With this My Favorite Wargame Cards Series, I hope to take a look at a specific card from the various wargames that I have played and share how it is used in the game. I am not a strategist and frankly I am not that good at games but I do understand how things should work and be used in games. With that being said, here is the next entry in this series.

#71: The Wartburg from Here I Stand: Wars of the Reformation, 1517-1555 from GMT Games

Here I Stand: Wars of the Reformation 1517-1555 is an experience packaged in a game that attempts to boldly cover the political and religious conflicts of early 16th Century Europe. The game focuses on the struggle of religious reformers such as Martin Luther, John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli as they battle the Papacy for changes in their views of God and religion. But it is more than just the Holy War as it deals with the other European countries involved in the affairs of the time including France, England, the mighty Hapsburg Empire and the Ottoman Empire in the east. They all played a role in the process of the Reformation and the design brilliantly weaves this all together into an interesting and engaging experience. The game also covers other plot lines and events of the period, including wars, marriages and ascendancies to thrones, using a unique Card Driven Game (CDG) system that models both the political and religious conflicts of the period.

Today, I want to take a look at a very interesting Response card in The Wartburg. Response cards in Here I Stand are event cards that can be played out of turn to interrupt the actions of an opponent or provide immediate reactions to specific game events. Response cards are often used to negate, mitigate, or enhance events and combats, and they may be played during an opponent’s impulse, provided the text allows for this asynchronous timing. These cards also tend to have specific pre-requisites that must be met in order to play the card and The Wartburg states that the card is “only playable by Protestants, and Luther must be alive”. The card itself allows the Protestant player to cancel the play of a card as an event but cannot cancel a Mandatory Event. The card however can cancel the play of the Papal Bull or Leipzig Debate Papal Home Cards, which is probably the way that the card will mostly be used. The card will not only cancel the play of the event but will also end the impulse of the player playing the card. This can be very powerful and when played at the right time can be a game saver for the Protestant player.

For example, in our most recent play at Buckeye Game Fest, I was playing as the Protestants and Bill Simoni as the Papacy. After the forming of the Schmalkaldic League and the Protestants changing into a military power, the focus of the other players turned toward me as I was doing well and near victory. They all then decided to declare war on the Protestants and began to advance upon and attack my fortified Electorates to take away VP I had earned by having both religious and political control in 5 of the 6 as the League was formed. As we came into turn 5, I was at 24 VP and ultimately came up shy of a victory by 1 point at the time. I had been able to take over the entirety of England and change every space and also get about 5-6 spaces in France, but now the Papal Bull came to play and Bill fought me back and forth with him taking over 3-4 spaces followed by me reclaiming 3-4 spaces. It was a beautiful game of back and forth and I used every tool at my disposal to fight him including The Wartburg card to stop the untimely excommunication of Zwingli before he could attempt to embarrass him in a debate. That card play at that very time saved me or most likely he would have used Eck who is his best debater against Zwingli who is just average and I would have lost leading to him being burnt at the stake giving him VP or by allowing him to turn over a few of my hard fought converted spaces back to Catholicism.

The only problem with this card is that it commits Luther so he will be unavailable to be chosen directly to debate during the rest of the turn. But this was a small price to pay at that time and ultimately led to me being able to hold on through the end of Turn 6 where I won a Protestant victory on the tie breaker with England.

Martin Luther stayed at Wartburg Castle from May 1521 to March 1522 under the alias “Junker Jörg” (Knight George) to hide from papal and imperial authorities. During these 300 days of protective custody, he translated the New Testament into German in just 11 weeks, wrote numerous theological works, and grappled with spiritual turmoil. His greatest accomplishment at Wartburg Castle was his translating of the New Testament from Koine Greek into German, which laid the foundation for a unified German language and made the Bible accessible to ordinary people. He also wrote numerous works, including Against Latomus and several tracts. He began his attack on monastic vows during this time, arguing they were contrary to faith. Luther used his time in exile for intense study and writing, referring to his stay as his “Patmos”, referring to the Apostle John’s exile to the Island of Patmos in 95AD. While here though he also experienced significant psychological distress and temptation. According to legend, he threw his inkwell at the devil during a confrontation, leaving a stain on the wall. His exile was organized by Frederick the Wise after the Diet of Worms and the stay was designed to keep Luther safe from those looking for him, ensuring the survival of his reform movement.

In the next entry in this series, we will take a look at Commodus from The Wars of Marcus Aurelius: Rome 170-180CE from Hollandspiele.

-Grant

Recently, I have been playing a lot of Paths of Glory: The First World War, 1914-1918 from GMT Games on the fabulous Rally the Troops! and these gaming sessions have got me thinking. Thinking about the uselessness of war and conflict and the ultimate negative effects of it all. But not just the loss of life, maiming and disfigurement that comes with war but also the emotional scars. And this got me thinking about despair and hopelessness. Despair! A word that evokes very dark and scary feelings in all of us because it gives the impression of a lack of tomorrow. The dictionary definition of Despair is “the complete loss or absence of hope”. In my opinion, this is a word that can be used to describe many historic battles and wars as they have spiraled into pointless affairs with no end in sight. World War I comes to mind for me and the years of bloody and brutal trench warfare, bombardment and use of deadly chemical weapons such as mustard gas. In this post in the Best 3 Games with… series, I want to share with you games that have despair as a main focus.

*As my Featured Image for this post, I used the painting The Scream by Edvard Munch (1895). He said about the piece that it felt like a “scream through nature,” and the painting features a distorted figure covering its ears, reacting to, rather than making, a sound.

3. Verdun from Dragon Dawn Productions

Verdun is a card game that is focused on the famous siege of Verdun during World War I. As player’s hands dwindle down as they play 2 cards per round but only draw 1, players will also have to play cards that help the other side, timing it strategically to minimize their own casualties. The teams alternate being the Attacker, and each card played leads to more and more deaths. You are fighting over positive victory points from trying to win several positions through over the top attacks that are worth a set amount of VP but that are hidden from view until they are taken so you never know if you are going for the high VP area or the low ones until you blow the whistle to initiate the attack.

A game of Verdun lasts about 16 rounds as players start with 12 cards, which they then play in a series of 12 tricks. When you win the trick, you gain the VP for the position but the winner will lose their lowest valued cards while the loser will lose their highest value cards to the dead pile representing mounting casualties. Low cards have fewer skulls on them representing deaths while higher cards have more. So even in victory you will be accumulating negative VP’s and this is one of the key aspects of the game…managing those deaths! Just like the high command.

In the end, the player with the highest score will win and this number will be very low or can even be negative. In our play of the game, my French defeated Alexander’s Germans by a final score of 3 VP to -14 VP. What a great little trick taking game! The really interesting part about the late game is that your hand has dwindled to being full of your worst cards as you have most likely used the good cards earlier to win tricks or cause losses to your opponent. The last few card plays just seem brutal and you are just hoping to not have to take a lot of skulls. This felt very fruitless and mimics the despair of commanders as they had to issue orders that they knew were not going to result in any positive gains but only the loss of life.

The game is also gorgeous with fantastic original period art used on the cards and amazing graphical layout and design. The images are very gritty and involve the feelings of the battle and create a very thematic portal for the players to experience the difficulties in the battle. Just a very slick little thematic game.

Here is a link to our video review of the game:

2. Paths of Glory: The First World War, 1914-1918 from GMT Games

Paths of Glory is widely thought to be a masterpiece on WWI and after just a few plays of the game, both in person and online on the fabulous Rally the Troops!, I can definitely see why people feel that way. Even though we are novices, the game is just that good and really tells the story of the fruitless efforts of both the Entente and Central Powers as they bashed their heads against each other over control of Europe. The game is long and you generally are going to have to play this one over a long weekend to get it all in and enjoy it properly but it is just such as great tool to understand the complexities of the struggles of trench warfare, supply and the balance of attacking versus taking a breath and regrouping. I really enjoyed the mix of historical events and the choices that I had to wage the war in a way that I felt was appropriate. But, my message to everyone who plays this game is beware of supply. Even in our few plays, supply has been an issue and we have had to make sure we didn’t make a few fatal mistakes that would get us in trouble. I want it to be clear here. I am not good at this game…at all and the nuances of supply and how to play have just eluded me as I continue to make the same errors game after game. But it is really good and I look forward to each new play with enthusiasm and am excited about the chance to get to learn more about this fascinating war that was so very fruitless.

With that being said, generally in every single game the Central Powers will start out by playing their Guns of August card. Guns of August is a crucial, high-stakes opening event for the Central Powers on Turn 1, enabling an immediate, powerful and historical offensive against France and Belgium. It kicks off the continual back and forth of trench warfare and frankly seems to never really generate a good outcome. Each attack is bloody, with both sides being brutalized by having to reduce units and the trenches make attacking more and more difficult as they evolve and grow to Level 2. Paths of Glory in a large part is about resource management and the constant pressure to continue offensive momentum and rebuild troops through the use of Replacement Points and events to bring on additional troops is a major problem for both sides. You can only attack for so long before you will burn yourself out and will have to spend time to recover and get ready for the next turn’s offensives. This process of back and forth will ultimately rarely see fruits on the Western Front and will devolve into stalemate as each side strengthens their defense and the Entente begin to bring in reinforcements from England to shore up the lines and nullify the early German advantage. But the real despair in this game are the decisions about how to play your cards. You can use them for their Ops Points to fuel attacks and movement on the board, use them for the printed event or play them for the Reinforcement Points located at the bottom of the card. This is the real key to the game and managing this process of maneuver, attack, shoring up defenses, buying replacement points and protecting supply lines is where the players lose their minds. You simply cannot continue a full out frontal assault round after round. If you do, you will grind your men to dust and dig their own graves as you will be unable to prepare for the next turn. This is a long game and this process wears on turn after turn and the first person that makes a mistake typically is the one that loses.

Here is a link to our initial impressions video of the game:

1. The Grizzled from CMON Games

The Grizzled is a special game. Not a big game. Not a complex game. And not a game for every one as it is different, focused on the friendship and bonds of a group of French soldiers caught in the trenches of World War I. The game is a cooperative card game set during The Great War, also known as “the war that no one in the U.S. really understands because we only ever learn about World War II”. Ironically, playing The Grizzled is somewhat of a rather peaceful affair, but our plays have found it to be quite challenging, sometimes unwinnable in fact, and that is where the despair comes in. No matter how well you play the cards you are dealt and no matter how hard you work together to overcome challenges, failure is a part of the game and winning is truly at a premium.

The cards represent threats to all of the men’s safety or a hard knock which impacts the player or their compatriots in some way. The goal of the game is to play through all of the Trials cards to find peace (literally a Peace card). A standard game starts with 25 Trial cards on the peace deck and the remaining 34 Trial cards are placed in a separate morale deck (a draw pile). Cards move from the Morale deck to the Trial deck at the end of a mission. The Morale deck sits on a card picturing a monument commemorating the sacrifices made in war. But if you ever see this Monument card, you’ve lost the game.

The goal of each mission is the same to play as many cards as you can before withdrawing from battle. Cards are played in one of two ways; placing a threat in No Man’s Land or placing a hard knock card next to your soldier. Every time you play a card, the group is one step closer to victory, but if there are ever 3 of the same threats showing on the table at any one time, the mission is lost but the game will continue.

Beyond playing a card, there are 2 other actions but they are rarely available. On each player’s character there is a Lucky Charm showing one of the 6 threats in the game. Playing the Lucky Charm as an action allows that player to remove a matching threat from No Man’s Land, making the mission a bit easier to continue. After you use your Lucky charm you flip your character card over and no longer have access to that action. The other action is to make a speech. There are a very limited number of Speech Tokens in the game – the mission leader will receive one after each mission until all the tokens have been distributed. When giving a speech as an action, you have to have the token and you have to choose one of the 6 threats. The OTHER players still active in the mission then remove ONE card from their hand that matches the declared threat. These can be useful but are not guaranteed to have an impact. Once played, a speech token is removed from the game. But, one of my favorite mechanic is when you withdraw and add a support token to your character. The token is, very thematically a cup of coffee. When the round ends, you will pass this coffee to a teammate as support. The teammate that gets the most support at the end of the round can remove two hard-knocks or recover their lucky charm.

While we love the game, and I find it to be supremely interesting, we have never won in over 20 plays. We simply seem to run the same course over and over again and never seem to gain much ground. And I really think that this is the point of the game. And where the despair comes into play. One of the other things that I love about the game is the tag line that appears on the front cover. It reads: Can friendship be stronger than war? This statement gives some pause and causes a lot of discussion in our group particularly with the concepts of the exhaustion of characters (using their Lucky Charm and turning them over), the speeches (removing a threat from the battlefield that you cannot get rid of because no one has the matching cards) and the cups of coffee (support). As if a cup of coffee can overcome anything…but you can always give it a go.

Now there are many games that could be included on this list but the games I have chosen perfectly evoke the level of despair that I was going for in this piece. I have played many other games that convey despair but feel that these 3 best demonstrate the level of hopelessness that I was thinking of. What are your favorite games that evoke despair?

-Grant

With this My Favorite Wargame Cards Series, I hope to take a look at a specific card from the various wargames that I have played and share how it is used in the game. I am not a strategist and frankly I am not that good at games but I do understand how things should work and be used in games. With that being said, here is the next entry in this series.

#70: Mohawks from Wilderness War: The French & Indian War, 1755-1760 from GMT Games

One of my fondest memories of our wargaming journey was our initial experience with the full campaign game of Wilderness War from GMT Games. We were 2 very inexperienced wargamers and we slogged through a 9-hour marathon play over a few days that ended in a 0-0 tie of all things. That’s right, the game ended in a tie, even though we both had a card in hand, but I was unable to use mine to activate Levis, which was my only potential Victory Point scoring force, and Alexander’s forces were in too tenuous a position or too wounded to risk an open battle for VP’s. You would think that this would have turned us off to the game but on the contrary it made me fall in love with asymmetric wargames and the Card Driven Game mechanic with its use of Action Points and events to wage war on the North American continent. The end score of our game really followed the tension of the game, and the blunders on the side of the British that counter balanced their various successes.

All in all, this game was excellent to play and we both highly recommend it. The two factions play extremely differently which leads to many intricate and reactive strategic decisions. The British have many powerful forces with their Highlanders and cannon while the French have access to better leaders and mobile troops and Indian allies who can run around the frontier raiding and burning settlements for VP’s. Laying siege and assaulting really feels like it should, and avoiding battle until you are ready is something that is integral to maintaining a strong presence on the board. You cannot always get into every possible fight as you will not survive the attrition of these battles. The deck plays really well, and as you don’t have to worry about the opponents events in your hand going off, the management aspect is much simpler yet very engaging as there are always reaction cards you can play or cards that you want to hold onto for that perfect moment.

In previous posts in this series, we have discussed the importance of the players of both sides gaining the trust and services of the indigenous Indian denizens of North America in the fight. The French and British can both use the Indian recruitment cards, including cards such as Iroquois Alliance, Northern Indian Alliance and Western Indian Alliance, to recruit, restore, and move native allies to gain victory points through raids and controlling of territory. The French hold a significant advantage with more access to a greater number of Indian auxiliaries, and will be using these cards to launch early raids, while the British can recruit specialized units like their Mohawk or Cherokee allies. 

In this entry, we will take a look at the British card Mohawks. Mohawks is one of those cards that has a pre-requisite qualifying condition to play the card. In this case, the qualifier is that the leader Johnson must be located on the board within 2 spaces of Canajoharie, which was a Mohawk village located in upstate New York. As long as he is within the required 2 spaces, the card can be played to bring out onto the board the Red striped Mohawk Indian units. These must be placed with Johnson and the other added benefit is that any reduced Mohawks on the board can be flipped to their full side. These pro-British units can only be recruited by the British player and their arrival in New York can be a huge boon to the British as the French and their Indian allies will be raiding the villages and settlements up and down the frontier regularly during the game as one of their most dependable sources of Victory Points. These Mohawk allies can spread out around the area and intercept incoming raids before they can occur. Remember that Indian allies in Wilderness War are not powerful combat units and are best used to raid and prevent other tribes from raiding.

I very much love the thematic connection here as in order to attract the Mohawk Indians as your allies you must have someone that they trust in the area and this is Johnson. Sir William Johnson was a pivotal British superintendent of Indian Affairs whose deep integration into Mohawk society secured the crucial Mohawk Nation alliance for the British during the French and Indian War. By living among them, learning their language, and marrying Mohawk women, he maintained the Iroquois Covenant Chain and led Mohawk warriors in key victories. This is one of the great things about these Card Driven Games and their use of the cards to deliver the bits and bobs of history to enlighten our understanding and to expand our knowledge of the period.

As a young man, Johnson moved to the Province of New York to manage an estate purchased by his uncle, Royal Navy officer Peter Warren, which was located in territory of the Mohawk, one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois League. Johnson learned the Mohawk language and Iroquois customs, and was appointed the British agent to the Iroquois. Johnson commanded Iroquois and colonial militia forces against the French and their allies during the war and was later commissioned a major-general for his role in the British victory at the Battle of Lake George in 1755. His capture of Fort Niagara from the French in 1759 brought him additional renown. Throughout his career as a British official among the Iroquois, Johnson combined personal business with official diplomacy, acquiring tens of thousands of acres of Native land and becoming very wealthy.

In the next entry in this series, we will take a look at The Wartburg from Here I Stand: Wars of the Reformation, 1517-1555 from GMT Games.

-Grant

With this My Favorite Wargame Cards Series, I hope to take a look at a specific card from the various wargames that I have played and share how it is used in the game. I am not a strategist and frankly I am not that good at games but I do understand how things should work and be used in games. With that being said, here is the next entry in this series.

#69: Blockade from Twilight Struggle: The Cold War, 1945-1989 from GMT Games

Twilight Struggle is a 2-player game simulating the forty-five year ideological struggle known as the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States which can be played in 2-3 hours. The entire world is the stage on which these two countries “fight” to make the world safe for their own ideologies and way of life. The game starts right after the end of World War II in the midst of the ruins of Europe as the two new “superpowers” of the world squabble over what is left and ends in 1989, when only the United States remained standing.

The map is a world map of the period, where players move units and exert influence in attempts to gain allies and control for their superpower. The beauty of the CDG system used here is that each decision of whether to use a card for the event or the operations value is a struggle as if it is the other side’s event, it might go off hurting you very badly. There are mechanics to allow for the ignoring or cancelling of some of the best cards for your opponent in a side game within the game called The Space Race as well as nuclear tensions, with the possibility of game-ending global thermonuclear war (Shall we play a game, anyone?). I have played TS about 30 times and love it more and more with each sitting. The game makes me sweat, cringe, jump with joy and bite my fingernails. To me, a game that can do all of that in one sitting is worth the price.

One of my favorite type of cards from the game are those that force an action upon your opponent, such as discarding a card, reducing the Ops from card plays or causing them to have to make other plans than what they were working toward. These type of cards are more reactionary but definitely cause issues and mimic the various non-military focused strategies and tactics used during the Cold War. One of the most famous events from the early history of the Cold War is that of the Berlin Blockade. And there is a specific card that pays homage to the event in the game called Blockade. Blockade is an Early War Soviet Card that has an Ops Value of 1, which makes the card more valuable to be used for the printed event versus for the Ops.

When played, the card requires the US Player to immediately discard a 3 Ops or more value card from their hand or the consequence of not doing so will see all US Influence being removed from West Germany. This is a tough choice. Being early in the game, it is possible for the US to rebuild in West Germany and replace the lost influence over time if they do not wish to discard such as high value card. But, herein lies the real key to the Blockade cards use. The Soviet Player, who should be paying attention to not only their hand but also the card plays of the US Player, should try to use this card later in a turn once the US Player has played a majority of their cards in order to ensure that the event text can be realistically be achieved. If played quickly during a turn, the chances of the US Player being able to discard the required 3 Ops or great value card is higher and the card play will not generate any meaningful difference on the board state. I also would recommend a 2 card strategy here as the Soviet Player should be holding in their hand a high Ops card to be able to follow up this action with the placement of Influence into West Germany on their very next play. But, the real value to a card such as Blockade is that it forces the US Player to consider what cards are out there and to play around their negative effects as much as possible. Due to the nature of the game, and the randomness of card draws, having an expendable high Ops card ready and able to be discarded just in case of the play of Blockade is not really feasible. Also, remember that in Twilight Struggle that opponent events on cards that you play will go off and Blockade being drawn by the US Player can be bad as it will require them to play the event as you cannot discard a 1 Ops card to get rid of its negative effect in the Space Race Track due to the minimum requirement being a 2 Ops card. So the moral of the story here is that both players need to consider and plan for the play of or the mitigation of damage from Blockade.

The Berlin Blockade, which lasted from June 1948–May 1949, was a major Cold War crisis where the Soviet Union blocked all land and water access to West Berlin to attempt to force Western Allies out. The Soviet Union was taking this action as a means of retaliation against the introduction of the new Deutschmark currency. The US and Britain responded with the massive Berlin Airlift, flying over 2.3 million tons of food, fuel and supplies to the city. At the peak of the Airlift, a plane landed in West Berlin every 30 seconds. The blockade failed and the Soviets lifted it on May 12, 1949, after realizing the Allied Airlift could sustain the city for an extended period of time, marking a significant victory for the West in the ideological struggle. This event led to the acceleration of the division of Germany into East and West and the deepening of Cold War tensions.

In the next entry in this series, we will take a look at Mohawks from Wilderness War: The French & Indian War, 1755-1760 from GMT Games.

-Grant

Last day. We have had a great time and got 14 different games played! I’m exhausted but it’s a good exhaustion, if there is such a thing. Our final day was filled with 3 more great games as well as a lot of quality time with friends and fellow wargamers.

The day started with our first play of a brand new game called Imperial Elegy: The Road to the Great War 1850-1920 from VUCA Simulations. Imperial Elegy is a card driven game that blends diplomacy, warfare, and statecraft and feels a bit akin to games like Here I Stand and Virgin Queen from GMT Games. Grand scale sweeping epics that play multiplayers and take a day to play. Players play as 1 of 6 unique major powers in the game including Germany/Prussia, the United Kingdom, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia and the Ottoman Empire.

The game takes place over 7 turns, with each turn representing approximately a decade. If the Great War breaks out, the game can be extended by an additional 6 shorter turns.A turn in the game consists of numerous player impulses that is driven by the play of action cards for their Command Points or the printed events. Players will use CP and events to take actions like colonize, conduct diplomacy with minor nations, fight wars, as well as hinder their opponents by playing events that take away their actions or resources. A turn will end once all players have consecutively passed or when all players run out of cards.

Here is a look at the German player board which tracks a lot of information including current Stability, which decides whether various actions like war can be taken or if there are various positive or negative modifiers, the available Manpower that will determine how many armies can be built, Industry that tells how many action pointed you will have to spend during war to maneuver units, attack and replace losses. The focus of the game is about the control of territories both on the Minsk and of Europe as well colonies abroad and there is an automatic victory if a certain target number is met, in the case of Germany 15.

Here is a quick look at the Russia player board for comparison’s sake as each faction is unique and has various starting levels and abilities.

We only played the first full turn and it took us about 90 minutes including an hour of setup and rules overview and discussion as only one of us at the table had player previously (John Lapham). But we very much enjoyed the experience and found lots to like. We are going to try to put together another full game in the next several months and will have more to report on after that. But suffice it to stay everyone at the table was impressed with the design and everyone had a good time with it.

The 2nd game of the day was Bretwalda from PHALANX. This is such a beautiful game but is also a very good design in the area control/dudes on a map realm.

Bretwalda attempts to do what Civ Builders do but do it in a novel and different way…and also finds a way to incentivize combat, which was really a breath of fresh air for me. Bretwalda from PHALANX is a game for 1-4 players that plays in around 2 1/2 hours. Each player takes charge of one of the kingdoms of medieval England, including Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex and East Anglea, and each of these kingdoms has unique leaders and abilities. The goal is to be crowned the Bretwalda of England and victory will be achieved through a combination of controlling key areas with victory points, completing Chronicle cards in the form of hidden objectives and also focusing on building various buildings such as Abbeys.

The game has very little assymetry and I initially thought that this would be a bad thing for the design but really enjoyed how they did make each kingdom feel different, also how they provided unique choices in the area of Kingdom Tiles and the development of your kingdom. The Kingdoms differ in three main aspects. First, they are located in different areas on the map. Now this might not seem very important but there are advantages to each of these locations. East Anglea has access to several Areas that produce Food. This is very good as you have to feed your soldiers at the start of each Winter Phase and you will always be on the lookout for how to get more Food. This is a very good advantage but the tradeoff is that they are very open and spread-out on the map in the east and have more areas susceptible to attack which requires more troops for defense. Northumbria is located in the north of England up against Hadrian’s Wall which provides some form of protection as it provides extra defense if attacked. They can also conquer the area to the north of their kingdom and have very little worry about any threat from that side so they can focus on defending other areas. 

Second, each kingdom has its own permanent, unique special rule that provides them with an advantage. East Anglea starts with 3 Food in their capital while other kingdoms start with just 1 and they also obtain 2 Food at the start of each Spring Season. Wessex will draw one extra Lordship Card after winning a battle. This is very important as these cards are very versatile special benefit cards that can be used in battle to do several things like reroll dice, add reinforcements, bring back a destroyed unit, etc. They also though have other uses through other phases of the game including scouting your opponents stash of cards before attacking, cancelling played card effects, gaining additional Gold, amongst other benefits. Mercia is able to Recruit 1 additional land unit when they take the Fyrd (Recruit) action. This gives them access to larger armies more quickly than other kingdoms so you have to watch out for them to be aggressive early. Finally, Northumbria may build Abbeys for 1 less Gold. This is probably the most simple benefit but Gold is at a premium and this really helps them to get more Gold as Abbeys give victory points (called Dalcs) as well as provide 1 additional Gold during the Collect Action. These benefits are not massive or game breaking but really add some flavor to each kingdom. Third and finally, as already discussed in the point above, each of the kingdoms has a set of its own unique historical Rulers, each with a different ability. I wont say anymore about this here but I really liked this part of the assymetry and thought it worked really well without breaking the game or making it more difficult than it had to be.

The area that I really wanted to cover in this part though was the Kingdom Tiles. During the Development Action, each player can pay 3 Gold and place 1 Kingdom Tile on their board. These Kingdom Tiles are divided into 4 different categories (you can see the four categories on the Kingdom Board shown above) tied to the four available Actions for players, including Development, Collection, Fyrd (Recruit) and Movement. The surprising thing about these tiles was that they are all the same for each kingdom. At first I thought maybe this was a missed opportunity but then after playing I saw that each having the same access to the same tiles was smarter as it gave the game balance. Also, each of the categories offers 3 possible Kingdom Tiles to develop and each player only has 2 spots on their board so you cannot develop all 3 in each category and each player will have to choose what makes the most sense for them at the time. I have seen this done in several of the Lite Civ Dudes on a Map Area Control games but they tend to overcomplicate it and make it clunky whereas in Bretwalda it is streamlined and simple yet there are options and paths to develop.

Bretwalda is a unique game amongst the many Lite Civ Building Dudes on a Map Area Control games out there. I had a great time playing the game and enjoyed the very interesting and fun combat system with custom dice for each unit type and Lordship Cards that add special abilities. This game is special and beautiful and thematic and earns a spot on my shelf as a game that I want to play again and again.

The wrap up event was annual roleplaying game and this year Cullen prepared a session of a new RPG called War Stories, which is set during the World War II. With it, players take the roles of heroic soldiers parachuting into Normandy during Operation Overlord in June of 1944.

As an RPG players will have characters with various special focuses across 4 abilities including Strength, Agility, Intelligence and Empathy. Each time a skill is to the checked you find the matching ability and roll that number of six sided dice looking fur 6’s which mean success. If multiple successes are rolled you can earn special tokens called Lucky Strikes that can be saved and used as successes on future rolls. The players will have to decide if they roll their dice again and will remove any 1’s from the pool and roll the remaining dice again. If they fail this time though the GM will gain a FUBAR token that can be used to cause a failure on a rolled success in the future. This really created some cinematic moments and was a very interesting way to handle a check.

Our friend Cullen was the GM and did a fantastic job guiding us through our first experience with the system. His good explanation and clear understanding and familiarity with the system really made our first experience an enjoyable one.

We were tasked with taking a hardpoint on D-Day behind enemy lines to assault and take out several gun emplacements shelling the upcoming landing beaches. We went through a series of rolls and checks on the flight in on the Dakota C-47 and then had to bail out over flak filled skies taking hits and losing gear or our musette bags.

When we landed we had to gather up, create a plan and then execute that plan to maneuver through German held positions under fire and take out the emplacements. There were lots of heroic actions, good sniper shots, daring orders and of course explosions and we had a great time with the game.

In the end we were successful and only lost a few of the men under our command. I look forward to playing more in the future. Thanks to Cullen for his preparation and time devoted to teaching us the system

We finished up at about 9:00pm and we then gathered up all of our games, equipment and items and said goodbye to friends who we hope to see next year. This week was a major success as we played 14 different games and had a very good time. Thank you so much for following along in my daily posts and look ahead to the videos we did appearing on the YouTube Channel over the next month.

-Grant

Day 4 dawned early and we are really tired. I actually felt like I had slept, although I didn’t fall asleep last night until about 1:30am, but just didn’t feel refreshed and had very little energy. I am a Wargamer and I simply sucked it up and got downstairs where we had breakfast with friends including Russ, Cullen and Hermann Luttmann. We imbibed in the buffet eating more pieces of bacon than someone should in a fortnight and made it to the War Room a bit before 9:00 where we started setting up for our annual 6-player game of Here I Stand from GMT Games.

Playing with us was Russ (France), Cullen (Ottomans), Bill Simoni (Papacy), James (England) with me (Protestants) and Alexander (Hapsburgs).

We simply love Here I Stand and have played the game at least 15 times and it just gets better every single time. If you don’t know, Here I Stand: Wars of the Reformation, 1517–1555 is a grand-scale Card Driven Game that simulates the political and religious struggles in Europe during the period covering 1517-1555 referred to as the Reformation. It is designed primarily for six players, each controlling a major power with unique, asymmetric goals and mechanics and is best with max players.

The game takes place over up to 9 turns, but for us a majority of our plays have lasted 4-5 turns with our longest play being today as we finished the game in 6 turns. Each of the turns represent approximately 4 years of historical time. The game utilizes a Card-Driven Game system where players spend cards for their Command Points to perform actions like moving armies or building fleets or for the unique historical event described on the text of the card.

The game is very asymmetrical in its gameplay as each of the factions plays a different game based on its historical role and will win via amassed VP’s that are earned in vastly different ways such through piracy (Ottomans), building of chateaus (France), New World Exploration (England, Hapsburgs, France) and through battles. The Papacy and Protestants will wage a religious war over the souls of European Christians to either sway spaces to Catholicism or Protestantism. But one of my favorite parts is the Diplomacy and making of secret deals between the players to help out their goals.

With that being said our game started off with the nailing of the 95 Theses to the door of the church at Wittenberg and as the Protestants I have never seen a worse opening as I was only able to switch 3 spaces in Wittenberg, Brandenburg and Leipzig. Not a good start at all for the Protestants but I was undaunted, although I said many curses under my breath and to the gamers at the table, and quickly got my self under control and was determined to recover.

I worked hard over the next few turns to spread the faith and was quickly able to get most of Germany under control and take over 4 of the Electorates which gave me units that would help me continue to spread toward France and England.

It was amazing to see Bill Simoni and the Papacy and I go at it as we held many theological debates, ultimately each of us disgracing a debater and gaining VP, and for me to have the full Bible translated into German during Turn 2 quickly followed by the translation into English by Turn 3. I had made a deal with England for him to play a card that favored me in exchange for a concerted effort to get the Protestant faith rooted in England so he could gain some VP.

Meanwhile the Ottomans got out the Barbary Pirates card early and had built a sizable fleet of corsairs causing France and England to loan the Hapsburgs several boats to combat this green menace in the Mediterranean.

Also several colonies were formed in the New World and ultimately Alexander’s Hapsburgs were able to circumnavigate the globe and score several important VP.

During this time, the Protestants and Papacy were fighting tooth and nail but my dice rolling, and innate ability to win ties, allowed me to build a sizable lead in the religious war. I was in very good shape when the Schmalkaldic League card was played turning the Protestants into a military power and then changing the other players focus to then declare war one and begging to attack my fortified Electorates to take away VP I had earned by having both religious and political control in 5 of the 6.

As we came into turn 5, I was at 24 VP and ultimately came up shy of a victory by 1 point at the time. I had been able to take over the entirety of England and change every space and also get about 5-6 spaces in France. but now the Papal Bull came to play and Bill fought me back and forth with him taking over 3-4 spaces followed by me reclaiming 3-4 spaces. It was beautiful game of back and forth and I used every tool at my disposal to fight him including The Wartburg card to stop the untimely excommunication of Luther before he could attempt to embarrass one of my lesser debaters.

Then England gained ground as a healthy Edward was born and he gained 5 VP and then took over a key from France to get close to my score going into Tuen 6.

At that point it was dog pile the winner as everyone declared war on the Protestants and came after my Electorates but I was able to stave them off and ultimately never lost down to lower than 4 controlled which retained 8 VP for me and allowed me to finish the Bible translation in French and take a sizable lead in VP.

The game came down to the last card play as England and my Protestants tied at 25 VP and I won on tiebreakers as I had the most VP in the turn prior. What a fantastic game that took us over 9 hours to play!

We were all wasted and went to dinner at a nearby bar called The Flat Iron Grill and had a very enjoyable meal. We decided to not play the WWII RPG War Stories and might till tomorrow night as we were all a bit brain dead.

We played about 5 scenarios of the beautiful and very fun trick taking game called The Lord of the Rings Trick Taking Game: The Two Towers from Office Dog. This is a standalone continuation to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking Game, with several play modes including solo, 2-player, and 4-player and we did the 4-player version. It is a cooperative card game that follows the narrative of J.R.R. Tolkien’s second book through 18 unique, story-driven chapters.

The game functions as a “must-follow” trick-taker, where players must play a card of the led suit if they have one; otherwise, the highest card of the led suit wins the trick. Unlike many traditional trick-taking games, players work together to meet individual character goals simultaneously to progress through the story. And they s game is very tough with the new edition adding in several very tough challenges as the addition or orc cards that have no function but if lead because you have no other choice lead to a loss. Just great and thinky fun that is very relaxing and frankly very fun to play.

This was a perfect way to end the day and we actually made it back to our room at 9:30pm allowing me time to write this post and get in near before midnight.

Tomorrow is our last day and we have big plans as we will be playing Imperial Elegy from VUCA Simulations (a kind of Here I Stand style CDG on the rise and fall of European empires from the 1850’s through WWII), Bretwalda from PHALANX (an Ameritrash combat game set in medieval England) and then a night cap of the RPG War Stories that we didn’t get to this evening. See you tomorrow night!

-Grant