Stake The Bunny,
Open the Box

1944 Ardennes from Vae Victis 48
(WWII)

by Charles Vasey

Vae Victis has always had the best artwork in the hobby but their games can be short of inspiration (and considering the time available to design them this is perhaps not surprising). This game covers the German Ardennes offensive at Regimental/Brigade/Division level. It has the usual Vae Victis WW2 operational system. Activations are used for everything from moving to attacking, and the more time you spend on the attack (in terms of Activation Points) the better the odds. Calculating the odds (as with Vae Victis involves a myriad of modifiers, Terrain, type of attack, unit status, unit quality, plus lots of “asset” markers which give support. As is often the case with this type of game the final result seems to bear little resemblance to raw odds.

The map’s hexes are too small to play easily, and given the terrain and the importance of roads I wonder if it could not have been shrunk or rendered into a point-to-point map. Since entire formations can be activated and then moved, in part, halted others moved or used in combat the result can be a bit messy. It seems to me to be altogether too much work but that is a very subjective view. In this case the game is not helped by a very long-winded translation (too many notes from the translator) that sent me back to the original text. I really believe they need to sweat the system down. However, if you enjoyed Kharkov or Arnhem you should find this is right up your street since it is essentially the same system.

Ardennes 44: Way Too Much Stuff Boardgame Review. WWII. [PA 104]

Stake The Bunny, Open the Box

Back to Perfidious Albion #103 Table of Contents
Back to Perfidious Albion List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 2004 by Charles and Teresa Vasey.
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com