I played Washington’s War with John on Friday night. I played the original, We the People, a few years ago. Just about the only thing I remember about We the People was that it was a great game let down by a tediously slow battle card system. Washington’s War fixes that simply with a modified die roll. Both games have top-notch components, so this seems the perfect reprint.

We the People started the Card Driven Wargame genre and as a genre-creator it has genuine quality. If only it had been imitated by more games that were as fast-playing and easy to understand. Twilight Struggle fits that bill and the BGG ratings speak for themselves. I would like even simpler, shorter wargames to come out of this mould, but I doubt I’ll see them. If you like Twilight Struggle or Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage you will almost certainly like Washington’s War.

8/10

We played a game of The Bloody Borders, a super-simple skirmishing rules set from Wargames Illustrated about the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers of the 16th century.

• background
• rules
• campaign rules

We played two linked scenarios. In the first, my English village, populated by the Charltons, was attacked by Julian’s marauding Armstrongs trying to capture livestock. In the second, a posse of Charltons pursued the Armstrongs back towards the border.

Julian used 28mm plastic miniatures. As you can see from my poorly lit photo, they look great. He uses a fast varnish-dipping technique, which he says is considered a bit naff among the cognoscenti, but I think they look very nice. The bulls were adapted from wine bottles, which is why they look Spanish.

I like the free-wheeling, fast, casual nature of miniatures with Julian. It’s about seeing how a narrative unfolds, not about realism or winning.

As many have said, Napoleon’s Triumph is a game that reinvents the wargame. Imagine Nightmare Stratego and maybe you’ll have an idea. I suspect I will not like it in the long run, as I like to relax while playing games, but I was very wrong about Age of Steam on my first play, so it will get another chance.

Before I play Peter again, I’m going to try to find the time to play the solitaire scenario with Vassal.

We stuck with the Basic rules, but only used one optional rule – Novice Union. Next time we’ll play with the WBC scenario.

It was good to play with the map fixed by the stickers that arrived quickly from Phalanx Games. It’s great that they are still supporting this game, several years after publication and even to someone who bought the game second hand.

Basically, the Advanced rules were used, with no optional rules, unless both players agreed.

There are three session reports at the WBC website:

• 1999
• 2000
• 2001

All the games were 10 turn scenarios.

The “rule of 7”, was used to minimise luck:

The sum of your marches die roll and your recruiting die roll in a month is always seven. As all scenarios start with a 1 for marches for both sides, things get bloody quickly.

In 1999 and 2000, they tried to follow the campaign game over the rounds – in other words, 1861 for the first round, 1862 in the second round, 1863 in the semis and 1864 in the final.

In 2001 they abandoned this in favour of the 1861 scenario throughout as it had proved the most balanced.

By 2001, there were concerns that the short scenario favoured the Confederates, as they can play suicidally on the last turn:

A possible addition to next year’s tournament would be a variable ending chit for the scenario, preventing the Confederate player from end-gaming the situation and picking up easy cities with no chance of retaliation, as the Confederate always has the last player turn. In this possible tournament addition, the Confederate player rolls to end the game on turn 9 (33% chance) then again on turn 10 (67% chance) and finally on turn 11 (100% chance).

I’ll give this ruleset a try, once we are up to trying the Advanced Rules.

I crossposted this to the Geek.