Drop Zone: Southern France is a company-level wargame covering the Allied airborne assault that spearheaded Operation Dragoon, which was the invasion of Southern France or the Second D-Day on August 15, 1944. The history behind this operation is really very interesting as early on the morning of D-Day, the allied First Airborne Task Force (1st ABTF) parachuted a dozen miles behind the Riviera landing beaches to seize key towns and road junctions, to prevent the German occupation forces from counter-attacking the amphibious landing, and to facilitate the advance of Allied forces. The 4:00 AM parachute drop was badly scattered due to an unexpected dense fog bank that blanketed the battlefield. Drop Zone: Southern France covers the first two days of this airborne operation in six game turns, when the American and British paratroopers and glider-men fought surrounded and alone, supported only by French resistance bands. This game is very good and is just a solid wargame.
La Der des Ders – The War to End War from Hexasim is a 1-2 player slightly abstracted strategic level look at World War I. The game allows the players to relive the First World War at a strategic level, with each player controlling one of the 2 sides either the Entente, consisting of France, England, Russia, Serbia and other minor nations or the Central Powers including Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and a few minors. La Der des Ders can also be played solo, with a dedicated solitaire bot called “Athena” who utilizes special Cornflower Cards to make decisions about what technologies to invest in, where to undertake offensives and how to utilize limited resources and reinforcements. Each turn, players gain an amount of Resource Points dependent on what nations are in the war, which they can allocate to different areas to guide their overall strategy. Victory is achieved by launching offensives that drain the morale of enemy nations, forcing them out of the conflict through collapse.
In Action Point 1, we looked at the Game Board, discussing the Collapse Tracks, Trade Tracks, Russian Revolution Track and Naval Control Table and other various on-board tables and offensive spaces. In Action Point 2, we covered the Technology Phase and the Technology Tree and Technological Improvement Boards. In Action Point 3, we examined the Event Cards and how they inject the historical narrative into the gameplay and also alter the conditions of the game. In Action Point 4, we walked through an example of an Offensive and took a look at the combat procedure. In Action Point 5, we reviewed the Victory Conditions. In this Action Point, which is the final entry in the series, we will give an overview of the “Athena” solitaire bot and how it works.
Athena
La Der des Ders – The War to End War is designed as a 2-player game but it does have a dedicated solitaire bot called Athena that can be used to simulate an opponent to play against. This Athena bot, named after the Greek goddess of strategy, can be used to play as either the Entente or as the Central Powers and is focused on the use of special cards referred to as Cornflower Cards. There are 12 of these Cornflower Cards and these are used to determine the various actions taken by the Athena bot during their turn. A solitaire play uses the usual rules for the 2-player game, with just a few exceptions.
The Cornflower Cards are multi-use cards that are divided into 3 different sections to be used at different points of the Sequence of Play in a solitaire game. They are drawn and referred to during the Technology Development Phase, the Reinforcement Phase and the Offensive Phase. Let’s take a look at the anatomy of these cards. In the above picture, you will notice that there are 3 main categories listed at the top of the card including Technologies at the top, Reinforcements in the middle and Offensives on the bottom of the card. During the appropriate phase, the player will draw 1 Cornflower Card for the Athena AI.
If it is the Technology Development Phase, the player will refer to the top of the card where there are listed the 6 different technologies that can be pursued. Under each of these categories will show the number of Resource Points that will be spent by Athena in order to attempt to unlock a new level in each of the technologies. If there is an X in that space, that means that Athena will not attempt to gain a level of that technology during this phase. If there is a 2 listed, this means that 2 RP will be spent and the roll for the technology will gain a +1 DRM. Keep in mind though, that if the technology shown is not available yet because the year it is available has not yet arrived, then the bot will not spend a resource to attempt that technology. If Athena doesn’t have enough Resource Points to make all the attempts shown on the card, she will spend as much as possible to attempt these technologies. Athena never re-rolls the die for these attempts by discarding a Technological Research Cube for previous failed attempts. One of the differences for Athena during this step is that if a success is earned in unlocking a level of technology, she will get to advance all cylinders of the corresponding technology in all sectors under Athena’s control. This means all of the countries of the alliance as well as the active minors. These technological improvements cost no Resource Points.
If it is the Reinforcement Phase, Athena will attempt to reinforce sectors that have suffered losses in previous turns according to the following priority order:
The sector which suffered the most losses or in other words the sector whose cube is furthest from its maximum;
The sector with the second most losses and then the sectors in the following order, ignoring the sectors already covered above:
When you have chosen what sector is to receive reinforcements based upon the priority described, the player will draw as many Cornflower Cards as there are spaces separating the Sector Cube from the space with the red value. After drawing the cards, the player will count the instances of cards that have the name of that sector shown on them. If you look at the 3 cards shown above, if doing reinforcements for Germany they would move their Sector Cube up only 1 space on the Collapse Track as once Germany is listed in the middle of the card under Reinforcements. Very simple. Athena will also have to spend the required Resource Points from their total to actually move the Sector Cube up and if they cannot afford all of the reinforcements shown by the cards, they will move and pay for what they can afford. This phase ends when Athena no longer has enough Resource Points, or when all the sectors have been able to try to obtain reinforcements.
Finally, if it is the Offensive Phase, each side launches an offensive in turn starting with the side that has the initiative. When it is Athena’s turn to attack, the player will draw one Cornflower Card and refer to the bottom portion of the card, which will indicate the sector Athena is attacking. The sector to be attacked will be the one on the left of the card if Athena is playing the Entente, and the one on the right if she is playing as the Central Powers. The sector indicated on the card must always be attacked by the sector that has the best chance of inflicting damage. This usually means the sector with the highest current Operational Value and that has not yet launched an Offensive this turn. In the event of a tie, preference should be given to the sector least likely to be able to attack elsewhere during a later card draw in the turn. The size of the Offensive will be equal to the current Operational Value of the attacking sector only if the number of Resource Points Athena has remaining will allow for it. Otherwise the Offensive is reduced to the number of remaining RP. Once Athena’s Resource Points have been spent, the dice rolled and any losses applied, the player will then take their own turn to launch an Offensive or decide to pass. Then Athena will draw a new Cornflower Card to determine their next Offensive. If there are ever 3 Cornflower Cards drawn by Athena without having the ability to attack because of sector availability or Offensives by adjacent sectors have already been taken, the Offensive Phase will come to an end.
That is all there is to the Cornflower Cards and the Athena bot. It is a really well designed system that removes most of the work by the player when playing solitaire. There will be times when you have to make a decision, as described above with Offensives, but these decisions are easy and the hard work is done by the simple flipping of a card.
I do want to point out one final thing. The sequence of play differs slightly from the 2-player game as it rearranges when the Athena bot does a few of the steps during the Spend Resource Points Phase as shown below. The human player will start by doing their Reinforcements first followed by their Technology investment. Athena will then go and do their Technology investment first followed by Reinforcements. Both players will then move into the Offensive Phase and the player with initiative as shown on the turn track will take the first Offensive of the turn.
The Athena bot works very well as a playable solitaire experience for La Der Des Ders. The Cornflower Cards are a stroke of genius and really are easy to use, which makes playing the game a much better experience. I found that the bot actually holds its own in the game, even though they are not in total control of their own actions like a human player would be. The changes also made in the Sequence of Play as well as to the way Technology Investments work more than make up for the lack of true intelligence by the system and will definitely give the player a run for their money. I have played the game about 5 times solitaire, both as the Entente and as the Central Powers, and have won just 2 out of 5 tries. But the experience was easy, enjoyable and pretty seamless. The game really is a great example of a slightly abstracted strategic level look at World War I and I would wholeheartedly recommend this game to anyone who has an interest in The Great War.
I shot a playthrough video for the solitaire system and you can watch that at the following link (beware as I did make a few errors but I have found errors make viewers understand the rules of the game better):
I also did a video review and you can watch that at the following link:
Thank you for allowing me to share this game with you through this series of posts over the past several months. I have very much enjoyed doing these and I hope that you find them helpful.
The German branch of high IQ society Mensa has unveiled its full slate of nominees for this year’s MinD Spielepreis.
Mensa in Deutschland has run the awards contest since 2009, and has operated a ‘shorter games’ category for more than a decade and lighter two-player games prize since 2019.
This year’s ‘shorter games’ category will be fought over by titles including 2025 Spiel des Jahres nominee Krakel Orakel, as well as Grégory Grard and Mathieu Roussel’s design Zenith and Take Time from Alexi Piovesan and Julien Prothière.
Word chaining game Next by Verena Wiechens and Lukas Setzke is also up for the shorter game prize – which focuses on titles that play in well under an hour – as is Maldón’s design El Camarero (published in Germany as Chaosteria), and Wilmot’s Warehouse from David King, Ricky Haggett and Richard Hogg.
In the two-player games category, Bruno Cathala’s design Kamon is up against Niwashi, from Gautier de Cottreau and Baptiste Laurent, Junghee Choi’s Orapa and Tobias Tesar’s Perfect Murder.
Playball, designed by David Florsch, will also compete in that category, as will Strategeti by Ignasi Ferré and Suna Valo, designed by Andreas Odendahl (who goes by ode.).
Jochen Tierbach, who has been organising the MinD Game Award for 16 years, said at the time, “There are already various awards and prizes for family and connoisseur games.
“But for expert games, the really tough ones, there is no such thing in Germany yet. And we feel that the industry wants it.”
The long list of more than 20 expert-level titles was whittled down to six challengers for the complex games award this year: Galactic Cruise, Luthier, Shackleton Base, Speakeasy, Thebai and Thesauros, all of which have been released in Germany since Spiel Essen last October.
Last year’s MinD award for complex games saw Tomáš Holek’s space exploration eurogame SETI add to its array of prizes, while Simone Luciani and Dávid Turczi’s Nucleum triumphed in 2024.
La Der des Ders – The War to End War from Hexasim is a 1-2 player slightly abstracted strategic level look at World War I. The game allows the players to relive the First World War at a strategic level, with each player controlling one of the 2 sides either the Entente, consisting of France, England, Russia, Serbia and other minor nations or the Central Powers including Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and a few minors. La Der des Ders can also be played solo, with a dedicated solitaire bot called “Athena” who utilizes special Cornflower Cards to make decisions about what technologies to invest in, where to undertake offensives and how to utilize limited resources and reinforcements. Each turn, players gain an amount of Resource Points dependent on what nations are in the war, which they can allocate to different areas to guide their overall strategy. Victory is achieved by launching offensives that drain the morale of enemy nations, forcing them out of the conflict through collapse.
In Action Point 1, we looked at the Game Board, discussing the Collapse Tracks, Trade Tracks, Russian Revolution Track and Naval Control Table and other various on-board tables and offensive spaces. In Action Point 2, we covered the Technology Phase and the Technology Tree and Technological Improvement Boards. In Action Point 3, we examined the Event Cards and how they inject the historical narrative into the gameplay and also alter the conditions of the game. In Action Point 4, we walked through an example of an Offensive and took a look at the combat procedure. In this Action Point, we will simply review the Victory Conditions.
Victory Conditions
In La Der des Ders, there are a few ways to trigger the concept of Sudden Death, which leads to the game concluding and a victor being declared, or to win the game through armistice being signed and then through the accumulation of Prestige Points. Let’s first take a look at what I think is the most common way for the game to come to an end, Sudden Death.
Sudden Death
The game will end immediately in the event of Sudden Death and this Sudden Death can be triggered in three ways. First, if France surrenders, the Central Powers will immediately win the game, second if Germany surrenders, the Entente will immediately win the game and finally if any one side achieves 6 Victory Points then that side immediately wins the game. Really pretty simple. If countries other than France or Germany surrender, such as Austria-Hungary, Russia or the Ottoman Empire, the game will continue although the Production Value of the surrendered country will no longer be included in the sides Resource Points.
Now there is a remote possibility that both sides could trigger Sudden Death at the same time through an attack. Remember, that if the attacker rolls a 1 on their Attack Dice, it will result a Counter Attack and 1 loss on their Collapse Track and if this would cause them to have to surrender as well as inflicting enough hits on their target to reach the end of their Collapse Track, both will Surrender and then neither side will win. But also, this could possibly occur with the play of the Spanish Flu Event, which causes losses to all powers. This is a rare possibility but it can happen.
One of the things that I very much like about this game is the concept of Collapse and the fatigue and weariness of war. World War I drug on for 4 long years and particularly on the Western Front very little ground was actually gained. During the early years of the war in 1915–1916, these advances were measured in mere feet, while later in the war during the campaigns of 1918, particularly in the case of the Hundred Days Offensive, which began on August 8, 1918, the Allies achieved deep, lasting breakthroughs, pushing the Germans back to their original 1914 lines. But the war was a meat grinder, plain and simple, and attacks were made sometimes to keep the war going because High Command demanded action and not necessarily to gain any ground or obtain any key objectives. Resources dwindled, troops dried up as men were shattered, maimed and demoralized to the point of being unable to stand a watch or fight, and nation’s desire for the war to continue faded. I think that at points, one breakthrough or catastrophic loss could have ended the war and this is very well reflected in La Der des Ders as if you are too low on your own Collapse Track and decide to attack because you believe you can finish your opponent you always have a chance of catastrophe and losses of your own while on the offensive.
Armistice
Aside from the Sudden Death ending, the game can end in 2 ways including at the end of the turn during which the Peace Negotiations card was drawn, or at the end of turn 14. In both of these cases, the side with the most Prestige Points is declared the winner. If there is a tie, the Central Powers will win the game.
So what are Prestige Points? Prestige Points are a concept that takes into account the standing of each of the combatant nations on both sides, using the location of the Sector cube on their Collapse Track as a base, and then uses a simple mathematical formula to determine the overall standing and condition of the nations morale, production and will to fight. One of the most important parts of this calculation though is that it only takes into account nations that have not collapsed and surrendered. If a nation has been forced to surrender because their Collapse Track reached the end, they will not count toward the Prestige Points of their allied side.
Each player will calculate their total Prestige Points very simply by paying attention to several numbers such as the Operational Value and Prestige Value. For each country still At War during the Armistice, the player multiplies the sector’s current Operational Value (OV), which is shown by the location of the Sector cube on the Collapse Track, by its Prestige Value (PV), which is the value printed on the left side of the Collapse Track. The various nations’ Prestige Values are Germany 5, France 4, Austria-Hungary 3, Ottoman Empire 3, Italy 3, Middle East 3 and all other Sectors 1.
Let’s take a look at a quick example of how to calculate Germany’s Prestige Points. If Germany is still At War and their Collapse Track is showing an Operational Value of 2, then we will multiply their Prestige Value shown on the far left of the Collapse Track of 5 x the Operational Value of 2 resulting in a total of 10 Prestige Points. The players then add the number of Victory Points (VP) indicated by the location of their marker on the Victory Point Track. You might be wondering Where do Victory Points come from? Victory Points are specifically earned from forcing countries to surrender and the side that caused the surrender will earn a number of Victory Points as shown in the rules. For the Entente, their values are Russia 3 VP, Italy, Middle East and Romania 2 VP and Serbia, Africa and Greece 1 VP. For the Central Powers, their values are Austria-Hungary 3 VP, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria 2 VP and the German Colonies 1 VP.
I very much like the concept of only calculating the value for those countries who have not Collapsed and who are still in the war. We all know that it is easier to negotiate a peace that is favorable to your side when you are still a threat and if too many nations of either side have collapsed then their Prestige Points will reflect this as those countries won’t contribute to the final value. And I also like the simplicity of the scoring system. If certain key countries like France and Germany surrender, then that equates to a victory for the side causing the surrender and if the game continues to grind on through the final turn, then there is this calculation that is really pretty simple and gives importance to each goal with a different value that can be earned. Just a solid method for determining victory that makes sense and fits with the historical aspect of the outcome of the Great War.
In Action Point 6, which is the conclusion to this series, we will give an overview of the “Athena” solitaire bot and show how it works for solitaire play.
Drop Zone: Southern France is a company-level wargame covering the Allied airborne assault that spearheaded Operation Dragoon, which was the invasion of Southern France or the Second D-Day on August 15, 1944. The history behind this operation is really very interesting as early on the morning of D-Day, the allied First Airborne Task Force (1st ABTF) parachuted a dozen miles behind the Riviera landing beaches to seize key towns and road junctions, to prevent the German occupation forces from counter-attacking the amphibious landing, and to facilitate the advance of Allied forces. The 4:00 AM parachute drop was badly scattered due to an unexpected dense fog bank that blanketed the battlefield. Drop Zone: Southern France covers the first two days of this airborne operation in six game turns, when the American and British paratroopers and glider-men fought surrounded and alone, supported only by French resistance bands. This game is very good and is just a solid wargame.
La Der des Ders – The War to End War from Hexasim is a 1-2 player slightly abstracted strategic level look at World War I. The game allows the players to relive the First World War at a strategic level, with each player controlling one of the 2 sides either the Entente, consisting of France, England, Russia, Serbia and other minor nations or the Central Powers including Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and a few minors. La Der des Ders can also be played solo, with a dedicated solitaire bot called “Athena” who utilizes special Cornflower Cards to make decisions about what technologies to invest in, where to undertake offensives and how to utilize limited resources and reinforcements. Each turn, players gain an amount of Resource Points dependent on what nations are in the war, which they can allocate to different areas to guide their overall strategy. Victory is achieved by launching offensives that drain the morale of enemy nations, forcing them out of the conflict through collapse.
In Action Point 1, we looked at the Game Board, discussing the Collapse Tracks, Trade Tracks, Russian Revolution Track and Naval Control Table and other various on-board tables and offensive spaces. In Action Point 2, we covered the Technology Phase and the Technology Tree and Technological Improvement Boards. In Action Point 3, we examined the Event Cards and how they inject the historical narrative into the gameplay and also alter the conditions of the game. In this Action Point, we will walk through an example of an Offensive and take a look at the combat procedure.
Offensives
As we discussed in Action Point 1, shown on the board are the Offensive Arrows that will remind the players about what Offensives they can undertake, meaning what Sectors may be attacked, and what Sectors have already taken their one Offensive against that adjacent Sector per turn. These are identified by red arrows connecting adjacent Sectors and will be covered up by the appropriate Offensive Marker when undertaken. In the below picture, we will take a look at Serbia as an example. You can see that Serbia is surrounded by Central Power countries including Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria (Neutral at the start of the war). They also have a few of their Allied nations adjacent including Romania (Neutral at the start of the war) and Greece (Neutral at the start of the war). From each of the adjacent Sectors there are 2 Offensive Arrows represented meaning that this Sector can both be attacked and can attack the adjacent Sector.
The process of taking Offensives is really pretty simple as players take turns to activate one of their sectors that has not yet been activated this turn. The sector chosen will then be activated and must launch an Offensive against an adjacent enemy sector. There is a cost to the launching of Offensives though as the player will have to pay the appropriate cost by first choosing the size of their Offensive, which in game turns means the number of dice they will pay to roll in the Offensive. The size of the Offensive must be at least 1 and can be up to the current Operational Value of the attacking sector. The player launching the offensive then spends as many Resource Points as the size of the Offensive.
For example, The Entente player decides to attack Austria-Hungary from Russia. If Russia’s Operational Value is currently 2, the size of the Offensive must be between 1 and 2. If the Entente player chooses a size 2 Offensive they will have to spend 2 Resource Points. This would allow Russia to roll 2D6 along with any black dice for their Artillery Technology.
Once both of the players have activated a sector, each player may then continue with Offensives by choosing to activate a new sector until no new sectors can be activated. Each of the sectors can make but a single Offensive per turn. I really like this restriction as it reflects the logistical and material difficulties in planning, funding and executing these large Offensives. A player may always decide to pass rather than activate a sector but once you do pass the Resource Spending phase ends for them. The other player can continue to activate the sectors they want and are able to until they decide to pass on their turn or are no longer able to activate a sector.
Now let’s cover the mechanics of how the Offensive resolves with dice. The player will roll as many white dice as the size of the Offensive they funded. These dice are called Attack Dice and it is important to remember that some technologies allow modifiers to be added to Attack Dice or will grant additional dice to be rolled, usually in the form of Artillery Dice. Each level of Attack Technology implemented in the attacking sector grants a DRM (Die Roll Modifier) of +1 to each Attack Die roll. Each level of Defense Technology implemented in the targeted sector inflicts a Die Roll Modifier of -1 to each Attack Die roll. Each level of Artillery Technology implemented in the attacking sector allows the Attacker to roll 1 black Artillery Die. These dice are not subject to the bonuses/penalties conferred by either Attack or Defense Technologies. Also, keep in mind that the number of Artillery dice cannot exceed the size of the Offensive. This is a mistake that I have made many times in my plays of the game and wish there was a better way to remember this. In the case of Artillery Dice, if the player has developed the Aviation Technology, the attacker may re-roll as many Artillery Dice that failed to inflict a loss as the difference between their Aviation Level and the defender’s Aviation Level.
Each result greater than or equal to the attacking player’s Attack Value inflicts one loss on the defender. The Attack Value of a sector is represented by the die depicted at the end of the Collapse Track. Germany has the best value at a 4 while all other countries, with the exception of Greece who is a 6, have a 5. For each loss suffered in an Offensive, the defender moves the cube on the attacked sector’s Collapse Track by one space to the right. If a cube needs to be moved forward on the Collapse Track, but is already on the right-most space and can’t be moved forward, that country immediately surrenders. The Offensives process is really very simple, and it just fits with the chosen format and scale of the game. Nice and easy but fun with lots of dice rolling.
Counter Attacks
One more thing that I need to share about these Offensives is the concept of a Counter Attack. If at least one of the Attack Dice rolled comes up a natural 1, the attacker will suffer one loss and the cube in their own sector is moved forward one space on the Collapse Track. This is not one loss per 1 result but only 1 such loss with an Offensive. With my luck, I could lose my whole army and have to surrender! Also, remember that Artillery Dice are not affected by the Counter Attack rule.
The process of Offensives in La Der des Ders is very simple and straightforward but works very well in the framework of the game to create many tough choices about how to spend your limited Resource Points and who to attack and from where. As the Central Powers, attacking with Germany each turn makes the most sense as they have the best odds of scoring hits and causing losses to France and Russia but they will have to gauge where they stand and who else might be closer to Collapse and surrender. As the Entente, France and Russia should put a heavy focus on Germany and Austria-Hungary and force the Central Powers player to have to replace losses rather than spending on Technology upgrades and replacements. Continually attacking them will lead to results over the course of the game.
In Action Point 5, we will simply review the Victory Conditions.
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.
Day 3 started off a bit slow as we dragged in the morning getting ready and didn’t get out the door till around 8:15am and after breakfast didn’t make it to the War Room until almost 9:00am. But, upon arrival we got right to gaming by setting up Cross Bronx Expressway from GMT Games with Russ Wetli from Cardboard Conflicts as our third.
Cross Bronx Expressway is the 3rd game in the Irregular Conflicts Series and attempts to simulate the socio-economic processes of urban development, and the human costs that result, as a competitive city-builder with collective loss conditions in the South Bronx between 1940 and 2000, with their unique faction pursuing their own goals while cooperating to keep the borough viable. Through a card driven sequence of play, they will work to solve the economic challenges facing the area by building infrastructure and organizations, forming coalitions, mitigating the multitude of issues facing the vulnerable population, and managing resources to stay out of debt.
Cross Bronx Expressway is a very interesting and engaging way to learn about the history of American cities as an economic simulation of sorts. Players will have to deal with the conflicting incentives and complex factors shaping urban life and together determine the fate of the Bronx.
We very much enjoyed this one and felt like it was very insightful and thematically connected with the subject and the times to create a very brain melting but interesting experience. I felt like I really had no idea what I was doing…but very much liked it.
We ended up losing the game as it is semi-cooperative and players can lose together due to bankruptcy or the overcrowding of prisons that will lead to higher social difficulties. But we learned a lot and I very much look forward to playing this one again.
We then played our 1st game of the interesting COIN Series like game Werwolf: Insurgency in Occupied Germany, 1945-1948 from Legion Wargames with Dave (a new friend from Michigan) and Gary of Ardwulf’s Lair. The game is designed by Clint Warren-Davey and Benjamin Feine and is an alternate history game, but the story that is presented is entirely plausible. Werwolf was a real underground guerrilla group, comprised of SS and Hitler Youth members. It was intended to lead an insurgency against the invading Allies and Soviets when it became clear that Germany was losing the war in a conventional sense in the mid-1940’s. They did in fact have a few successes and American intelligence officer Frank Manuel said that the Werwolves were prepared “to strike down the isolated soldier in his jeep, the MP on patrol, the fool who goes a-courting after dark, the Yankee braggart who takes a back road.”
The game allows players to take on the role of the occupying Soviets and Western Allies along with this Werwolf insurgency and the Edwlweiss insurgency.
After about 3 hours we finished 3 decks and the Werwolf Insurgency was declared the winner. All had a good time and I am looking forward to taking this to WBC in July and playing again.
I then sat down with Tim Densham with Catastrophe Games and he gave me a look at several of their planned upcoming games. These will all go on Kickstarter in order to fund the publication.
First was a look at War Cabinet, which is an economic and logistics focused take on WWII in the European Theater of Operation.
Next was Afghanistan: Decades of Strife, which is an area control game in the Conflict of Wills Series.
Then we got a look at Brothers of the Sword: Baltic Crusades which is set in 1100 AD.
All of these games will be coming to Kickstarter in the next 6-8 months and I am very much interested in them all. I was able to shoot a 30 minute video interview with Tim with more details and that’ll be on the channel soon.
We then sat down with Steve Jones from Blue Panther and Hermann Luttmann to play the new Dawn of the Zeds Designer Edition which will be available for pre-order in May and will be published at the end of July.
You know well the original Dawn of the Zeds from Victory Point Games and this has now had the rights reacquired by Hermann who is working with Steve to bring it back to life with new art, a new combat system with custom dice and some new characters. We played for about an hour and had the same fun we have always had with the game and I am very much looking forward to this new edition.
We shot a 20 minute video with Hermann and that’ll be up on the channel soon.
We then played our final game of the night, a 4-player game of War of the Ring: The Card Game from Ares with Cullen and Bad Russ. This is a game that I have had on my shelf for a few years, even purchasing all of the various expansions to date, but just have not had a chance to get it played…until now.
This was our 1st play and while it took us a good amount of time to get comfortable with the mechanics, and about 3 hours to play the entire game, we all had a great time and very much enjoyed what it was doing. The art in the game is just amazing and the game play is smart, with lots of bluffing and gamesmanship on how to play and manage your limited cards. Just a very solid multi-player card game.
It is now well after midnight and I am tired. Sorry for the brevity of my comments about the games but it’s just too late.
Tomorrow we have a full 6-player game of Here I Stand from GMT Games at 9:00am and then an evening role playing game with a WWII historical RPG called War Stories from Firelock Games. Should be a blast!
The world’s largest board game fair, Spiel Essen, says it has reached the limits of its expansion at its long-time home after boosting floor space again this year due to “overwhelming interest” from exhibitors.
Organiser Merz Verlag said it has expanded this year’s exhibition space to fill all eight main halls at Messe Essen, covering an area of 81,200 sq m – larger than 15 American football fields.
That expansion makes the massive game fair more than 50% larger than the exhibition space at US board game convention Gen Con – although its North American peer also boasts a vast, separate expanse of gaming tables, tournaments and live events that Spiel Essen does not.
Soaring interest in the show has now seen Spiel Essen boost its floor space four times in as many years, with this year’s event in October set to be about 30% larger than the already massive 62,500 sq m show which took place in 2023.
Merz Verlag said it had already received an “exceptionally high” number of registrations from exhibitors for the 2026 event, with eight weeks of the sign-up period still to go.
It added that demand had come both from long-term exhibitors keen to “significantly increase” their booth space, as well as an “impressive number” of first-time exhibitors hoping to attend this year.
A statement from the company said, “While the fair traditionally hosts many new small booths introducing their first games, the number of new exhibitors is particularly high this year.”
The show might have broken its attendance record in 2024 were it not for a self-imposed visitor cap, which limited the number of attendees each day to about 50,000 – a measure introduced alongside wider aisles post-pandemic to help visitors move around the often crowded halls more easily.
Carol Rapp, the Merz Verlag managing director responsible for Spiel Essen since 2023, said, “The fact that we can already plan the opening of a new hall and the full occupancy of the grounds is fantastic – it’s a sign of both the international importance of our fair and the vitality of the gaming industry.
“Spiel and the industry are growing, and we are creating the necessary space for this development.”
Merz Verlag managing director Carol Rapp
Rapp told BoardGameWire ahead of last year’s show in October that one of the most asked questions of her was whether Spiel Essen would look to expand into Hall 8, which was utilised as an empty area for people to queue while waiting for the show floor to open.
She told BoardGameWire at the time, “If I could, I want to stay having seven halls for at least two more years. But I was also saying that last year [2024] about the six halls, and then we had so many applications that were telling us ‘We want to grow. We are new, we want to be part of that’… ‘OK. But if we do that, we need to open another hall’.
“So who are we to decide for the market, if they want to grow, that we don’t do that – as long as we have the space for that? We want to make the best Spiel possible for everybody, so of course, if we are facing another year with so many applications, so many square metres booked that we should open another hall, we will think about it. But my personal wish is not to do it next year [2026].”
Merz Verlag says it now plans to use the underground Hall 1A for attendees waiting for the show to open each day.
That space was also considered as a potential expansion space for exhibitors, Rapp told BoardGameWire after last year’s show, saying there could be scope to expand its RPG and artists areas into the space.
She said at the time, “It feels a little bit like a dungeon, but a dungeon is quite a cool place for RPGs. So maybe that could be a good idea. That area is growing again, and it was growing from last year to this year [2025].”
But Spiel Essen replied to a Facebook comment this morning to say that it had ruled that out, saying, “We received feedback and realised that Hall 1A was not attractive as an exhibition hall for publishers and visitors. For this reason – and because a waiting hall is a nice thing to have – we removed Hall 1A from the plans.”
Update March 5, 2026: A Merz Verlag spokesperson told BoardGameWire, “There are various reasons that this hall is not suitable for exhibition space: It is lower than other halls and thus booth construction would be more complicated to plan, also hanging banners that give a lot of awareness are not possible there.
“The hall is not part of the overall hall structure, with entrances only in foyer south – apart from not easily usable entrance via stairways – which makes it a sort of cul-de-sac, impeding the flow of regular visitors.
“That is why this hall is not an option for regular exhibition halls and we might only think of it for special usage, logistics, and as waiting hall.”
Visitors waiting in Hall 8 for Spiel Essen to open in 2025, with show mascot Meeps
Spiel Essen previously implemented a shake-up of how its halls were organised three years ago, in an attempt to make it easier for visitors to navigate an event which Rapp said at the time had become “a little bit of a mess” after 40 years of growth.
That split the fair into separate segments for children’s, family and light-to-medium games, expert games, tabletop and miniature games, roleplaying games and trading card games, with a mix of small, medium and large booths in each zone – a decision which was initially criticised by some publishers, but seems to have ultimately gone down well.
Merz Verlag said the latest expansion would also necessitates “adjustments to the existing hall structure, which the fair team is currently working on at full speed”.
It said, “The team will not overhaul the general hall logic but will optimize certain areas to accommodate the growth wishes of large exhibitors as well as the increase in new, small booths.
“Despite some shifts in sections, the halls will remain divided into clear categories, and the familiar mix of major publishers and small developers will be maintained. The goal is to provide visitors with clear orientation and a first-class fair experience despite the increased size.”
As part of those changes, Spiel Essen will open its north entrance for the first time this year, which leads directly into Hall 5.
Rapp said, “For us, growth also means responsibility. We are working closely with the venue to ensure the experience remains positive for every fan.
“The experience of recent years shows that our planning has led to good visitor flow in the halls and that many routes at the fair have improved overall.
“I am absolutely confident that with the new measures, we will create an even better entry situation, allowing all visitors to enjoy Spiel in a relaxed atmosphere.”
Spiel’s fourth floor space expansion in as many years raises the question of how Merz Verlag will expand the fair further at Messe Essen, its home for the last 40 years, if interest from exhibitors continues to grow.
BoardGameWire has contacted the organiser to ask if other locations are being considered for the event, and will update this article if it receives a reply.
Update March 5, 2026: A Merz Verlag spokesperson told BoardGameWire, “We love Essen – as a venue and the city – and have no intention of leaving. For the foreseeable future SPIEL will remain in Essen as it has for more than 40 years now.”
Kosmos, the German publisher of board games including Catan and the Exit series, has taken full ownership of distribution arm Thames & Kosmos UK amid the retirement of the latter’s founding directors Stephen O’Connor and Joanna Drage.
O’Connor and Drage launched the business as Science Shop in 2009, with Kosmos making the company a subsidiary by buying an 80% stake four years later.
The deal makes T&K UK the German company’s first wholly-owned foreign subsidiary. Kosmos currently has another foreign branch in the USA, named Thames & Kosmos.
Kosmos said in a press release that the buyout of the UK operation was part of the company “consistently pursuing its internationalisation strategy and further expanding its international activities”.
It added that the British market remains “a key component” of Kosmos’ international growth strategy.
Emma Hanlon – T&K UK’s first employee who has been with the business 12 years – and Andrew Morris have taken over as managing directors of the subsidiary.
Kosmos managing director Thilan Tran said, “Stephen O’Connor and Joanna Drage built and successfully led Thames & Kosmos UK with entrepreneurial vision, high personal integrity, and great dedication.
“They have sustainably established the Kosmos brand in the United Kingdom and thus made a significant contribution to the international development of our company. We thank them very much for this achievement and the many years of trusting collaboration.”
Fellow Kosmos managing director Matthias Kienzle, who runs the company in a dual leadership role with Tran, added, “With the new ownership structure and the newly formed management team, we aim to further scale and continuously expand our international sales activities.
“Our focus is on further market penetration of existing product categories and the development of additional growth potential.”
Last year Heiko Windfelder, the Kosmos board game lead who played a key role building up brands including Catan and the Exit family of games, retired after 30 years at the company – making Tran and Kienzle joint leaders of the business.
Two years earlier long-time managing director Michael Fleissner retired, handing over operational management of the German company to Windfelder, Tran and Kienzle.
W Eric Martin from Board Game Beat reported last week that Kosmos’ board game releases this year are set to include Bernhard Weber design Temple Twist, and Happy Holiday by Matthew Dunstan and Brett J Gilbert.
Kosmos is also celebrating the 10th anniversary of its Exit series of games, which have sold more than 30 million copies worldwide across more than 50 titles.
New Exit releases this year will include a young children-focused Puzzle Fun in the Sea title and a Fourth Wing game based on the Empyrean novels by Rebecca Yarros, while the company will also be sending an armoured truck around Germany in which players can solve Exit puzzles.
Kosmos’ Exit-themed armoured truck, which will tour Germany this year
La Der des Ders – The War to End War from Hexasim is a 1-2 player slightly abstracted strategic level look at World War I. The game allows the players to relive the First World War at a strategic level, with each player controlling one of the 2 sides either the Entente, consisting of France, England, Russia, Serbia and other minor nations or the Central Powers including Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and a few minors. La Der des Ders can also be played solo, with a dedicated solitaire bot called “Athena” who utilizes special Cornflower Cards to make decisions about what technologies to invest in, where to undertake offensives and how to utilize limited resources and reinforcements. Each turn, players gain an amount of Resource Points dependent on what nations are in the war, which they can allocate to different areas to guide their overall strategy. Victory is achieved by launching offensives that drain the morale of enemy nations, forcing them out of the conflict through collapse.
In this series of Action Points, we will first take a look at the Game Board, discussing the Collapse Tracks, Trade Tracks, Russian Revolution Track and Naval Control Table and other various on-board tables and offensive spaces, cover the Technology Phase and the Technology Tree and Technological Improvement Boards, take a look at the Event Cards and how they alter the game, go through an example of an Offensive and the combat procedure, review the Victory Conditions and give an overview of the “Athena” solitaire bot and how it works.
Game Board
The Game Board used in La Der des Ders covers the entirety of the European and Eastern portions of World War I and is a simplified geographical representation of the major players involved in the war. You will not find anything more than simple borders of countries and then not all of each country is represented in its entirety such as the Ottoman Empire of the vastness of the Russian steppes. There is also an inset map in the bottom left hand corner that covers the war in Africa. The Game Board is divided up into what are called Sectors representing both the major and minor powers involved in World War I. These Sector representations are illustrative of the main countries that took part in the war and one Sector can actually represent multiple countries. For example, in the case of France, you will notice that England really has no specific direct playable area or a Collapse Track of its own on the Game Board other than the graphical representation of their island nation. The British troops, along with those of Belgium, are abstracted into those of France for simplicities sake and to meet the design goals of the game. To further differentiate these Sectors from each other and to make playing visually simpler, the Sectors are shaded blue if they belong to the Entente and then green if they are part of the Central Powers.
The Collapse Tracks
Let’s take a closer look at the various information that is contained in these Sectors. Above is a picture focused on Germany with France (lower left), Austria-Hungary (on the right) and Russia (upper right) also included. You will first notice a line of small boxes with numbers listed in each box numbered from 3 on the far left descending to 0 and a blank box on the far right. These numbers are referred to as the Operational Value. This Track is referred to as the Collapse Track and represents the morale, fighting spirit, economic stability, martial resources and preparation of each of the countries for war in the game. On the left end of the Collapse Track is the country’s Production Value printed in a yellow circle. The Production Value corresponds to the number of Resource Points (RP) that will be generated by this sector at the start of each turn, if it is at war. If this Production Value number is printed in black, this means that this Sector is at war at the start of the game. If the Production Value is printed in white, the Sector is not at war at the start of the game but will enter the war through the appropriate Event Card being drawn. If a Sector is not at war but is Neutral, for purposes of the game this means that it does not generate any Resource Points.
At the start of the game, a wooden cube is placed in the space to the right of the box containing the red value. As losses are inflicted in this Sector due to Offensives or Event Cards, the cube will be moved to the right on the Collapse Track. When the Sector receives reinforcements, the cube will be moved moved to the left. The cube will never be placed on the space with the red value and the player must read the number in the box to the left of the cube to ascertain the current Operational Value. The numbers indicate the maximum amount of Resource Points that can be allocated to this Sector during an Offensive, which will also determine the size and number of dice that are used for the Offensive. This Operational Value will change throughout the game due to losses in Offensives or due to specific Event Cards. If the cube ever reaches the end of the Collapse Track, and another reduction must be made, the country will surrender and fall to their enemies.
The other important piece of information found on the far right side of the Collapse Track is the Attack Value. The Attack Value is used for Offensives and is how players determine whether they score hits or not with their troops and artillery. This Attack Value is represented by a die face that shows the number needed to hit. If the rolled Attack Dice are equal to or greater than the printed Attack Value a hit will be scored and losses will be taken by the defender by moving the cube down on the Collapse Track. This Attack Value can be modified through the advancement of technologies including on Attack and on Defense. The player will simply add up all applicable modifiers from these Technologies or from Event Cards and then reduce or increase that target Attack Value accordingly.
Offensive Arrows
Shown on the board are the Offensive Arrows that will remind the players about what Offensives they can undertake, meaning what Sectors may be attacked, and what Sectors have already taken their one Offensive against that adjacent Sector per turn. These are identified by red arrows connecting adjacent Sectors and will be covered up by the appropriate Offensive Marker when undertaken. In the below picture, we will take a look at Serbia as an example. You can see that Serbia is surrounded by Central Power countries including Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria (Neutral at the start of the war). They also have a few of their Allied nations adjacent including Romania (Neutral at the start of the war) and Greece (Neutral at the start of the war). From each of the adjacent Sectors there are 2 Offensive Arrows represented meaning that this Sector can both be attacked and can attack the adjacent Sector.
It is important to remember that an individual Sector can only launch one Offensive per turn, and that is always against an enemy sector adjacent to it. During the same turn, a sector may be attacked by several adjacent enemy sectors, but each Offensive is resolved separately.
Trade Tracks
There are two Trade Tracks shown on the Game Board, both of which are located in the top left hand corner of the board, 1 for the Entente (Merchant Navy) and the other for the Central Powers (Kaiserliche Marine). These 2 tracks provide additional Resource Points to both sides at the beginning of a turn when they are collecting income. Naval Control die rolls can modify the number of RP’s received at the beginning of a turn. It is important to remember that the Merchant Navy Marker is moved forward 1 space at the end of each turn, which will result in advancing the Production Marker of the Entente. If the Lafayette Marker is on this track, it is also moved forward 1 space. These markers are never moved to the left. Once the end of the track has been reached, the markers will no longer need to be moved.
Russian Revolution Track
The Russian Revolution Track indicates the advance of the Russian people towards their ultimate Revolution, which historically broke out in March 1917. The Russian Revolution Marker will begin the game in the white space. This marker may be moved to the right each time Russia obtains reinforcements. It is never moved to the left. When this marker reaches the last space, Revolution breaks out and Russia will no longer produce resources and can no longer receive reinforcements.
Naval Control Table and Track
The Naval Control Table is used to represent the efforts of the German U-Boat attacks on commerce and mimic the associated receipt of foreign support by the Entente from the United States of America. At the outset of each turn, a die is rolled and the table referred to in order to determine a possible number of lost Resource Points. There are 2 rows on the table, 1 being the U-Boat for the Central Powers and the other the effects of the Blockade for the Entente.
The track located under the Naval Control Table indicates the modifier that will be applied to the Central Powers’ Naval Control die rolls. It takes into account the Naval Technology levels of the Central Powers and that of the Entente. At the start of the game, only the Central Powers can carry out a Naval Control die roll. You may notice the small gray box with a lock linked to the Naval Control Table that indicates that the Entente cannot carry out a Naval Control die roll yet. Only once it has unlocked Naval Technology Level 1, can the Entente perform Naval Control die rolls.
There are also several administrative tracks on the Game Board including the Resource Track, used to track the current Resource Points of both the Entente and the Central Powers, the Turn Track and the Victory Point Track. You will also notice lots of dashed boxes with small white numbers printed in them all over the board. These are the Event Boxes and act as a reminder of the effects of various Event Cards when they are pulled. When Event Cards happen, some will provide the players with a counter that should be placed in these boxes to remind them of the effects of the historical events.
One final comment on the Game Board. Marc von Martial is the artist and he has done an excellent job with this game board as it is truly functional and aids play but also is very attractive and has a very clean and pleasing aesthetic. I enjoy the choice of colors, even though these old eyes are starting to have trouble differentiating gray and green when they are both light, that work well together and the tracks and information found on the board are all crisp and clean and easily read. I just like the overall appearance of the game board and wanted to congratulate him on his exemplary graphic design work.
In Action Point 2, we will cover what I would consider one of the better parts of the game in the Technology Phase and the Technology Tree and Technological Improvement Boards.
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.
#64: Guns of August from 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.
I am going to use snips of the board from Rally the Troops! in this post so it might look a bit different from my normal posts.
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.
The Guns of August is a 3/4 OPs card that is placed into the CP player’s hand at the outset and gives them the initiative immediately. First off, the card destroys the fortress at Liège and then gives a massive mobilization effort booster by moving 2 German Army counters from their starting spaces including the German 1st and 2nd Armies and then activating them both to attack along with the German 3rd Army who is located at the start of the game setup in Koblenz.
This gives the CP player 2 choices about how to start the war with this attack. They can focus on the British Expeditionary Force located in Brussels or the French 5th Army located in Sedan. The allows the CP to destroy the Liège fortress, advance armies, and immediately attack or pressure the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and French forces. In my humble opinion, the BEF is the real target here as this unit cannot be replaced or rebuilt and its removal opens up the path for the Germans to take on the fortress at Antwerp.
While the Guns of August card play is an aggressive move, it does somewhat ensure Austria-Hungary can survive potential Russian pressure as the Allied player will have to quickly use their precious resources to fill the gaps created by this opening attack rather than using them to bolster the Russians in the east or to build up the Serbians a bit in the south to prolong the fall of Belgrade. Paths of Glory is a large part 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. Using the Guns of August cards efficiency will free up resources to use elsewhere.
There are alternative openings with the card that can be considered. If not using Guns of August for the event, the CP player can use 1 OP to destroy the Liège fort, allowing them to conserve the card for later or pivot to a more defensive strategy, such as defending the Rhine.
In the end, I would recommend the hammer approach versus any other use of the card as it will really put the pressure squarely on the Allies to do something about what you have just accomplished. In the picture to the right is the normal outcome of these attacks as you can see the BEF is reduced and the French 5th Army has broken and is now replaced by a smaller Corps counter that cannot really do anything offensively and is just there to protect the back side of the Maginot Line from being caught out of supply.
The Guns of August (published in the UK as August 1914) is a 1962 book centered on the first month of World War I written by Barbara W. Tuchman. After introductory chapters, Tuchman describes in great detail the opening events of the conflict. The book’s focus then becomes a military history of the contestants, chiefly the great powers.
The Guns of August provides a narrative of the earliest stages of World War I, from the decisions to go to war up until the start of the Franco-British offensive that stopped the German advance into France. This led to four years of trench warfare. The book discusses military plans, strategies, world events, and international sentiments before and during the war.
The book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for publication year 1963, and proved very popular. Tuchman later returned to the subject of the social attitudes and issues that existed before World War I in a collection of eight essays published in 1966 as The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890–1914.
Ravensburger said sales of its flagship trading card game Disney Lorcana fell last year, “settling at a high level” following an explosive start which quickly made the title a ‘long-term pillar’ of the company’s products.
The company said demand for the TCG had “normalised” in the wake of “initial hype” for the game after its August 2023 release, which saw it power to more than a billion cards sold by the beginning of 2025 – making it the most successful product launch in Ravensburger’s history.
Ravensburger said game buyers whose primary interest was in its investment prospects “have withdrawn”, adding that the game “continues to enjoy growing popularity among its core target group of players and collectors”.
It added that card sets released in the second half of 2025 were “sell-outs” and that the number of players continues to grow, aided by organised play events offered in specialist hobby and game stores.
Ravensburger said, “From its debut in 2023, Disney Lorcana has developed into a sustainable business segment and therefore a long-term pillar of the Ravensburger product portfolio.
“The company continues to expand the realm with new products such as puzzles and books. Beginning with Set 12, which will launch in May 2026, fans can also look forward to the first Pixar characters, including those from the animated film ‘Toy Story’.”
Ravensburger’s overall sales fell for the first time since 2022 last year, dropping 5.9% to €744m – but the company said its core business of games, puzzles and books grew by 3%.
The company said that international toy markets were showing “positive developments” despite global challenges, driven particularly by a growth in purchases for families and adults – with card games among products which “benefited significantly” from the trend.
Ravensburger chief sales officer Susanne Knoche
Ravensburger chief sales officer Susanne Knoche added that she was particularly pleased with the development of the core business in two regions, saying, “Despite adverse trading conditions, such as numerous new customs regulations, we were able to achieve above-average growth of 11% in the USA and Canada.
“We also saw strong results in Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia) with an increase of 12%.”
A statement from Ravensburger accompanying its 2025 results said, “The international market environment is currently undergoing fundamental changes: trade barriers, technological upheavals, changing consumer behavior, and increasing global competition are key factors.
“This is accompanied by rising cost pressure for the company across the entire value chain. In addressing these developments, Ravensburger is adapting its structures and cost base.
Alongside these operational changes, the company is investing more heavily in experiential concepts that go beyond the product and bring fans and communities together.”
That includes the company’s event portfolio, including retailer and trade-fair events as well as tournaments and community formats around Disney Lorcana, which it said were often booked out within a short time.
Lorcana’s next set, Winterspell, is due for prerelease at local game stores and Disney stores on February 13, and for wider release on February 20.
Upper Deck had begun its unsuccessful lawsuit against Ravensburger and Lorcana lead designer Ryan Miller in the summer of 2023, alleging the designer took his work on Upper Deck’s previously unannounced game Rush of Ikorr with him when he left the company in 2020 – and transported it to his new employer Ravensburger to create Lorcana.
Last year’s Kinderspiel des Jahres-winning publisher Schmidt Spiele saw its sales rise nearly 8% to €61.5m in 2025, citing children’s and family games as a key driver of its growth.
The veteran board game maker, which has a history stretching back to 1907, said its “core area” of children’s and family games grew 6% last year, with Wolfgang Warsch-designed 2025 Kinderspiel winner Topp Die Torte highlighted for achieving “encouraging sales figures”.
Schmidt Spiele said its classic board game brands Mensch ärgere Dich nicht and Yahtzee – known as Kniffel in Germany – were key contributors to that result, as were popular titles from its Klein & Fein series of small-box dice games, which includes the Warsch-designed Ganz Schön Clever! (That’s Pretty Clever!) range.
The publisher, which also makes puzzles, plushies and toys, is best known in hobby board games for critical and commercial successes Quacks of Quedlinburg and Daybreak – winners of the Spiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel respectively – and Ganz Schön Clever, a Kennerspiel des Jahres nominee in 2018.
The company said during the unveiling of its 2023 results that sales for its family and children-focused division had remained flat, albeit at a level it said has been on a high since 2020.
Schmidt Spiele managing director Axel Kaldenhoven said of the 2025 results, “The growth across all product ranges confirms both our strategic direction and the strength of our brands and products.
“Classic games, strong licensed themes, and innovative new products complement each other perfectly and form the basis of our success.”
Schmidt added that a key component of its ongoing success was its commitment to attending trade fairs including Spielwarenmesse, Spiel Essen, SPIEL DOCH! Dortmund, Brettspiel Con Berlin, Hobbymesse Leipzig and SPIELidee Rostock, which allowed it to cultivated exchanges with partners and game designers and continuously expanded its network, in addition to making sales to consumers.
The company’s 2026 releases are set to include Reiner Knizia-designed Kniffel: Das Duell, a tenth-anniversary re-design of Inka and Markus Brand’s Encore! (Noch Mal!), titled Noch X-Mal!, and magical ingredients tile placement game Morty Sorty Magic Shop from Challengers co-designer Markus Slawitscheck.
Before we dive into the content of the playlist, some general observations:
All of the songs in the playlist were popular during the Weimar Republic (1918—1933). Yet as music recording was still in its infancy at that time, many of the songs in the playlist are later recordings (and some rare ones were recorded even before 1918!).
As the playlist is only 2:21 hours long, your Weimar game will probably last longer (if you don’t crash the republic on the first or second round), but there’s no reason not to listen to these songs two or three times – they’re fascinating historical documents.
The playlist is thematically sorted. That helps you find similar songs, but makes for somewhat monotonous listening (until you come to the next group of songs). I therefore recommend you turn shuffle on.
Now, what awaits you in the playlist?
#1: The National Anthem
It seems like a no-brainer to include the German national anthem of the time, yet it’s not so simple: The Lied der Deutschen (Song of the Germans) had been written in 1841, but had since then only been a patriotic song among many – until the first president of the republic, Friedrich Ebert, declared it the national anthem in 1922. The song’s three stanzas were variedly popular: Ebert favored the third stanza with its liberal ideals of unity, justice, and freedom, his right-wing opponents preferred the “Deutschland über alles” (Germany Above Everything) first stanza. I have included an instrumental version. If you feel patriotic, you can sing along.
The Weimar Republic did not come into existence in a vacuum. It inherited German cultural traditions like folk songs (“Wem Gott will rechte Gunst erweisen” (Whom God Wants to Favor), song #2).
And, of course, the Weimar Republic succeeded the German Empire with its national feeling (“Die Wacht am Rhein” (The Guard on the Rhine), song #2), dominant Protestantism (Martin Luther’s classic “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott” (A Mighty Fortress Is Our God), song #5), and monarchy (“Heil dir im Siegerkranz” (Hail to Thee In the Victor’s Crown), song #7 – the quasi-anthem of the German Empire).
The republic’s midwife was the First World War – whose experience shaped its veterans and provided the cultural context even for those who had not been adults during the war yet (“Wildgänse rauschen durch die Nacht” (Wild Geese Rush Through the Night), song #8, written in 1916, was immensely popular among the Weimar Republic youth movement). The war also cast its shadow over Weimar Germany as many had lost their husbands, sons, fathers, brothers, and friends in the war (“Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden” (I Had a Comrade), song #9, the traditional German soldiers’ lament).
The liberal republic proved fertile ground for satirical treatments of the new developments: Otto Reutter made fun of the big and small war profiteers with “Seh’n Sie, darum ist es schade, dass der Krieg zu Ende ist” (See, that’s why it’s a pity that the war is over, song #10), and Claire Waldoff called for replacing the men in power with women in “Raus mit den Männern aus dem Reichstag” (Kick the Men Out of Parliament, song #11), playing on masculine anxieties after the introduction of women’s suffrage.
Even in a time and place as politically charged as the Weimar Republic, not everything was politics. The average Hans and Gretel may have cared less about their preferred ideology and more about how to have good time on a Saturday night… and the new cultural scene, especially in the big cities like Berlin, provided ample opportunities.
The more sophisticated artists like the Comedian Harmonists succeeded with witty wordplay and erudite vocal harmonies. Others played on the classics – alcohol (“Wir versaufen unser Oma ihr klein’ Häuschen“ (We Blow Grandma’s Little House on Booze, song #19) and sexual innuendo („Fräulein, Woll’n Sie nicht ein Kind von mir“ (Miss, Don’t You Want a Child By Me, song #22). There was even the equivalent of a (generalized) diss track: “Du bist als Kind zu heiß gebadet worden” (You Have Been Bathed Too Hot As a Child, song #23) indicates that this neglect of bath safety led to lasting brain damage in the interlocutor.
#26-33: Film, Theater, and Opera Music
The Weimar Republic’s vibrant cultural scene led to cross-pollination between diverse forms of artistic expression. The new medium of film was pioneered in Germany, and once it had left its silent infancy behind, movie songs became hits. Marlene Dietrich, starring in The Blue Angel, enticed with “Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt (I’m Set to Love From Head to Heel, song #26), but warned “Nimm dich in Acht vor blonden Frau’n“ (Beware of Blonde Women, song #27).
More traditional art forms like the theater also adapted. Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera)’s acerbic critique of capitalism would not have been as successful without its catchy songs, the most famous of which is the “Moritat of Mackie Messer” (Ballad of Mack the Knife, song #31).
Even the most classic and highbrow form of entertainment modernized: “Jonny spielt auf” (Jonny Plays It Big, song #33) introduced jazz into the world of the opera… which brings us to our next category.
#34-41: Jazz and Blues
Traditionally, the United States had received and emulated European fashions, not the other way around. Yet by the early 20th century, America had become the largest economy in the world, its war entry in 1917 tipped the scales of the war further in favor of the Allies, and the increased presence of Americans in Europe meant that the United States turned from an importer to an exporter of culture. Jazz took Europe by storm – both in the form of American (and nascent European) bands and by the new medium of the music record. The Weimar Republic was no exception. Jazz fueled the parties in any larger city of 1920s Germany.
Of course, not everyone loved jazz, and the controversy over its unorthodox dissonances, the more expressive, individualistic, and eroticized dancing style accompanying the music, and, of course, the race of its performers entered the contemporary culture wars – exemplified by Weimar’s double use of Louis Armstrong, illustrating both the SPD’s “The New Rhythm” and the DNVP’s “Nicht Deutsch” (“Not German”) event cards.
The “Tiger Rag” (song #41) is also used in The Tin Drum, German writer Günter Grass’s epic about the rise, fall, and persistence of Nazism: The youthful protagonist Oskar Matzerath who always carries his eponymous tin drum plays the Tiger Rag at a NSDAP rally in his hometown Danzig. The mesmerizing rhythm has the audience sway and dance, exposing the Nazis to ridicule.
#42-47: Workers’ Songs
The aggressive ethno-nationalism of Nazism was one of the two most dynamic political movements of the Weimar Republic (at least once the 1929 crash had plunged vast parts of the German population into a crisis of material and identity). The other was the workers’ movement, both in its reformist Social Democratic and its revolutionary Communist form. As the workers had been traditionally excluded from the public in imperial Germany, dominated by aristocracy and bourgeoisie, they created their own political parties (SPD, later USPD and KPD), economic associations (the trade unions), and social and cultural associations – from workers’ sport clubs to workers’ singing societies. Their milieu was bound together not only by their shared economic experience, but also by this cultural connection, of which the workers’ songs formed an important part.
Classics from imperial times like “Die Internationale” (The Internationale, song #42) remained important, but the movement also adopted new songs written by the numerous socialist poets and composers like Bertolt Brecht, Hanns Eisler, or Ernst Busch. Whereas some of these became new classics (like the “Solidaritätslied” (Solidarity Song, song #46), others aged badly: “Der Marsch ins Dritte Reich” (The March to the Third Reich, song #47) poked fun at the alleged inability of the Nazis to take power after their electoral setback at the Reichstag election of November 1932. First recorded in December 1932, the song was horribly overtaken by events just a month later when Hitler was elected chancellor in January 1933.
Thus, we conclude our playlist. It contains the traditional and the modern, entertainment and politics, left and right – except for the very right, but I don’t want to listen to Nazi songs while playing board games, and I’m sure that neither do you.
Do you like to play music in the background while playing board games? What’s your favorite song from this playlist? Let me know in the comments!
Before we dive into the content of the playlist, some general observations:
All of the songs in the playlist were popular during the Weimar Republic (1918—1933). Yet as music recording was still in its infancy at that time, many of the songs in the playlist are later recordings (and some rare ones were recorded even before 1918!).
As the playlist is only 2:21 hours long, your Weimar game will probably last longer (if you don’t crash the republic on the first or second round), but there’s no reason not to listen to these songs two or three times – they’re fascinating historical documents.
The playlist is thematically sorted. That helps you find similar songs, but makes for somewhat monotonous listening (until you come to the next group of songs). I therefore recommend you turn shuffle on.
Now, what awaits you in the playlist?
#1: The National Anthem
It seems like a no-brainer to include the German national anthem of the time, yet it’s not so simple: The Lied der Deutschen (Song of the Germans) had been written in 1841, but had since then only been a patriotic song among many – until the first president of the republic, Friedrich Ebert, declared it the national anthem in 1922. The song’s three stanzas were variedly popular: Ebert favored the third stanza with its liberal ideals of unity, justice, and freedom, his right-wing opponents preferred the “Deutschland über alles” (Germany Above Everything) first stanza. I have included an instrumental version. If you feel patriotic, you can sing along.
The Weimar Republic did not come into existence in a vacuum. It inherited German cultural traditions like folk songs (“Wem Gott will rechte Gunst erweisen” (Whom God Wants to Favor), song #2).
And, of course, the Weimar Republic succeeded the German Empire with its national feeling (“Die Wacht am Rhein” (The Guard on the Rhine), song #2), dominant Protestantism (Martin Luther’s classic “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott” (A Mighty Fortress Is Our God), song #5), and monarchy (“Heil dir im Siegerkranz” (Hail to Thee In the Victor’s Crown), song #7 – the quasi-anthem of the German Empire).
The republic’s midwife was the First World War – whose experience shaped its veterans and provided the cultural context even for those who had not been adults during the war yet (“Wildgänse rauschen durch die Nacht” (Wild Geese Rush Through the Night), song #8, written in 1916, was immensely popular among the Weimar Republic youth movement). The war also cast its shadow over Weimar Germany as many had lost their husbands, sons, fathers, brothers, and friends in the war (“Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden” (I Had a Comrade), song #9, the traditional German soldiers’ lament).
The liberal republic proved fertile ground for satirical treatments of the new developments: Otto Reutter made fun of the big and small war profiteers with “Seh’n Sie, darum ist es schade, dass der Krieg zu Ende ist” (See, that’s why it’s a pity that the war is over, song #10), and Claire Waldoff called for replacing the men in power with women in “Raus mit den Männern aus dem Reichstag” (Kick the Men Out of Parliament, song #11), playing on masculine anxieties after the introduction of women’s suffrage.
Even in a time and place as politically charged as the Weimar Republic, not everything was politics. The average Hans and Gretel may have cared less about their preferred ideology and more about how to have good time on a Saturday night… and the new cultural scene, especially in the big cities like Berlin, provided ample opportunities.
The more sophisticated artists like the Comedian Harmonists succeeded with witty wordplay and erudite vocal harmonies. Others played on the classics – alcohol (“Wir versaufen unser Oma ihr klein’ Häuschen“ (We Blow Grandma’s Little House on Booze, song #19) and sexual innuendo („Fräulein, Woll’n Sie nicht ein Kind von mir“ (Miss, Don’t You Want a Child By Me, song #22). There was even the equivalent of a (generalized) diss track: “Du bist als Kind zu heiß gebadet worden” (You Have Been Bathed Too Hot As a Child, song #23) indicates that this neglect of bath safety led to lasting brain damage in the interlocutor.
#26-33: Film, Theater, and Opera Music
The Weimar Republic’s vibrant cultural scene led to cross-pollination between diverse forms of artistic expression. The new medium of film was pioneered in Germany, and once it had left its silent infancy behind, movie songs became hits. Marlene Dietrich, starring in The Blue Angel, enticed with “Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt (I’m Set to Love From Head to Heel, song #26), but warned “Nimm dich in Acht vor blonden Frau’n“ (Beware of Blonde Women, song #27).
More traditional art forms like the theater also adapted. Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera)’s acerbic critique of capitalism would not have been as successful without its catchy songs, the most famous of which is the “Moritat of Mackie Messer” (Ballad of Mack the Knife, song #31).
Even the most classic and highbrow form of entertainment modernized: “Jonny spielt auf” (Jonny Plays It Big, song #33) introduced jazz into the world of the opera… which brings us to our next category.
#34-41: Jazz and Blues
Traditionally, the United States had received and emulated European fashions, not the other way around. Yet by the early 20th century, America had become the largest economy in the world, its war entry in 1917 tipped the scales of the war further in favor of the Allies, and the increased presence of Americans in Europe meant that the United States turned from an importer to an exporter of culture. Jazz took Europe by storm – both in the form of American (and nascent European) bands and by the new medium of the music record. The Weimar Republic was no exception. Jazz fueled the parties in any larger city of 1920s Germany.
Of course, not everyone loved jazz, and the controversy over its unorthodox dissonances, the more expressive, individualistic, and eroticized dancing style accompanying the music, and, of course, the race of its performers entered the contemporary culture wars – exemplified by Weimar’s double use of Louis Armstrong, illustrating both the SPD’s “The New Rhythm” and the DNVP’s “Nicht Deutsch” (“Not German”) event cards.
The “Tiger Rag” (song #41) is also used in The Tin Drum, German writer Günter Grass’s epic about the rise, fall, and persistence of Nazism: The youthful protagonist Oskar Matzerath who always carries his eponymous tin drum plays the Tiger Rag at a NSDAP rally in his hometown Danzig. The mesmerizing rhythm has the audience sway and dance, exposing the Nazis to ridicule.
#42-47: Workers’ Songs
The aggressive ethno-nationalism of Nazism was one of the two most dynamic political movements of the Weimar Republic (at least once the 1929 crash had plunged vast parts of the German population into a crisis of material and identity). The other was the workers’ movement, both in its reformist Social Democratic and its revolutionary Communist form. As the workers had been traditionally excluded from the public in imperial Germany, dominated by aristocracy and bourgeoisie, they created their own political parties (SPD, later USPD and KPD), economic associations (the trade unions), and social and cultural associations – from workers’ sport clubs to workers’ singing societies. Their milieu was bound together not only by their shared economic experience, but also by this cultural connection, of which the workers’ songs formed an important part.
Classics from imperial times like “Die Internationale” (The Internationale, song #42) remained important, but the movement also adopted new songs written by the numerous socialist poets and composers like Bertolt Brecht, Hanns Eisler, or Ernst Busch. Whereas some of these became new classics (like the “Solidaritätslied” (Solidarity Song, song #46), others aged badly: “Der Marsch ins Dritte Reich” (The March to the Third Reich, song #47) poked fun at the alleged inability of the Nazis to take power after their electoral setback at the Reichstag election of November 1932. First recorded in December 1932, the song was horribly overtaken by events just a month later when Hitler was elected chancellor in January 1933.
Thus, we conclude our playlist. It contains the traditional and the modern, entertainment and politics, left and right – except for the very right, but I don’t want to listen to Nazi songs while playing board games, and I’m sure that neither do you.
Do you like to play music in the background while playing board games? What’s your favorite song from this playlist? Let me know in the comments!
Wallenstein spent the second half of 1625 raising and organizing his army. It was the first great army under imperial command – the victor of White Mountain, Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly, was technically a general of the Catholic League (Ferdinand’s Catholic allies in the Holy Roman Empire, chief of them the Bavarian elector Maximilian), while the rebellious Palatinate had been put down by Spanish forces diverted from their war against the Dutch. And what an army it was! A popular anecdote has it that Ferdinand asked Wallenstein if he could field 20,000 men – to which Wallenstein replied “20,000 – no. But 50,000 – yes.”, as only a large army could occupy the territory and seize the contributions necessary.
Many warlords, mercenary captains, and private security CEOs have been called “violence entrepreneurs.” They provide the ways of violence (and, if successful, the ends of security) to their employer, which usually consist in the command vested in themselves and the military manpower of their forces (sometimes, only one or the other).
Wallenstein, however, went far beyond that. Of course he took command of the army, and he also raised it himself (in that sense not unlike the other condottiere of the time like Ernst von Mansfeld). However, he also took care of the supply of this army, from the grain which would make the soldiers’ breakfast to the last musket ball they fired in a battle. He sourced all these goods to the best of his abilities from his own estates in the Duchy of Friedland – an immense economic stimulus that made his already well-administered lands even more prosperous.
And, on top of the supply, Wallenstein also provided the up-front pay for the soldiers. That had been the part which had convinced Emperor Ferdinand II because he did not have to search the empty imperial coffers for funds. Wallenstein was allowed to raise a general tax on the occupied territories as well as the Habsburg hereditary domains to reimburse himself – a juster system than the punitive payments extracted from occupied territories alone, but obviously also less popular among the inhabitants and nobles of the Habsburg lands.
And yet, the emperor was ever deeper in Wallenstein’s debt, owing him vast sums Wallenstein had to borrow himself (chiefly from his Dutch banker Hans de Witte). As the imperial treasury was perpetually empty, Ferdinand’s only way of paying was to give Wallenstein land – land he had conquer himself first.
First Blood: Dessau Bridge and Hungary
Wallenstein and his force joined Tilly in northern Germany in late 1625. They took separate winter quarters and divided their responsibilities for the campaigns of 1626: Tilly was to keep Christian IV of Denmark in check, Wallenstein the army of Ernst von Mansfeld.
In spring 1626, Wallenstein occupied strong positions on the central Elbe. As Mansfeld planned to march south to the Habsburg hereditary lands (where he wanted to meet with the army of his ally Gabriel Bethlen, the Prince of Transylvania), he attempted to force the crossing of the Elbe at the Dessau bridge defended by a small garrison under Wallenstein’s lieutenant Johann von Aldringen. Aldringen’s tenacious defense held the bridge for a few days until Wallenstein’s main army arrived at the bridge, attacked Mansfeld from the rear, and won a great victory.
The catastrophe at the Dessau bridge fit in with Mansfeld’s military record, a string of defeats. Yet Mansfeld had never been one to give up, and neither did he then. He took his diminished army on a long route via Silesia and Moravia in direction of Hungary. Against Tilly’s wishes who wanted to remain concentrated in the north of Germany, Wallenstein chased after Mansfeld to take care of the threat to the Habsburg core lands. He could choose a shorter route, but to catch up with Mansfeld who’d had a headstart of a month, his army force-marched at a rate of almost 30km per day. The downside of this feat was that thousands of men died on the march in the hot summer, had to be left behind in garrisons, or just deserted. Wallenstein arrived in Hungary with a markedly diminished force.
Both Mansfeld and Bethlen maneuvered around Hungary. As the campaign had not only taken its toll on Wallenstein’s forces, but also on their commander, he considered resignation. In the end, he let himself be convinced to stay on. His father-in-law Karl von Harrach acted as the representative of the emperor and negotiated an agreement with Wallenstein that confirmed the general’s right to draw his supply directly from Bohemia without involving the imperial administration, take winter quarters in the Habsburg hereditary lands, and enlarge his army. The convinced threat to his own estate in Bohemia may have contributed to his decision to stay in the field. Despite the Imperial War Council urging Wallenstein to attack, he prioritized the conservation of his army for the rest of the year.
It was enough. Mansfeld died in November 1626 of a hemorrhage. Gabriel Bethlen made peace with the emperor in December. As Wallenstein’s army had been in the field far longer than was customary at the time, the winter had taken its toll. Wallenstein had begun his chase of Mansfeld with 20,000 men. Now he had less than half.
The campaign of 1626 shows that battle was not the greatest danger for the soldiers (Wallenstein did not fight a single one after setting out for Hungary) – disease, food shortages, and exposure to the elements exacted a far greater death toll. While these experiences were universal (and mutually reinforcing), it came down to the decision of the general how harsh they would be. Wallenstein’s hard marches and late move into winter quarters were understandable in the context of his operational goals, but also contributed to the devastation of his army.
Map of Cuius Regio, arrows showing Wallenstein’s march from Dessau to Hungary: Even a general with a high leadership rating like Wallenstein, would need several activations to cross half the map, putting a large dose of Fatigue on the army. Playtest art.
These elements of 17th century operational warfare are neatly modelled in the upcoming Cuius Regio (Francisco Gradaille, GMT Games) with the single modifier of Fatigue. Whenever an army moves, fights, or does other arduous things, its fatigue increases. The higher the fatigue is, the more its movement range and fighting ability are reduced. Sometimes you will feel like you have to push your armies to their utmost limits – but often it is a wise decision to skip some activations and have your forces enjoy their winter quarters early.
Campaigns in the North
While Wallenstein’s forces had suffered much from the 1626 campaign, it had been operationally successful. With the threat represented by Mansfeld and Bethlen removed, the Habsburg core lands (and thus, Wallenstein’s own holdings in Bohemia) were safe once more.
While Wallenstein had pursued Mansfeld, Tilly had inflicted a painful defeat on Christian IV at Lutter. Now Wallenstein could join Tilly on the offensive against the Danish king. He sent a detachment under Hans Georg von Arnim (one of the many Protestants in important roles in Wallenstein’s army) north. His own force retook Silesia, the last imperial territory under enemy occupation, and then set out after Arnim. In addition to Wallenstein’s army, the Catholic League force under Tilly also advanced against the Danish forces.
By August 1627, northern Germany had been cleared of enemy troops. Wallenstein and Tilly could now invade Denmark proper. When Tilly was wounded, Wallenstein took command of both armies and occupied all of Jutland in a lightning campaign by the end of October 1627. Four months before, the King of Denmark had been in control of a part of the Habsburg hereditary lands. Now, he was reduced to flee to his island possessions.
Wallenstein sent word of his successes to Ferdinand II and was granted a meeting with him in Bohemia in November 1627. The emperor was duly grateful – and he was indebted, morally as well as financially, for Wallenstein still paid for the army’s upkeep in advance and was only irregularly reimbursed from the chronically empty imperial coffers. Ferdinand thus had to reward his loyal servant elsewise: He encouraged Wallenstein to strive to become King of Denmark – an inestimable honor for a man whose father had been the lord of one small village, and even that only because a kindly uncle had left it to him. Wallenstein, however, was too practical a man to overlook the immense difficulties connected to the Danish crown: Not only would he have to contend with the hostile Danish nobles, he would also have to fully defeat the sitting Danish king. And while Christian had been trounced in 1627, he now sat on his islands, defended by the powerful Danish navy, and unassailable as long as the imperial army was not joined by a navy of its own in the Baltic Sea. Wallenstein thus politely declined, saying that he preferred “the other [reward]” – that being the Duchy of Mecklenburg.
The Dukes of Mecklenburg had supported the Danish king in his intervention against the emperor – rebellious princes being a tradition in the Holy Roman Empire for centuries. Ferdinand’s decision to oust them and replace them with his general was decidedly un-traditional, another flagrant breach of the “German liberty” (of princes) after the deposition of the Elector of the Palatinate. Yet the electorate had passed to Maximilian of Bavaria, one of the most exalted princes of the Empire, the descendant of a long line of Bavarian dukes, one of which had even been emperor. The Duchy of Mecklenburg, on the other hand, passed to Wallenstein, the son of a minor country noble from Bohemia, who now would be the direct vassal of Ferdinand II as emperor, a prince of the Empire. The old nobility felt that affront keenly – no one keener than Maximilian.
Wallenstein’s mind was less concerned with the jealousy of the princes than with the military opportunities and challenges at hand. As his mighty army stood at the Baltic shores, he could play for the dominium Maris Baltici, the supremacy in the Baltic Sea now. The other contenders were his Danish enemy, the king of Poland-Lithuania, Sigismund III Vasa, who had also been King of Sweden until his deposition in 1599, and the ruling Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus. For now, the Catholic king of Poland kept the Protestant king of Sweden busy, and it seemed unlikely anyway that Sweden would ally with its Baltic rival Denmark, notwithstanding their shared Protestant faith. If Wallenstein could gather a navy of his own (the emperor had already created him Admiral of the Baltic and North Sea, a grand title for a commander without a single warship), then the emperor would be a contender for the dominium Maris Baltici.
There were only two ways to get ships. The first was to rely on the emperor’s Spanish Habsburg relatives. Yet while Spain was one of the premier naval powers of the age, the Spanish were still embroiled in their struggle against Dutch independence which kept their navy more than busy. And just as Wallenstein was suspicious of Spanish interventions in central and northern European affairs, so were most of the central and northern Europeans in question. If Wallenstein aligned himself with Spain, they would be hostile. Thus, Wallenstein counted on the second way to get his navy – from the Baltic coast itself. For that, he needed to convince some of the rich merchant towns to declare for the emperor and supply him with ships. That was delicate tightrope: Wallenstein had to be firm enough to make them give concessions to him, but not so authoritarian that they would close their gates in his face.
One town immediately defied Wallenstein: The relatively small Stralsund, nominally a part of the Duchy of Pomerania, but practically independent, refused to allow an imperial garrison and would not negotiate about it. Arnim began to besiege the town. Now Wallenstein was embroiled in a struggle he hadn’t wanted over a place he didn’t much care for, having to divert an ever-larger part of his army to the siege. As he still didn’t have any ships, Stralsund could be easily supplied from the sea, and the as the town grew more desperate accepted, it also accepted outside support – first in weapons, then also in soldiers – from Denmark, and eventually Sweden.
Wallenstein accepted that the town would not budge. If he wanted it, he would have to take it in a bloody general assault. The price seemed too high for such an unimportant place. When the Pomeranian duke Bogislav promised that Stralsund would be loyal to the emperor, Wallenstein lifted the siege, just in time to face Christian of Denmark again.
The Danish king did Wallenstein’s job for him: He left the safety of his island possessions, landed a much too small army in the Pomeranian town of Wolgast, and was duly trounced by Wallenstein once more. Gustavus Adolphus was still tied down in Poland and thus unable to intervene on behalf of the hard-pressed Protestant side. The end of the emperor’s war with Denmark was near.
Wallenstein wanted peace. Only peace, peace on terms favorable to the emperor, could confirm his rule over the by now vast holdings in his three duchies of Friedland (in Bohemia), Mecklenburg (on the Baltic coast), and, since February 1628, Sagan (in Silesia), another time the emperor had settled some of his outstanding debt to Wallenstein in land. For this peace, he was willing to make concessions. He also was realistic enough to understand that the balance of power at sea was unchanged, and that Christian would possibly not be so foolish as to leave the Danish isles a second time. Thus, Wallenstein as the emperor’s representative negotiated the Peace of Lübeck with Denmark. Christian promised not to intervene in the Empire (as far as he was not concerned as a prince of the Empire). In return, he did not have to make any territorial concessions. The treaty was remarkably successful as it did not breed any further grudges and instead ensured Christian’s future loyalty to the emperor. As Gustavus Adolphus would end his war against Poland-Lithuania later in 1629, Swedish intervention against the emperor seemed possible. Having the goodwill of Sweden’s traditional rival Denmark was all the more valuable.
Princes and Politics
The Peace of Lübeck had shown Wallenstein’s qualities as a diplomat, and as a statesman. It would also show his limitations as a politician – while he could treat with his enemies, he had a hard time making friends within the Catholic-imperial camp.
Wallenstein saw Habsburg Spain as a strategic liability. Spanish troops may have defeated the Elector of the Palatinate in the early 1620s, but overall, Spain demanded more from the emperor than it gave to him. Wallenstein’s refusal to send parts of his army to support Spanish campaigns in the Netherlands and even in Upper Italy against France, which risked French intervention against the Habsburgs in the Empire, earned him the suspicion of the influential Spanish party at the imperial court in Vienna.
On top of that, Wallenstein was inclined to compromise, whereas both the emperor and most of his supporters (like the Spanish or the Elector of Bavaria) were hardliners. This showed most clearly in religious matters: Wallenstein was always happy to treat Protestants and Catholics the same, whereas Ferdinand, Maximilian, and their ilk wanted to roll back Protestantism. Their chosen instrument was the Edict of Restitution (1629): Any monastic or clerical territory which had been secularized by a Protestant ruler since 1552 was to be restored – a sweeping change which would have affected two archbishoprics, seven bishoprics, and around 500 monasteries.
Wallenstein’s approach to use a position of strength for reconciliation (as he had done with the Peace of Lübeck) may have given peace to the Empire as well. Ferdinand’s attempt to parlay his military success into religious domination was bound to mobilize the Protestants in the Empire (which made up over 80% of its population), harden hostilities, and prolong the war that had already been raging for over a decade.
Finally, Wallenstein as a person aroused suspicion, jealousy, and hatred among the princes, especially the only ones still nominally superior to him, the Electors. The princes had been outraged when Ferdinand made the upstart Wallenstein Duke of Mecklenburg, ousting an ancient dynasty. Many of them also had a noble in their court, a vassal, or even a distant relative in military service to the empire who had been snubbed by Wallenstein – he liked to run his army based on merit, not birth, and when a colonel disappointed him, Wallenstein would sack him, no matter how aristocratic or well-connected he was. There was thus a constant flow of complaint about Wallenstein to the courts of the princes, and, as none of the electors (save Emperor Ferdinand, who, as King of Bohemia, was also one of the seven electors) had ever met Wallenstein in person, their impression of him remained based on the stories of his detractors. Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland, Mecklenburg, and Sagan, was not one of them. He was a mystery, a threat, a demon.
Thirty Years War: Europe in Agony 1618—1648 is a rather zoomed-out, strategic treatment of the entire war. It is all the more remarkable that of the 18 sections in its rulebook, one is solely dedicated to one historical personality. Rule 7, “Wallenstein”, introduces the players to a unique concept: Wallenstein is not only the ablest commander on the Catholic side, he is also the only general whose influence is tracked, rising whenever he recruits new forces, takes cities, or initiates and wins battles. And when his influence reaches 20, the game ends – in a Protestant Major Victory, thus keeping the Catholic player from using Wallenstein all too much. The only ways to forestall that as the Catholic player are not using Wallenstein anymore, or, once per game, dismissing him to take his counter temporarily off the board and halving his influence.
What had kept Wallenstein afloat since he had become supreme imperial general in 1625 was that Wallenstein had been the only man with an army fighting for the emperor, and Ferdinand had had many military problems to solve. Ferdinand had needed Wallenstein. By 1629, as Wallenstein had relieved him of these problems, Ferdinand needed the electors more: He was in his fifties now, and needed to take care of his succession. The imperial crown was elective. Traditionally, the heir to the emperor had been elected King of the Romans while his father still lived to indicate his succession. Ferdinand wanted to secure this election for his eldest son (another Ferdinand).
The electors, led by Maximilian of Bavaria and his brother, the Archbishop of Cologne, met at the Diet of Regensburg in 1630. They let Ferdinand know that they refused to even consider a royal election as long as Wallenstein acted as the emperor’s supreme general. Ferdinand caved in and relieved Wallenstein of his command.
For a short moment, both Ferdinand and the electors trembled at thought of Wallenstein’s reaction. What would the most successful general, the commander of the largest army in the empire, do? Yet Wallenstein received the news politely, thanking the emperor for taking the burden of command off his shoulders. His army was put under the command of Tilly, the only other general available with a successful record. Wallenstein retired to his estates.
Historians come to their conclusions about times long past because they can read the documents of the contemporaries – not their minds. We do not know why Wallenstein took the removal from the apex of his career so calmly, for he never explained it in writing to anyone (in the extant documents known to scholars, that is). His increasingly painful gout may have contributed. He was not keen on the extended duty of financing the army and receiving little reimbursement from the emperor, especially as his source of ready cash had dried up – his banker de Witte had gone bankrupt and would commit suicide only five days after Wallenstein received news of his dismissal. He may have been tired of war and treaties, looking forward to tending to the administration of his estates which he had so tirelessly collected. I find the opposite more likely – that Wallenstein guessed his retirement would be temporary, based on his expert knowledge of Baltic affairs.
Eight weeks before Wallenstein received the news of his dismissal in September 1630, Gustavus Adolphus had landed in northern Germany. He advanced south as the electors discussed Wallenstein’s fate, apparently unconcerned with the new military threat. How could a king from such a faraway land threaten them? He would do as Christian of Denmark had done, build his forces, slowly and cautiously advance through northern Germany. Tilly would beat him, as Catholic-imperial armies had beaten Protestant armies throughout the entire twelve years of war, at White Mountain, in the Palatinate, at Dessau Bridge, Lutter, Wolgast… or so they thought. They could not have been more wrong.
Setup for the Intervention scenario in Thirty Years War: Europe in Agony, 1618-1648: Note the Swedish doomstack under Gustavus Adolphus in the coastal town of Stettin which will surely make its way south. From the Vassal module.
Politically, Tilly handled the Protestants much less skillful than Wallenstein had done: When Tilly took the city of Magdeburg in May 1631 in an attempt to draw Gustavus Adolphus back, his army killed, burned, and raped for three days in one of the most atrocious excesses of the entire Thirty Years’ War. And instead of recognizing the neutrality of the electors of Brandenburg and especially Saxony, Tilly pressed them to choose a side. They chose Sweden.
John George of Saxony was a deeply conservative Elector who prized his loyalty to the emperor over his religious affiliation as a Protestant. Yet when Tilly’s troops started marauding in Saxony, John George declared for Sweden. From the Vassal module of Thirty Years War: Europe in Agony, 1618-1648.
And militarily, Gustavus Adolphus was a much greater general than Christian of Denmark. He and Tilly maneuvered around each other When his battle-hardened veterans of the Polish campaign (and some of his new Saxon allies) met Tilly’s army at Breitenfeld in September 1631, the imperial force was utterly shattered. Gustavus Adolphus marched southwest and wintered in the rich Rhineland, barely touched by the war so far. In 1632, he would be ready to march on Ferdinand’s hereditary lands (with Maximilian’s Bavaria conveniently on the way). In their despair, the leaders of the Catholic-imperial cause extended their feelers to Wallenstein.
A recent biography which succeeds at dispelling the Wallenstein myth is Mortimer, Geoff: Wallenstein. The Enigma of the Thirty Years’ War, Palgrave Macmillan, London 2010.
For an older, more encompassing biography with literary aspirations, see Mann, Golo: Wallenstein. His Life Narrated, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, New York City, NY 1976.
On the reception of Wallenstein and his changing image from his contemporaries all the way through the 20th century, see Bahlcke, Joachim/Kampmann, Christoph: Wallensteinbilder im Widerstreit: Eine historische Symbolfigur in Geschichtsschreibung und Literatur vom 17. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert [Conflicting Conceptions of Wallenstein: A Symbolic Figure from History in Historiography and Literature from the 17th to the 20th Century], Böhlau, Cologne/Weimar/Vienna 2011 [in German].
For a short introduction to the Thirty Years’ War, see Schmidt, Georg: Der Dreißigjährige Krieg [The Thirty Years’ War], C.H. Beck, Munich 2010 [in German].
A magisterial monography on the entire war is Wilson, Peter H.: Europe’s Tragedy. A New History of the Thirty Years’ War, Penguin, London 2009.
Wer heute in geselliger Runde zu Skat oder Rommé greift, hält mehr in der Hand als nur ein Kartenspiel. Diese beiden Klassiker tragen Geschichte in sich – und ihre Wurzeln reichen weiter zurück, als viele vermuten. Besonders eng verbunden ist diese Geschichte mit einem Ort: Altenburg, die traditionsreiche Skatstadt in Thüringen. Hier begann einst eine Entwicklung, die sich […]
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