One of the (sometimes dubious) joys of reviewing games on a regular basis is that you get to see some truly off-the-wall items. Now this status is not necessarily A Bad Thing, as the Muse of Creativity visits each recipient in a different disguise. With By Force of Arms, an item I picked up at Origins, we have one of the more unusual historical games of the past few years, one which contains not a small amount of ingenuity. Perhaps the most unusual aspects of Force are its components and its subject matter. It would be hard to recall a game which intends to cover three such widely disparate, and massive, subjects as does Force. There are three, separate games in the ziplock, each using the same system: “Alexander the Great”, “The Hordes of Genghis Khan”, and “Reconquista” (Christians vs Moors in Spain). It isn’t bad enough that these are subjects calling for completely different insights, but the scale for each ranges from 10 years in Alex, 220 years with the Khan, to 7 centuries up and down the peninsula. And while each of them has its own map, pretty much everything else is the same. And a pretty unusual symmetry there is. The three, rather small, but laminated, maps use 1” hexes, with lots of green, blue and brown. While the fonts used are interesting, the cartographic approach would embarrass Perry Moore. … maybe even Joe Miranda. There are a handful of neat-o charts, tables, set-up cards, etc., but it’s the playing pieces that catch your eye (or nail). The main forces are represented by what I could best call “stand-up poker chips”, each with a letter and a number (for identification). And for keeping track - on those charts - what those “chips” represent are 100 stamped out, iron squares of some weight. One assumes that, if you find Force of minimal amusement, you can always use them to hold down all those anorexic Cedar Creek counters on the map. This is easily the heaviest ziplock game in memory. Even more surprising is that, while the games do have their massively goofy and ahistorical moments (mainly in Reconquista), the system is not without its charms. The Sequence of Play is expressed as a Flow Chart (a rather nice idea the rest of us ought to “borrow”), even as the mechanic is Igo-Hugo. To move your units you roll the die, divide that among all (!!) your units), to which you add leader ratings. This does tend to keep operations to a minimum, but it does recreate spurts of activity nicely. Combat is in hex and always voluntary. That’s the straight stuff. The kicker is, either player may declare an attack at any time during play, producing some really interesting moves and not a little tension. Combat, itself, is surprisingly sophisticated and interesting, given the rather ingenuous look of the game. It resolved by comparing Force Effectiveness, which is achieved by cross-referencing Troop and Leadership Quality, and using that comparison to select the column under which the odds apply. Losses apply to both sides and are either retreats or step losses. What does lack sophistication are the scenarios, which give generic history a bad name. Not that they aren’t fun; it’s just that the only resemblance they bear to the title is in the name. We played Reconquista with virtually none of the initial Arab impact; it was more like a castle trading exercise, albeit one that was some fun. I hesitate to recommend Force outright, as its simplistic historical approach may turn off many. However, it does contain some very creative mechanics, covers at least two topics of which we’ve seen priceless little … and it has all that iron. CAPSULE COMMENTS: Interesting; systematically creative if rather simplistic historically. from TRIUMPH GAME COMPANY Three 11” x 17” maps; 24 plastic Playing pieces; 100 metal markers; Rules Folder; Scenario Folder; 2 Force data charts; 1 Player Aid Chart; ziplocked. TGC, 10226 Cardinal Drive, Orrstown PA 17244. $? Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. II # 19 Table of Contents Back to Berg's Review of Games List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 by Richard Berg This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com