Featured game: War of 1812, differences between editions

War of 1812, differences between the Gamma Two edition and current Columbia game.

The Map
The Gamma Two edition is mounted and has very dull artwork. The new map is on cardstock with completely new artwork. Besides being more attractive the new map shows the naval bases for each side, which you had to remember in the Gamma Two Game. The Victory Point values of Detroit and Sackett's Harbor have been changed, with Detroit going from a "2" to a "3" and Sackett's Harbor from "3" to "2"
Effect on play: Small. Having the naval bases marked is an improvement. Detroit was already a major target for the British, but they can now winter a larger army there.

The Units
The Gamma Two edition has stylized ship silhouettes printed on 12 brown blocks. The Columbia edition has more realistic ship silhouettes on stickers to affix to seven blocks for each side.
Effect on play: Moderate. Instead of being drawn from one pool each nationality now has its own pool of ships, so there's less chance for one side to create an artificial shortage of ships.

The Gamma Two edition has the unit information printed on clear plastic stickers to affix to the blocks. CV is represented by 2-4 squares along each side. In the Columbia version the unit information is printed on stickers to affix to the blocks. Unit types are now shown with crossed rifles, sabers or tomahawks. CV is depicted with arabic numerals along the side.
Effect on play: Minimal, although the newer presentation is somewhat more attractive.

The land order of battle in both versions is similar with two exceptions. On the British side, the formerly green Indian unit is now red like the rest of the army, allowing more fog of war. And both sides now a 2 CV dragoon unit.
Effect on play: Small. The British can now hide the location of the indians and the dragoons add a speedier, if weak unit to each army.

The Rules
The Gamma Two edition rules run a little over two pages while the Columbia edition's rewritten, indexed and numbered rules run about four pages, excluding the cover and historical notes.
Effect on Play: Large, the new rules are easier to read and understand while not being any more complex. In the Gamma Two edition all land movement was from town to town.

The Columbia version adds a force marching ability which gives a unit a 50 percent chance to move a second area. Failure costs the unit a step. British units get +1 to the die roll, Indians get a +2, increasing their chances of success.
Effect on Play: Large. Armies are much more flexible.

Victory Conditions
In the Gamma Two game control of a lake is worth 1 VP, in the new game this is increased to 2VPs per lake.
Effect on play: Large. Control of the lakes is much more important.

Sequence of Play
In the Gamma Two game the players alternate movement turns. In the Columbia edition players dice for initiative each turn, with the winner choosing who goes first. There is also an optional rules for simultaneous movement with written orders.
Effect on Play: Large, there is less predictability. Combined with the greater mobility of the units there is much more scope for surprise by having force marches on double moves.

Reinforcements
In the Gamma Two edition if a reinforcement city was occupied the reinforcements could not be brought on until the city was vacated. In the Columbia game the reinforcements can now fight their way onto the map later during a campaign move if the city is occupied during the reinforcement phase.
Effect on Play: Large. The U.S. can no longer block the large mass of late-game British reinforcements with a small army in Quebec.

Overall
While the Gamma Two edition was a fine little game, the new edition improves the game considerably. Game play and strategy remains much the same, although there is somewhat more scope for strategems due to the increase in movement options.

Featured game: NORAD, a game of terror

Every one of us can recount minute-by-minute our experience of 9/11. It was a terrifying day, and it still echoes through society, affecting our everyday lives.
Yet throughout my childhood we also lived with a low-level daily terror because of the nuclear standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States. If a nuclear war had broken out between the two nations in 1960s the trauma for the survivors would have been nearly unthinkable. By the 1970s and the advent of fleets of ICBMs their actually might have been less trauma. Many fewer would have survived and most of the dead wouldn't have had much time for terror with 20-minute flight times. It's likely most would have had no warning at all.
But in the 1960s the threat was from bombers, which have flight times measured in hours, not minutes and no doubt there would have been ample time for the population to become quite terrified indeed.
Although published in 1972, NORAD is set about a decade earlier, around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It's really less of a wargame than a military-themed abstract strategy game. The designer, Dana Lombardy, said he couldn't design a "simulation" with the information publicly available. Unlike the Nuclear War card game, which was published a few years earlier, NORAD is not a humorous game. Instead it's rather stark in presentation and theme.
As a game, there's not an awful lot of replay value. There are no random elements. It's a game of bluff and deception, albeit not a particularly subtle one, especially in the original magazine version. I never had the reprint, but it appears some changes were made to make it a little more realistic. The original, SDC magazine version, has to be played with the right mindset. It predates the era of the "rules lawyer."
If the Russian gets "gamey" and flies his bombers freely all over the map then the game won't work at all. While a little zig or zag here or there is OK, the Soviet player should generally fly his bombers directly to their targets in order to stay within the spirit of the game.
The game does evoke its subject well, and maybe worth a quick play now and then with youngsters as a quick illustration of a by-gone (and good riddance) era.

Quebec 1759 British strategy

The British have the burden of attack. With no advantage in numbers the British player must maneuver to one single known point and seize it in order to win the game and the campaign. With 16 moves there is plenty of time to do what is necessary, although not so much time that the British can afford to waste moves.
The British force consists of five distinct groups of units, and it’s useful to consider their role when considering what strategies are possible.
The core of the British force is nine 4CV battalions of infantry. These units allow the British to mass a powerful striking force and are at the heart of any successful British strategy. When launching an amphibious assault with four units the British can start with 16 CV, which is a decisive edge against any comparably sized French force.
The British also have a 3CV foot unit and a 2CV foot unit suitable for secondary tasks.The British start with 8 decoy units. The defining trait of the block games is the fog of war provided by the blocks, although the British will have a harder time taking advantage of the fog due to their movement limitations and the homogeneous nature of their force. Still, the decoys do provide some possibility of faking the French out.
The British have two 3CV units of light troops, (Converged Light Infantry and American Rangers). While able to take their place in the line, if needed, these have also have the ability to retaliate against the French Indian unit if it raids an area the light troops occupy. As the only counter to this very useful French unit their placement should be carefully considered.
Lastly the British have four ship units. These are vital because their ferrying ability is the only way the British can get across the river from their starting position on Ile d‘Orleans. When to move them upriver is always a major decision.
There are basically two avenues of approach to Abraham. The first and most direct is to cross the Bason and land at either Montmorency, Beauport or St. Charles, defeat any defenders, consolidate and then march to Abraham, assaulting from St. Charles. While having the virtue of simplicity, this will rarely work unless the French, through misdeployment, allow the British to defeat them in detail.
Typically the French will let you come and the game comes down to a grand assault across the river at St. Charles into Abraham. This has a low probability for success, as the 47 CV of British are facing about 34-8 CV of usuable French defenders (The Indians have to be in reserve and 3-5 units of Quebec militia have deserted by then because of burnt farms in Montmorency, Beauport , St. Charles (and maybe Levis and Etchemin).
It’s a common misconception that the block games have a lot of luck because of the large number of dice rolls. Of course the opposite is true, the large number of dice rolls tend to even out. Luck is most noticeable in smaller battles. It just takes a lucky roll or two for a CV1 unit to defeat a CV2 unit. But 10CV of defenders stands almost no chance of defeating 20CV of attackers, even with the advantage of firing first. In the case of a grand battle between most of the French and British armies the advantage lies with the French, because their entire army is expendable, whereas the British lose the campaign if reduced below 20 total CV. There almost no chance the British can eliminate all 30+ French before they lose 28 CV of their own, given the attritional nature of the combat system and the fact the French will be firing first (and at double fire the first round).Such a direct approach also wastes the potential of wresting an advantage through maneuver. Such a direct approach won’t take more than half the available turns to execute, although there is no advantage for the British to occupy Abraham at any point earlier than turn 16.
The second avenue of approach is across Bason to Levis, followed by consolidation and a march to Etchemin. Meanwhile the fleet moves upriver to St. Laurent. From Etchemin the British assault across St. Laurent to either Cap Rouge, Sillery or Abraham. This approach also has drawbacks. It requires a head-on amphibious assault into Levis, which is often heavily defended. And at the end the British are still left with the necessity of launching another amphibious attack into the teeth of the French, who can easily use their interior lines to redeploy from Montmorency-Beauport-St. Charles to Cap Rouge-Sillery-Abraham. This avenue also provides the French opportunities to catch the British divided. From a central position at Sillery, or Ste Foy, the entire French army could swoop down on a smaller British force at either Cap Rouge or Abraham.On the other hand, this avenue of approach does present the opportunity to place the French defenders on the horns of a dilemma, because they have two points needing defending. If they allow the British to occupy Cap Rouge without resistance the steady erosion of the Montreal militia could result in the final grand battle at Abraham having just 20 CV of French (the six regular regiments and the steadfast Trois Rivieres militia) facing most of the British force. With an edge of 20 or so dice the British should easily rout the French before their own losses become critical.
The best chance of success comes from using both avenues of approach, flexibly. Eventually the British will probably have to move upriver via Levis unless the French mess up their deployment along the Bason. But maintaining a threat to St. Charles and burning the farms along the north bank to eliminate three Quebec militia is a key part of succeeding with the Levis approach. With 16 turns the British have enough time to move significant forces around the limited campaign area, so long as on Turn 16 the main British force is moving into Abraham.Typically the British player, feeling the pressure of time, will try to bull ashore with four 4CV units on the first turn somewhere along the Bason shore on the theory the French cannot be strong everywhere. If he guesses right, he strikes a weak spot held by a half dozen militia units or less and wins a stiff fight that guts the French army by eliminating a large chunk of the available force. If he guesses wrong, the British player experiences the historical result of a bloody nose and the need to try someplace else after a hasty retreat.
The British do have the time to do it right, however, using the Louisbourg Grenadiers or the 2/60th Foot for a reconnaissance. Landing a single unit forces the use of the “skirmish” rule, revealing all the defenders (no reserve) while exposing just 2Cv or 3CV to loss. A landing against the six French regulars will cost the British an average of 6Cv from the first fire, which will decimate a 16CV maximum British landing and force an immediate retreat. (Staying under such circumstances is most unwise). No matter how many French are firing and how lucky their rolls, they can’t kill any more than 2CV of Grenadiers if that is all that has landed.
One or two probes should uncover enough of the French defense to allow the 16CV brigade landing to hit someplace the French are not while not costing any more than 5CV and a couple of turns.
If the French main body is south of the river, land on the north shore against the weakest point, consolidate, defeat the militia and march on Abraham with 4-8 units.
If the French main body is on the north shore, take the Levis route, leaving one of the light units in Ile d’Orleans to scoot across Bason to torch farms once the French pull back to counter the Levis threat.
By switching between the two avenues of approach the British player aims to spread the French defenders, defeat them in detail, induce the militia to desert and set the stage for an advantageous final battle on the plains of Abraham on campaign turn 16.

Quebec 1759 French strategy

Quebec 1759
Some musings on French strategy
As the defender, the French are necessarily in a reactive role. Despite this, they have the first chance to shape the course of the game with their initial setup.The French army actually outnumbers the British, both in total numbers (20 units to 13 units) and in Combat Value (48 CV to 47 CV).
The French force comprises three distinct groups of units, and it’s useful to consider their role when considering what strategies are possible.
The core of their army are six 3Cv battalions of infantry. The only force able to stand toe-to-toe with a British 4-block 16CV brigade strike force, their careful placement is vital. Filling out the French force are 13 battalions of 2CV militia. While their CV are just as deadly as the regulars, most of them are vulnerable to being removed without a fight. Only the single Trois Rivieres militia is steadfast and will be around until the end. The six Montreal militia will start to desert, one per turn, if the British capture Cap Rouge, while the Quebec militia goes home as British troops occupy areas, one block per area.
The last component is a single 4CV Indian unit, which may be the single most useful. Able to scout and raid anywhere on the map, this unit will play a big role in the French success.
There are also five decoy units.
For a detailed discussion of the map look at the British strategy article. Simply said, there are basically two avenues of approach to Abraham. The first and most direct is to cross the Bason and land at either Montmorency, Beauport or St. Charles, defeat any defenders, consolidate and then march to Abraham, assaulting from St. Charles. The second avenue of approach is across Bason to Levis, followed by consolidation and a march to Etchemin. Meanwhile the fleet moves upriver to St. Laurent. From Etchemin the British assault across St. Laurent to either Cap Rouge, Sillery or Abraham.
There are basically two general strategies available for the French and either can work.
Although it’s anachronistic, I’ll label the two approaches the “Rommel” and the “Rundstedt.”In the “Rommel”: the French will make a stand at the water’s edge, trying to inflict such heavy losses on the British that they will be reduced to below 20CV and lose the campaign whether or not they make it to Abraham. This strategy is the most obvious and simplest, but is not without risk, because the French cannot be strong everywhere. A successful British landing can place the French in danger of being defeated in detail.
The “Rundstedt” attempts to use limited British naval lift capacity against them by using the French army’s interior lines to concentrate against and overwhelm isolated detachments of the British force.
Under the “Rommel” the French also have a decision to make about allocation of force to the four possible landing sites of St. Charles. Beauport, Montmorency and Levis. An obvious, but wrong, approach, is to simply divide the forces equally between the four. This abandons any chance to shape the British strategy and actually induces a British landing in the most dangerous spot, St. Charles. If every landing site is equally defended, then the British should land at the most strategic spot, St. Charles. And that landing will probably succeed, because an even distribution of the French army means that at least one column will be held by a single 2CV or 3Cv unit. Seeing this, the British will use their reserve to reinforce their 4CV unit with a second 4CV unit, giving them a decisive 8CV vs. 2 or 3 and a quick rout for the French.
The French will be forced to counterattack the following turn against the bulk of the British army and can expect to dash themselves to pieces in the attempt.
No, The French have to try to ambush the British with a strong enough force to have a realistic chance to repel a landing. The minimum required for this is six militia units. Pulling this off requires that the French leave at least one area undefended. This area cannot be St. Charles, and Levis is best defended as well, so the choices come down to Beauport and Montmorency. One should be defended by the six doomed Quebec militia while the other is held by dummies and one of the Montreal militia.
The Achilles heel of the “Rommel” is a prudent British player, who spends a couple of turns probing the French defense instead of trying to bull ashore right away. Once the British have discerned the shape of the French deployment they will land in a weak spot, consolidate and start maneuvering to induce desertions.
The “Rundstedt” is harder to play, but holds the potential for thwarting experienced British players by using the compartmented geography of the map against them. While using the Quebec militia (who will generally be deserting anyway) to skirmish against the initial British moves and aggressively scouting with the Indians in order to closely track British deployments, the bulk of the French army operates within the Abraham-Sillery-Ste. Foy-Cap Rouge quadrangle. This protects the two vital locations and provides a good opportunity to catch a part of the British army. Even if the British manage to get eight 4CV across in one spot this sets up a 32CV vs. 32CV slugfest that favors the French. The entire French host is expendable, while a long attritional fight is likely to leave the “victorious” British with less than 20CV on the map.
It’s possible to convert the “Rommel” into a “Rundstedt” if the French make sure to cover Levis with the Quebec militia and don’t stay too long on the north shore of the Bason once the British make their move.

Featured game: Quebec, 1759

The granddaddy of block games, Quebec 1759 has been in print since 1972, which probably sets some records for wargames.
The essential feature of so-called block wargames are the wooden blocks. Military units are represented by wooden blocks which are placed on edge, Stratego-style, to hide their identity and strength from the enemy. The four sides of the blocks are used to provide a paperwork-less method of step reduction. Typically a unit will have a “Combat Value” (CV) of 1-4, with numbers or pips along each side to depict its current strength. As the unit takes losses the block is rotated to show the current strength on top. Typically the number of dice a unit can roll is the same as its CV, so a CV 3 will roll three dice when it attacks an enemy unit. Which die roll numbers represent hits can vary from game to game, and is often modified by various conditions, but in Quebec 1759 each “6” is a hit.
Quebec 1959 introduced these mechanics and its still a very good introductory wargame. Usually taking less than an hour to play, it takes just a few minutes to explain and set up.
Each side has 25 blocks, blue for the French and Red for the British. Each side has some blank decoy blocks. The British army comprises nine battalions of regular foot at CV 4, a regular foot of 3 CV, a light infantry unit with 3 CV, some American rangers at 3 CV and a small Grenadier battalion with 2 CV. The French have an Indian unit with 4 CV, six regular battalions with 3 CV each and 13 militia units with 2 CV each. The British also have four naval units which have no CV but can each ferry one block across a water area.
The intriguing thing in the game is the geography of the battlefield. Depicting the area immediately surrounding Quebec City in what is now Canada, there are only 10 land areas and two sea areas, making this map one of the smallest, in terms of distinct locations, ever used for a wargame. The two water areas, the Bason (downriver from Quebec City) and St Laurent (upriver) divide the land zones into three distinct regions. The Ile d’Orleans is where the British army starts, across the Bason from the other land areas. Along the southern side of the map is Levis and Etchemin. Along the northern side of the map, from east to west, are the areas of Montmorency, Beauport, St. Charles, Abraham, Sillery, Ste. Foy and Cap Rouge.
Movement is simultaneous, with each side able to conduct one move per turn. A move consists of moving units from any one area to one or more adjacent areas or by ferry across a water zone to an area. The British can, instead of a regular move, move his ships from one water zone to the other.The British problem is to ferry their troops across the river in the face of the French and march to capture the Abraham area. If the British are in sole possession of Abraham on the 16th turn and still have at least 20 CV total, they win. If the French reduce the British to below 20 CV at any point, they win. No draw is possible.Combat is conducted by dividing the block in a mutually occupied area into three columns (left, center, right) and a reserve. The blocks in each column alternate firing (defender first) at each other until one enemy column is emptied of units, at which point that force instantly routs and must retreat from the area.
Elegant in its simplicity, Quebec 1759 was under appreciated when it came out in 1972 during the early days of the hex-and-counter wargame era. Now that tastes in gaming have changed and we are in the era of the stylistic, elegant Eurogame, Quebec 1759 and its ilk are finding new fans.The game takes less than 5 minutes to set up, plays in less than an hour and has less than four pages of rules.
Recommendations
(Yes) For Wargamers: Uses simple mechanics to capture the campaign with authenticity yet provides a competitive game as well.
(Yes) For Collectors: The first block game, early editions are sought by collectors.
(Yes) For Euro gamers: An excellent entry into board war gaming with quick game play, elegant mechanics and attractive components.

Featured game: Winter War

Winter War was one of the last S&T games done by an outside designer during the Dunnigan era at SPI. Dunnigan was ramping up his system that eventually allowed SPI to churn out games at a game-a-week pace through the 70s, but in 1972 there were still a few freelance games in the pipeline.
Winter War is the only design by James Goff listed in the Boardgame Geek database. The accompanying magazine article on the Russo-Finnish war of 1939-1940 is also by Goff, who apparently had a special interest in the topic. The extensive bibliography includes a number of primary works in Russian and Finnish and overall the game does seem to be a good simulation of the war, although it's not particularly well-suited to competitive play. For one small example, there is a 1/6 chance the game could end as early as turn 6 by a random event allowing the Finns to declare a cease--fire (which they will always do). This is too high a chance for an early and arbitrary end of the game for serious play.
The game also has a number of atypical touches for SPI games, such as very low movement allowances (2 or 3) . One of the SPI design rules was that units had to have big enough movement allowances to allow the illusion of movement and prevent the game from seeming too stagnant.
There's not too much scope for different strategies. Various special rules divide the game into two theatres with very different characteristics. The southern 13 hexrows involve a grinding attrition match as large Soviet formations attempt to blast there way into and through Finnish fortified lines. This is mostly matter of luck and time. If the Soviets fail to break through they have won't win the game, so this is really the main front, although not very interesting to play.
The rest of the map is the snowy north. No stacking is allowed and there will be a lot of dancing around but it won't really amount to much. There are few victory points available up north for the Soviets, although there's some danger of losing VPs if the Soviets are incautious. Most of the Finnish units can retreat before combat, making it hard for the slower Russian units to force them into fights, while the Russians, in turn, are weak in defense and will probably see any attempt at an advance cut up and destroyed by the nimble Finns. All very historical, but in game terms not terribly important.
The game includes some unusual units, such as 0-0-3 ski patrols. It's uncommon to see combat units in a game that have "0" combat value, but these do have considerable usefulness as mobile zone of control generators that will make it impossible for the Russians to keep their invading columns in supply up north.
The fastest units in the game are five 1-1-4 NKVD regiments. Unfortunately they're not available for "blitzes" into Finland, being restricted to hexes in the Soviet Union and not allowed to even attack into Finland. On the other hand, they make it hard for the Finns to launch raids into Russia, being faster and having access to rail lines that make it easy to concentrate against any incursion.
All-in-all Winter War is a good study of the war, but of limited interest otherwise.

Featured game: Richthofen's War

Richthofen's War was part of Avalon Hill's rebirth in the early 1970s. After SPI turned into a rising competitor and not just a design house for it, Avalon Hill took steps to rebuild an in-house design staff for the first time since the Roberts era. A key member of that team was Randall Reed and one of his first designs was Richthofen's War.
RW took advantage of AH's printing resources to create a nice-looking design, especially the map, which was very attractive.
The red plane counters for the aircraft flown by the Red Baron, v. Richthofen, were also a nice touch.
The game was Dunnigan-like in its attention to primary sources and had an excellent and informative design booklet. By keeping the focus on v. Richthofen the game narrowed its scope a bit, but the overall design was still flexible and provided plenty of options. Fortunately the Red Baron was active during the most dramatic portion of the war, so it worked out.
Like most aerial wargames it didn't quite capture the physics of flight correctly, but it was serviceable and didn't lead to any really laughable results. It may have been technically incorrect, but it was tactically valid, for the most part.
The game was one of my favorites for a long time. I was even able to get some of my high school buddies to play in the school library. It also saw quite a bit of play in college. The game does seem a bit dated now, even with the addition of the maneuver cards, which is an improvement. Still, most people interested in the topic these days would probably prefer to play Wings of War, so I think RW's time has passed and it's mostly of interest as a collectible or for nostalgic play between grognards.

Featured game: Napoleon at Waterloo -- strategy

I got my copy of Waterloo when I first subscribed to Strategy & Tactics magazine in 1971. All new subscribers got a copy of the game as an "introduction" to wargames, complete with a letter from Jim Dunnigan explaining a bit how "simulation" games worked.
Of all the introductory wargames offered, NAW probably does the best job. It sticks to the basic mechanics common to the classic SPI/AH-style games without introducing any oddities like some other "introductory" wargames. It's well-balanced, with both sides having a good chance at winning. ( The latest version of NAW on Hexwar shows 6,264 French wins, 7,264 British wins and 1,162 draws). It plays quickly, allowing for several games in an evening and is quick and easy to set up with the initial deployment on printed on the map. This makes "restarts" easy to do, which is also a plus when you're teaching a game.
I didn't get to play it a lot back in the day, because my friends and I had already played a number of Avalon Hill games by the time I got NAW. It did manage to hit the table on occasion, however, and I always had a good opinion of it.
It was when I joined Hexwar that I got the chance to really explore the game, playing it a few hundred times now. For those who don't know about it, Hexwar.com is an online game-playing service that provides a very user-friendly way to play a couple dozen classic SPI/Decision Games titles. Napoleon at War is the free, introductory game and you can play that one game all you want without charge. If you're like me, however, it wasn't all that hard to persuade me to pay the service fee. It's allowed me to play literally thousands of wargames over the past couple of years. It's been just about the best value I've ever had in my career as a gamer.
Having several hundred games under my belt with a winning record ( 116-53-11 under the latest version of NAW on Hexwar, similar with earlier versions) lets me feel confident I can offer a few pointers on strategy. Like any good game, there are no "perfect plans" that will always produce victory in Napoleon at Waterloo, but there are strategies that will succeed more often than others.

The French
Overall
The initiative in the game rests with the French. The burden of victory lies with Napoleon. He must exit seven units off the opposite map edge through designated exit hexes while eliminating at least 40 combat factors of allied (Anglo-Dutch and/or Prussian) units before losing 40 factors of French. The French start with an 89-73 advantage in combat factors, but they receive no more reinforcements while the British player can look forward to another 34 combat factors of Prussians showing up on the second turn.
The primary French objective is to eliminate 40 factors of British units. That eliminates any chance of a British victory (the best they can get now is a draw) and demoralizes the British army putting it under a severe handicap. Once demoralized all British attacks are reduced one level and all French attacks are increased one level. (British 1-1s become 1-2s while French 1-1s become 2-1s for example.) This is usually a big enough edge that exiting seven French units is not a problem.
Both sides have a mandatory and specified setup, so the main strategic decision facing an erstwhile Napoleon is which way to go with his main effort.

Go Right
The French army can attempt to attack the British left flank and then drive towards the exit hexes near Mont. St. Jean. The disadvantages of this approach include slow development, the certain early intervention by arriving Prussians and a narrow, easily defended route towards the exit hexes. The only mitigating benefit is, perhaps, some astonishment on your opponent's part that you'd try it! Really, this approach is so obviously unpromising that it's rarely tried. I haven't seen a French player win going this way, although I did see a draw. once.

Go Left
More promising is to shift the entire French Army left and advance on a wide front through the villages of Merbe, Le Mesnu and Braine L'alleud towards the exit hexes. This delays any impact by the Prussians to the latter part of the game. It allows the French to attack on a wide front, making the most of their powerful offensive capability. The doubling effect of the villages is not as helpful to the British as it may appear at first because the French can usually arrange to advance units after combat into village hexes, pinning British units with zones of control and forcing the British in their turn to counterattack at poor odds. There's a big jump between 1-2 odds (1/6 chance of an attacker eliminated result) to 1-3 odds (2/3 chance of an AE), meaning that British losses can quickly be disastrous.
This strategy can be very successful against passive British players, especially if they 're counting on those villages to help them stop the French. The main disadvantage of this approach is that is risks allowing an aggressive British player to seize the initiative. The British are not without offensive power and a vigorous counteroffensive can put the French in danger of losing the game outright on turn 3 or 4.
Generally this can be a winning approach, especially against inexperienced or less aggressive British players. Its pretty forgiving for the French, providing the maximum available time, so it can work well for less experienced French, provided the British remain passive.

Go Up The Middle
While appearing to lack subtlety, going up the middle does offer the French important advantages, so long as it's done aggressively enough. There are weak spots in the initial British deployment that can be exploited. It's important that the French turn end with as many British units stuck in French zones of control as possible to prevent the British from adjusting their line or putting together good counterattacks. The key ground is the small patch of hexes in the canter of the map between La Haye Sainte and Hougomont, inclusive. Whoever dominates these hexes during the first 3-4 turns is well on the way to winning the game.
The primary disadvantage of this approach is that there is a chance that the Prussians may arrive quickly enough to affect the outcome. The French will have to react to the presence of the Prussians on turn 3 and they will definitely be on the scene by turn 4, which doesn't give the French a lot of time to eliminate the 40 combat factors required.
This strategy provides the least opportunity for an effective British response and puts Napoleon's fate firmly in the hands of the French. It tends to result in an early decision. the game will generally be decided one way of the other before the end of turn 5. (It may take another couple of turns to exit the French units, but if the British army is demoralized the French should have little trouble pushing through the remnants to accomplish this while delaying the Prussians sufficiently that they can't stop it.

British

Naturally, a lot about British strategy can be gleaned from the prior discussion of the French. The British are usually forced into a reactive and opportunistic defense against whatever plan the French try. Keep in mind that the only way to win the game is to eliminate 40 combat factors of French units before you lose 40 yourself. Blocking the French from exiting units comes in second place. All that success there will do is salvage a draw.
The combat results table is not bloody enough in exchanges for the British to have a reasonable expectation of the French impaling themselves on your defenses. As the initiative player the French should be able to avoid many attacks at the bad odds of 1-3 or less or 4-1/5-1. Killing French units will require counterattacks.
If the French player doesn't press the attack strongly there's a good chance the British can seize the initiative. If the French allow it, I like to grab the central, Hougomont-La Haye Sainte position. This splits the French offensive into two, mutually unsupported attacks and puts the right half of the French army in danger of being caught between the British and Prussians, which often leads to defeat in detail.

Grouchy Arrives

This is an option that came with the NAW Expansion kit, examining some "what-ifs" involving Grouchy and the Prussians. Depending on pre-game die rolls, the French might get reinforcements from Grouchy's force and more or fewer Prussians could arrive. On average the French tend to benefit, with more results improving on their historical outcome than coming out worse. (Hexwar shows 2,858 French wins, 2,237 Allied wins and only 245 draws) While entertaining to consider, these outcomes should have surprisingly little impact on either side's strategy. It's a mistake for the French to slow down the game in anticipation of Grouchy's help and likewise the British are gambling if they hold back expecting that even more Prussians will provide them an advantage. The game will probably be decided on turn 4 or 5, which is before any of the optional reinforcements can intervene. It's always true that one side or the other will benefit more from the reinforcements and the other side therefore has a strong incentive to go for the early win.

Conclusion

Napoleon at Waterloo is far from the last word in simulations. The course of the battle will never follow history, mostly because Hougomont will always fall on the first turn, where historically it held out all afternoon and tied down a large part of the French army. ( That 7-4, 3-3 and 5-4 that start adjacent).
But it's an excellent little wargame. It plays quickly, it's balanced and there's more skill than meets the eye.

37-year-old session report

In 1965 I was among the thousands of Massachusetts schoolchildren who contributed my pennies to help bring "Bib Mamie." the Battleship Massachusetts to Fall River, Mass. as a war memorial and floating museum. Naturally Battleship Cove wasn't as polished and professional then as it is now. I remember getting a tour conducted by a man who had once served on the battleship, but large parts of the ship weren't open to the public yet in the 1960s and the organization running the exhibit was still feeling its way around on how to best display it to the public. They were in the very early stages of their Scout sleepover program, which has since become the bread-and-butter for the museum. Since then Battleship Cove has expanded into the largest collection of museum ships in the world, with a destroyer, a submarine, two PT boats and a former East German Navy missile corvette in addition to the battleship. There are a number of aircraft, a Japanese suicide boat and thousands of models as well as historical artifacts. It's well worth a visit.
IN 1971 and 1972 the battleship was also the site for a couple of early wargame conventions, which was a tremendous break for me. I was a teen wargame newbie with limited funds and here was a "national" wargame con just a dozen miles away from my house!
Sponsored by the Spartan International Competition League, one of the first national wargame organizations, the 1971 con was attended by about 100 or so wargamers. The hobby back then was wasn't big enough to have split into niche markets, so there was an eclectic mix of activities. Among the offerings was a tournament of Avalon Hill classics, some Napoleonic miniatures and naval wargaming.
The latter was what I had come for, being first attracted to the hobby by naval wargaming. I was primarily a board wargamer, but that was driven mostly by budget considerations and my friends' lack of interest in naval gaming. I had been entertained by lively battle reports in the Alnavco Log (an early naval wargaming journal) and was excited about the chance to actually play.
At that time the standard naval wargaming rules in use were still Fletcher Pratt's pioneering set from the 1940s, although usually modified. Just starting to make their appearance were some new approaches, among them was Victory at Sea, "Realistic Naval Miniatures Rules" by A.J. Morales. I think the Battleship Massachusetts convention may have been the "national" debut of the rules, and Morales was running a tournament to show off his rules and drum up interest. I have copy No. 186.
By later standards the rules are very sketchy, little more than an outline. This was long before the era of the "rules lawyer" and players were still expected to conduct themselves with restraint and good sportsmanship and not rely on picayune points of order for an advantage.
Still, despite their brevity, the Victory at Sea rules manage to cover a lot of ground, with tactical rules for surface, anti-air and anti-submarine warfare, mines and minesweeping, smokescreens and logistics. There were strategic rules for setting up battles. The rules covered everything from the pre-dreadnought era to nuclear submarines. -- in 14 pages!
Included in the booklet were three scenarios and that is what Morales used to organize his tournament, with three single-elimination rounds.

Battle of the Denmark Straits

We started off with the Battle of the Denmark Straits, 1941, the famous confrontation between the Bismarck and the British fleet.
Through the luck of the draw I ended up with the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, which as fortunate because this was my first-ever naval wargame. I was a 16-year-old rookie and I didn't have a much of a clue . I don't remember much about my opponent except that I think he was a little older and more experienced. Things got off to a somewhat dicey start for me when I tired to split off the Prinz Eugen to deal with the shadowing British cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk. My opponent said there ought to be a chance for a collision because the ship models got within a quarter-inch during the turn. I'm still not sure where he got this, as there were no collision rules in the game and realistically there shouldn't have been any chance of the two ships getting tangled up, the Prinz Eugen as faster and just making a simple starboard turn. Morales decided on the spot that his rules needed to consider the chances of a collision and ruled we should dice for for it. I still had beginner's luck and there was no collision. I don't remember what transpired between the Prinz Eugen an the British cruisers, but the German warship had a considerable range advantage and I suppose the British cruisers sheered off. They played no role in the battle.
By beginner's luck continued unabated. Within the first couple of salvos I got a critical hit on the Hood. In Victory at Sea the damage from heavy shell hits was checked with a card draw from a standard deck of cards for any additional effects. My draw was a jack of spades, which was, unbelievably, a magazine hit! The Hood blew up! I got a few more damaging hits on the Prince of Wales before time for the round expired. The Bismarck's damage was minor so I was declared the winner. Cool.

Battle of the River Plate, 1939
The second round was the Battle of the River Plate, which involved the German raider Graf Spee against three British cruisers. I drew the British. This one went quickly. I remember nothing at all about my opponent except that he made the mistake of closing the range right off the bat. While armed with battlecruiser-caliber main guns, the Graf Spee was otherwise really just a slow heavy cruiser and was quickly overwhelmed by a blizzard of 8-inch and 6-inch shells from the Exeter, Ajax and Achilles. I'm not sure if the British ships were even hit.

This created somewhat of a conundrum for Morales, though, as there hadn't been an even number of players in the first rounds and he had to pick the top two for the finals. I clearly had less game experience than the other guys, but I had won my two battles most decisively. I the end I faced an older dude (well, he seemed older to me, he was probably no more than 30) who seemed quite annoyed he was playing against a kid.

Battle of Coronel, 1914
My beginner's luck left me at this point, as I drew the British. This was the encounter between the German cruiser squadron led by Graf Spee and an intercepting British force. The Coronel scenario departed from the historical battle by adding the pre-dreadnought battleship Canopus to the British force while subtracting the useless auxiliary cruiser Oranto. Even with these changes, however, the Germans were stronger.
I overheard my opponent telling a friend of his that he planned to keep the range long (which was clearly the correct plan as he had a broadside of 12 long-range tubes against just 6 for the British squadron). It felt somehow wrong to take advantage of this inadvertent intel, so I was disinclined to close with him at first. Looking back from across the years this was kind of a silly way to feel, but that's how the kid felt.
In any case, I didn't have a clear plan on how to cope with the German firepower advantage and it didn't take long for the Germans to chew up the Good Hope and Monmouth. With the Canopus too slow to catch the untouched German armored cruisers the battle was over.

I ended the night pretty satisfied with how things turned out. I won two out of three games I played and ended up in the finals for the tournament, which I didn't feel was too bad for a kid. It was a good convention.

Despite the passage of 37 years I remember a surprising amount of what happened that day because it was my first experience with a game convention or naval miniatures gaming.

New Year, refined focus

I've decided to move non-game content to a new blog at http://torturedillogic.blogspot.com It was just too jarring to write a post about gaming right after a post about torture. The New Year seemed like a good time to make the switch.

Happy New Year

To my family, friends, colleagues and fellow BGG denizens a Happy New Year! May God keep you all safe and bless you.

Featured Game: PanzerBlitz

Few games have had an impact as big as PanzerBlitz. It's probably the third most important commercial wargame aside from the very first Roberts game of Tactics (which invented the idea of the commercial wargame) and Gettysburg (which was the first wargame based on a historical battle). PanzerBlitz opened up entirely new ground for wargamers and it had an immediate impact.
I remember seeing it for the first time on the Battleship Massachusetts during one of the Spartan International conventions held there (I believe it was 1971 and PanzerBlitz had been out for just a few months). Everything was new back then, but even then PanzerBlitz stood out.
PanzerBlitz either introduced or first popularized many features that became standard fare in wargames, such as multiple scenarios, ranged combat, different classes of units and weapons, "geo-morphic" boards, extensive historical notes, terrain elevation and line of sight rules. It did this within the familiar framework of hexagons, cardboard counters and and odd-based Combat Results Table, providing just enough continuity to the Afrika Korps-style game for acceptance.
It did usher in an explosion of new design approaches, prompted in large measure by PanzerBlitz's designer, the prolific Jim Dunnigan. Dunnigan had already started to shake things up with his more analytical approach to wargame design with his earlier Avalon Hill games Jutland and 1914, but those were hindered by being set in the less dynamic First World War and uninspired graphics. In PanzerBlitz Dunnigan's design skills were teamed with Redmond Simonsen's graphic design talents and the synergy was electric.
PanzerBlitz still boasts one of the most striking wargame box art ever published.
Since PanzerBlitz was published there have been probably a hundred games on the same or similar topics, nearly all inspired by designer's attempts to fix the "flaws" of PanzerBlitz. Some were even done by Avalon Hill itself. Panzer Leader, which moved the action to the Western front changed the artillery rules in order to discourage the unhistorical game tactic of crowding units together in the same hex to dilute incoming fire and got rid of the ability of trucks and wagons to spot for other units which had resulted in some pretty bizarre game tactics as well. The biggest PanzerBlitz problem fixed in Panzer Leader was the infamous "PanzerBush" syndrome, where units scooted from one covered spot to another across open spaces that were literally "under the guns" of the enemy. The "Opportunity Fire" rule in Panzer Leader has been in the standard toolkit of tactical wargame designers since. Avalon Hill's later Arab-Israeli Wars further refined the game system by gutting down the range and speed of units, which the original game formula has miscalculated. This was noted early on, but a desire to make Panzer Leader fully compatible with PanzerBlitz meant to older game's incorrect values were retained. Dunnigan himself felt no qualms about starting over based on new research and his Combat Commander and later SPI games used different factors and different game mechanics as well.
For face-to-face play most players retrofitted the opportunity fire rule (and ban on truck/wagon spotting) to the earlier game but many play-by-mail games skipped using opportunity fire because of the complications it introduced to the turn sequence. Unlike most of it successors and imitators PanzerBlitz was well-suited to PBM because of its IGO-UGO turn sequence, in contrast to the multiphase and interactive turn sequences that followed. The advent of Internet-based play has reduced that consideration, and more recent designs are more sophisticated with improved historical research, leaving PanzerBlitz behind. Although once wildly popular, and still played a bit, it's a game design that does seem dated now and is most likely to be played between two old-timers than by someone new. Although Squad Leader, for example, is only seven years younger than PanzerBlitz, a lot happened during that seven years in game design and Squad Leader still seems much more modern. ASL, which came along just a few years after basic Squad Leader is still very much alive and winning over new players.
There are plans for Multi-Man Publishing to offer a new edition of PanzerBlitz, but this is not a straight reprint of the old game. Instead it appears it will be a completely new game, which may include some updated elements from the old one, but probably many new concepts as well. As such, it's really just using PanzerBlitz as a "brand name" similar to what Hasbro has done with "Avalon Hill" and "Axis & Allies."

Our most profound danger

Of all the ill winds blowing through this administartion, none is a greater threat than torture.

The real problem is that fear isn't a good tool to use in a democratic society. We are supposed to be shareholders in our government; when a process of oppression is endorsed by our legislators and president, we should recognize that they are trying to set themselves apart from the ordinary citizenry, and it's time to rebel…before the goon squads come to your neighborhood. Anyone who supports torture is a traitor to the democratic form of government, and should be voted out of office, if not impeached.

Read the rest here: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/12/torture_whats_it_good_for.php

Featured Game: Ploy

The old 3M line included some old classics such as chess, go and backgammon and some updated versions of classic games such as Oh-Wah-Ree (mancala) and Breakthru (tablut) but much of the line were original designs such as Acquire and Stocks & Bonds. Among the latter was ploy, an abstract strategy game that affected a modernistic look and style of play.
In ploy the moves of the pieces are indicated by the shape of the plastic pieces themselves. Each piece has one or more ridges which graphically depict not only the direction the piece can go but how many points. The lances, for example, can move three points because they have three ridges, and have a choice of three directions. The shields, which have just one ridge, can move just one space in one direction.
The game board is a 9x9 criss-cross grid of points that are connected by horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines, resulting in 8 potential directions of movement. The object of the game is to capture the enemy's "commander," who can move just a single point (in an exception to the usual movement scheme), but has the most options of any other pieces with four possible move directions.
The cleverness of the design is that pieces come in several varieties. While every lance can move three points, they also come in three different varieties as far as directions.
Each army deploys in three rows, with the fastest and most flexible pieces closest to the player. The back row comprises the commander flanked to either side by a total of six lances in three different varieties. The second row has five "probes" (move 2 spaces) also in three varieties and the front row has three shields (one-space move).
During a player's turn he can conduct either a "motion" move which allows a piece to move up to the number points shown by its ridges in a direction indicated by the ridges or a "direction" move, which allows a piece to rotate so it's ridges line up in new directions. A shield, only, is allowed to make a motion move followed by a direction move. (So a shield can move in the direction it started facing, but then change its facing, but it cannot change facing and then move.
Compared to chess and similar abstracts Ploy features a more wide-open style of play. There's one fewer piece on each side maneuvering on a board with 17 more spaces and double the potential move directions. Unlike chess, no pieces can sweep from one end of the board to the other. The signature feature of Ploy is that no piece can really defend itself. The most mobile pieces are still helpless in 5 out of 8 directions.
Ploy is a little easier to teach than many similar abstracts because the moves are right on the pieces, so it's a good choice for younger players. Being far less popular and analyzed than chess, it provides a more level playing field for beginners while still being a good introduction to the kind of strategic and tactical thinking needed for chess.
It's never been reissued since 3M days but it's not hard to find on eBay in good condition, so it's still a good choice to seek out.
The game includes 4-player and partnership options with a slightly different setup and mix of pieces, but otherwise the same rules.

Featured Game: Battle of Moscow

Battle of Moscow was my second Strategy & Tactics magazine issue game and the one that prompted me to change my three-issue trial subscription into the real thing that I maintained for many years afterward. I've continued to get the magazine off and on but I haven't gotten too many with the games lately, if only because I'm tired of adding to my collection of unplayed-games-that-will-never-get-played. My first S&T had the odd T-34 game which I wasn't quite sure what to make of, but Battle of Moscow was an honest-to-goodness meaty hex-and-counter wargame.
It had some interesting concepts, most notably one of the first appearances of the mechanized movement phase idea that was a staple of many SPI operational games of the 1970s. In it's primitive iteration in Battle of Moscow every unit got to have a second movement phase after the combat phase, using about half its movement allowance. Later versions of the rule accentuated the difference by giving only mechanized units a second movement phase, generally with the whole movement factor available, but even in it's early version Battle of Moscow created a much more dynamic game situation and did a pretty good job of capturing the differences between the two sides.
This was also shown by the different way the two armies were depicted. The flexible German army's order of battle comprised a large number of individuals divisions while the battered Soviets had fewer, but stronger armies as well as a bunch of ad hoc forces such as fortress garrisons, armed workers, partisans, paratroopers and tank groups.
The game played well, although by later standards the game rules were rather sketchy. For example, the rules don't specify how to treat the one German cavalry unit's second movement phase -- should it have half it's movement available (3) like all other German units? Or should it have a third of its movement available (2), like all the Soviet cavalry units? As players back in those early days we just muddled through and agreed on something at the table, but it's a little jarring to go back after all these years and see how loosely written the rules are.
Still, I think it holds up decently well, although most wargamers probably have a newer game on the same topic if they have a collection of any size. Because of that, it's more of a collector's game than a player's game these days, but unlike many of its contemporary titles I would not call it flawed. If you should happen to find a like-minded opponent to play against it will still be entertaining.
The physical components are primitive, as it appeared just before SPI started using die-cut counters. The counters have to be cut out and pasted on cardboard, although there was a reprint that included die-cut counters. Units are divisions for the Germans and Finns, with a couple of elite regiments. The Soviet forces are armies and army-sized groups, for the most part, with a few corps. The black and white mapsheet stretches from Leningrad to south of Tula and from Smolensk to east of Moscow.
The game lasts 10 weekly turns, with an optional 10-turn extension. The Germans win by occupying Moscow for 4 turns or isolating both Moscow and Leningrad four four turns.
The Germans are in a race against time and a flood of Soviet replacements and reinforcements. The Germans get a negligible number of both and never will be stronger than they are on the first turn. The Soviets can replace their entire starting army and more, in contrast.
The designer of Battle of Moscow was Dave Williams, who also designed Anzio, among other titles.
Battle of Moscow is recommended primarily for collectors at this point, although it is still playable.

Featured Game: Tuf-Abet

Everybody is familar with Scrabble. it's one of those classic family games of enduring popularity that just about everybody gets to play at some point. Some people find the crossword-style game addictive and become real fans. Scrabble has its own clubs, organized play and tournaments, which puts it in rare company.
Unlike Scrabble, Tuf-Abet is a dice game, not a tile game. Players are allocated 20 dice in five different colors. The red dice have vowels, while the green, blue, orange and yellow dice have vaiorus consonants on their faces. The more uncommon letters such as B or X are on the two orange dice or one yellow. The green and blue dice have the more common consonents such as S and T.
Players throw their dice on the table at the same time and start building words crossword style. When some player is satisfied he's got a decent array he can call "Tuf." At that point a 3-minute sand time is turned and the other players have an opportunity to keep going, trying to use more letters. When one has, "Tuffest" is called and the remaining players, including the "Tuf" caller, can keep building their setups to use still more letters. If they do they can call out "Tuffest" and there's a final one-minute round where players scramble to use more letetrs. The round ends at the end of the one minute or when one player has used all 20 letters.
Scoring is simple. Every block that's used scores one point for every word it's in. Blocks used in words six letters or longer score double.
Tuf-Abet is a game of speed, not cleverness, though. Whoever calls "Tuf" scores an 8-point bonus, whoever is the last caller (or uses all 20 letters) also gets an 8-point bonus.
Given that a a 20-letter play will probably score 25-30 points, an 8-point bonus is a big deal.
Victory is determined after five rounds.
The dynamic of play is very different from Scrabble. There's no double or triple word scores or 50-point use-all-your-letters bonus, so it's hard to make a big scoring play. Instead victory comes incremnetally, but being competitive calling "Tuf" and "Tuffest" is vital to winning. It's unlikely you can accumulate so many points through ordinary play that you can make up for losing out on too many "Tuf" and "Tuffest" bonuses.
There are two special symbols on some of the dice. The orange and yellow dice have smiley faces on one side, which can act as a wild card similar to the Scrabble blank tile. On the yellow die there's also a "bullet" symbol, which must be used as a capital letter in a proper name. (Otherwise the Scrabble rule of no proper names applies). The Bullet dice counts as 3 points when used, 6 points if doubled.
Unlike Scrabble, which proceeds at a fairly deliberate pace, Tuf-Abet is a fast-moving game that rewards quick word formations rather than very clever ones. There's no special bouns for using high-scoring Qs, Zs and Xs. Instead, they're often soemwhat of an obstacle. The key thing is to be the fastest. I'm just not sure the people attracted to word games like doing under a time pressure.
Tuf-Abet is a good family game, not quite as intimidating as Scrabble because an extensive vocabulary isn't as important.

Merry Christmas

Peace on Earth.

Featured game: 1914

1914 holds an unusual post in the annals of wargaming. It was never terribly popular, as such. It was never reprinted or updated after its original appearance. It didn't spawn an extensive line of sequels or imitators. It wasn't designer Jim Dunnigan's most famous or successful design.
For a while in the 1980s and 1990s it was highly sought after by collectors, with good copies fetching several hundred dollars at auction. But that, too, seems to have passed, and copies can be had on eBay for well under those peak prices.
But 1914 was, and is, an important milestone among wargames because it pointed out the potential for wargames as not mere games about war, but a new way to explore history in an interactive way. In 1914 one really got the impression that you were truly exploring ways in which history could have been different, has different decisions been made.
There have subsequently been interesting and entertaining discussions that have exhaustively explored how much a manual wargame can truly be a simulation of a historical event, given the many and inevitable compromises necessary to make it playable by human beings. But those discussions were made possible and necessary by 1914 and similar simulation-oriented designs that came from Dunnigan and Dunnigan-mentored game designers in the 1970s and afterwards.
More than any wargame that had gone before, and most that came afterwards, 1914 aimed to be a simulation. The game contest was clearly secondary to the history. Both players were really cooperatively working to see how the events of the Summer and fall of 1914 might have developed, instead of competing against each other in a test of wits and strategy. The game system did not reward clever gamy tactics. The overall strategies were rather obvious and not easily adjusted. Indeed, the game, when played, seemed to march inexorably forward into bloody tragedy with little ability for the "commanders' to change much at all. It was more than a little bit like a boardgame version of Tuchman's The Guns of August. No Zones of Control, no 3-1 sure-thing attacks, no D-elims, it was a break from convention in most respects.
The use of step reduction provided a graphic illustration of the grinding attrition of 1914-era fighting. More so than simple eliminations would have, watching your powerful "A" corps slowly attrit down to impotence drove home the character of the fighting.
Particularly when played with all the advanced and tournament options, 1914 was a "monster" game before monster games were conceived. The game took a long time to play, several sittings at least or a weekend. In the end, history was most likely to repeat itself, because the game depicted the forces working against changing history as very powerful indeed. In the game it's easy to see how little chance there was that the Germans could score their hoped-for knockout blow. That failure set the stage for the rest of the tragedy of World War I. As that war's centennial approaches interest in the war has grown. The passage of time allows us to see that the Great War was the pivotal event of the 20th Century, affecting everything that followed. World War II, totalitarianism in all its forms, genocide, nuclear war, post-colonialism and so much more followed in its wake. Only with the fall of Communism in 1989 and the post-Cold War reordering of affairs have the ripples of World War I started to fade away.
I wonder if interest in 1914 will be revived as 2014 nears.

Of course, it's not always pleasant even if you belong here ...

Just remember, in Bush's America you have no actual right to be left alone:

http://forums.roadfly.com/forums/politics-lounge/7387449-1.html

Featured Game: Breakthru

Breakthru was part of the line of 3M bookcase games from the 1960s. copyrighted 1965, although it's a development and refinement of the classic "Hunt" games such as Fox & Geese and "Sixteen Soldiers" that date back to at least the Thirteenth Century. The game features a vague "naval" theme in the box art and game piece naming convention (a "flagship" and "destroyers") but it's really a pure abstract game.
One thing worth remarking about is the outstanding durability of the 3M packaging. The 3M bookshelf box may very well be the best game packaging ever, although some of the new euro-games also have very nice, attractive and sturdy boxes. Still, my copies of the seven 3M titles in my collection are all still in very good shape despite being more than 40 years old. Even the similar Avalon Hill bookcase games show considerably more wear and damage and no other games boxes from anywhere near that age can compare to the 3M boxes. The 3M games were marketed as premium games and live up to it.
Inside the box is a black plastic white-gridded 11x11 board. The Center square is marked with a circle surrounded by a 5x5 zone of squares. This is the setup zone for the "gold" fleet, which comprises a tall brass "flagship" and a dozen smaller "destroyer escorts. The Flagship must set up on the circle, while the escorts can set up anywhere inside the 5x5 zone.
The twenty metal "silver" destroyers can set up anywhere outside gold's setup area. The zones have no effect on play after setup. While no particular formation is required for either side, several suggested setups are provided in the rules, which are simple enough to print on the inside of the game box -- a very common place to find the rules for games of that era.
The rules themselves are exceeding simple. The players alternate turns, with Gold deciding who starts. In a player's turn he can either perform a "motion move" or a "capture move." A motion move consists of moving the flagship or two destroyers. Pieces can move any distance is a straight horizontal or vertical line, but not diagonally. A capture move, in contrast, consists of moving one piece diagonally one space into an enemy-occupied square and making a replacement capture, similar to a chess pawn.
The game ends when the flagship is captured or it escapes to a board edge.
Game play is tense, as both sides maneuver to hem in the other side and threaten captures. One blunder and the game can come to a quick end.
Abstract games don't appeal to everyone, but Breakthru provides a challenging play experience while not being quite as intimidating as chess. I think it makes a good game to play with kids because it makes them don their thinking caps while not being overwhelming. There are only two kinds of pieces and they all move the same way. There are no special or odd rules and the game plays quickly enough that most sessions can involve multiple plays. Some of the older Fox & Geese-type games have balance issues with optimum play, but Breakthru gives both sides a shot at winning.