Rifles in the Pacific

                                                           by

                                            Tiny Battle Publishing

 Tiny Battle is an apt name for the company that released this game. The game defies my attempts to pigeonhole it. It is a tactical game, but it is unlike any other tactical game I have played. It is a solitaire game of tactical warfare in the (surprise) Pacific. Let us first list what comes with the game:

Rule Booklet
Mission Briefing Booklet
Four Army Sheets (on two sides of 8 1/2" x 11" cards)
One Master Copy Unit Roster (on the back of the game's cover)
Three 8 1/2" x 11" Maps representing the varying terrain in the Pacific Theater
One Squad Examples Card (on the back of the Map Card)
39 1" Unit Counters
46 Administrative Counters
You will need to provide five six-sided die, and a container for random drawing counters

 The one inch counters are a godsend for these old eyes. The 'Map Cards' do not resemble any I have seen. They look much more like 'Battle Boards' I have seen in other games. So, you really cannot say if the 'Map' is an eyesore or a work of beauty. They are utilitarian looking, and do the job. The counters, on the other hand, are very well done, and did I mention that they are one inch. 

 The game sequence is pretty simple. This is what it looks like:

Mission Setup
Squad Selection
Mission Execution
End-Mission Briefing

 The Armies available are:

Japan - Both the Special Navy Landing Force, and Imperial Japanese Army
United States Marines
Commonwealth

Maps

 The missions you can play are:

Jungle Patrol

Defend A River Bank
Capture A Bridge
'Wave Zero' - Amphibious Invasion
Demolition Squad
Destroy A Radio Station
Casualty Evacuation
'Line Of Fire' - Attack A Strong Position

 Other than the slightly weird (at least for me) setup of the game, in most ways it is a normal tactical game. Tanks, mines, close combat etc. are all here among all of the other usual rules. The tanks you get to use include Shermans, Cromwells, Stuarts, Type 96 (Ha-Go), and the Type 97 Medium Tank. The rule book is well set out, and is easy to read and understand. This is the second game in the 'Rifles' games from Tiny Battle. The first game is 'Rifles in the Ardennes'. 

 I have to be truthful and say it took a few games for me to get used to the game. It did begin to grow on me. If you are in the mood for a quick, easy playing game about tactical warfare in the Pacific then I can recommend 'Rifles' with no caveats. Thank you Tiny Battle Publishing for letting me review this interesting game.

Robert

Tiny Battle Publishing:

https://tinybattlepublishing.com/

Rifles in the Pacific:

https://tinybattlepublishing.com/products/rifles-in-the-pacific

They are also publishing 'The Devil's To Pay' Hermann Luttmann's game on the first day of Gettysburg. I really like his games and especially the map look and style of his Gettyburg games. He designed 'Longstreet Attacks' about the second day.

https://tinybattlepublishing.com/products/the-devils-to-pay-the-first-day-at-gettysburg

                                       Rifles in the Pacific

by

Tiny Battle Publishing

 Tiny Battle is an apt name for the company that released this game. The game defies my attempts to pigeonhole it. It is a tactical game, but it is unlike any other tactical game I have played. It is a solitaire game of tactical warfare in the (surprise) Pacific. Let us first list what comes with the game:

Rule Booklet

Mission Briefing Booklet

Four Army Sheets (on two sides of 8 1/2" x 11" cards)

One Master Copy Unit Roster (on the back of the game's cover)

Three 8 1/2" x 11" Maps representing the varying terrain in the Pacific Theater

One Squad Examples Card (on the back of the Map Card)

39 1" Unit Counters

46 Administrative Counters

 You will need to provide five six-sided die, and a container for random drawing counters

Maps

 The one inch counters are a godsend for these old eyes. The 'Map Cards' do not resemble any I have seen. They look much more like 'Battle Boards' I have seen in other games. So, you really cannot say if the 'Map' is an eyesore or a work of beauty. They are utilitarian looking, and do the job. The counters, on the other hand, are very well done, and did I mention that they are one inch. 

 The game sequence is pretty simple. This is what it looks like:

Mission Setup

Squad Selection

Mission Execution

End-Mission Briefing

 The Armies available are:

Japan - Both the Special Navy Landing Force, and Imperial Japanese Army

United States - Marines

Commonwealth

 The missions you can play are:

Jungle Patrol

Defend A River Bank

Capture A Bridge

'Wave Zero' - Amphibious Invasion

Demolition Squad

Destroy A Radio Station

Casualty Evacuation

'Line Of Fire' - Attack A Strong Position

 Other than the slightly weird (at least for me) setup of the game, in most ways it is a normal tactical game. Tanks, mines, close combat etc. are all here among all of the other usual rules. The tanks you get to use include Shermans, Cromwells, Stuarts, Type 96 (Ha-Go), and the Type 97 Medium Tank. The rule book is well set out, and is easy to read and understand. This is the second game in the 'Rifles' games from Tiny Battle. The first game is 'Rifles in the Ardennes'. 

 I have to be truthful and say it took a few games for me to get used to the game. It did begin to grow on me. If you are in the mood for a quick, easy playing game about tactical warfare in the Pacific then I can recommend 'Rifles' with no caveats. Thank you Tiny Battle Publishing for letting me review this interesting game.

Robert

Tiny Battle Publishing:

https://tinybattlepublishing.com/

Rifles in the Pacific:

https://tinybattlepublishing.com/products/rifles-in-the-pacific

They are also publishing 'The Devil's To Pay' Hermann Luttmann's game on the first day of Gettysburg. I really like his games and especially the map look and style of his Gettyburg games. He designed 'Longstreet Attacks' about the second day.

https://tinybattlepublishing.com/products/the-devils-to-pay-the-first-day-at-gettysburg

Order of Battle: World War II grows ever larger with the release of yet another DLC campaign for the Panzer General-esque strategy game that I have really enjoyed since its initial release over four years ago. While Red Star doesn't change up the formula in any significant way, it does give you another 13 mission long campaign covering plenty of famous, and less well known, battles. 

Red Star is the first of a trilogy of linked campaigns covering, you guessed it, the actions of the Red Army across the full spectrum of WW2. Now, you're probably immediately picturing the Eastern Front, Barbarossa and Stalingrad and so on. Hold on though, this is Order of Battle, a game which was created by developers who seem keenly interested in showcasing some of the less well known and less gamed theaters of the war. Red Star covers actions of the Red Army from 1938 to 1941, which means you'll be rather deep into the campaign before you see a single German panzer. 

The DLC starts off with a trio of missions against Imperial Japan, at the battles of Lake Khasan and Khalkin Gol. These are battles which I've read snippets about here and there, but never studied in detail. Seeing very early war tanks and even bi-planes roaming the battlefield made for a fresh experience. The Japanese are tough early game opponents, as you must make due with poor equipment and inexperienced troops.

Next you go for a quick trip to Poland for a single mission. Although the historical outcome here was 100% inevitable, it was actually one of the more memorable missions of the game. To give you a challenge, the scenario casts your forces as the very tip of the invading spear, racing ahead of supply lines. You have only a very limited number of points available for deploying units, and every turn your total available supply is shrinking. The only way to get more supply is to capture Polish cities and towns. This means you must charge forward and overwhelm the defenders as quickly as possible, in order to keep your units in supply. 

After conquering Poland it's time for the Winter War against Finland. Some of this conflict has actually been covered from the point of view of the Finns in the Winter War DLC, but now it's time to play it from the Soviet perspective. As you may know, despite massively outnumbering the Finns, especially in terms of tanks and aircraft, the Soviets got a very bloody nose in this conflict. Here a major feature of many of the scenarios are the Finnish ski troops who constantly pop out of nowhere on your flanks and attempt to cut off your lead units from their supply sources. The terrain itself is against you, as the heavily forested maps slow down your mechanized forces, and conceal ambushes at every turn. I enjoyed these scenarios, as I was forced to patrol the edges of my advance instead of blindly pushing all of my units forward to the objectives. 

After the conclusion of the Winter War, we finally reach the main event, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. These missions make up the final third of the campaign culminating with the defense  of, and Soviet counter-attack outside Moscow. The battles here scale up in size as you are now facing a more than equal foe, coming at you with all the tanks and aircraft you can handle. To counter that, you finally get to upgrade your own tanks and aircraft and leave those inter-war units behind. The battles here will be more familiar to most than the earlier ones, but the scenario design continues to be well done. As in all the OoB campaigns, every mission gives you primary objectives which you must accomplish to win the scenario, but there are also optional objectives which give you some kind of bonus if you can complete them. 

My one major critique of the campaign is that the specialization tree (permanent perks which you can spend points to unlock between missions) does not offer many interesting choices, or many choices at all.  I would have thought that for a DLC on the Red Army, we would see a big tree with lots of interesting and flavorful choices, but really there were only a couple which did something unique. The rest were all either generic options from other campaigns, or very minor benefits with some Soviet flavor text tacked on.

Overall, Red Star does not bring any big changes to the tried and true formula of Order of Battle, but if you like what you've played before, you will have a good time with this one as well. I do love a grand campaign of this sort, so I'm looking forward to carrying my experienced core units further into the war in the next two installments.

Order of Battle: WW2 - Red Star is available directly from Slitherine as well as on Steam and GoG. As always with Order of Battle, you can play the training campaign as well as the first scenario of each campaign (including Red Star) for free if you want to try before you buy.


- Joe Beard

Out of the dust comes a classic in every sense of the word.  Tigris & Euphrates, long considered Reiner Knizia’s masterpiece was first released in 1997.  One to 4 players will take turns to take up to two actions in developing their Kingdoms.  However whereas many more-modern Euros struggle or eschew player interaction, T&E provides it in bucketfuls.  Not only will you decimate your opponent's Kingdoms but they will yours as well.  If you don’t like seeing your brilliancy ruined then this is not the game for you.  If your group thrives on aggressiveness (over the board) then you’ve got to give try this.

Gameplay

Despite the seemingly lightweight rules it took me a good while to wrap my head around these 20-year-old, but still brilliant, mechanics.  The biggest thing I struggled to grok was the different coloured player pieces.  Maybe I’m a dullard but none of the rules would sink in until I had this concept down.  Instead of receiving all the red tokens for your pieces, you receive all tokens i.e. 'leaders' of the same shape. The leaders you receive are black - that's a king, green - a merchant, red - a priest and blue - a farmer.  The shape is what denotes ownership, not the colours.

The dawn of civilization...

The most common action players take are to either place civilisation tiles or one of your leaders.  Both these actions may wreak glorious destruction on your opponent's kingdoms, but may also damage your own.  There are two different types of combat in this game, if a leader has been placed into a kingdom and there is already a leader of that colour then a revolt will be resolved.  Each kingdom can only have one leader of one colour but there may be leaders from multiple players in each kingdom.  

If a civilization tile has joined two kingdoms together then a war between those two Kingdoms occurs, in which each leader of the same colour will battle each other regardless of which players own it.  The winner will effectively resolve multiple conflicts until there are no longer two same-coloured leaders in the joined kingdom.

A revolt between the Pot King and the Bull King.  Adjacent red temples and red tiles played from the hand count

Each combat follows similar principles and once you’ve seen two or three they are easy to conduct. Revolts will be augmented by red tiles (temples) that are adjacent to the two leaders and any supporting tiles red tiles played from each players hand.  The defender wins ties and the winner destroys (out of the game) the loser's supporters and returns the losers leader.

Full-scale wars take the shape of multiple revolts but in a battle the individual strength of the leaders (calculated by totalling how many tiles of their colour they can connect to) plus additional supporting tiles from their hand (of the same colour).  The defender wins ties again and the winner not only destroys their opponent's supporters but also destroys the tiles their leader was using to calculate strength.  This can have huge consequences on the board.

Lion has placed a tile connecting two Kingdoms.  War will break out between the Lion and Bull King, and between the Lion and Pot trader.  All connected tiles of the same colour and played tiles from the hand will count.

These fighting concepts sound simple when written down, but I felt like a true dullard trying to learn this.  However, there is a beauty in their simplicity (once understood) and the limited actions each player has, occupies a rare space in board game design in which the board and pieces appear to take on a life of their own.  As your kingdom's power ebbs and flows it really does invoke the ‘cradle of civilization’ theme slapped onto this abstract game; it is. despite the simplicity brutal and very engaging to play.

As you place tiles that are connected to your similar coloured leaders you will gain victory points of that colour.  Your final score will be the lowest of those four victory point totals.  This design creates a constant tension between what you want to do on the board (i.e. an opponent’s leader is vulnerable and you have lots of red tiles to support a conflict) vs what you should do to collect more victory points of your lowest colour.

Endgame, Lion wins with 19 victory points.

The essence of this game is simple but it does create a lot of options and planning for each player.  However, before it’s your turn again, the board may be completely different, but it’s far from chaotic; an experienced player will win this every time.

Components

Beautiful board bits

I rarely have anything negative to say about Z-Man-published games, Z-Man have taken Dr Knizia’s masterpiece and just updated it with chunky plastic monuments and leader tokens.  The rest of the components are either tiles (in one of four colours) or victory points.  These plastic components are particularly nice looking on the board and are functional, in that it is very easy to determine what is a leader versus a tile.

Advanced variations included in the box

Criticisms

I can’t criticise this. I acknowledge it is absolutely genius design and I just might not be clever enough to play it (well).  It’s not a hard game to play but the number of options and forward planning possible does remind me of chess to a large extent.  I am also, in general, not a fan of abstract games, however, I would readily recommend this abstract.  My only criticisms are for my own brain and pre-conceived ideas of how board-games work.

My puny brain struggled with these rules. despite being well written

Conclusion

I can understand why this is widely considered to by Knizia’s masterpiece.  It has simple actions that create complex kingdoms that appear to take on a life of their own.  It is the epitome of a wargame or at least a competitive game if we don’t want to start that argument again…  Taking part in an experienced (i.e. 10 + plays) four-player game of Tigris is a fantastic way to spend 90 minutes.  However, being the learning player where two or three others already know the game is no fun at all.  However, the rewards of that act of self-flagellation i.e. playing amongst experienced equals make it absolutely worth it.

Massive thanks to Asmodee for sending this review copy.  Most game stores I've visited have had this in stock and quite often at a discount. You can use this link http://www.findyourgamestore.co.uk/ to find your nearest in the UK or support them using their online web stores if you can't make it in person. 

Publisher: Z-Man
BGG Page: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/42/tigris-euphrates
Players: 2-4
Designer: Reiner Knizia
Playing time: 90 minutes

SAIGON 75

from

NUTS PUBLISHING

ANNOUNCING THE FORTHCOMING KICKSTARTER

Recently I was fortunate enough to receive a prototype copy of this game to be launched on Kickstarter next week.  Consequently what I'll be sharing with you now is intended just to give you a flavour of the final finished professional production.  Above all the aim is for a swift playing game that can be completed in about an hour.  Quite an achievement and one which, for those of an older generation like me, has its acknowledged antecedents in  The Fall of South Vietnam from Yaquinto games.

Like that game and other companies more recent efforts such as Fire In The Lake and Hearts and Minds,  Nuts Publishing have gone for an area movement map.  For me this has always been my preferred way of treating the geography of this war when handled in its entirety, whether as a full blown simulation or a lighter treatment as here.

Though the prototype is on a simple paper map that needed to be assembled in four sections the final product is to be a mounted map and, if you've seen the quality of their paper maps from Urban Operations, I expect the standard for a mounted map to be very high.

For the components, like Fire In The Lake, the company have gone for solid wooden pieces.

However, considering the much lighter treatment and fast play-time there will be considerably fewer to consider!  As you can see from some of the prototypes, the dice are going to be customised with icons, a factor I've always enjoyed as in the Command & Colours series.  To round out the physical elements in the game will be a set of Event cards, which judging by these preliminary ones will certainly add to the thematic atmosphere of Saigon 75.

I've always been a fan of using period photos and these are just what I like in a game.  The current rules provide for using them in two different ways.  The way that they consider best when first learning the game is to start with a hand of three cards, play one each turn and draw a new card or the other way they suggest for players with more experience is to begin with a full hand of eight cards.  Personally, I like the first method as it adds a greater element of uncertainty as to what will occur and which player will ultimately be the one to play the Event.

There are a small number of colourful counters, some - those marked Quyet Thang -  to indicate NVA control, which is absolutely essential to victory, others are US airstrike markers.

At the moment the rule book is physically a very simple, black and white production with no examples or illustrations.  Though it certainly will not need the high quality illustrations and production values of the excellent rule and scenario booklets seen in Urban Operations, I'm still expecting a very attractive presentation.   Even as it stands, I found it very well organised and easy to understand, even without any illustrated examples.  So, no worries there.

As expected the North Vietnamese field both NVA Divisions and VC Battalions, while the South Vietnamese possess ARVN Divisions and an assortment of Ranger Battalions and Marine and Paratrooper Brigades along with a small contingent of River Patrol boats.  Despite its low unit density I was intrigued to see that both sides have to roll for the number of activations that they're allowed each turn, giving each player pause for thought as to where the focus will lie each turn.

All in all, this looks a smooth design, quick to learn, swift to play, but with its own distinctive features.  I look forward to seeing its progress on Kickstarter.

Once again, many thanks to Nuts Publishing for the chance to preview their upcoming game.

WW2 DELUXE: EUROPEAN THEATER

FROM

CANVAS TEMPLE PUBLISHING

As quality of components has been a consistent thread in the majority of my reviews, I felt on pretty safe ground when I saw the word "Deluxe" in my current game's title.  Canvas Temple Publishing is a new undertaking that proclaims that it's "founded by Jon Compton and friends to publish games they want to publish without the pressure or angst of a publishing company trying to make a fortune."  Well, all I can say is that I'm glad they chose this as one they wanted to publish.  It's more than worth their effort and the quality shines out of it, especially the mounted map board.  

Apart from the large sized hexes to match equally large counters and the clear, but clear graphics, it stands out as the first eight-panel board that folds perfectly flat immediately on the very first play!  The subject is as obvious as the title announces and its treatment is at the opposite end of the monster spectrum of my recent review of Thunder In The East.  Here we've got the whole European war, West to East and beyond as far as Saudi Arabia and from the Nordic countries to the whole North African coastline.  As you can see the map is surrounded by a series of Sea Boxes that take you from America to the Persian Gulf

Just in case you don't want to play on this great mounted map, an identical gloss printed paper map is also included in the package.  Along with that is a large gloss card display for game set-up, plus three A4 sized gloss, double-sided scenario cards that allow you to begin the game from six increasingly later start dates.  Of these, three start dates will probably attract most attention Barbarossa, Overlord and Wacht Am Rhein. 

Set-up for the whole WWII 1939-1945

An important point to note about all these shorter scenarios is that you are still dealing in each scenario with the whole set of the European theatres.  So Wacht Am Rhein is not a focus on the Battle of the Bulge [you'd be fighting over a single hex!], but simply begins at that historical point.  With the low unit density and speed of play, even if the Barbarossa scenario had focused purely on the German invasion of Russia, it would have provided little more than a learning exercise for the system - and an interesting system it is.

Both the rule book and the double-sided player aid provide a thorough, detailed sequence of play, which appears to be exactly what you'd expect, but does contain some rewarding novelties.

Its essence is as follows:

Strategic Warfare
Production
Axis Player Turn
Allied Player Turn
Armoured Action
Supply
End of Turn Adjustment

I'll outline the basics of each Phase with some comments on original or unusual features.

Strategic Warfare Phase

This begins with alternating player use of their air units to bomb cities, with any loss destroying a city's one production point ability.  Interception is allowed and results in air to air combat prior to the bombing attempt.  A notable rule is that units used now can still operate in later Movement and Combat Phases, whereas units used in those later Phases will be marked Ops Complete and unable to take part in next turn's Strategic Warfare Phase.

A very helpful example is given of key concepts

-above is the Convoy attack-

This is followed by an Axis Convoy attack in the Atlantic Box.  Initially the Axis fires and the losses are taken in Production Points.  Then both sides fire simultaneously and losses are taken in fleet steps, or air/submarine steps if they are present.  Here I feel a mite uncertain about being able to take losses from air units to avoid fleet losses.  However, it does provide further choice and decisions needing to be made which I always like as a feature in any game.  I also like the little detail that as the war progresses, the Allies improved ASW & Convoy ability is reflected by having the fleet combat occur before the Axis Convoy attack.  This means that if the Allies score more hits than the Axis, the losing Axis will have to withdraw and no Convoy Attack occurs.

Production Phase

This is a fairly standard process, with Production points being provided by each friendly city and applied to the relevant nation to upgrade [i.e. flip a reduced unit on the map back to full strength] or create a unit at reduced or full strength from a player's Force Pool. 

A few simple rules give an appropriate flavour to this process, such as Britain receiving 2 pts from overseas Dominions or US production being used purely for Lend Lease until they enter the war.  Minor powers' production is extremely limited, producing only a single point every Winter turn, and here it's important to point out that each year is made up of 4 turns with Winter being the first turn in each new year! Beware, this creates some confusing nomenclature, as a result e.g. the Wacht Am Rhein scenario begins technically in what is marked on the Turn track as "Winter 1945."

The meat of the game then takes place over the next three Phases:

Axis Player Turn

Allied Player Turn

Armoured Action

The basics are conventional, with Axis units moving and fighting, followed by Allied units moving and fighting.  Then in the Armoured Action section, the Axis move only their armoured units, but ALL Axis units have combat again.  This is mirrored by the Allies doing exactly the same, moving only their armoured units and then ALL Allied units having combat again.  Fortunately the low unit density makes what may sound a slightly lengthy process much quicker and easier than it seems.  

Also the limited terrain and its effects on movement and combat help to make both processes very straightforward.  However, despite the rules' overall simplicity, ease of understanding and application, there are some very interesting aspects.  The first being the single integrated Combat Table that has separate lines for each type of combat.

Just cross-reference the type of Combat with each player's total strength and both players simultaneously roll two dice, apply the hits and the player taking most hits retreats.  Should both players allocate applicable air and/or naval units to a land combat then separate Air v Air and Sea v Sea combat occurs first and surviving winning unit strengths are factored into the land combat.   Again the limited number of naval and air units make this a minor, but satisfying sub-process.

I also appreciate the fact that air and naval units do not actually move to the combat site but can be applied if in range.  Such units are then marked as Ops Complete and cannot be used again until the markers are removed in each individual Player Turn.  This achieves some interesting effects.  When the Axis player attacks any naval or air units they use will be unavailable for defence in the Allied Player's turn, but those Allied air and naval that defended will become available to attack on their own part of the turn at the expense of being unavailable on the following turn's Axis section.

A close look at some of the Allied Force Pool

Each player's identical movement part of their turn has its mix of familiar and not so familiar factors.  Simple movement factors coupled with the very limited terrain modifiers makes for ease of learning and execution.  What is most unusual is that all units [air, land and sea] can move in any order that you like within the Movement part of a turn, as well as employing normal movement, rail movement and amphibious assault where applicable.  Consequently, I'd strongly advise some simple practice of turning each unit to face a specific direction once it is moved to avoid confusion.

ZOCs too are slightly more unusual.  For land units they're perfectly normal, extending into all adjacent hexes, halting enemy unit movement, free to enter in the phase when all units can move, but costing +1 in the Armoured  phase.  But air and naval units project different ZOCs with different effects.  Naval ones extend three hexes, cause a special type of attack [a transit attack] whenever an enemy naval unit enters any of them and Naval ZOCs also interrupt the supply lines for all units in all hexes they extend into. 

Early Axis domination 

In what is generally a very straightforward set of rules the ramifications and intricacies of the different ZOC rules are probably the most complex element and have caused a few queries and uncertainties.  As is often the case, playing the game and using the rules tends to clarify their usage very satisfactorily.

On the other hand, occasions do occur when applying two different rules, do throw up some anomalous instances.  For those who demand absolute certainty this may cause problems or for  those who are simply rules-lawyers this may be a happy hunting ground!  As the latter type of gamer is generally one to avoid, enough said.

In the main then WW2 Deluxe lives up to many of its promises and expectations.  It does provide a fast playing game with its core of solid rules clear.  Though there are some uncertainties they tend to occur in more peripheral areas of minor importance.  As such this may not make it the best choice of game for a beginner, but for the experienced gamer it certainly provides a lighter experience of a massive topic that still manages to pack in many of the important historical factors of WW2 in the |European theatre.

The one thing I have wished for is a section of designer's notes, so often an element in many games.  Obviously not a requirement, but I'd have loved Jon Compton to share a few thoughts on the design. especially as among his many previous hats is that of editor of the magazine Fire & Movement, many of whose issues I still possess. 

Many thanks to Canvas Temple Publishing for providing a review copy and I look forward with great enthusiasm to the appearance of their next two WWII projects.  Both of them are topics that I think many of you will share my excitement for:  Admirals War which will cover the whole European and Pacific conflict at sea and Wacht Am Rhein, a perennial favourite.

RRP $79.95