.  Added to that, the Army counters [the triangular shapes] are equally dark and too close in colour for comfort.

By contrast the tracks that border the edges are very serviceable and clear, though maintaining the overall dour effect.  However, just as I have found strange some gamers' criticism of maps that I have thought excellent, I know that others have praised this one.  The physical element I've most enjoyed has been the hidden Army displays, though once again the colours are very severe
The camera shot of the counters above doesn't do justice to the quality of their visual features.  Whereas these taken while still in their sheets are much more accurate.

Note how the counters have no numbers on, as each represents a single unit point.  The bottom rows of units are all infantry while the top rows hold assets such as the ones in the picture: cavalry, artillery and siege guns.  Later in the war, a very, very limited number of tank and aircraft assets start to trickle in, while some German infantry can be converted to strosstruppen. 

However, I challenge anyone to not find the cards some of the finest pictorially - in full colour, every card [54 in all] has a unique illustration.
Just a few of the quality cards
Glorious and visually individual though these cards are, do not expect a wide range of effects from them nor the historical insight that we tend to expect from the Events playable in most, if not all, CDG games.  The reason being that these cards are all generic in effect.  Many are either Offensive cards allowing you to move and attack with all units or Limited Offensive cards allowing you to move with all units but initiate only a single attack.  In fact, except for a few individual card plays, there are only two choices of Action on your turn: play one of these two types of Offensive card or Pass.

This simplicity is a keynote of the game.  Movement is almost exclusively a single area, except for cavalry that can move two areas.  Both sides have a minimal rail movement capacity - it's worth mentioning that there are no rail lines, as at the scale represented all areas are considered rail capable - which allows three areas to be traversed.  In addition, only the Entente player can move a couple of units any distance from one friendly Supply source to another.  In itself this doesn't sound much, but bear in mind that potentially this can happen every time you play an Offensive/Limited Offensive card in a turn and that the "unit" could be an Army containing up to six individual pieces!  Suddenly that opens up some interesting prospects both for attack and defense.
Combat too is a very easy process - mainly a question of rolling one die per individual unit.  As the rules themselves proclaim, it's the BOD [buckets of dice] method and they do offer an optional rule for a method to average out results in case you're the type that can't cope with rare swings of luck!  But as most units only score a hit on a 1 roll on a D6, many results are misses.

Mixed in are a few nice variations: cavalry only fire on defense, siege guns can only attack forts and forts themselves are the most powerful hitting on 1-3 [though the latter benefit is balanced by the fact that they cannot receive replacement points, as they are reduced by hits]. 

The sequence of an attack is interesting as the Attacker's artillery fires first, then all the Defender's units and then all the Attacker's units [including the artillery that have already fired!].  Beyond this and the occasional ability to play a card such as Poison Gas, it is remarkable easy.  Personally, I did find that the many rolls with limited numbers of hits over the course of playing the whole war did become a little tedious. 
Taking the lead from many block games, hits have to be taken from the strongest unit and if that is an Army then from the most numerous type of unit in that Army.  Inevitably the infantry naturally takes the brunt of this. 

However, a fine idea is the inclusion and use of Ersatz cards [as illustrated above].  These may be played as a form of taking hits.  So, an Ersatz 2 card will replace 2 hits and an even neater touch is that any card may be used as if it were an Ersatz 1 card.  Talk about a rock and a hard place!  It's rare that you can afford to spend one of your cards in this way, but the option is there and just sometimes it may be what you've got to grit your teeth and do.

A more familiar element is the use of Build Points - again another very well handled aspect providing difficult choices.  Especially taxing is the demand to replace eliminated units or buy cards.  At the beginning of a scenario each player gets a set number, but from then on any further cards have to be bought and without cards you can't acquire those essential Offensive ones.  The strangest item you can spend build points on is Entrenching.  I'm not sure that I can conceive of any convincing rational for this other than that it adds to the agony of choice, especially as an entrenched unit when it moves must be flipped back to its mobile side and so lose its entrenched status.

The rule book is short and the rules are easy to understand and few enough to largely hold in your head.  I strongly recommend the main two Advanced rules: Hidden Army Templates and Bidding for Initiative that appear in the Theatre rulebook.

This is another very good part of the package.  It adds a range of small historical rule elements and scenario variants, a very good section providing set up for scenarios starting in each individual year of the war and a section I particularly like that contains four pages of variant historical German and French plans, two pages of Examples of Play and sadly only a brief side bar of Designer's Notes.


Ultimately for me it is just this side of too simple, but as an intro level simulation it fits the bill, unlike GMT's Fields of Despair on the identical topic which registers on the opposite end of the complexity scale.  There are so many good ideas drawing both on tried and trusted measures and fresh ones too.  There is much that I like and I received this game to review with much excitement. Yet for me somehow the gaming experience falls short of the sum of its parts.  I will continue to play it, but not with the zeal that I pick up Nuts Publishing's most recent offering, Urban Operations.


{
Apologies for the weird gremlin in the system that simply wont produce the correct consistent font size, whatever measures I take to correct it!}


















































































































































































































NavTac: Coronal and Falklands World War I Naval Miniatures Rules by Minden Games   This is a set of naval miniat...

NavTac: Coronel and Falklands World War I naval Miniatures Rules NavTac: Coronel and Falklands World War I naval Miniatures Rules

For your Wargamer, Toy soldier collector, MiniFig collector, military history nut. Reviews, interviews, Model Making, AARs and books!



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 This is a set of naval miniatures rules for naval tactics (NavTac), and combat in the first years of World War I. The gun size goes up to 13.5" so the games ships will be preDreadnoughts and Dreadnoughts, but no super-Dreadnoughts.
 


  For play you will need two six-sided die, a ruler/tape measure, and paper and pencil. The turns represent five minutes of time. The game was setup to represent 500 yards to the inch. For those with a smaller area (in the first instance ships 22,000 yards apart would be 44 inches away from each other), you can use one centimeter to 500 yards. You will also need ship miniatures, or you can copy the eleven pages of top down ship pictures in the manual. Minden Games also sells  'NacTac Ship set A'. These are sheets of heavy paper with the ship pictures on them. These make it a breeze to make your own counters. Minden Games graciously sent me a copy of the ship set.





 The basic rules are only nineteen pages long, and have two additional pages of optional rules. The advanced rules bring into play ammunition usage, end on damage, and weather, etc. The rest of the rule book is filled with the various tables and charts needed along with play examples.





 The players can decide to use IGOUGO or WEGO  for each move. Ship movement is 1/2" (or 1/2 centimeter) for every three knots. So a ship making eighteen knots would move 3". Ships can turn 22.5 degrees for each 1/2" moved. Ships cannot turn more than 90 degrees during one turn.

 The rules for fire combat at first seemed a bit daunting. This is coming from a gamer who had limited exposure to miniature gaming many years ago. Just as in the real world you have to do ranging fire in the game before regular fire. This means that once you have straddled your enemy with a broadside you can then open up with more sustained and faster fire.




 The game comes with eight scenarios, but the player is only limited by his imagination with creating more. 

 This will be a few moves of the "Escape of the Goeben" scenario. Before World War I, England was building a few capital ships for the Ottoman Empire. When war broke out they were seized by the British government for the Royal Navy. The German battlecruiser Goeben and the light cruiser Breslau were cruising the Mediterranean right before the war. In an effort to sway the Ottomans to the Central powers, Germany offered her to them. In reality the Goeben was only half-heartedly pursued by the Entente naval forces. She made it to Istanbul where she was renamed the Yavuz Sultan Selim and became the flagship of the Ottoman Navy. This scenario represents an encounter during her flight through the Mediterranean. 

 Historically the Goeben and Breslau just really evaded encounters on their way to Istanbul. In this scenario I have chosen to have the Goeben fight it out with four armored cruisers that are stalking her. The Goeben is more heavily armed (10X11" compared to 6X9.2" guns), and the Goeben is .5 faster than the armored cruisers. We start with the Goeben and enemies moving, and then fire from both sides will take place simultaneously. The Goeben stays on course to be able to deliver a broadside with four of her five double gunned turrets. The British cruisers will only be ably to reply with three of their six guns. We start with the Goeben getting one hit on the Duke of Edinburgh. This is just ranging fire until the different ships get the range. The Goeben strikes for a damage of 2750 points, but because it is ranging fire, and because they are German, they only hit for one-third of the damage. The Duke of Edinburgh hits for two out of three, but because she is English and it is still ranging fire she only actually inflicts one-tenth of the 200 damage points.

 I inflicted a large amount of damage on two of the British cruisers, but my unlucky die rolls were matched by a lot of lucky British ones. It ended up as a marginal British victory because they inflicted enough damage to lower the Goeben's speed to three.

 The rules are easy to follow, and with all of the optional rules to add in to make the game more of a simulation, the game to me is a winner. I am even looking to buy some 1/3000 ships for use in more games. The counters work fine, but I believe it will add to the immersion factor. For my first foray into miniatures after so many years, I am very impressed. When I first looked at the rules they seemed a bit intimidating, and I was worried that the game might actually be a snooze fest. Thank you, Minden Games for showing me the error of my thinking. This opens up a whole new genre of gaming for me.


Robert

Today I am reviewing not a game, but a box containing all the bits and pieces and knowledge to get you started on creating a game ...

The White Box: A Game Design Workshop in a Box The White Box: A Game Design Workshop in a Box

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Today I am reviewing not a game, but a box containing all the bits and pieces and knowledge to get you started on creating a game of your very own. As many of our readers probably know, board gaming is going through a new golden age. Literally thousands of new games are being created by hundreds of developers all over the world every year. Many of these developers are regular people with regular jobs, who tinker with ideas in their spare time. It's not a stretch to think that some of you reading this have had an idea for a cool game at some point and thought about making it yourself. But where to begin with such a project? 

The White Box wants to be the answer. It contains a treasure trove of various pieces that you can use to create a prototype of your vision without needing to raid other game boxes or go out to a hobby store to buy odds and ends. I'll cover all of those in detail later.  Besides the physical components, you also get The White Box Essays, a 200 page collection of essays covering just about every angle of board game development that you could think of, and probably several that you haven't. Let's take a closer look at it first.




The White Box Essays consists of 25 chapters, each covering a specific topic like theme vs mechanics, playtesting, pitching your game to publishers, randomness, writing rules, marketing, and so on. There is a lot of ground covered here, especially on the business side of things. It should be noted, this book is not presenting as a step by step guide for how to create a board game. In fact, many of the chapters are presented out of order from how one might expect to read them. It really is a collection of essays, and not so much an instruction book. 

While the book does cover a lot of different topics, most are presented only on a basic level. Enough to make you aware of the concept, but not much more. For example, the chapter on probability and randomness, a topic which could fill an entire textbook, is only five pages long. I was a bit disappointed to find most of the chapters on actual game design to be very light. You will want to seek out another book on this topic if you serious about developing a game and want some guidance on the theory and process of game design. While I'm not aware of any specifically for board games, there are plenty about video game prototyping and the process is essentially the same on a conceptual level.

That said, this book does have a ton of useful information about everything else you will need to know to actually put a board game on the shelf. Topics like coming up with a sales pitch for your game, what to think about when designing the box, how to get started marketing your game, how to handle distribution, or how to demo your game at a convention are all touched upon. These are the sort of things that a budding game designer might not consider at all when starting out, and it's better to learn from someone who has already run the gauntlet than learning these lessons the hard way yourself. This is where the book really shines and shows its value.

Now, let's take a look at the bits!






The inside of The White Box contains a nice variety of stuff to get you started with prototyping. While it's all things that you could get at a craft store (except maybe the meeples), it's nice to have a little starter kit that someone more experienced put a lot of time and thought into creating. There are also a bunch of plastic baggies included for your sorting needs once you get going with your game design. 





Like any good board game, The White Box includes some cardboard pieces to be punched out. As you can see, these are generic by design, but provide you with a lot of starting points for designing your own components and basic mechanisms. There are pieces with different colors, shapes, numbers, and symbols that could represent any number of things. There is also an entire sheet of blank pieces which you can use to create your own customized components.




Here you can see a closer look at the bits and pieces included. There are plastic disks, meeples, small wooden cubes, dice of various color (all d6's), and a large cube of each color. While these pieces are nothing too exciting, they are exactly the sort of thing you need to create a prototype of your game design. Once you have the mechanics working on an abstract level, you can replace the cubes with barbarian warriors or spaceships or, well, maybe leave them as cubes if you're making a Euro. 

Again, while you could go out and buy all this stuff individually and probably spend a bit less, it is a nice starter kit that has everything you need in one box.




You may be thinking that there is one very common component of many games that is missing here: cards. The Box does address that with the inclusion of a voucher good for $5 worth of custom printed cards from www.DriveThruCards.com and another $5 voucher for www.TheGameCrafter.com which can be used for custom cards or many other components. There was a note I remember reading on the Kickstarter page which detailed why they didn't include blank cards in the box, it would simply add to the cost with something that could be easily replaced with a deck of playing cards, some card sleeves, and regular paper. I think this makes sense and the box is not lesser for not including them. A regular deck of playing cards, which I imagine any gamer should already own, can be very versatile and fill in the gap here. 

While the White Box doesn't contain every single thing you might need to design, develop and publish a board game, it does make for an excellent jumping off point. The Essays will give you plenty to think about, especially if you have not done much research on your own already. The bits and pieces are perfect for your initial prototype and tinkering with ideas until you figure out something that works. I think this is a good buy for anyone curious about taking on the endeavor of designing their own board game. It would also make a great gift if you have someone like that in your life.  

You can find The White Box here: http://www.atlas-games.com/product_tables/AG2903.php


- Joe Beard





There is only one truly important component which you won't find in the box, but must provide yourself: Imagination!






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