It turns out that Chris Farrell has been playing games and writing about them since he retired from blogging in January. Here are his 2007 game comments at the Geek.
Updated with a better link from Chris.
Year after year, Bruno Faidutti’s Game of the Year showcases an interesting set of games that I have not played yet and really want to. Fire and Axe and Gift Trap both look really strong in their genres.
I have played Gloria Mundi and Canal Mania and was not overly impressed. Imperial is good and I would love to play a full game of it.
Yesterday I was summoned to visit Charles Vasey, who only lives a couple of miles from me, and we played World War 1, an SPI wargame from 1975.
Charles Vasey has designed several games and runs a wargaming fanzine called Perfidious Albion, which seems to have mutated into a mailing list. I first heard about him through one of Tom Vasel’s old Interviews with an Optimist. He is a real character – very quick and clever. He played the game at a blinding pace and was way ahead of me. If he had been playing to win he would have crushed me. His dining room is fabulous, full of cycling and history books, WWII miniatures and games.
I first heard WW1 recommended by Mark Johnson on BoardGamesToGo a couple of years ago and it is definitely as good as advertised. There are two versions, one by SPI, the version we played, and a later reprint by Decision Games. Unfortunately the reprint changed a few elements of the game, which apparently make the game worse.
World War 1 is a grand strategic view of the Great War supposedly playable in three hours. As you would expect from 1975, it is a hex and counter wargame, but it has a lot of subtleties. The rules are only eight pages long and I absorbed them in two hours. The map cuts out almost all France and concentrates instead on the battles in the East. This makes sense as the battles in France are a meat grinder stalemate, while the interesting maneuvering happens in the East.
The heart of the game are the Combat Resource Points (pronounced krips) of the combatant nations. These represent the strategic resources available. CRPs are used to absorb damage in combat and to buy new armies. When a nation’s CRPs are bled down to zero, they have to retreat in every combat where they take a loss. This leads to sudden crumbling of fronts. The Allies therefore are trying to dissolve the German forces in the Western Front, while the Central Powers are trying to force an early Russian collapse, which produces a major victory point advantage. It is an interesting balance and I got a great taste of the ebb and flow of the war. The landings at Gallipoli are represented neatly too. Unfortunately we ran out of time, so Ataturk was never challenged.
I really enjoyed the game. It was fascinating for me to see how the war in the East developed, as British popular history claims WW1 only took place on the Western Front, without any of those noncy French or vulgar Yanks. Realising my ignorance, I recently read The First World War by John Keegan, but I got a much more vivid feel for the conflict through this game.
My only quibble is that the game is sold at coming under three hours. Charles basically played the game for me at lightning speed, but we still ran out of time. We accidentally forgot the winter rules, which would have sped things up, but I still think that playing with my normal pals we would have fumbled through in around 4.5 hours at least for the first time.
8/10
All in all it was a great experience. Charles hinted at Squad Leader next time. Fingers crossed.
Last night I went up to deepest darkest Tottenham to see Peter Haslehurst and play Rommel in the Desert. I met his lovely new wife Sue and he treated me to a good meal. So far, so excellent.
Unfortunately the evening came unstuck for me when we started playing. My memory seems to be totally porous when it comes to wargame rules. I finished reading the rules a week ago, but when it came to playing the game my mind went blank. I was able to remember individual rules, but putting them together was impossible. Luckily Peter had soloed the game and had a strong grip on what was involved, so he led me through it. It just goes to show how game rules are greater than the sum of the parts. In my defence, Rommel in the Desert has quite a few unintuitive concepts – especially the supply chain and supply card rules – but the rules work smoothly together and it plays quickly.
We played the Gazala scenario, one of the short tournament scenarios. I was the Germans and Peter the British. Rommel in the Desert has cascading victory conditions: (1) Instant victory – exit units off the opponent’s map edge, (2) Major victory – end the game with twice the units of your opponent, (3) Positional victory – control Tobruk if not besieged, (4) Attritional victory – end the game with more units than your opponents. The positional victory makes Tobruk, in the centre of the map and with good supply, the key. Tobruk is a fortress, doubling the combat value of defenders, and can resupply itself by sea, so it is a tough nut to crack.
Supply is the heart of this game. The effects of losing supply are dramatic and it is easy to cut the lines – as I learnt to my cost.
The British control Tobruk at the start of this scenario and I recklessly invaded it. The problem was that I left my supply lines weak and Peter cut them easily, leaving my advance units in an unsupplied pocket. I could not break his grip and he crushed the remnants. Realising Peter had a positional victory, I had to fall back to avoid a major or instant victory. Luckily for me, Peter did not have the supply to pursue, so the game ended quickly and I avoided major embarrassment.
It is easy to see why Rommel in the Desert has been a classic for 20 years. It plays quickly and it is full of excruciatingly tough decisions. Apparently the EastFront series, by the same designer, use the same system, so I would love to try that although Rommel in the Desert obviously has lots of replay value.
9/10
It was an excellent evening, and I even got home before midnight. I hope for a rematch soon.
