- Joined
- Oct 8, 2013
- Location
- “...somewhere between NY and PA”
James N. has been treating us to great memories of board games past; in this post I'll share from the other end, time-wise. This game came out in 2015. The designer deliberately draws from Eric Lee Smith's classic from 1983, The Civil War, 1861-1865 and also Mark Herman's For The People (which I, as a strictly hex-map player, cannot comment on further than I've heard and believe it's a good one).
(Can't go wrong with Thure de Thulstrup's art.)
This game is mid-range in difficulty. If you have played old Avalon Hill hex and counter games before, concepts like leader ratings helping or hurting your chances to move units and win battles, zones of influence/control in the hexes around an army, or having a chance to react at certain times during your opponent's turn are familiar. But if they are not, a real strength of this game is the way such things are streamlined. There are some very complex systems out there - Simonitch has distilled the essence of them and managed to keep the basic rules to twenty pages. Of course, that's nineteen pages too long for some, not nearly comprehensive enough for others... LOL! I have to say, after some "monster" games I've experienced, that I appreciate the simple set-up and pacing that lets you fit at least two game "year" scenarios between lunch and dinner.
The following is a sketch rather than a review or a commercial. I don't have all the nuances down yet myself, but last weekend I had some time to noodle around. Let's take a look at "1861":
Lyon got thrown from his horse at the end of turn 1. The single most vocalized criticism of the game is that leaders come and go according to historical schedule regardless of what happens on the board. The design point is that leaders were influential but did not in and of themselves decide the course of the war. The better overall strategic plan will win, as it should. You're not locked into history by any means here but still it would be nice, as other games allow, to have 'what-ifs' like Lyon and Jackson surviving.
Curtis, good but not as aggressive as Lyon, has taken over. Van Dorn believes he sees an opportunity but wants to keep the entrenchments so must leave a unit behind.
In Virginia, everyone digs in.
This game has a very interesting way to activate forces depending on the difference between opposing die rolls. Say the Confederates roll a 5 and the Union a 2. The Confederate player gets to do three "actions" (moving an army, digging in, building a fort, rally a demoralized force, etc.) and then the Union player gets three. This forces you to plan long-term because you will never have enough moves in any one turn. And "cautious" generals, like Little Mac here with the red box around his initiative rating, take two "actions" each time. [McClellan has grown on me enough to dispute his numeric depiction here, but that is another story... at least he has a very good defense rating, which also gives him a high probability of reacting to any Confederate strike at the capital.]
The Union player is on a timer politically, which goes a long way toward balancing the game - an active Confederate defense has a great chance of disrupting the Federal juggernaut, especially before it gathers steam. Or, conversely, entrenchments are a pain in the posterior for an attacker, as they should be. Naval resources aren't there right now so a Peninsula campaign won't be in the cards for a while.
Speaking of cards...
As in the old great Milton-Bradley game Risk, you can accumulate up to five cards which you may spend to enhance or supplement your actions during a turn. Had this been the actual Union hand at the time, I would have definitely been looking at the James River. However, a Confederate seizure of an under-defended Washington is close to 'sudden death', so the timing would have to be right. Those "Any" cards can lead to real nastiness if you haven't thought things out.
Kentucky is scheduled to go Union at the end of the year, basically unless invaded first by the Federals. Lincoln will keel-haul any general who thinks about it. This game mechanic makes what was in my opinion the single greatest Confederate mistake of the war into an opportunity to grab objective hexes (labeled in bold print) and add resource points at least temporarily. On the other hand, I decide that building forts is a better way to use the lull. A Johnston's forces here are just not that large.
More later, I hope...
This game is mid-range in difficulty. If you have played old Avalon Hill hex and counter games before, concepts like leader ratings helping or hurting your chances to move units and win battles, zones of influence/control in the hexes around an army, or having a chance to react at certain times during your opponent's turn are familiar. But if they are not, a real strength of this game is the way such things are streamlined. There are some very complex systems out there - Simonitch has distilled the essence of them and managed to keep the basic rules to twenty pages. Of course, that's nineteen pages too long for some, not nearly comprehensive enough for others... LOL! I have to say, after some "monster" games I've experienced, that I appreciate the simple set-up and pacing that lets you fit at least two game "year" scenarios between lunch and dinner.
The following is a sketch rather than a review or a commercial. I don't have all the nuances down yet myself, but last weekend I had some time to noodle around. Let's take a look at "1861":
Curtis, good but not as aggressive as Lyon, has taken over. Van Dorn believes he sees an opportunity but wants to keep the entrenchments so must leave a unit behind.
This game has a very interesting way to activate forces depending on the difference between opposing die rolls. Say the Confederates roll a 5 and the Union a 2. The Confederate player gets to do three "actions" (moving an army, digging in, building a fort, rally a demoralized force, etc.) and then the Union player gets three. This forces you to plan long-term because you will never have enough moves in any one turn. And "cautious" generals, like Little Mac here with the red box around his initiative rating, take two "actions" each time. [McClellan has grown on me enough to dispute his numeric depiction here, but that is another story... at least he has a very good defense rating, which also gives him a high probability of reacting to any Confederate strike at the capital.]
The Union player is on a timer politically, which goes a long way toward balancing the game - an active Confederate defense has a great chance of disrupting the Federal juggernaut, especially before it gathers steam. Or, conversely, entrenchments are a pain in the posterior for an attacker, as they should be. Naval resources aren't there right now so a Peninsula campaign won't be in the cards for a while.
Speaking of cards...
Kentucky is scheduled to go Union at the end of the year, basically unless invaded first by the Federals. Lincoln will keel-haul any general who thinks about it. This game mechanic makes what was in my opinion the single greatest Confederate mistake of the war into an opportunity to grab objective hexes (labeled in bold print) and add resource points at least temporarily. On the other hand, I decide that building forts is a better way to use the lull. A Johnston's forces here are just not that large.
More later, I hope...
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