Verdun: Snippets

It's been quiet here at The Hissing Fuse. Family matters and a project at work have taken a good deal of my free time and, more importantly, my energy and attention.

I do plan to play through a couple of the Verdun games I mentioned in the last post and report on the outcomes, but I'm handicapped by (a) lack of time, (b) lack of an opponent to give the games a proper two-sided playing, and (c) lack of a safe, cat-free space to leave games set up from one playing to the next. I'll try to play through the four (of the total of six games) that I own at some point, and when I do I'll relate what I find.

However, my Verdun game collection has grown slightly of late! I have been working my way through Alastair Horne's excellent, though dated, The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916, and had just finished the section on the chasseurs' fight for the Bois des Caures when what should arrive in the post but Coup de Grace, the latest module for John Gorkowski's In The Trenches tactical system. This has two scenarios on the Bois des Caures fighting--a German probe and the main assault. I may make that my first tabletop foray into Verdun.

Two of my friends have also shown an interest in Great War tabletop gaming with miniatures, so this made me pull out the different rules sets I have on hand and do a review (just for myself :-). Although this year's tax refunds ended up going to pay off bills from our wedding last spring (or, more literally, to fill the holes in our bank accounts from paying those bills), I do feel like a small treat would be in order, and Verdun seems to be the topic of the moment, so I've been trying to decide whose tiny Frenchmen (and possibly Germans, if I choose a scale in which I don't already have German troops) I might want to splurge on. Peter Pig makes lovely figures with lots of animation, but they're on the small side for 15mm. Battlefront/Flames of War does suitable French (since by 1916 le kepi and les pantalons rouges had given way to the the Adrian helmet and l'horizon bleu), but their only Germans have the later stahlhelm, not the still-hanging-on-in-February-1916 picklehaube. Blue Moon do rather large 15s. Great War doesn't do 1916 French in 28mm, but Brigade Games do. And there's always the 6mm Baccus line to be considered. A lot depends on whether one goes skirmish-level (Through the Mud and the Blood or Price of Glory), company-level (No Man's Land or If the Lord Spares Us), or battalion-level (Great War Spearhead or Square Bashing).

I'm not going to be linking on other media to my posts here in future unless I'm able to put up a substantial piece of research, writing, or analysis. My last post got a bit of stick on one wargaming board for not having a great deal of substance. While that's true, I write here mostly for my own amusement; I don't have the time or budget to write scholarly history or in-depth game reviews or critiques.

Closing the Books on 1915: New Games, Part Three

So, continuing the round-up of 2015 WWI games, the strategic titles. I'll reiterate, these are more "what I can make out about the games from their press and BGG reception" not proper reviews.

1WW: The First World War: This appears to be a small game (11" x 17" map, 140 counters), published by One Small Step Games and published in the second issue of their magazine CounterFact, "journal of professional and commercial wargaming". I can't divine much about it beyond it's size (the map covers Europe from France to the Middle East; as an example of scale, the Franco-German frontier from the Channel to the Alps is five hexes), as there is one score (a 6) on BGG and no substantive comments (only four people are recorded as owning a copy). There's a short discussion on CSW Forum about it (a short discussion? on CSW-F? that says a lot), but so far it's mostly rules questions, very little discussion of the game as such.

The Lamps Are Going Out: Owned (apparently) by even fewer people so far (two, currently, on BGG), and rated a 5 by one user and a 10 by the other, this is another game I can offer little insight on. The title comes from a quote by Sir Edward Grey (British Foreign Minister in 1914 and a man I've always thought it would be fascinating to study, as he was active in British foreign policy for over 30 of Britain's most crucial years). It's a truly strategic area-movement game of low to moderate complexity. Its map covers roughly the same geography as that of 1WW with the addition of an inset map of East Africa; by comparison the Franco-German border is one French area meeting one German one, with another French eastern area bordering the Low Countries. The primary thrust of the game is resource allocation, so it does not surprise me to to read comments by the designer crediting James Dunnigan's World War 1 as an early inspiration to him. A playtest report suggests an interesting and challenging game with historical depth but still playable at a sitting. I'm certainly quite curious to see how this came out. CSW-F discussion ended in late November with the game still in playtest, and Compass Games' website shows it still in pre-order and suggests it is actually being shipped in January, so this is a bit of a fudge as "published in 2015".

Also from Compass Games (but listed as on their site as "released" and with over 140 BGG members owning a copy, it is clearly "published") is the much larger and more complex Balance of Powers. With a mean score of 8.82 over 28 ratings, this is clearly popular with those who have tried it. Balance of Powers covers the war in a much larger way, with maps representing Europe, the Middle East, and East Africa, but on a much finer scale in keeping with its focus on corps-level action. It's designed by John Gorkowski, whose stable of published and unpublished designs is fascinating and runs the gamut from 19th century Central Asian geopolitics to modern naval warfare, from the tactical to the strategic, with a considerable focus on topics related to the Great War. The game has come in for a bit of barracking about its colour scheme (hot pink features, among other shades), but reviews online suggest even those players have enjoyed its play.

No idea why I thought I was going to be able to cover all these games, even briefly, in one post. There will be a fourth and final post covering the operational titles, next time. After taking a look at VentoNuovo's 1914: Germany at War, I've moved it into that category. Despite the text on its BGG page (" game of World War I conflict simulation at the strategic level"), this is clearly an operational game, covering the first four months of combat on the Western Front.