Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit #1 from Multi-Man Publishing. This thin one and a half inch depth bright box includes two dice, a rule book that is only twelve pages long, six scenarios, a reference data card, 280 units and status counters, and two map sheets size ten by 30 squares, printed in heavy tag board, mostly in shades of green and tan. The map scale is such that in an overhead view of a town one or several buildings occupy a single square. Advanced Squad Leader units represent one man, a few men, or weapons. The game play is a mixture of fire and movement, with firing opening and closing the combat action, followed by rout and advance movement. The game includes close combat, and small support weapons: machine guns, flame throwers, and demolition charges. There is a fondness for acronyms. There are limited morale and experience rules.
The Seven Days of 1809 Napoleon and the Archduke Charles. This game from the Operational Studies Group comes in a 1 inch deep bookcase sized box. It includes an extremely detailed map of approximately 60 by 33 squares, showing every town and path and woods and hillside in the vicinity of Regensburg. The unit counters are two-sided; counting status and marker counters, the units come to 280 in number. Individual combat units are regiments. The rules book is 28 pages, all told, including historical notes. There are also seven pages of charts including march tables and casualty records. The game represents events in 1809 in which the newly modernized Austrian army engaged the French army as the Austrians attempted to recover their losses from prior events. Also included with the game is volume two, number eight of the magazine Wargame Design.
Mystic War from TimJim Games is a card game with non-collectible cards, limited resources, a four page rule book, two pages of card descriptions, and combat mats. The game involves the use of sorcery and resources to defeat one’s opponents and obtain supremacy over a kingdom. There are no actual maps; the representation of terrain ,so to speak, is entirely abstract.
Against All Odds is a complete game using the Advanced Tactical system for representing combat. There are two 10 sided dice, and a half dozen small sheets of unit counters including several hundred counters of various sizes representing vehicles, small groups of people, individual weapons, and individual leaders. There are a half dozen pages of charts and vehicle descriptions, eight scenarios, a four page small type rule book, and a 48 page presentation of the Advanced Tactical System. The ATS is vaguely similar to Advanced Squad Leader, which is not surprising because they represent the same sort of events on precisely the same scale and level of complexity.
Roma from GMT Games includes the games Imperium, Circus Maximus, and Hannibal Against Rome. The rule pages are quite short: sixteen pages for all three games. The game uses wooden counters of various sorts square, cylinder, and pawn. There is also a set of specialized playing cards and a selection of stick on counters. The box is larger than bookcase and multiple inches deep.
Stand and Die from GDW Games represents the 1941 Battle of Borodino. The game box is twelve by twenty by two inches deep. The maps are mounted with large-hexagons; each map sheet is 32 by 32 squares in size. There are four sheets of unit counters making a total of over 600 units and status markers. There are also several pages of charts and clarifications, three full size-of-box arrival and reinforcement sheets, ads for other GDW games, a pad of morale sheets, and a set of errata unit counters to be punched out. The rule book includes 48 pages of rules, charts, and historical notes. The actual rules are only 30 pages long, using relatively large type with substantial illustrations. Included in the rules book is a full set of counters as a printed page. The game covers a single battle of 1941 during the German invasion of Russia. The battle was extremely fluid; while the Germans finally took the battlefield they were severely attritted and had been substantially delayed. The Russian army was beaten but it was not smashed to pieces without inflicting losses. The game also includes a ten sided die, and a plastic box for storing unit counters. As a historical aside, this is a relatively late game from Game Designers Workshop. It shows a transition in which the size, weight, and cost of the game have been driven up by elaborate production values such as the mounted large map boards, without in some sense actually delivering more game.
2038: Tycoons of the Asteroid Belt is a game of industrial development and investment. The game includes a four page rulebook, several pages of notes, playing card tight by films describing ships and shares, 100 hexagonal large unit counters, 240 small unit counters of various sorts, a stock mat for keeping track of investment stocks, and a mounted playing board, not to mention some extra cards describing features, and a stack of Prism Games Money, with denominations up to 500. This is an investment game, not a space travel or space warfare game. The game does come with a description of useful investment tactics, like stripping corporations, rolling cash between corporations, forcing majority stockholders to assume control and liability, and other fine financial techniques. Spaceships fly from point to point and explore or carry goods. There are earnings, dividends, and stock investments; one may purchase space ships. There are also private companies, an organization called the asteroid league with its own rules, but no sign of a tax collector. The game comes in a thick bookcase size box from Prism Games.
Eastern Fleet from Avalanche Press treats the Japanese naval incursion into the Indian Ocean in 1942. There are 24 pages of series rules and twenty pages of scenarios specific to the game. The scenarios include an extensive set of ship charts referring to, ship by ship, armament, torpedoes, speed, hull damage, and fuel supply. There are approximately 240 Square and rectangular unit counters showing individual ships and aircraft groups. The printing of the counters is a bit garish, with Ming yellow Japanese ships and medium blue British ships. There are also several pages of air base counters, a strategic map using brick-staggered squares showing the eastern and central Indian ocean, player log sheets, a large map for tactical action, and several pages of advertisements for other games. This is a tactical naval game with a strategic overlay. There are details for air operations and search, combat between aircraft and ships, submarines, shore bombardment, damaged ships, and other features. The scenarios are of variable length from a few turns up to at least 90.
Rome at War from Avalanche Press comes in a two inch deep bookcase size box. The map sheets, which are the size of four sheets of typing paper, are mounted. There are somewhat over 100 unit counters of square and rectangular shape, two scenario books, a sample of play, and a rule book of twelve pages of fairly large type using a respectable amounts of white space. The battles include The Tower, Cirta, Great Plains, and Zama, as well as a bonus of a scenario of an early battle. We are looking at period armies fighting over carefully chosen battlefields. The battles proceed until one side or the other has been destroyed or has fled the field; victory point rules rationalize fleeing the field. The rules appear to cover all of the standard features including ranged weapons, charges, movement, attacks, recovery from damage, and leaders. It is almost certainly the case that if you made the map somewhat bigger, and replaced the cardboard counters with painted miniatures, you could use these rules to fight battles with toy soldiers.
Tide of Fortune from 3W covers the battles of Antwerp, Market-Garden, and Aachen. There are twelve pages of special rules including some notes, and sixteen pages of general rules as well as five pages of charts. There are two large map sheets which extend to 70 by 34 squares. Rivers run down the lines between the hexagons, rather than running through the center of hexagons as found in more modern games. The map sheets are very attractively printed in relatively full color including red and gray roads, blue rivers, tan elevated features, and green forests. If you ever wondered about all those games where Brussels is off map, here is a map which actually shows Brussels and Antwerp right in the center of things. There is an extensive use of command points and command rules, reflecting logistics, that determine what combat units can do. Indeed the movement and combat rules are shorter than the rules on orders and supplies. Several hundred unit counters in blue, green, red, and tan, as well as range of special status markers, are included with the game.
Star Strike from Conquest Gaming Company comes in a plain white heavy cardboard shipping box. Inside are eight small pages of large type rules; the rules are quite straightforward but include unit counters, star systems, resources, movements, and of course combat and construction. The resource counters are poker chips. The unit counters are models of little plastic ships; each color is a different type of ship. There is also a cloth bag filled with little glass marbles, an optional chart for writing orders, and four astromorphic maps showing solar systems and routes between them. Resources are used to build fleets and to move them along difficult routes. There is combat which is based on simple attrition; each player loses one fleet in each round until no fleets are left. A stock of small washers is used to hold the marbles in position during play. In a sense this is a classically simpler game, but the use of elaborate plastic playing counters and other features, not to mention the heavy plasticized paper used for the map, undoubtedly inflated costs.
The Arab Israeli Wars, from Guild of Blades Publishing Group, shows an area map of Israel, much of Jordan, and in Egypt to slightly beyond the Suez canal, and bits of Syria and Lebanon. There are 270 unit counters in the form of plastic playing chips to which stickers must be attached to play. A D10 is used to resolve combat. The mapboard is printed on heavy cardboard. The rule book is 5.5 by 8 inches and sixteen pages, including the back page ad and the front page cover. The game duplicates the 1967 and 1973 wars. The unit counters are abstract, labeled as infantry, paratrooper, air base, with no indication of size. There are reinforcements and economics. The rules are not very detailed. For example, I see that some units may move more than one space and a reasonable search of the rules is imprecise as to how far the units actually move. However, I expect that with reasonable players the game is entirely playable. Readers will recall that, in 1967, the Arab forces were not really able to put up a coherent defense, in part because they had been taken by surprise. In 1973 events were militarily more interesting.
W. H. A. T. Fantasy Board Game, Guild of Blades, Designed by Bruce Dowrie. This is a quest game, in which the player and various retainers move between areas to capture various items, gain the power to win a battle, and return to their starting point, all with the intent of returning to their homeworld. The background is a mixture of space and fantasy ocations including other worlds, heaven, and hell, as well as creatures like lords of chaos, space knights, and demons. There are playing components for four players. The game comes in a lightweight cardboard box the size of the trade paperback, and includes a short rule book, playing-type cards, tagboard unit counters, and an area map of various places. The game is very slightly reminiscent of Talisman, but the map is not a circular, and the background is very different.
Autumn Mist, the Battle of the Bulge, a Counterstrike mini-game by Brian Train from Fiery Dragon Productions, comes in a small metallic box modestly larger than a paperback novel. The game includes two dice, a pair of map cards covering roughly the same ground as the old Avalon Hill Battle of the Bulge game except extending slightly further into Germany, fourteen pages the size of a paperback with much white space of rules, slightly fewer than 300 unit counters and markers, a terrain chart, reinforcement and set up charts, and a mission matrix table. Movement is controlled by a randomization process; one draws chits from a box and that determines which headquarters controls the units that move. There is some stacking, and some strategic movement by road. Each player decides on a defensive or offensive tactic in secret. They then cross index on the table. There are various consequences involving casualties, number of divisions involved, and outcomes including advances and retreats. There are also supply rules and fortifications. The game is ten turns long. Unit counters are divisions or regiments. The combat system is quite innovative, which is to say that if it has been used before I don’t recognize it. The approach to resolving combat appears to be worthy of further use, even if the implementation here happens not to be perfect.
Battle for the Falklands, a territorial board game from the Empires of History game series. This game refers to the Argentine attack on the Falkland islands twenty some years ago. There is a large area map of the south Atlantic and a small area map of the Falkland islands. There are a range of unit counters for ships, aircraft, production, weapon research, and bombing, including strategic bombing against the other side’s industrial complexes. That is the rules permit a far more extensive war than the one which took place. The rules include naval movement and combat land movement, air combat, land combat, attempts to recruit foreign Allies, missiles, and production. Other games on this event have been very tactical; this game is quite strategic.
Cross Bones from One Small Step, a 2002 game of ship to ship combat and trading. The game comes in a small ziplock envelope; the rule book is 5.5 by 8.5. There are eight pages of rules tables, and movement rules, 24 little punch out counters, an area map with eight locations, encounter tables, and the rule book . Turns cover weeks or months, except during battle when they cover a few minutes. The English of the rules is slightly cute, though less so than the French-English of that other well-known rules set. There are rules for crew morale, for weapons quality, for boarding, and detailed rules for maneuvering the two ships against each other. Eventually, the two players must close and engage in combat.
Partisans Irregulars. This is a Critical Hit module for an unspecified game in which squad level units and leadership play significant roles. The events shown here involve German actions against partisans, Red Army actions against Ukrainian Insurrection Army partisans, the Spanish civil war, and other events. There are six scenario cards and no other parts.
Beyond the Urals: Campaign in Russia, 1942. This is a game of alternative history. In the alternative, the Soviet army began World War Two deployed solidly at its border, as opposed to being deployed to the rear, and was defeated decisively, with Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad falling into the German army in 1941. The designers explain that this could have occurred if the Russian map exercise testing their original planned deployments had led to a Russian rather than a German victory. There are somewhat fewer than 200 units in the game; the units are corps for the Germans and armies for the Russians. Half of the unit counters are status markers; the game and actually has about as many units than Avalon Hill Stalingrad. The German objective is to take remote geographic points. The German player has the choice of moving first and attacking second or the other way around the Russian player always fights first and then moves. There are extensive Soviet reinforcements and replacements and units returning from the dead; the Germans do not get replacements. There are rules for terrain, aircraft, concentric assault, advance after combat, and the like, all referring to a combat results table that describes step losses. Game turns are one week, and end when the weather turns to snow. The game uses hexagons; the map is 32 by 28 hexagons in size. Design credit goes to Ty Bomba. As received, the game came in a zip lock envelope.
Groo, The Game expansion set is a small set of cards for the game Groo. 55 cards are included in the deck, which is sealed.
The War to End All Wars World War One This game from Guild of Blades comes in a Trade paperback sized box that is crammed extremely full of parts. Included in the game is a D10, an extremely large number of plastic widgets for mounting unit counters vertically, two area maps using high gloss paper to represent much of the interesting part of the world, record cards, 38 pages of rules, and vast numbers of the unit counters awaiting the player’s scissors. The areas scale is such that England is three areas, the Netherlands is one, and Australia is five. Most of the rule book is filled with scenarios. There are a simple production and combat rules that actually cover only sixteen pages. Some of the rules include more chrome than quite makes sense; for example, antiaircraft weapons and aerial bombardment were basically not effective in World War One. Note, however, that the presence of an aircraft carrier is actually correct; one navy did field and use in battle effectively an aircraft carrier. The game is approximately two dozen turns long. Once the unit counters are cut out, I would expect that a much larger box will be needed.
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© Copyright 2005 by George Phillies.
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