inconsequential ruminations

Five came along to our regular games night for the first time in months, so we narrowly missed out on a game of Agricola with Chris’ stunningly improved set – more on that in another post. Instead I press-ganged everyone into playing Breaking Away. When they saw the poor quality of the components there were a few mutterings of “this isn’t going to be another Black Vienna is it?”, but I managed to supress the mutiny. Luckily this experiment worked out really well.

Breaking Away is an ingenious simulation of cycle racing. I tried to improve on the summary at the Geek, but failed, so here it is:

A luck free race game based on cycling. Players control a team of 4 cyclists. For each cyclist the player chooses one of his available movement allowances and moves that many squares. Once all cyclists have moved the expended movement allowances are replaced with new ones calculated according to the cyclist’s position in the peloton; being at the back of a group brings a high replacement value, being at the front a low one.
Sprint points are earned by being among the first 8 to cross the sprint lines so there is always a trade-off between slipstreaming (“drafting”) the other riders in order to build up high movement allowances and making a break for the front to be the first to cross the finish line.

It is surprising how these simple rules can simulate the essence of cycle racing so well, while still staying so playable. Sometimes your riders will be on fire, tearing away from the pack; at other times they will be desperately trying to stay in touch with the peleton.

Charles Vasey invited me over to try ESPAÑA 1936, one of the very few games he rates as a 10. Charles has impeccable taste, so I was keen to try it.

This new wargame from a Spanish designer, covers the Spanish Civil War – a war that I am keen to learn more about. Anthony Beevor, the author of Stalingrad, has written a book about the war that is next on my reading list.

There is a lot to like about this game. The components are gorgeous and the artwork really captures the the period.

The rules are clearly translated and only eight pages long. I read them in an hour.

This is a very streamlined system. It reminds me most of We the People or Twilight Struggle. Eurogamers wanting something more meaty should love it.

Espana 1936 is card driven, in that you have a hand of event cards. Most of these give you more troops, planes or tanks, but some give you reinforcement bonuses. There are a couple of important cards that can swing the game shape, but maybe not the entire result. If the Republicans can draw the cards that strengthen their militia and add another general, things get much easier.

It plays quickly – especially when you are up against a shark like Charles. As the Nationalists, he rolled me over with an auto-victory without too much trouble by the midgame – about two hours. As the Republicans I should have been more passive about attacking, to slow the game down, while being more proactive my defence. The Nationalists have far more and better troops, but the Republicans win if they can hang on to only three key cities by the tenth turn. A game that goes the full distance should take around three hours.

We only had one rules query. Charles attacked Santander and Oviedo simultaneously. I should have been able to reinforce Oviedo – even though in real life there are steep mountains on one side, the Atlantic on the other and only one narrow road. This bothered Charles, but I think the level of abstraction is acceptable. Avoiding this situation would either mean rewriting the core rules or putting in a special exception. Both seem overkill to me.

Unfortunately, you can only buy Espana 1936 right now from Spanish websites. Luckily an English version is in the works with naval rules and a few extra cards.

This is a fine game that captures the flavour of the war while staying very playable. I would like to play again – hopefully against someone easier to beat than Charles Vasey.