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Conclusion U-Boot: TheBoard Game is an innovative U-Boat simulation that allows players of any ability the opportunity to work together...

UBoot:TBG a Kickstarter Preview UBoot:TBG  a Kickstarter Preview

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

Conclusion

U-Boot: TheBoard Game is an innovative U-Boat simulation that allows players of any ability the opportunity to work together in a fun, tense and immersive board game experience. If you like games: that make you think, that require lots of player interaction, that are stressful (in a good way) that are asymmetric, where your actions determine your entire experience, that are based on real military history, then this cooperative wargame from Phalanx Publishing is well worth taking a look at.  (Kickstarter Preview page)

I don't normally start reviews with my final thoughts, but if you’re interested to see if you’ll like this game, read on. The first thing to mention is that this game is entirely reliant on a mobile app and my review is based on a prototype edition of the game so any art or components pictured, are subject to change. The prototype does, however, feel very advanced and has custom miniatures in 1/72 scale that represent the 32 submariners (2 work shifts of 16 crew) under the player's control. There is also a U-Boat model that serves as a crew position reference as they ‘mobilise’ around the submarine.
Close up of the U-Boat model
I will attempt to describe the most significant rules and features of the game to let potential Kickstarter backers judge for themselves whether it’s for them or not.

Game summary

In this game, up to 4 players, take on the role of U-Boat Officers during WWII. Players choose to be either The Captain, The First Officer, The Navigator or The Chief Engineer. Each of these positions has a very different, yet equally important, role in making sure the entire crew returns home safely, hopefully with some destroyed enemy shipping to their name. To carry out their particular role each player controls a set of four miniatures which each have their own set of abilities. Effectively managing where the miniatures are in the boat at any given time is crucial to this game i.e. having the right amount of abilities in the right compartment.  This will involve so much discussion among all players, all the time, I would say this is a hybrid cooperative/social/thematic war game …
Setup at the start of a mission
There are no rounds or traditional game-play phases in this game; it is a ‘real-time’ sandbox where your crew will have to react to events and conditions that are triggered either through the mobile app or card draws. In order to react to any event, each player has to move his miniatures around the U-Boat model/board to the correct compartment to carry out any particular order. However, no-one can move their players until they are ‘mobilised’ first by The Captain. (The official Core Rules video is here.)

Mobilisation

Mobilisation allows all players to move all of their miniatures to any compartment in the submarine, (unless it has been flooded). Each mobilisation is paid for by the Captain by advancing a token on the Order Track. Once the Order Track token can go no farther the Captain must advance a token on the Morale Track to pay for any mobilisations. The Morale Track is a measure of how tired and fed up your crew is. The Order Track does get reset after every other watch (huge relief) but the Morale Track is only reduced through certain events and The Captain’s cards.
The Order and Morale Tracks
Once all players have finished moving their miniatures around the boat, The Captain can issue an Order. Again, these must be paid for by advancing a token on either the Order or Morale Track. There are consequences for The Captain pushing the crew too hard; too many orders in a short space of time will cause command and control issues. When the Morale Track token lands on certain spaces an Event Card is drawn. These are nearly always negative consequences and ultimately could lead to a mutiny and the Captain being relieved of his command. 
 The official Captain rules video is here.

Orders

Each player, including the Captain, carries out the orders, by using the abilities of the miniatures under their command, after they’ve been mobilised to the right compartment. For example, to alter course the navigator must have two miniatures with the helmsman icon in the control room; to change speed the Engineer must have two miniatures with the telegraph icon in The Engine Room etc.  In all, there are a total of 17 distinct orders that the players cooperatively attempt to resolve.
The Captain's Player Board
However, responding to orders only describes half of your actions as an Officer on board the U-boat. You will also have unique tasks that you must do in your own play area. The Captain is managing crew morale through his hand of cards which allows them to issue orders and mobilise the crew.  The First Officer is controlling the mobile app and announcing events such as shift changes as well as looking after the health of the crew.  The Navigator is plotting courses and target intercept vectors as well as making sure the crew have enough variety in their diet. The Chief Engineer is attempting to keep the boat from sinking (too far) through repairing leaks and environmental conditions.
Oh dear, things are not going well!
This sounds like a lot of things to be managing, and it is, but the designers have used a time dilation feature on the app to provide some much-needed breathing space. This allows a dynamic passage of time, which gives players just enough time, if you respond quickly, to an event before the next issue crops up. This doesn’t stop issues from piling up if you just ignore them or don’t prioritise them appropriately. Sometimes feeding the crew is not as important as putting out a fire in the Torpedo Room. However as you’d expect, things are much more frantic with an enemy nearby.  The level of player engagement, whether that’s in transit mode (sped up time) or attempting to get a firing solution (near real-time) is spot on, in my opinion.  It’s just enough to keep things suspenseful without being exhausting.

Crew Figures

Prototype Miniatures
 Your miniatures, however, will get exhausted. Each time a miniature’s ability is used one of its activation spaces is blanked off by a token. Each sailor has two different abilities; this means that the dedicated repair miniatures (The Chief Engineer’s) or the dedicated observer miniatures (The Navigator’s) may not be available for their primary duty. Any other figure can perform an order for which they do not have an ability icon but they will be less effective doing so. You will have to blank off two of their activation space for one order. Each miniature only has 3 abilities to start with, so you should attempt to minimise this inefficiency.  This is easier said than done as you’ll constantly have to decide whether it’s worth the exhaustion of one submariner (not so bad) or mobilising the entire crew so the miniature with the right ability can move, and in so doing, advancing the Morale Track to a card draw space (bad) but completing the order (good).
Thanks Cap'n
Each miniature will recover one activation space on a watch changeover - announced by the mobile app and repeated for all to hear by the First Officer. The watch changeover will cause all players to flip their crew panel to reflect the new watch, which has subtly different abilities from the earlier watch, and hopefully more available abilities i.e. they’re more rested. The miniatures remain where they were and now represent the new watch. They have in effect, taken over the corresponding submariners’ task from the earlier watch.  Some events and mobilisations will cause the miniatures to take damage which is resolved by drawing a Health Condition card.  These cards have a strip of icons on them which indicate the effect and treatment.  Each of these Health Condition effect icons will also blank off the activation spaces of the affected miniature, effectively removing them from taking any part in the rest of their watch or until they receive first aid.

Player roles - The First Officer

First-aid is administered by The First Officer. Every Health Condition requires a specific treatment from the First Officers medical supplies. For example, a ‘Severe Burns’ condition wounds and exhausts that miniature and it requires three medical supplies to treat; syringe, ointment and bandage.  Health Conditions also consider the mental aspects of U-boat service, with exhaustion, depression and insomnia all making an appearance. If a miniature ever receives a second wound card they are KIA and no longer available for that watch.
First Officer's Player Board
The First Officer will be working like a one-armed paper hangar managing the mobile app, making sure the right people are aware or remember certain conditions and administering first aid from their supply of medical tokens.

The mobile app provides several first-person views, from the bridge looking through the observer’s binoculars and through the periscope, when at periscope depth, for enemy disposition and torpedo targeting. Whilst surfaced you can use the sextant which will report the grid square the U-boat is in. All of these will require the right miniature in the right compartment to legally access the screen. The integration between what you do on the board (U-boat model) with your miniatures and the app is very well thought out. The official First Officer rules video is here.
An exciting view for the crew...

Player roles - The Navigator

Every day the crew must eat.  In fact, food is one of the primary considerations in managing the morale of the crew.  As mundane as this sounds, it is absolutely right to represent this and the mini-game the navigator has to complete each day can have a significant effect on the Morale Track and can be surprisingly strategic.  The navigator has a supply of Food Tokens with which to prepare a meal every day, which dwindles over time. In essence, The Navigator is attempting to combine ingredients together, with some constraints. For example, having eggs and meat adjacent to one another allows ham omelette to be made with no discernible effect on morale. A casserole, requiring meat, eggs and onions, adjacent to one another, will lower the Morale Track by 1.
Navigator's Player Board
On top of this, The Navigator is responsible for Strategic and Tactical Navigation. Strategic Navigation is simply getting the U-Boat to the right area by plotting a bearing on the Strategic Map – as long as you know where you are.  Tactical navigation is completed by using the attack disk and the shipping tokens on their Player Board map. Reported contacts’ relative position should be plotted and updated (as well as possible) to minimise periscope Orders. The Attack Disk is then used to calculate the best intercept vector for the optimum Torpedo firing point. This was my favourite position as it pretty closely resembles my military experience. The official Navigator rules video is available here.

Player roles - The Chief Engineer

Aside from diving, surfacing and changing speed the unique task of the Chief Engineer is to repair the boat. The VII C, as evidenced by this game is a leaky bucket! There may be times where there are no repairs to manage but when there are you will probably have to coordinate those with not only your miniatures but those of the rest of the players as well. Repairs normally will consist of having the right miniatures, with the right abilities in the affected compartment. However in the most serious of repairs, the Hull Breach you will have a small technical puzzle to complete.  I can’t really comment on the puzzle as it wasn’t included in my prototype.
Chief Engineer's Player Board
As well as the four miniatures position, The Chief Engineer also manages the positions of the two toolboxes around the boat. If some events, i.e. ‘check electrics in crew quarters’ are ignored, they will ultimately develop into an Environmental Condition. These will require one of the supplies within the toolbox to effect repair – much like the First Officers medical supplies.  The toolboxes must be carried by a mobilised sailor into the affected compartment in order to start repairs.

Repairs (and observing), unlike any other order, take time. When a miniature is repairing something one of their activation spaces is blanked off by a special repair activation token. These are coloured green, orange and red to correspond to maintenance, failure, or major failure, which could take a different amount of time and/or number of sailors to repair. The official Chief Engineer rules video is here.
This is not going to end well

The mobile app

I know there’s some ill-will in the board game community towards app-driven games but I don’t share that opinion.  The app in this game helps with your immersion (… anyone?) and integrates more with the game here than in any other app driven game I have tried (Mansions of Madness, Imperial Assault, Descent 2nd Edition).  The app provides some of the events (Morale Track provides the rest), it tracks your world position, it generates enemies, it gives a first-person view and adds an authentic feeling soundtrack. German is definitely the best language in which to bark orders!
My U-Boat credentials
This take on submarine warfare is more immersive than any computer sub-sim I’ve played (see above pic) albeit it’s not as complex. However, through playing the Silent Hunters and Dangerous Waters of this world, I think they are missing a crucial element; when I play them I don’t feel like I’m working together with a crew.  From my military experience, the crew or the people you have around you are what makes or breaks your mission.  In U-Boot: TBG, because there are four of you working together; it really feels like (as far as a game is able – let’s get serious!) you’re a crew on board a military submarine.

In most areas, the designers have got just the right amount of complexity to keep the game enjoyable and realistic at the same time. I would struggle to describe it as a simulation, in my head, they are not fun and usually end with your instructor giving you a less-than-pleasant debrief. However, I think the designers want to implement different levels of complexity within the app that you can try for more of a challenge.

Gameplay Experience

During our missions we’ve experienced amongst other events, compartment fires, leaks, electrical conditions which all divert your attention from sinking enemy vessels. We were advised to check the electrics in a compartment, we ignored that because we didn’t want to have to mobilise the crew again. Unfortunately, it turned into an electrical failure and again it was ignored. Finally, it turned into a hazard causing damage to all miniatures in that section, and any miniature that needed to mobilise through that section. Things were not going well. This seemed to cause multiple lighting failures all over the boat and we had three compartments with no lighting. At this point our First Officer suggested that we turn off the lights in the room we were playing in (we didn’t). A few chuckles were had when Toilet Cleaning was required in the crews quarters.
That's one trigger-happy crew...
On one mission we found a lone merchantman and sunk him for 2500 GRT. We then decided to go and visit Scotland, not a good idea – we were hit by multiple mines and eventually sunk. On our next mission (everyone wanted to play again), we found a small convoy. Everything got very hectic after this as we were nursing several leaks, and electric motor repairs, which led to a fire just as we were lining up on the leading destroyer. Unfortunately for us, at Periscope depth, we were distracted by all the mechanical issues and we were rammed and sunk by the enemy. In hindsight, we should have gone for the merchantmen at the back.  As ever, discretion is the better part of valour. We had such high hopes after discovering the convoy as well!

Future Development

The app is by no means perfect but I wouldn’t expect it to be at this stage. Several things haven’t been fully implemented and I’m sure that through further development the designers will add more content. For example, we were alerted to a patrolling plane but this was only an engine overhead sound, we ignored the second one and nothing seemed to happen. The deck guns aren’t implemented yet so we couldn’t have done anything about it anyway. We received a new message from HQ, but couldn’t read it because the enigma machine hasn’t been implemented either.
The Hydrophone
If I have one quibble with the current gameplay, it is that the TDC screen feels a little simplistic, it’s a case of flood the tube and fire. That is probably not going to satisfy the Silent Hunter aficionados out there. I would like to see more complexity, as an option for experienced players, added to the app.

Things that are currently missing, which could be implemented are the ability to work in conjunction with other U-Boats in wolf packs, maybe even over the internet with another group of players…  The prototype only has one patrol mission in the North Sea and after playing it four times I’m ready for some more variety.  I would like to see different types of missions, namely escort missions, rendezvous missions, troop insertion missions, specifically targeted vessels, risky transits from one base to another i.e. going through the Gibraltar Straits or the English Channel, to name a few. I would also like to see a campaign mode covering the rise and fall of the U-boat in WWII. Maybe this will add experienced submariner crews with bonus abilities from successful missions. I have no idea how some of that would be implemented but from what I’ve seen so far I’m sure the final product will meet most of my expectations.

Kickstarter project

In my opinion, this project has come to Kickstarter at the perfect point in its development. It is a project close to what I think Kickstarter was originally intended.  It’s not a polished CMON product offering masses of miniatures as stretch goals nor is it a completely finished-already Queen Games Kickstarter. This is a small(ish) publisher taking on a brilliant (in my opinion) and well play-tested prototype from dedicated designers that needs more development. The game is brimming with potential and is already good value for money at £65. This will only get better as the Kickstarter campaign progresses and more elements are implemented through further design.

The designers and publishers have been very active on the games bgg page, so if you've got a (hunter) killer idea or must-have feature then get in touch with them through the game forums at bgg.

The Kickstarter campaign is currently due to go live on the 22nd January 2018. 

RUNEWARS MINIATURES GAME: LATARI ELVES EXPANSION [If you are not yet familiar with the core game, I'd recommend having a l...

RUNEWARS MINIATURES GAME: LATARI ELVES RUNEWARS MINIATURES GAME: LATARI ELVES

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


RUNEWARS MINIATURES GAME:

LATARI ELVES EXPANSION



[If you are not yet familiar with the core game, I'd recommend having a look at my earlier review to get familiar with many of the terms I'll be using.]

This first expansion to the Runewars Miniatures Game brings a substantial balanced package of bowmen and cavalry along with an appropriate new hero and special unit that constitute a whole new race to join the fray.  Elves may be a familiar form, but really what fantasy world would be complete without them?

Even easier to assemble than the already simple to combine components found in the core game, the whole package was finished with minimal application of a little glue within 10 minutes.  The same solid standard and quality of definition in the sculpting remains a significant feature of all these figures.  It is slightly blocky, but this does help with the task of painting.  Only the Aymhelin Scion is slightly disappointing when compared with the magnificent appearance of the special units of the two races in the core game.
The simplest of assembly, just add the head - no glue needed at all. Most of the other poses for the archers needs only the single addition of the bow and arms with two spots of glue.  Even the cavalry units merely need the head and torso [modelled in a single piece added to the animal body and the spear arm glued in place.
Along with the figures come the essential Command dials for dispensing their orders during the game.  As with the core game, one drawback is that each type of unit comes with only a single Command dial.  So, your largest force, the sixteen Deepwood Archers, can be mustered only as a single formation from two up to four stands of 4 units each.  There is no way to break these down into two separate formations of  8 units each  divided between two stands.  A further drawback is that to field the largest formation possible [six stands of 4 units each]

Such flexibility would, I feel, help sell the product even more, as the price for this expansion is fairly substantial with an RRP of £59.99 and most suppliers discounting it down to approx. £47.  There's no doubt that you're getting an interesting addition to your forces.  

Manoeuvrability with striking power is the keynote of this race so far.  This starts with the Leonx Riders,  whose fusion of lion/lynx in their name conveys their ferocity and darting ability.  High initiative and speed make them an unpredictable force, especially as the new Hero in this expansion, Aliana Summersong, links directly with the Riders as their champion. 

She adds a mortal strike [i.e. a guaranteed hit] to all her melee attacks and deals two panic tokens as well making her opponents more likely to fail morale tests.  With her Command dial offering several movement options on the left wheel combined with a range of modifiers on the right wheel there's a great potential for dealing out nasty surprises to your opponent.  Obviously if you are facing these as opponents, remember you've be warned what to expect here!

When you match this with the solidity of the other unique figure in this pack, the Aymhelin Scion, you've got a formidable combination, as these tree creatures can immobilise units they collide with or those who collide with them.  Added to that is their power to stun!  Need I say more!  Perhaps, even more unexpected is their ranged ability - I imagine long, powerful branches lashing out with devastating effect.

Finally, the Deepwood Archers form, for the moment, the "grunts" of this race, though a further expansion will bring you pure infantry.  As archers their ranged fire is always useful and they too are typical of the light-footed speed associated with the elven folk.  Beside all these figures inherent facilities, the expansion brings new upgrades and keywords. 

As usual some of the upgrades relate purely to the special units, but there's an interesting and substantial range for the archers of which Trumpet, Raven Tabards and Packleader's Spear are just a few.  Just as the fact that you do not have enough figures to field the Deepwood Archers in their largest formation is a disappointment in itself, it also means that you cannot access the full range of the upgrades.   Nevertheless, as I indicated in my original review, this miniatures battle game has a great deal of flexibility and I certainly intend to allow myself a little licence in availing my battles of as much of the variety as the cards contain.
Trumpet, Raven Tabards and Packleader's Spear[front]
Trumpet, Raven Tabards and Packleader's Spear[back]


At first I was less than happy that the brief 6 pages of additional new material contained only half a page of new rules.  One page was instructions on how to assemble the figures [a barely necessary provision], two pages of narrative storyline, a page of components and a full page advert for the companion app to Descent: Journeys In The Dark.  However, looking beyond the all to brief written rules, you fortunately find that much else new is located the combination of the two new terrain pieces [one large and one small] with  the two cards that explain them.
The Dimoran Fissure


Though once again technically, as the terrain is double-sided, you can play only two out of the four at one time, there is no reason not to designate any of your home-made [or for that matter professionally produced terrain that you may have bought] as such places as the Wildroot Patch or the Dimoran Fissure.  The latter is a particularly nasty place to avoid as units within range one suffer an automatic wound in the End Phase of a turn.

In this respect for figure gaming, I've never been a great lover of cardboard terrain, attractively produced though these are and would much rather have solid 3D stuff on my tabletop.  Still, if you're pressed for time, they're great for a quick slap 'em down on the table and let's get started - and the Latari Memorial [seen below] has a remarkable 3D quality all of its own.



 A last modest, but useful feature of the product is the storage element.  The outer box itself is rather flimsy, but inside is a stouter cardboard sleeve and best of all is the pre-formed plastic container which comfortably holds all the figures when assembled and put in their stands, along with terrain and cards.  

So, as I hope you'll agree a worthwhile first addition to your expanding forces, if you've chosen to follow this new system and potentially a good buy too if you're just looking to expand your fantasy figure collection. 



RRP – £59.99
Online Retailer – 365games.co.uk


































Old School Tactical volume II by    Flying Pig Games  I was lucky enough to have been able to review Volume I. Ple...

Old School Tactical Volume II by Flying Pig Games Old School Tactical Volume II by Flying Pig Games

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







 I was lucky enough to have been able to review Volume I. Please see my review here:


 Once again, the heaviness and size of the box surprised me. It is large, and weighs enough to use to kill small varmints. So right off the bat what are the differences? Well, first off you are fighting in Western Europe, and this time it is the Americans against the Germans. This is a list of the new units that come with the game:

German

  • Brummbar
  • SdKfz 251/22
  • Panther
  • Puma
  • PzKpfw IV H
  • Wirbelwind
  • PaK 40 75mmATG
  • German 2nd Line Infantry
  • Panzerfaust
  • Panzershreck

American

  • M5A1 halftrack
  • M16 halftrack (4x.50cal)
  • M8 Greyhound
  • M5 Stuart
  • M4A1 Sherman
  • M4A3e8 (Easy Eight)
  • M4A3 Sherman (105)
  • M10 Wolverine
  • HMG,MMG,BAR
  • Bazooka
  • Rifle and Engineer units
  • Leaders and Snipers







 This is a list of what comes with the game:


Base Game Includes:

  • 3 sheets of unit, weapon, vehicle, and condition counters.
  • a large (We are talking HUGE!) 30" x 41" mounted game map, hexes are 1".
  • 18 luck cards, such as Trigger Happy, Unexpected Obstacle, and Surprise Attack.
  • 36 unit data cards.
  • scenarios.
  • player aid card.
  • color rule book.
  • dice.
  • massive box - varmint killer size













 Brummbar (German for Brown Bear) is the 150mm assault gun meant for street fighting. The next size up would be the Sturm Tiger. I just like the look of both of them, but I digress. You also get the 'Panzer terror' and 'Panzer fist' (Panzerschreck and Panzerfaust), and of course the American Bazooka (named after a strange musical instrument).








 
 The newest version of the rules can be downloaded here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/56cfsf2vglyh6on/OST-Rules5.5-Final.pdf?dl=0

 The counters are very nice looking. Unfortunately, taking them out of the cardboard sprue is a mixed bag. Some have popped out as easy as if they were buttered, and others gave me some hassle. As is mentioned, the mounted map is huge and almost a work of art. The player aid card is large and easy to read and very easy to understand. Both the rule book and the scenario booklet are large sized and also easy to read and written for someone like me.






 So we know what we get, but how does it play? From the ground up this series, and all the Flying Pig games I have played, are meant to be played and not sit on the shelf looking pretty. I do not want to say they are simplified, but in the way the rules are done it seems so, meaning that it is easy to setup the game, read through the rules, and start playing. You do not need to send emails or phone a friend to figure out the game's mechanics. Old School Tactical games were meant to be played. The game comes with sixteen scenarios, and an additional two solitaire scenarios to be played as the American against the Germans. This is the turn sequence:

Turn Marker
Reinforcements
Attach Leaders/Weapons
Smoke Counters
Scenario Rolls
Free Rally/Bog Rolls
Initiative Roll
Impulse roll
Play Turn
Melee Phase
Remove Unit Markers
Score Victory Points
End Of Turn
Extended Play Check (Last Turn)
End Of Game
Victory - possibly with an added end zone dance







 One thing I had forgotten about the game is that the turns count down and not up. So you might be a little non-plussed if you just jump into the scenario book and see that all of the units show up on turn five of a five turn scenario. 

 This is my setup for the first scenario. The American MMG is crucial to being able to stop the German onslaught. I have played the scenario through a few times and it is always a close run to victory. The next two pics are of my setup for one game of scenario one.





 Here is a free download for more scenarios for three of the Flying Pig Games (Night Of Man, '65, Old School Tactical II):

https://flyingpiggames.com/products/flying-pig-games-free-scenario-pack-pdf-download-only


 This is a link for Old School Tactical Paratrooper Expansion Volume II:

https://flyingpiggames.com/products/old-school-tactical-paratroop-expansion

  The Old School Tactical series are a new take on a tried and true formula. The word 'old' really should not be included, because the rules and components are up to today's standards. The games' rules are well thought out and very well written so that there is really no wiggle room. The scenarios have a relatively small amount of counters for the player to keep track of. Play is quick and moves along well through the different sequences. Now that we have an east and west version, Flying Pig Games can branch out to adding the different missing pieces in the war ie. British troops etc. The only drawback for some gamers would be the massive size of the map. Because of the game's short playing time you do not need it out for long, but you do need to have the space available sans children and animals.

 If you are looking for some fast and furious Vietnam tactical gaming, see my review of Flying Pig Games '65:

http://www.awargamersneedfulthings.co.uk/2017/10/65-by-flying-pig-games.html


Robert




























Pemberton & Grant Vicksburg Campaign of 1863  by Worthington Publishing  Decisions, decisions, decision...

Pemberton & Grant Vicksburg Campaign of 1863 by Worthington Publishing Pemberton & Grant Vicksburg Campaign of 1863 by Worthington Publishing

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



 by










 Decisions, decisions, decisions; we are told that life is full of them. It was drummed into our heads by after-school specials to make sure we made the correct ones. This is the perfect segue for Worthington Publishing's Pemberton & Grant. The game is chock full of decisions that both players have to make, and the repercussions that they have on play. This game is one of a four part series of games on the American Civil War. The other games are:


 Please see my review of Grant's Gamble for more of a background on the game mechanics:


 This game is about Grant's campaign to take Vicksburg, and to capture the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River. A lot of military historians have written that Grant's generalship during the campaign was second to none. Many times Grant is just decried as a butcher who was lucky to have a 2 to 1 advantage over the Army of Northern Virginia in 1864.This campaign and some earlier ones are proof of his military skill.



 Back to the decisions. As I said, Pemberton & Grant is full of them. The first decision is made by the Confederates on turn four. Port Hudson is portrayed by an off board inset. It has the Confederate Gardner unit being besieged by the Union XIX Corps. If the Confederate player evacuates Port Hudson he receives the Gardner unit as a reinforcement. Then the Union player starts on turn seven to make a single die roll and on a roll of six the Union XIX Corps shows up as a Union reinforcement. If the Confederate player does not evacuate Port Hudson, then starting on turn ten the Union player rolls one die and if it is a six Port Hudson falls. If a roll of six occurs, then on the next turn the Union XIX Corps comes on board as a Union reinforcement. A single die roll is used to see how many hits have occurred to the XIX Corps before placing it on the map. Another decision is if the Union player controls Vicksburg or Chicksaw Bluff he can try and add to his replacement points, but again at a possible cost. The Union player may also call in more reinforcements (XVI, IX, Corps or the Herron unit) at the price of substantial victory points. The list goes on and on.




 The Union player, naturally as the attacker, has the most options to start with. He can go straight after Vicksburg or head to the north of the map to Chicksaw Bluff  to ease his supply situation and to hamper the Confederates. He can also head straight to Jackson in the northeast corner to impact the Confederates' possible reinforcements later in the game. The Union player is blessed with Grant and his higher CAP (Command Action Points) compared to the other two Confederate generals, Pemberton and Johnston. 





 The Confederate player is hampered by your lack of CAP points and the small amount of troops you have to defend so many areas so far apart. The Confederate player on turns four through nine has to make a die roll for reinforcements. So playing as the Confederate, do you sit tight in your trenches and hope for lucky rolls, or actively try and battle with Grant? Because Grant and only one Union corps are on the board for the first turn and the Confederates start on turn one as the active player, some people on BGG have stated a good strategy is to attack Grant on the first turn. This can only be accomplished if you have clear weather.




 These Civil War series games, I know it's been used to death, are easy to learn and hard to master. The small amount of and easily understood rules make the game very easy to learn. The small amount of counters the player has to use also helps with the ease of play. However none of these can help the player make the right decision. That is all up to him and the vagaries that the game system throws at him. The map and block stickers are easy to read and very functional. The games are meant to cut to the heart of gaming and focus on the playing of the game, and not setup or rulebook browsing. Two questions have come up about the game. The first is where does the Pemberton counter start? It is not shown on the setup portion of the games rulebook. He starts in Vicksburg. There are rivers and railroad lines on the map, and the game series talks about rules for movement on them. They are not used in this game. The next game I will be reviewing of Worthington Publishing will be 'Hold the Line: The American Revolution'. All of the Worthington Publishing games have high ratings on BGG.

Robert
hpssims.com