Many of my friends have been pressing me for some time to let the world know my ten favourite games (as Flann O'Brien might have said)(or not, as Wayne might have said). I have included the games which have seemed worth spending time on, over 20+ years of wargaming, rather than those which I would necessarily leap into again today (although for most I would be happy to do that too). Although I have several hundred games, it was surprisingly difficult to come up with a top ten. Not because there were too many candidates, but because there were too few. With hindsight, most of the games that I have bought have been pretty much garbage. I would like to think that that is more of a reflection on the games than on me. Over the same period, I have probably bought about 10,000 or so books, and I think that my strike rate on those has been pretty good. But, with few exceptions, wargames have been shoddy, half-baked, gimcrack, meretricious efforts produced by historically illiterate enthusiasts. It is not surprising that they have not lasted. What is surprising is that mugs like me are still prepared to buy a dozen or so games each year in the hope of finding gold among the dross. It is easier to list the types of game that I hate: (1) excessive detail attempting to mask basic and glaring flaws (for example, Wacht am Rhein, Wellington's Victory, Drang Nach Osten); (2) puerile ahistoricity (for example, any TAHGC "classic", Plot to Assassinate Hitler); (3) all chrome and no guts (for example, anything by R Berg, but an especial mention to Blackbeard, Belter, and the Tim Jim games); (4) control freak fantasies (for example, Advanced Squad Leader, anything involving miniatures, Dungeons & Dragons); (5) accounting tedium (for example, 18xx, White Death - for the step reduction markers, and the GDW WW3 series); (6) crap rules (for example, Armada, Krieg! - but see below -, most amateur stuff). The absolute, unforgivable sin, is for a wargame to be boring. There is no excuse for this, not that it ever stopped SPI from selling a lot of stuff in the good old days. So here is the list, in no particular order: 1 Third Reich (TAHGC) The first wargame that I bought, from Hamleys, which then had a full range of TAHGC games, back in 1974 or '75, when I was about 13 or 14. The first edition of this hooked me on games. At the time it seemed awfully complex, but the possibilities open to the players were incredible compared to Chess or Cluedo, so I persevered. The 1st edition rules were certainly flaky, but I had an awful lot of fun with this. I did not realise it at the time, but it was an amazing design leap compared to TAHGC's then "classic" fodder like Stalingrad and Waterloo. I later bought the 2nd and 3rd editions, and Advanced Third Reich, but I no longer play these: the magic has gone. 2 Rommel in the Desert (Columbia) With Rommel, Columbia finally found a good game design to go with their brilliant idea of using wooden blocks to create fog of war. The earlier designs, such as Quebec, now seem like historic curiosities. This is the only game that even comes close to simulating the desert campaign on a brigade/division level. Hidden forces, secret supply levels, combined arms, unlimited activity each month, so long as your supply lasts, and effortless, rapid play, make this an outstanding effort. Columbia deserve credit for concentrating on the things that really matter, rather than farting around with precise unit values (which are anyway subjective), arrival and departure dates, and complicated turn sequences of play. Rommel is an absolute classic, and I will still be playing it in 20 years time (if the cigarettes don't get me first). It is easily the most psychological game that I have: players can be reduced to nervous wrecks as they try to guess whether their opponent is bluffing with his last supply card. Also, the game system is merciless to bad or careless players (a bit like the "good" German himself). 3 East Front (Columbia) Another blockie. I know, I'm sorry. This also holds up very well indeed. West Front is nearly as good. EuroFront, which brings it all together, is a bit too Heath Robinsonish for my tastes, but it does have its admirers. East Front genuinely allows you to play out the whole of the 1941-45 campaign, on a corps/army level, in fortnightly turns. Both sides have challenging options, and the play feels very historical. Serious work has gone into the 6 month scenarios as well. The HQ system was a brilliant innovation in the block context, and it is common to have frenzied activity on one sector of the front while the rest is silent. Nice. 4 Imperium (GDW) I wouldn't bother with this now, but I had a lot of fun with it when it came out. Notable for creating an us versus them feeling as you played the gallant Terrans against the Imperial hordes (as they sent in the 2036th infantry division…) or the noble and civilised Imperials against the piratical Terran cockroaches (with their dreaded missile boats). A very clever concept made the winner of a war complacently let things slide during the peace, while the loser put on his hair shirt and secretly built up his navy to take his revenge. (How unrealistic…) Astonishing how gripping it was, given that you could play for hours and hours without any territory actually changing hands. My only real quibble is that it was a little bit too easy for the Imperium to manipulate the resource allocation, and this was actually made worse by an astonishingly cack-handed change in the 2nd edition. 5 Break-out: Normandy (TAHGC) An absolute cracker. After three previous, only so-so efforts (Arnhem, Cassino, and Stalingrad), TAHGC finally got the area game format right with this one. In some ways, you have to wonder whether it was just serendipity: I have played this game a couple of hundred times, but I know that it was only play-tested about 50 times. The wrinkles that players are coming up with now cannot have been suspected by the developer, but the system bears the strain in a way that the earlier attempts did not. Only two downsides: any resemblance to history is purely co-incidental, and a novice will inevitably be smashed by someone who knows the game well (although - * psychological insight time * - this seems to be more or less true for all my top ten, how strange…). 6 Krieg! (Decision) Another WW2 strategic, which leads me to wonder why I like these so much. Possible answers. I have no sentimentality about uniforms, weapons, or la gloire generally. What interests me in games are: historical realism; interesting options; adrenalin stimulation; and the chance to mash my opponent's face in the dirt. At a pinch, I will settle for three out of the four. Good WW2 strategic games go a long way to qualifying for the first two points. I would argue that it is almost impossible to achieve these in a low-level or pre-WW2 game since the options available to both sides were so limited (for example, the role of the commanders at Borodino in War and Peace, at least according to that noted historian, Tolstoy, but the point has some general application) or that a God-like player is utterly inappropriate for an operational or tactical game (let's just pop down to squad level in ASL and repair that pesky broken MG – bollocks!). It is far easier to simulate on a strategic level than lower down the chain, and WW2 was one of the few wars where there was relatively unlimited freedom of strategic action for both sides (not least because the Germans and the Japs were, with hindsight, strategically loonies – in other ways as well, accepted – and willing to accept mad dog options, but the Allies also did some very odd things (Norway, reinforcing Singapore) which seemed reasonable at the time. Back to Krieg! I loved the card play, which drives players along realistic but undeterminable paths, and the low unit count. I hated the rules, which are abysmal (even to someone who has spent the last four years writing financial legislation) and suspect that the game is badly flawed in many areas. Unlike other flawed games, however, I also think that the flaws are retrievable. (Strongly supported on the Krieg! Home page by the designer.) 7 Victory in the Pacific (TAHGC) Always a favourite for filling an hour or so. Cheap and cheerful, and can easily be taught to a novice in 10 minutes. This game will teach you absolutely nothing about naval units or strategy but is huge fun, and a real nail-biter, especially for the Japs, who always have to move first (all that Allied code-breaking, you know). A big luck element, but this is not unreasonable: how else could you allow for the historical "wrong" result at Midway? Anything below an 8" gun cruiser is blithely ignored. The British poodle around a bit in the Indian Ocean and then buzz off. Outrageous - we all know that they had the bases and the capability to blow up Tokyo. How biased these Yank designers are. Within the game's modest premise, improvement is difficult, although this has not stopped scores of learned articles in The General from trying to do so. Rather like backgammon: the better player will win most of the time. 8 Modern Naval Battles (3W) A new OOB every 20 minutes or so, and plenty of fun with torps, subs, aircraft carriers, and ex-mothballed battlewagons in a card-based system. A shameless rip-off of elements of Naval War and Up Front, but none the worse for that. A pain in the neck for anal types since they will construct the perfect fleet and then not get the right missile cards. The system was creaking a bit by the time that MNB III was issued. Someone should buy the rights to this one. (Oh yes, and avoid buying the Frog aircraft carriers.) Maybe it's realistic, who knows… 9 Junta (Mayfair) A very silly game but potentially a lot of fun. Ideally, all the players should be a bit drunk. Normally, I am not too keen on multiplayer games since I spend too much of my working life playing Machiavellian games, and they are too much of a busman's holiday, but this is an exception. As you might expect in South America, the marzipan people are not much in evidence. If we ignore multi-players, I would put Anzio in this slot (see below). 10 Squad Leader (TAHGC) I would not touch ASL with a barge pole although (stupid me) I did buy it when it came out. When SL was released it was a fascinating change compared to Nato symbol brigades and ½" hexes. I have to include it in this list because, at one time, I spent so much time playing it. ASL was an amazingly retrograde step because it removed the fun (let's just check rule 124.76.5.3…) but did nothing for SL's modest realism. This is exactly the sort of scale where a computer game has the advantage: Microsoft's excellent A Bridge Too Far is a much better game than ASL and far more realistic. Limited information and command ability are essential in a game on this scale. Near misses: Blockmania (Games Workshop): pitched at the wrong level. Too clever for fans of the 2000 AD comics, too silly for proper gamers. But very clever, and a lot of fun. To the Green Fields Beyond (SPI): a bit dry, but a gallant attempt at WW1 operations. Anzio (TAHGC): still the best step reduction game, and a good reflection of the horrible Italian terrain. Way ahead of its time, but let down by some old-fashioned rules. And finally, the worst game of all time: The Plot to Assassinate Hitler (SPI): I think that we can all agree that a two-player mechanised attack and exploitation system is just right for a political intrigue game. Looking at the above, I suppose that I could be accused of being biased in favour of TAHGC and against SPI. It is true that TAHGC has produced some real stinkers (for example, Guns of August) but I cannot think of a single SPI game that ever repaid being played more than once or twice. In inventing the instantly disposable game, SPI did us all a disservice. Back to Perfidious Albion #96 Table of Contents Back to Perfidious Albion List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 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