Great Northern War

by

Wargame Design Studio 

 

 The Great Northern War went from 1700 until 1721. It was certainly not the first to envelop the Baltic countries nor would it be the last. Peter I (the great) was on the throne of Russia, Augustus II (the strong, and Marshal DeSaxe's father) was king of Poland and Saxony, and Frederick IV of Denmark-Norway decided to get together and conquer and then divide the Swedish possessions around the Baltic. On the throne of Sweden was an eighteen-year-old by the name of Charles XII. He had been a rowdy teenager as king, and one is reminded of Henry V of England before he became king. Charles, just like Harry, seems to have sobered up completely at the announcement of war. What the three foolish kings did not know is that they had unleashed from his bottle a specter that would haunt them for many years. Charles XII was a born military genius. He also slept with Arrian's account of Alexander the Great under his pillow. His feats on and off the battlefield would be sung through the ages just like a skald would sing of his Viking ancestors. I first met up with him as a child in the book Twelve Against the Gods by William Bolitho Ryall. My little eyes glassed over when constantly reading the part of about him over and over. I still only wear boots that resemble the ones he had on in the picture. Charles XII was a total anachronism for his years on earth. Cervantes should have written his biography. Charles probably saw himself as a crusader or as a knight errant.

 War game Design Studio has not released a game like this in a while. Most of their games are of huge swaths of territory with 1000 or more scenarios included with it, let alone the campaign games. This game comes with a mere sixty-eight scenarios, not counting the ones in the campaigns. You also get a Getting Started Scenario that also comes with a Getting Started PDF. This walks you through a good number of the different commands and settings you can use in the game. The Great Northern War is part of WDS's line of games called Musket & Pike. As of now, there are only three games in the Musket & Pike series The Great Northern War, Renaissance, and The Seven Years War. Both Renaissance and The Seven Years War are excellent games in their own right. However, I hope that the Musket & Pike Series is soon awash with other titles (hint, hint, nudge, nudge). This is what WDS has to say about the Musket & Pike Series:

 "The games in the Musket and Pike series cover many different campaigns during the new age of muskets up to the Seven Years War. The game scale is 100 meter hexes and 15 minute turns. Units are normally at the company/battery/squadron and battalion level.

All the titles in the series include both stand-alone battles as well as linked campaign games. Editors for both scenarios and campaigns are also included with all titles."

close-up battle screenshot

 This is what WDS has to say about GNW:

"All the titles in the series include both stand-alone battles as well as linked campaign games. Editors for both scenarios and campaigns are also included with all titles.

The Great Northern War includes 69 Scenarios – covering all sizes and situations, including a solo tutorial scenario plus specialized versions for both head to head play and vs. the computer AI.

A range of maps are included covering all the significant locations fought over during the Great Northern War and some of lesser known locations.

The order of battle files cover the various forces that participated in the campaign with other formations added in for hypothetical situations.

There are extensive 3d unit graphics covering all of the major armies involved.

Campaign and Scenario Editors which allow players to customize the game.

Sub-map feature allows the main map to be subdivided into smaller segments for custom scenario creation.

Design notes which cover or include the production of the game, campaign notes and a bibliography that includes the sources used by the designer team to produce this simulation game.

The Great Northern War provides multiple play options including play against the computer AI, Play by E-mail (PBEM), LAN & Internet "live" play as well as two player hot seat.

Includes battles from all aspects of the war - major encounters to small skirmishes. 69 stand-alone scenarios and 5 campaigns. A sampling would be:

Humlebæk

Narva

Riga

Kliszów

Poniec

Fraustadt

Holowczyn

Veprik

Poltava

Helsingborg

Stresow

Trondheim"

 Just like all of their titles, the bare bones of the games come from a series of John Tiller games that were released a while ago. However, WDS has worked their combined fingers to the bone in updating and testing all of the different series of games that they now produce. All of the games have come a long way from what they were when first released. 

 One of the biggest gripes from players of the original versions was the AI was not being up to snuff. A lot of the titles now have actual scenarios designed from the ground up to be played against the AI. There are sometimes multiple scenarios of the same battle complete with what ifs. The actual number of scenarios if you include the ones from the five campaigns is around 200! (and this is a smaller WDS game). This title is a bit different because the number of units on the game maps are very small compared to most of their titles. 

one of zoomed out levels view

 I should just post some pictures and say that you get to replay Narva and Poltava and call it a day. Anyone who has any interest in the GNW will be drooling over the prospect of replaying those battles. However, your choice is just like one offered by Monty Hall: there are always more doors to open. The amazing thing about these games is that you get a complete scenario and campaign editor. Effectively WDS has given you one game that you can tweak to your hearts content down through the years. 

This is the highest zoom out level.

 The battles in the game go from small engagements to large battles like Poltava. The addition of the Getting Started Scenario and PDF does a lot for newcomers to the games. It will also help grognards who, for whatever reason, have not played a WDS title in many a year. 

 Another thing that I love about WDS is that they have released a total of nine! smaller demo games covering almost all of their game series. These range from a piece of Waterloo to some Modern Air War and then topped off with a Spanish-American War Naval Campaign demo release.

 

Poltava from one of the zoom out levels, it also shows the inset map.

 Enough about WDS and all of their hard work and range of games. What about The Great Northern War? It is very hard as a reviewer to review a game that is about one of your favorite eras of wargaming. On the one hand, Poltava and Narva have had a good number of board wargames done about them. The other battles have never seen the light in a grognards eye. I also have really liked the system that the game uses, even more so now that WDS has updated almost all of the parts of the games. The only thing about the game that gives me any pause at all is their treatment of Poltava. While you could use the editor to change certain aspects to your liking, I am kind of stymied by their being only one version of the scenario included, outside of the Russian Campaign 1708-1709. This campaign has two different battles of Poltava in it. Historians are torn between it being a forlorn Swedish attack or that had Charles XII not been wounded (he was shot in the foot and unable to stand or ride a horse) their plan was feasible. So, it is possible that the designer is firmly in the 'the Swedes had no chance' side of the argument.

Another zoomed in screenshot

 

 We have not come to the point yet in computers where we can effectively act like commanding generals. No AI program has been written that can make your computer subordinates act like their historical counterparts (unless those counterparts did not deserve to be on the battlefield). Oh, we can tell a group or unit to follow a road or move to a certain area, but once it is there, we keyboard generals have to take over. AIs, especially in defense, have made great strides, but on the attack not so much. The great thing about the WDS AI scenarios is that they were built with this in mind. So, your AI opponent with these games will give you a fight. The other point about WDS is that they are continually working on the games' code. They just released version 4.7 for Waterloo (and soon for all of the Napoleonic games). Even some more work on the AI has been done in that release. The updates come from WDS so fast and furious that it is hard to keep up with them. 

 I do believe that grognards (grumblers) who also play board wargames make up the largest part of computer wargame players. So, in this instance instead of having a map the size of a table laid out for cats and kiddies to ruin we have it here on our screen. For wargamers who had to downsize, these games are also perfect. The map and the units stay right where we saved them. No wife or better half to grumble about taking up the space. All we do is turn the computer on and poof! there it is. 

 What goes for all of WDS games goes for this one. We do have competent AI generals, at least to some degree. So, solo players can have their cake and save it too. If you want to play a wargame against a live opponent, this game can do it no problem. The age where we had to switch seats is long over. You still can if you want to. You can also order your computer units around while sitting comfortably in your pajamas. Great Northern War brings to our computers battles that have never been seen before and campaigns that we have just dreamed about. Can you follow in Charles XII's footsteps and march to glory and final ruin, or will you be able to defeat all of your enemies and make the Baltic a Swedish lake for another hundred years?

close-up of the Battle of Narva at the start

 Thank you, Wargame Design Studio, for allowing me to review another excellent game in your stable. I cannot say enough about this game or the whole gamut of battles and campaigns from so many eras that your company produces. They also have been producing updates at a prodigious rate; this also includes more scenarios. Please take a look at all of the fine games they produce.

Robert 

Wargame Design Studio

Great Northern War

This is a link to their nine demos:

Game Demos – Wargame Design Studio (wargameds.com)

Before Augustus: The Collapse of the Roman Republic

by

Natale Barca

 Is it just me or does anyone else get the irony of someone with the last name of Barca writing about the fall of the Roman Republic?

 The book is 342 pages long. It has a full color section of artwork and a few maps in the center of the book. This is from the jacket:

"Before Augustus focuses on the political and military history of this tumultuous period, 60-27 BC."

 This is a truly well written and deep book that focuses on the last few decades of the Roman Republic. It follows in detail the life of the Republic from 60 BC until the rise of Octavian (Augustus) to emperor in all but name. This is one of the best history books that I have read over the last year. This is coming from a reader who is most certainly not a fan of either Caesar or Octavian.

 At the start of the book Caesar is much like all of the other sons of the aristocratic families of Rome. He needs to be famous and to somehow make or come into a very large sum of money. Money pretty much buys votes by this time in the Republic. Pompey and Crassus are older and have already made a name for themselves. Pompey is, at this time, the first man in Rome, due to his various military campaigns. Crassus has made himself one of the richest persons who have ever lived. While Caesar came from a famous family, it was nowhere near the pinnacle of power it had once been. He needed a war to both make a name and to fill his coffers. The three of them enter into an arrangement called the First Triumvirate. This was strictly a back-alley arrangement between the three. It had no basis in law as the Second Triumvirate had.

 The author does an excellent job of showing us all the above and much more. He also shows us all of the other players in the political game called the Roman Republic (its slow decay into this bread and circuses type Republic is for another book). The writer does go into some of the details of how Rome got into the position she was in during the last century of the Republic. However, the main part of the book follows the time of Caesar's rise and fall. 

 This book is a great deep dive into the history of the players and events that it shows. The only thing that I wish is that it was a two-volume set with just one volume starting with the aftermath of Caesar's death. The machinations of both before, during, and after the Civil War are wonderfully laid bare. I see by the bibliography that the author has written other books in Italian. My hope is that we see more of his work in English. It appears that he has another book offered by Casemate Publishers: Rome's Sicilian Slave Wars. I will have to pick this up as soon as possible.

 Thank you so very much Casemate Publishers for allowing me to review this excellent volume. It should be required reading for classes about the Roman Republic of the time. I look forward to a book about Marcus Antonius from the author.

Robert

Book: Before Augustus: The Collapse of the Roman Republic

Author: Natale Barca

Publisher: Casemate Publishers

 Old School Tactical VOL IV on Kickstarter NEXT WEEK! First pledgers get a game for $1 USD

by

Flying Pig Games

 The portable porcines are at it again! OST Volume IV begins selling on KS on September 21st 12 EDT.

 This is straight from the old boar's mouth:

"Old School Tactical, the acclaimed tabletop wargame series, is gearing up for its next exciting installment as it transports gamers to the battlefields of the Italian Theater during World War II. The much-anticipated Old School Tactical Volume IV, along with its expansion "For the Empire," is set to launch on Kickstarter on September 21st at 12 Noon EDT.

This Kickstarter campaign promises an opportunity for history buffs and strategy enthusiasts to immerse themselves in the intense battles that defined the Italian campaign from 1943 to 1945.

Sign up to be notified the second we go live: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/markhwalker/old-school-tactical-vol-iv-italian-theater-1943-45.

After the success of the Allied forces in North Africa, strategists turned their attention to what was deemed the 'soft underbelly' of Europe — Italy. The campaign was devised to eliminate Italy from the Axis alliance and divert Axis troops from other fronts. Commencing with the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, the Allies embarked on a relentless push against formidable resistance. The drive through Sicily, the landing at Salerno, the harrowing Anzio beachhead, and the continuous push towards Rome were marked by numerous river valleys and fortified defensive lines that posed immense challenges for both sides. Names like the Volturno River, the Rapid River, the Liri Valley, the Gustav Line, and the Caesar Line became synonymous with the grueling battles that unfolded. The campaign exacted a heavy toll on both Allied and Axis forces and concluded on May 2, 1945, with the formal surrender of all Axis troops in Italy.

Old School Tactical Volume IV introduces gamers to this demanding theater of World War II, featuring British forces engaging German and Italian units in treacherous terrain. Players will command Vickers machine guns, Commandos, Bren guns, PIATs, and sticky bombs as part of the British arsenal, alongside an array of vehicles such as Sherman and Churchill tanks. The German and Italian forces, on the other hand, deploy formidable panzers, including the Marder III and Elefant.

A visually stunning map depicting the picturesque Italian countryside has been meticulously designed to provide the backdrop for thrilling scenarios included in the playbook.

Old School Tactical is a two-player wargame that allows players to recreate these historic battles using counters representing soldiers, weapons, and vehicles. The gameplay revolves around the strategic use of Impulse Points to coordinate actions for each player's forces. At the end of each battle, casualties and victory points are tallied to determine the victor.

Infantry units target other soft units using their Firepower value against the target's Defense value, with the attack's effectiveness influenced by Leadership, support weapons, and terrain. Close Combat occurs during intense situations when infantry units move into enemy hexes. Assaults are resolved using the Infantry Combat Table, and the results are implemented. Attacking armored vehicles involves rolling to hit the target, and the attacker's Firepower is applied against the target's defense values. Dice rolls for vehicles are made using the Vehicle Combat Table.

Each game includes:

3 sheets of unit, weapon, vehicle, and condition counters.

A large 30" x 41" mounted game map with 1" hexes.

18 luck cards with unique effects.

36 unit data cards.

Scenarios such as "Find Those Guns," "Guards Brigade," and "Fallen Allies."

A player aid card.

A color rule book.

Dice.

A massive box to store all components.

Old School Tactical IV Italian Theater 1943-45 and "For the Empire" expansion offer an immersive and historically accurate gaming experience that will delight both veteran wargamers and newcomers alike. Don't miss your chance to be part of this Kickstarter campaign and secure exclusive rewards. Sign up at the provided link to be notified when the campaign goes live.

About Old School Tactical:

Old School Tactical is a renowned tabletop wargame series that brings historical battles to life through strategic gameplay. Developed by Mark H. Walker, the series has gained a dedicated following for its authenticity and immersive experience. Old School Tactical Volume IV takes players to the challenging Italian Theater of World War II, introducing British, German, and Italian forces in epic battles. The "For the Empire" expansion adds depth and excitement to the gameplay, offering players a chance to rewrite history through strategic decisions and tactical brilliance."

Mark H. Walker

Owner, Flying Pig Games

The Doomsday Project: Episode 2, The Battle for the Balkans

by

Compass Games

  This is a subject I lived through and until very recently I did not really explore game wise. Strangely enough, another title that I reviewed for Compass Games gave me the bug to start gaming the era. For those of you that do not know, this series of games takes place in 1985 when the Cold War goes hot. It has a neat and believable historical premise behind the game series. More on this will be below. So, sit back and put the laser disc in and we will watch: Back to the Future, Commando, Pale Rider, and St. Elmo's Fire. Of course, we will also ruminate on where the time has gone. Then we will get down to wargaming business.

 This blurb on the game is from Compass Games:

"Although the World War Three scenario of NATO versus the Warsaw Pact never happened, it happened countless times on the wargaming table. It may not be part of history, but it is part of our hobby’s history. The Doomsday Project is a subseries of the Operational Scale System featuring wars that never happened. There will be games on the Persian Gulf, Central America, The Battle for Northern Europe, Manchuria, the strategic naval war, and of course, a game of total nuclear war. All the games will feature rules that allow you to play some, part or all of the great war that never happened. The first game in the series will feature the fight that could have happened in Germany. Chemical weapons, tactical nuclear attacks and politics will be present – as well as all the forces that were stationed in the region in 1985. Both sides, notably the United States, were reequipping their forces with many new weapons joining the line. The process had started but is not yet completed.

This is the fourth game in the “OSS” system; and the second game in the Doomsday series. This game will cover the battle for the southern front of Europe. The map will stretch from Northern Italy to the Bosporus and all the nations that could have fought in this area will be represented in the game. This series is made to be highly playable and to be completed in far shorter a time that is common for this size game. Low counter density and a concentration on conceptual complexity is the focus of this series. While still mechanically simple, The Doomsday Project will also have all the necessary rules to cover this theater and period. In Episode Two, The Battle for the Balkans game, as you will see in all additional games in The Doomsday Project, will add another facet to the mechanics of the system. Sophisticated political rules will make their appearance. Players will have to content with heads of state and their positives and negatives in play. Rules to retrofit these rules into the Germany game will be provided as well."

Don't they look just beautiful!

 This is what comes with the game, plus some other information:

Complexity: 7 out of 10

Solitaire Suitability: 8 out of 10

Time Scale: 1 day per turn

Unit Scale: Divisional/Brigade/Regiment

Players: 1-2

Scenarios: 5 (+1 massive campaign game with The Battle for Germany)

Components

Four Maps at 22” by 34”

One Map at 11" by 17"

One Map at 8.5” by 11”

Five Countersheets

Eight Player Aids, Charts, and Displays

One Rulebook

One Scenario book

Two 6-sided dice and two 10-sided dice

1 Box and lid

Game Credits

Designer: Adam Starkweather

Graphic Artist: Nadir Elfarra

Counter Sheet #1

 First up I will be talking about the maps. You get six maps in the game, and they are made of paper with a bit of lamination on them. Four of them are the usual 22" x 34" variety. Then you get an 11" x 17" map of Istanbul and the mostly Turkish territory in Europe, and a small bit of Turkey proper. The 8.5" x 11" map is for filling in between two of the larger maps on the Adriatic coast. I like the maps. Their size is 12 kilometers per hex. The colors to me were a good choice. As far as terrain, it is easily distinguishable between the types of terrain. The Rulebook is forty-two pages long and is in full color. They are made of a flatter finish instead of the glossy magazine type we are getting used to seeing. It has double column spacing and the type size is large enough to easily read. The Scenario booklet is twenty-eight pages in length. It is made the same exact way as the Rulebook. First you have the setup and rules for the game's six scenarios and then you get a four-page example of play. There are seven thick card stock Player Aids. Six of them are one-sided and then there is a double-sided terrain chart. One side is the Terrain Effects Chart, and the other side is the Restricted Terrain Table. The six one-sided are:

Nato Player Aid

Warsaw Pact Player Aid

Warsaw Pact Air Display

Nato Air Display

Military Leaders/Political Leaders Charts

General Game Display

 They all have decent sized printing on them, except for a small part on the Military Leaders/Political Leaders page. The counters are very well done with either a silhouette for tanks and APCs, and a top-down view of aircraft. The five countersheets come wrapped in plastic, which is great because they want to fall out of the cardboard sprues. This is just like the counters I have been seeing in other Compass Games products. The political leader counters are small portraits of the leader it represents. The first thing you will notice is there are no numbers on them for movement and attack/defense (I know- heresy). The only numbers on them show the size of the unit. The game rules and die rolls take care of how strong or weak a unit is. There are also a fair number of counters to show unit losses and its state. The components are a mirror image of the first game in the series: The Battle for Germany. If you liked them, and I do, then you can be assured to like these.

Counter Sheet #2

 

 The game has no need of movement rates on the counters. All units are considered to be motorized except for an actual leg unit. The basic unit movement rate is five. The terrain is much more difficult than in The Battle for Germany maps. The road network is not like what is present in The Battle for Germany. The units can have primary and secondary equipment listed on it. This is usually shown with APCs and tanks, although a unit can be of only one type of armament.

 If you are looking for history and plausibility, then look no further. This game has these and many more besides:

Armor/APCs

Surface-to-Surface Missiles

Helicopters

Fighters/Bombers

Airborne

Warsaw Pact Guards Units

Marine Units

Air Transport for both supply/attacks

Nuclear Weapons possible use

Fresh/Spent Units

Supply Points Usage

Poor/Penal Units

Spetsnaz

Leaders (not seen very much in games of this scale)

 Guaranteed that if it was ever in a wargame, it is in this one.

 Below shows some of the sequence of play:

The Strategic Phase

 Check Weather

 Check Communications

 Place Arriving Reinforcements

 Air Allocation Phase

 Resolve All SSM Attacks

 Supply and Infrastructure Phase

 Strategic Air Mission Resolution

Warsaw Pact Activation Phase

NATO Activation Phase

Activation Sequence

 HQ Activation Segment

 Unit Activation Segment

 Cadre Segment

 Initial Movement and Combat Declaration Segment

 Reserve Movement Segment

 Bonus Movement Segment

 Combat Segment

 After Combat Loss Segment

 Check Stacking Segment

 HQ Movement and Refresh Segment

 Bivouac

 Night Battles

End Phase

 Eliminate Friendly Units Phase

 Victory Check Phase

 Victory Check Segment

 Politics Phase

 Time Phase

 As you can see, the game has just about everything in it that was ever discussed about a Third World War game. Compass Games has it listed as seven out of ten on the complexity scale. The one great bit about it is that the game has suitability of solitaire ranked as high. I can attest to this. It is actually rather easy to play solitaire because there is so much to do each time you change sides the slate in your mind is wiped clean.

 This is a list of Special Units in the game:

Warsawa Pact Regiments and NATO Battalions

VKK Units

Spetsnaz

Military Commanders

Refugees

 A game at this level that also has the player dealing with Military Commanders and Refugees is pretty remarkable. There are six Refugee counters. One is put in the Refugee Box of the NATO Players Aid if one of these occur:

A Combat Chit is placed in a city hex.

Nuclear Attack Marker is placed on the map.

Chemical Attack Marker is placed on the map.

 The NATO Player can spend supply points to remove the Refugee counters. For each two still on the Player Aid Box the NATO infrastructure is reduced by one.

 The Military Commanders can have these five traits:

Pensive

Deliberate

Prudent

Aggressive

Reckless

 Military Commanders can be in use for both land and air units. Military Commanders are only used in a campaign game or a combined game (Battle for Germany).

 Yes, to learn the game you have to put your thinking cap on. This is not a series where you can just sit down and read a manual for ten minutes and be ready to play. The game comes with five scenarios to play. The first Austria Stands Alone would be the smallest and best to learn the game on. There is a sixth scenario and that is if the player has the first game in the series, Battle for Germany, and has enough room to play with all the maps from each game. The designer, Adam Starkweather, has also done some YouTube videos on how to play and learn the game. 

 Unlike a lot of other games, combat uses the most time and gray matter. The first thing is that there are four types of combat. These are:

Meeting Engagement : 1 MP if Cross Country or 1/2 in Road Column.

Hasty Attack: 2 MPs if Cross Country or 1 MP if in Road Column.

Prepared Attack: 3 MPs if Cross Country or 2 MPs if in Road Column.

Deliberate Attack: All MPs(may not be in Road Column).

 You actually have to spend movement points to place a combat chit on a hex. The combat chits also show which die to use (either the D6 or D10). Then the attacker can decide on whether to add Artillery Support, Air-to-Ground Support, or Helicopters. The Combat Chips have to be drawn. Some of them have a Random Event possibility on them. The Combat Chit also has an A, B, or C on it to tell you which of the three Random Event Tables to use. There is so much more to just talk about with combat let alone the rest of the game. The game also shows the lethality of the almost modern battlefield. While you do not have to worry about drones you will still have to husband your forces to take your objectives. All of your well-thought-out plans will fall into the waste bin when presented with what Clausewitz called 'friction'. This game differs from The Battle of Germany in having a full-fledged political segment in its rules. 

 Victory is also a bit different than other games. This is from the Rulebook:

"8.2.1: If a player has 21 points and gains victory points, those points are deducted from the enemy total. If a player has fewer victory points and what they might lose in victory points through play, the remaining victory points that cannot be lost are instead added to their opponent's total."

 "Players may "pay" victory points to do several game actions. They may do this even if they have 0 points but by adding the victory points to his opponent's total."

 So, you may 'bet' upon you getting more victory points by using them earlier to try to get a larger victory.

 I really like the system. So much in fact that I had to purchase a copy of The Doomsday Project: Episode 1 The Battle for Germany, just to have the complete game series, at least of the published games. The next in the series, Episode 3, will be taking place in northern Europe. I think I will also have to purchase the other two games in the OSS (Operational Scale Series) series Vietnam: A Rumor of War, and A Test of Faith: The Arab-Israeli War of 1973. Both of those games were also designed by Adam Starkweather. Thank you, Compass Games, for allowing me to review this great game. I can recommend it to anyone who is a true grognard and likes to get into meatier games. 

 Compass Games next Expo will be here:

Compass Games Expo Fall 2023 will be held November 9-13, 2023 at the Comfort Inn & Suites in Meriden, CT.

 They also had a Spring Expo this year so hopefully that continues to happen. 

Robert

The Doomsday Project: Episode 2, The Battle for the Balkans

Compass Games

The Doomsday Project: Episode 1, The Battle for Germany

 

 

 

WARFIGHTER WWII

MEDITERRANEAN & NORTH AFRICA

FROM

DAN VERSSEN GAMES

Thanks to the generosity of DVG, the Warfighter series has become a corner stone of my games collection.  They began with the original foundation, The Tactical Special Forces Card Game, and its many subsequent expansions including the massive Footlocker and continued with Warfighter WWII.  Once more DVG were kind enough not just to provide me with a review copy of the core game, but the Ammo Box Expansion, [an equally enormous equivalent of the initial modern series' Footlocker] along with a stack of the many expansion decks, only to be followed by the WWII Pacific game!  All of this can be charted through my series of reviews, links to which can be found at the end of the review of this current addition.

And what an addition for which I must extend huge thanks to DVG for once more giving me the opportunity to review them. Not just the two main new editions to the Warfighter WWII canon, Mediterranean & North Africa, but a further 20 expansion decks.  [For a detailed look at the core system I would refer you specifically to the links to my first review of the Warfighter system and the review of Warfighter WWII at the end of this article.] What follows is the briefest of outlines for anyone who is totally new to this system. I would sum it up as follows.  It is essentially a tactical game of solitaire or cooperative play.  Played on an abstract board.

All missions, objectives, locations, friendly and enemy units, equipment and many skills and abilities are represented by cards.  Along with these, there is a wide range of cardboard counters representing physical items ranging from ammunition, grenades and satchel charges to canteens of water and bandages and markers for such things as suppression and killed, the identifying number of each of your soldier units, the number of individual actions each possesses, wounds etc, etc. 

The image above gives you a picture of the game in full flow. Everything is handled by the decks of cards that you see down the left edge of the board and the information on the cards and, of course, plenty of D10 dice rolling.  It may look daunting, but after just a few turns you'll be immersed in a game that consistently produces nail-biting action narratives!  However, for the player unfamiliar with this game, I would strongly recommend buying the core Warfighter WWII game because of its excellent rule book.

The reason I advise this is because these two new games both contain the new massive, compendious Warfighter Universal Rulebook! 

The 100 page Universal Rule Book

This is an attempt to bring together everything in one all-encompassing rule book that will bind together what exists, what has just been published [Warfighter Fantasy] and what lies in the future [possibly Sci-Fi, possibly Vietnam, possibly WWI].

In his introduction, Dan Verssen attributes the inspiration for this to... you, the players of this series, and your insatiable desire for more and more Warfighter! I certainly welcome such a compendium of rules and I've tried to provide an outline at the end of my review of what has swollen the initial core book to this mammoth volume.  However, as many others have already commented, I hope that this is not what will now appear in every new game.  I personally think that this should have been offered as a stand-alone purchase for all who would like it.  I have consistently praised the previous rule books for their accessibility and clarity when learning the game and ease when checking back on a rule.  The new all-embracing rule book has the first two strengths, but it does not ease initial learning or help in checking rules when you have to locate it among so many pages. 

Typically, while playing Missions from both the Mediterranean and North Africa boxes, I have largely relied on my earlier core WWII rule book, with only occasional reference to this new Universal Rule Book for a few very specific points,

For me, the most significant novelty is contained in the Warfighter Mediterranean game and that is because it is the first to handle an Axis nation, the Italians, as the main player and the Hostiles are Allied troops, specifically the British. Perhaps because of this I have been drawn to this game and this has been reinforced by the topics in several of the Expansion Decks.  Like all the preceding Decks, they contain the expected mix of new Soldier and Hostiles cards, added Skills, Equipment, and most important of all are those Soldiers, Missions, Objectives and Locations related very specifically to an historical event or location.  For me, three Expansion decks stand out.

Expansion Deck #82: Raid on St. Nazaire 

Expansion Deck #76: Crete 1

Expansion Deck #77: Crete 2

The first of these will need the Warfighter Europe core game too, but the deck contains 7 Objective Cards, 8 Missions and 13 Locations that are specific to the famous raid on St. Nazaire along with a number of Soldier cards for specific British participants who you will be playing.  

The two Crete Expansion Decks purely relate to the Warfighter Mediterranean game and both naturally introduce a similar combination of Missions, Objectives and Locations relating to the battle for Crete.  Along with them and a major plus for me, Crete 1 includes several named New Zealand soldiers for you to play while Crete 2 brings in German airborne soldiers, parachutes, gliders and supply cannisters.

Obviously, I am biased as to my choices, partly by being a Brit, but I suspect many like me will be drawn to the two Crete decks. A long sequence starting with Avalon Hills' Air Assault on Crete and SPI's Descent on Crete have given me a life time's fascination with the campaign.  However, I restrained my impulse to turn straight to these expansion decks in order to give the Mediterranean box a proper airing.   Inevitably, the basic preparation for every session remains the same: choose your Mission and Objective and build up a suitable selection of Soldiers and their skills and equipment and then the meat of the game follows as you fight your way towards the Objective.

My leading Soldier, armed and dangerous!

Nevertheless, this game whichever core box you may be playing, never fails to deliver.  A typical example was the play of the same scenario twice.  The first play saw some of the worst possible locations turning up for the slog to the objective and a devastating array of the most powerful British hostiles.  Half way through I knew there was no possibility of victory, only more of my soldiers dying!  A quick reset with exactly the same selection of soldiers met with a wholly different experience.  Easy locations to enter and initially light resistance saw my force surge ahead... until the sudden appearance of a Sherman tank at the provincial viaduct threatened to bring this to a crushing halt.  Fortunately, obstructing terrain blocked this killing machine's sight to its target and a fortuitous turn of an air support card and high rolling dice achieved its elimination and allowed me to move on and eventually achieve my goal.

Turning to Warfighter North Africa, all the same qualities naturally are repeated.  They start with the pleasing fact that just as the Pacific board was imprinted with  a wholly appropriate background scene, so too does the North Africa board reflect its desert terrain.  Not only is the background one of sweeping sand dunes, but the fore-grounded figures are British soldiers in a sandbagged emplacement.  

The colouring too ranges from sand to light tan and on to darker brown and the crowning touch is the familiar Desert Rats image identifying where your Mission card is placed!

The vast range of photos on the cards as always add to the historical setting of each core box.  This continues to be reflected across the whole range of different card types.  For example, Location Cards, such as Wadi, Salt Pan, Camel Bushes and Coastal Road.  How many of us have fought up and down, attacking and retreating along that very coastal road in many another North Africa game?  Event Cards like Oasis, Mirage and Heat Haze; the Cauldron Mission Card; the Benghazi Handicap Objective Card - all emphasise where we are for this game.  However, it is perhaps to be expected that the Expansion Decks are what dive deepest into the desert war.

Here are just a few of those location setting scenes taking you closer and closer to the action.

Just as I thrilled to the many Mediterranean Expansions that brought more history to the game, so too with Warfighter North Africa.  I expected to have a major toss-up between which of two groupings won my praise.  On the one hand there is the group consisting of Desert Rats and Vehicles Desert Rats matched by Afrika Korps and Vehicles Africa [why the change of spelling?] Korps and on the other hand is the grouping of the Battle of Bir Hakeim, the Battle of Bardia and the Battle of Damascus.  [What - no Battle of Tobruk?]  Not forgetting two other significant Expansions: Gurkhas and Long Range Desert Group.  Glad to see both of those getting a look in.

To be honest, in the first grouping I was disappointed with the Desert Rats Expansion, as 43 out of the 55 cards were Frontline/Elite British Hostiles!  I really hadn't expected to spend my time fighting against the Desert Rats rather than with them..  Even the Afrika Korps deck consisted of just over half the cards being German Hostiles, though this was compensated for by having 18 German Soldier and 2 German vehicle cards.  The two co-related Vehicle decks were almost identical in that, out of 55 cards in each, 45 were composed of two types of cards, anti-vehicle and vehicle.  I was intrigued by these, as though these type of cards and the concepts/rules related to them had featured in four earlier Expansion Decks, they were not an area that I'd previously explored.  These latest Decks certainly will be getting plenty of attention from me this time round.

The essence of their use is that you can buy Vehicle cards for a Mission just as you would Soldier cards.  They introduce a series of new concepts and the anti-vehicle cards form a new Hostile deck that a card must be drawn from for each vehicle you have in your group when you come to the Hostile Reinforcement Step. 

Much as I'm going to enjoy that strong element, my personal taste for adding more historical details to my Missions means that the three Expansions covering named Battles ultimately won my favour.  Bir Hakeim and Damascus both introduce French Soldiers and specific French weaponry and all three battles include a mix of historical features in Mission, Objective and Location cards, as well as generic elements relating to desert warfare.  Even more interesting is that Damascus includes as many French Hostiles as it does French Soldiers and finally Bardia to my delight brings in the Aussies.  I can envisage quite a bit of my time being spent digging into all three of these Expansions, as well as considerable research reading.  Heading the list will be Damascus which is a battle I'm totally ignorant about. 

Just as I was pleased to see nationalities such as the French, Australians and New Zealanders making an appearance, it was equally pleasing to find a whole Expansion focused on the Gurkhas. It cam as no surprise that most of the cards are fairly equally divided between the Gurkhas as Soldier cards and as Hostile cards.  With their reputation of service in the British army, I'm expecting to find them a daunting force whether I'm playing with them as my mission group or I'm the Axis group fighting against them.

So there you have, it a positive feast of material for a system that continues to grow and grow and grow.  Heading for the future my personal vote would be for Vietnam.  Meanwhile I have so much now that I suspect it might take considerably longer than WWII lasted to play the vast combination that I can marshal. 

LINK 1 for Warfighter review

LINK 2 for Warfighter WWII review

LINK 3 for Warfighter WWII Pacific review

Appendix 1: new elements and expansion of existing elements introduced in "Warfighter Universal Rule Book"

A 2 page introduction.

Skill Cards expanded to a full page.

Engage in Hand-to-Hand Combat becomes Striking Counter

Deploy the Decks omitted.

Select Your Mission has been substantially expanded from half a page to ten pages.  The core books only refer to Standard Missions covered by a specific game.  This refers to types of Mission cards found throughout various expansion packs.

Introduction of Team Soldiers.

Melee cards appear to have been renamed HtH [Hand-to-Hand] cards.  In sequence of Play HtH becomes Engage In Striking Combat.

Section on Armor Cards and Shield Cards included relating to new  Warfighter Fantasy release.

The inclusion of details on doors/beneficials/obstacles/traps expands section on Placing Location Cards

In Soldier Attacks there has been a small addition of Shadow elements.

Hostile Cards section includes the introduction of Double Reticles and mainly 2 extra pages relating to Warfighter Fantasy.

Hostile Turn slight amplification.

11 pages devoted to Shadow war

6 pages devoted to Private Military Contracts

5 pages devoted to Warfighter Fantasy.

Appendix 2: Expansion Decks specific to the Mediterranean Core Game

Exp #71 Royal Italian Army

Exp #75 Operation Tombola

Exp #76 Crete 1

Exp #77 Crete 2

Exp #78 Battle of Rimini

Exp #79 Gothic Line: Fortification

Exp #80 Italian Partisans

Exp #81Italian Airborne "Folgore"

Exp #82 Raid on St. Nazaire [needs Warfighter Europe Core Game]

Exp #83Savola Cavaleria

Exp #86 Vehicles Italian

Appendix 3: Expansion Decks specific to the North Africa Core Game

Exp #69 Long Range Desert Group

Exp #70 Afrika Korps

Exp #72 Battle of Bardia

Exp #73 Battle of Bir Hakeim

Exp #74 Battle of Damascus

Exp #84 Vehicles Africa Korps

Exp #85 Vehicles Desert Rats

Exp #87 Gurkhas

Exp #88 Desert Rats

 

 Storm Clouds Over the Pacific 1931-1941

War In the Far East

by

Peter Harmsen

  There used to be a dearth of books about the real beginning of World War II. It was not in Ethiopia or in Spain, but in China where the fuse was lit. We have had some books lately that deal with the Second Sino-Japanese War. However, the field is nowhere near the rest of WWII as far as books written about battle and campaigns.

 This book starts right at the beginning of the conflict (others start at 1937 and the Marco Polo Bridge Incident). Japan is looking for resources and their own lebensraum in the Asian landmass. The author shows us the slide the Japanese took from a rather open slightly democratic nation to a militaristic fascist like state. There are wonderful bits of history that I have never read before. He informs us that a group of young naval officers (we usually associate the Japanese Army officers with rebellion) had determined to kill the prime minister and a completely harmless Charlie Chaplin during a visit in 1931. They were actually going to assassinate more government officials also but were stopped in their tracks by the secret police. One wonders if Mr. Chaplin was ever aware how close he came to death. The book is filled with these golden nuggets of history.

 The book goes on to explain the Japanese invasion of northern China and their conquest of Manchuria (afterwards changed to Manchukuo and given the last Chinese emperor Puyi as a puppet leader). The writer shows us all of the assassination attempts and successes of the young Japanese military officers against their own government. Then we see the slow slide to all-out war between Japan and China in 1937. The author shows us the drifting of Japan toward the other Axis powers. The book also shows the different attempts of the western powers to stop the war in China. It also shows the intense rivalry between the Chinese Communists and Chiang Kai-shek's government.

 We are then taken to the final desperate attempts from some on both sides to stop a war breaking out in the Pacific between Japan and the western powers. The author then takes us to the various Japanese attacks and invasions in December 1941. These include Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies.

 The book is just under 200 pages long. It has a large section of Endnotes and a list of literature in Chinese and other languages. It comes with thirty-two pages of black and white photos of the actions and personalities shown in the book. It also has a small number of some very well-done maps. Thank you, Casemate Publishers, for allowing me to review this outstanding book. This is a fine history book on its own and hopefully will attract more writers to the subject.

Robert

Book: Storm Clouds Over the Pacific 1931-1941 War in the Far East

Author: Peter Harmsen

Publisher: Casemate Publishers