In 1539, a small Spanish garrison of troops numbering 3,500 men held the Albanian village of Castelnuovo for 22 days against the massive Ottoman army consisting of over 54,000 Turk soldiers. This siege took place as a part of the Ottoman-Habsburg struggle for control of the Mediterranean Sea in July 1539 at the walled town of Castelnuovo, which is the location of present-day Herceg Novi, Montenegro. After days of open trench warfare and more than a month of smaller combats, skirmishes, assaults and bombardments from the Turkish navy, the last Spanish defenders fell ending the siege. Castelnuovo 1539 is a wargame that focuses on this siege designed by Francisco Ronco. The defenders are safe behind sturdy walls and battlements but time and continual shelling from the Ottomans will lead to assaults over the walls. The battle is hopeless for the defenders but they can win the game by doing enough damage to the Ottomans to end their campaign and stop them from invading further into the Albania and then onto Spain and the rest of Europe. The game is very well produced using wooden blocks for soldiers, stylized walls, siege trenches and cannon along with ships and the board is also beautifully illustrated. The game is a block wargame where the strength of units are hidden from the opponent and plays pretty quickly in less than 90 minutes and really is a great representation of the battle and its history.

In Action Point 1, we took a look at the beautiful Game Board and its area movement scheme. In Action Point 2, we examined the units available to both sides and compared their relative strengths and weaknesses. In Action Point 3, we took a look at the different types of Command Cards and discussed how they are used. In this Action Point, we will take a look at the 2 different types of rounds including a Siege Round and an Assault Round and how they differ.

In Castelnuovo 1539 there are 2 different types of rounds within the structure of the game including Siege Rounds and Assault Rounds. This 2 type approach is designed to reflect the different preparations and phases of a sustained siege on a fortified location. The Ottoman player is allowed to choose the type of round for the upcoming turn during the Reinforcement Phase, which is the last phase in any round. In this structure, the Ottoman player has the chance to review the previous round, consider their losses and gains on the battlefield, identify their goals and set themselves up for success in the coming round.

Siege Rounds reflect the necessary preparations, concentration of resources of both men and materiel, the progress of mine works and siege trenches and represent 3 or 4 days of the siege. During this time there are small combats and skirmishes, probing of the enemy lines and reconnoitering but no major frontal assaults. In this type of round, each player draws only 4 cards reflecting the slower and more deliberate planning phases of a siege. The first round of the game is always a Siege Round in the main scenario. There also is another mechanic that is added to the Siege Rounds as the Ottoman player can choose to rest during only a Siege Round and no cards are played and the player also places all of their Azab and Sipahi Blocks on the board at full Strength. This reflects the buildup and preparation for the upcoming assault and is a key decision for the Ottoman player who is pushing against time and must complete the siege in their favor before time expires.

Assault Rounds represent moments of decisive assault, with a great amount of movement and activity on both sides. The action is fast and furious and each turn represents only 1 days worth of combat. In this type of round, the hand of both players increases to 7 cards in order to provide the fuel needed to sustain a planned attack. There is a price to pay for the prosecution of an Assault Round though as each time the Ottoman player declares their intention to assault, the Ottoman Casualty Track will be advanced 1 space.

The decision opportunity for an Assault Round versus a Siege Round comes at the end of the Spanish Action Phase. Before drawing any cards, the Ottoman player chooses which type of round to play next. If an Assault Round is chosen and the player has more than 4 cards in their hand, no new cards will be drawn and the player will discard down to 4 cards. One of the key decision points at this time is the makeup of the Ottoman player’s hand. If they have good cards, such as the necessary Order Cards to initiate attacks as well as a Combat Card or 2 to supplement those attacks and make them more effective, the choice is pretty simple. If their hand of cards is not necessarily setup and beneficial for a siege, they may want to move to an Assault Round where they will draw the maximum 7 cards and can continue their preparations for the next round while still engaging in smaller attacks and bombardments to weaken the defenses and demoralize and reduce the defending Spanish Tercios.

I was very impressed by this distinction in the 2 types of rounds in the design but at first had difficulty making the connection to the history and the design choice. But a siege is a very different and particular case in warfare and has some very interesting nuances that must be taken into consideration. As the game is basically decided by the mounting casualties of both sides, the presence of artillery batteries, the obsolete medieval fortifications of the city and the modern earthen fortifications built by the Spanish to reinforce them, casualties are a reality and the Ottoman player needs to be cognizant of this and take it seriously. There has to be a deliberate and planned attack on the city with the proper and measured construction of siege trenches by the Ottomans to realize the benefit of their usefulness in reducing the casualties of the besiegers.

A good Ottoman commander will play a well balanced game with a consistent pattern of incremental movement upon the city, all the while building their siege lines to form a tightening encirclement of the walls like the coils of an anaconda, inching closer and closer to the walls, using their artillery to weaken and break the defenses and create breaches where close-range assaults can be launched that will ultimately decide the outcome. Digging trenches should be one of the Ottomans first tasks, as they must protect their blocks as they are in the open field, an easy target for attack. Once the blocks are protected with trenches, there is a need to plan the advance and bring these trenches and batteries closer to the Spanish fortifications so that they can breached. Once there are open breaches, it is necessary to throw caution to the wind and take the city by assault as the Spanish attempts to repair the walls and build internal fortifications will continue to hinder the Ottoman’s progress. But, the Spanish player must keep in mind their advantages, including the well known Spanish ‘camisado’ attacks (encamisadas in Spanish) to sally forth and inflict damage upon the besieging forces to weaken their strength. The Spanish leaders are better and will provide great benefits to these attacks that should inflict maximum damage and break the will of the Ottoman as they continue the slow and arduous advance on the city. But the understanding of how to use this Siege/Assault process will take a few plays to understand but once you master the rules, you will see that these fortresses were not defended passively, but rather are in the pattern of an active defense that makes calculated sorties to hinder the work of the attackers by destroying artillery batteries and not giving the Ottomans any rest or respite from the action a vital part of the process.

In Action Point 5, we will delve into an example of combat and bombardment.

If you are interested, I was able to shoot the following review/overview/summary video with the designer Francisco Ronco after playing the game earlier this year:

-Grant

In 1539, a small Spanish garrison of troops numbering 3,500 men held the Albanian village of Castelnuovo for 22 days against the massive Ottoman army consisting of over 54,000 Turk soldiers. This siege took place as a part of the Ottoman-Habsburg struggle for control of the Mediterranean Sea in July 1539 at the walled town of Castelnuovo, which is the location of present-day Herceg Novi, Montenegro. After days of open trench warfare and more than a month of smaller combats, skirmishes, assaults and bombardments from the Turkish navy, the last Spanish defenders fell ending the siege. Castelnuovo 1539 is a wargame that focuses on this siege designed by Francisco Ronco. The defenders are safe behind sturdy walls and battlements but time and continual shelling from the Ottomans will lead to assaults over the walls. The battle is hopeless for the defenders but they can win the game by doing enough damage to the Ottomans to end their campaign and stop them from invading further into the Albania and then onto Spain and the rest of Europe. The game is very well produced using wooden blocks for soldiers, stylized walls, siege trenches and cannon along with ships and the board is also beautifully illustrated. The game is a block wargame where the strength of units are hidden from the opponent and plays pretty quickly in less than 90 minutes and really is a great representation of the battle and its history.

In Action Point 1, we took a look at the beautiful Game Board and its area movement scheme. In Action Point 2, we examined the units available to both sides and compared their relative strengths and weaknesses. In this Action Point, we will take a look at the different types of Command Cards and discuss how they are used.

Command Cards

In Castelnuovo 1539, there are 72 Command Cards with 36 unique cards per player side that are used to drive the tactical asymmetry of the siege. Players will draw hands of 4 cards during Siege Rounds or 7 cards during high-intensity Assault Rounds to be used for maneuvers around the board, bombardments and various special events. The Spanish and Ottoman factions utilize distinct and asymmetrical decks meaning that their available action options differ to reflect historical realities of the forces and their roles. I have already said this in previous posts on this game but the asymmetry is so very well done in this game and each side truly feels different from one another which creates a really interesting tactical challenge as players have to understand not only their own deck and its capabilities but those of their enemy to be able to effectively prosecute or defend against the siege.

There are 5 distinct types of Command Cards in the game, which include Action Cards, Order Cards, Combat Cards, Reaction Cards and Immediate Effect/Event Cards. Each has their own purpose and place in the game and I very much like the way the cards create opportunities for each player. Let’s take a bit of a deeper look into the types of cards, give a bit of a background on their general use and provide some examples.

First off are Action Cards, which are used by the players to execute specific actions such as engineering, trench-digging or board-manipulation tasks, such as generating Trench Points to advance through or destroy Spanish bastions. The cards basic purpose is to activate units to take actions on the board.

Order Cards typically dictate the movement, repositioning and coordination of military units, marches, and artillery batteries across the board. These are the most common of the card types and are frankly the most important as you cannot use the other cards to attack until you are in position to do so.

Combat Cards are the force multiplication cards and are played during combat resolution to enhance striking power, modify dice roll or trigger pre-combat attacks like the specialized Ottoman volley actions. These Combat Cards are best used as a hold in your hand to use them when they most benefit the player. This can be challenging as holding too many will mean you are not drawing the Order Cards that you need to advance on the enemy.

Reaction Cards are played out of turn during your opponent’s Action Phase to counter maneuvers or provide mid-combat support for engaged troops. These cards can be lifesavers and are important to any good strategy.

Finally, there are Immediate Effect/Event Cards that are used to inject the historical narrative into the game and to replicate the historical action. These cards can also be focused on environmental factors such as the faith of the defenders/attackers, fire devices or the like that will change the flow and pace of the battle instantly.

Each of the 5 different type of Command Cards have a unique color coded icon to assist the players in understanding the capabilities of the card and the appropriate phase to use the card in. These 5 icons are as follows:

Keep in mind though that several of the Command Cards will have 2 icons listed which means that they belong to either of the types and can be played as either during a play. You cannot play the same card again and use its other icon though. This duality provides the players with a bit more flexibility and creates a more engaging and free flowing game. In my opinion, sometimes games which rely on cards to activate units for moves or attacks can suffer from poor draws. While that can still be an issue in Castelnuovo 1539, the dual icon cards make this a bit less of a problem.

Here is a look at the makeup of the Command Cards by type per faction. Keep in mind that dual icon cards will count double in the categories they represent.

As you can see, the Spanish have more icons represented on their 36 cards than the Ottomans demonstrated by the Total Type of Card icons for the Spanish being 50 (1.39 icons per card) as compared to only 44 (1.22 icons per card) for the Ottomans. This is not a huge difference but does give the Spanish player a bit more flexibility in their cards draws and they will be able to be a bit more nimble than the attacking Ottomans. The Spanish have the advantage in the number of Action icons of 18 to 16. Remember that Action Cards are typically used for specific actions such as engineering, trench-digging or board-manipulation tasks. The Ottomans have the advantage in Order icons which means they have more move and march cards than the Spanish. Keep in mind that the onus to attack lies with the Ottoman player as they will have to move their units on the board to be able to attack the Spanish defenders. Also keep in mind the Bombard is an Order and the Ottoman has more of these type of card icons than the Spanish player 5 vs. 3. One of the most glaring differences is the high number of Reaction icons that the Spanish player has. These type of cards are used in response to your opponent’s card play and include things like Counterattacks, Arquebusiers, which gives a free attack when Ottoman units come adjacent to any Arquebusier unit on the board or Friendly Fire, which allows free rolls against Ottoman units located in between their firing artillery and the Spanish.

Another key card for the Spanish include Cheveaux de Frise, which allows the Spanish player to place a chevaux-de-frise cube in a Wall area or a Bastion. Each cube allows the Spanish player to ignore 1 hit in combat. These cubes are not destroyed by absorbing the hit. In addition, if a combat is tied in an area with these cubes, the Spanish player wins the battle. This card is a huge advantage for the Spanish and these should be played as soon as possible in order to minimize the damage taken from the Ottoman onslaught. If the Ottomans occupy an area with chevaux-de-frise and no enemies, the cubes are automatically destroyed. Another very important card for the Spanish player is Comisado. This Action Card can be used as a normal attack or, during a Siege Round, to make a special attack called the Camisado. The Camisados were night raids carried out by the Tercios troops in reduced numbers, specifically intended to sabotage and attack the Ottoman camps, trying to eliminate the enemies while they slept and to inflict material damage to the camp. The Spanish player selects a group of Spanish units, which may include the Leader Sarmiento, and these units can attack an area that is a maximum of 2 areas away from the selected group. This is a hit and run type of attack that gives the Spanish the powerful opportunity to sally forth from the walls to enact damage and then retreat back to safety.

The Ottomans have their own tricks with special cards including For the Faith. This card can only be played in combat if there is at least 1 Azab unit involved. When used, all dice rolled by Azab units (not Janissaries or Sipahi) in combat have a +1 bonus to hit, but at the end of the battle, the Ottoman player must eliminate 3 points of strength from the Azab units. This card is a tradeoff but the price paid can be very much worth it if the dice are kind.

Both sides have access to cards that perform special attacks or provide bonuses like Fire Devices which is a Combat Card that allows the player to roll 3d6 against enemy units at the start of Combat, when the card is revealed. Any result of 5 or 6 counts as 1 hit, to be assigned by the opponent. It can only be played in areas that contain, or are adjacent to, Walls or Bastions built by the Spanish player. These type of cards are very important to the game and its combat system as the weaker units are the fewer dice they will roll and the chances of hits are lessened.

The Command Cards are very well done and truly create the setting for the asymmetry of the game. These cards serve as a highly effective, dual-purpose engine of the game’s dynamic card driven design and I think that the designer did a fantastic job in creating a very balanced and playable game that provides an opportunity for “victory” for both players. The Command Cards are highly effective because they completely abstract command and logistics into a tight tactical choice with units only moving or initiating combat when activated by a card.

In Action Point 4, we will take a look at the 2 different types of rounds including a Siege Round and an Assault Round and how they differ.

If you are interested, I was able to shoot the following review/overview/summary video with the designer Francisco Ronco after playing the game earlier this year:

-Grant

HISPANIA from Draco Ideas is a slick little small box game with a big punch that sees the player controlling the Roman Empire and attempting to subjugate and put down resistance in the provinces of Hispania from 198 to 18BC. The game is extremely flexible and may be played cooperatively by 2-3 players, competitively with 4 players or as a solo game. The game is somewhat of a resource management game as the players must use their limited funds in the form of Denarii wisely to attack and put down revolts springing up around the country as local armies rally support for the resistance to Roman rule.

We published an interview with the designer Miguel Marqués and you can read that at the following link: https://theplayersaid.com/2024/04/12/interview-with-miguel-marques-designer-of-hispania-from-draco-ideas-coming-to-gamefound-soon/

I also wrote a series of Action Point posts on the game and you can read those at the following links:

Action Point 1 – Overview of the Board

Action Point 2 – Overview of the Roman Phase and the various actions available including Move, Garrison, Besiege and Attack

Action Point 3 – Overview of the Hispanic Phase and how the locals spread Revolt and move Armies around the Board

-Grant

Throwback to the 80ties

Mit den Hörspielen der Drei Fragezeichen schlafe ich noch heute gern ein … und sie begleiten mich bei so mancher langer Autofahrt. Erst neulich bin ich auf meine alte Kassetten- und digitalisierte Sammlung einiger Fundstücke gestoßen. Neben Kolumbus und Sohn gab es noch eine andere kleine Reihe mit nur 29 Folgen Scotland Yard. Aktuell führe ich meinen Sohn gerade in die große Welt der Hörspielserien ein, und da habe ich ihm vorgeschlagen, dass wir dazu das passende Brettspiel spielen. Die meisten Brettspiele in meiner Sammlung werden „nach eigenen Regeln“ bespielt. Das bedeutet vornehmlich, dass meine Miniaturen über einen großen Tisch in selbst gebaute Burgen oder Ähnliches für kurze Zeit entschwinden und Abenteuer ganz anderer Natur erleben. Spiele mit Karten oder Landschaften ziehen ihn magisch an. Wie läuft es mit dem Spiel des Jahres 1983? Wird es nach eigenen Regeln bespielt? Taugt das Spiel heute noch etwas?

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Spielprinzip

Mister X macht seit Monaten London unsicher und begeht einen meisterhaften Clou nach dem anderen. Scotland Yard ist ratlos. X kennt sich hervorragend in den Straßen von London aus und kann den Mitarbeitenden des Yards immer wieder entkommen. Nun schickt der Polizeipräsident seine besten Detektive auf die Jagd. Werdet ihr Mister X entlarven und dingfestmachen? Wahrscheinlich würde Ravensburger das one-vs-many-Spiel so oder so ähnlich anpreisen, wenn der Klassiker heute erscheinen würde. Ihr könnt mit bis zu sechs Personen in die Geschichte eintauchen. Eine Person muss dabei Mister X übernehmen und sich durch London bewegen. Die anderen Personen schlüpfen in die Rolle der Detektive und versuchen, Mister X ausfindig zu machen.

Das Hauptelement ist ein Stadtplan, der aus nummerierten Verkehrspunkten besteht. Jeder Punkt kann dabei bis zu drei Farben – für jedes der Verkehrsmittel Taxi, Bus oder Untergrundbahn – haben. Mister X hat einen unerschöpflichen Vorrat an Tickets für jedes Verkehrsmittel. Die armen Detektive haben nur eine bestimmte Anzahl (10x Taxi, 8x Bus und 4x Untergrundbahn).

Mister X gewinnt, wenn er entweder nach Runden immer noch unentdeckt ist oder ein Detektiv nicht mehr in der Lage ist, sich zu bewegen. Die Detektive gewinnen, wenn ein Detektiv auf demselben Feld wie Mister X landet oder Mister X sich nicht mehr bewegen kann, ohne auf ein Feld der Detektive zu landen.

In jedem Zug geben die Spielenden einen ihrer Verkehrsmittel-Karten ab und bewegen sich mit dem Verkehrsmittel auf das nächstgelegene Feld mit der gleichen Verkehrsmittel-Farbe.

Alle paar Runden muss Mister X sich zeigen und gibt den Yard-Mitarbeitenden so die notwendigen Hinweise, um ihn einzukesseln.

Der besondere Reiz entwickelt sich dabei, dass man nach einer Offenbarung die Verkehrsmittel verfolgen kann und sich damit die Möglichkeiten erschließen, in welchen Feldern Mister X sein kann.

Dabei ist es so ausgelegt, dass mit dem Taxi meist nur kurze Streckenabschnitte, mit dem Bus teilweise mittlere Strecken und mit der Untergrundbahn lange Abschnitte machbar sind.

Neulich haben wir Beast gespielt, das in der Grundmechanik tatsächlich wie Scotland Yard ist – inklusive des Mustererkennens, wo das Beast langgegangen ist.

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Unboxing

Meine Version ist das Originalspiel aus den 80ern. Ich habe gesehen, dass es mittlerweile auch moderne Varianten gibt, habe sie mir aber nicht weiter angeschaut.

Meine alte Version hat eine detailreiche Karte mit 3d-Effekt von London, ein Plastik-„Klemmbrett“ für die Dokumentation der Mister X-Wege, verstärkte Pappmarker für die Verkehrsmittel und einfache Meeple. Diese sind allerdings mit einem transparenten Fuß versehen, sodass man die Zahlen jederzeit gut lesen kann.

Ob im Original wirklich zugeschnittene Blätter dabei waren, weiß ich nicht. In meiner Version ist dies leider kein gängiges Blattformat.

Nicht zu vergessen natürlich den Mister X-Schutzschirm, sodass man nicht erkennen kann, wohin Mister X auf die Karte schaut. Das wirkt in etwa so gut, wie die schwarze Maske für den Meister aus Das Schwarze Auge (glaube zweite Edition). Eher Show als nützlich.

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Bewertung

Als ich meinem siebenjährigen Sohn eine thematisch stimmige Einführung gegeben habe, wollte er natürlich sofort der Dieb sein. Wir haben es ihm einmal „vorgespielt“, Mister X zu spielen, und dann durfte er es (und ist es bis heute noch).

Tatsächlich habe ich nicht viel von dem Spiel erwartet, aber wir wurden alle positiv überrascht. Ihm macht es Spaß, aufgeregt durch die Gegend zu fahren und später zu merken, dass es eng wird. Mittlerweile nutzt er die Joker-Karten „2x hintereinander bewegen“ und die „Black“-Tickets (wir wissen nicht, womit er gefahren ist) absolut zielsicher ein, um aus brenzligen Situationen herauszukommen.

Die Züge, wo er sich zeigen muss, plant er im Voraus, sodass er dort auf Stationen landet, von denen man mit möglichst vielen Verkehrsmitteln wegkommt. Dadurch wird die Jagd quer durch London ein tolles Logik-Rätsel, das wir mit genügend Zwischenrufen, Bluffen und Trash-Talk zu kleinen immersiven Abenteuern gestalten.

Klar ist das keine drei Rock-Meeple wert, aber den silbernen Meeple hat es sich verdient. Hätte ich nicht mit gerechnet. Und jetzt hören wir gemeinsam Scotland Yard-Hörspiele und sind über die Karte gebeugt und verfolgen die Fährten der Junior-Detektive. Und ganz nebenbei werden die Zahlen bis 250 sicher. Großer Spaß für die gesamte Familie.

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(c) Copyright Ravensburger

Bannerbild von Kev auf Pixabay

Icons von Icons8

Grafik(en) und Bild(er) von analogrockt

Das Spiel habe ich privat erstanden. Diese Rezension ist unentgeltlich durchgeführt worden und spiegelt meine persönliche Meinung wider.

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In Episode 9 sprechen Matthias und Markus über Berlin: Fall of the Reich, 1945. Über das politische Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs sprachen wir in "Churchill". Heute geht es um de letzte große Schlacht in Europa. Wir übernehmen dabei die Rolle der sowjetischen Armee und versuchen ins Herz der damaligen und heutigen Hauptstadt Deutschlands vorzudringen.

Shownotes

• Berlin: Fall of the Reich, 1945 | Board Game | BoardGameGeek
• Errata zu den Regeln
• Revolution Games
• Schlacht um Berlin – Wikipedia
• Reichstagsgebäude – Wikipedia
• Josef Stalin – Wikipedia
• Georgi Konstantinowitsch Schukow – Wikipedia
• Iwan Stepanowitsch Konew – Wikipedia
• Konferenz von Jalta – Wikipedia
• Vassal-Modul
• Stalingrad: Advance to the Volga, 1942 | Board Game | BoardGameGeek
• Manila: The Savage Streets, 1945 | Board Game | BoardGameGeek
• Final Girl | Board Game | BoardGameGeek
• Der Unterhändler | Board Game | BoardGameGeek
• Brettspiel-Discord
• Excel als eSport
• We Entered the World of Microsoft Excel eSports & Got Our Asses Beat

In 1539, a small Spanish garrison of troops numbering 3,500 men held the Albanian village of Castelnuovo for 22 days against the massive Ottoman army consisting of over 54,000 Turk soldiers. This siege took place as a part of the Ottoman-Habsburg struggle for control of the Mediterranean Sea in July 1539 at the walled town of Castelnuovo, which is the location of present-day Herceg Novi, Montenegro. After days of open trench warfare and more than a month of smaller combats, skirmishes, assaults and bombardments from the Turkish navy, the last Spanish defenders fell ending the siege. Castelnuovo 1539 is a wargame that focuses on this siege designed by Francisco Ronco. The defenders are safe behind sturdy walls and battlements but time and continual shelling from the Ottomans will lead to assaults over the walls. The battle is hopeless for the defenders but they can win the game by doing enough damage to the Ottomans to end their campaign and stop them from invading further into the Albania and then onto Spain and the rest of Europe. The game is very well produced using wooden blocks for soldiers, stylized walls, siege trenches and cannon along with ships and the board is also beautifully illustrated. The game is a block wargame where the strength of units are hidden from the opponent and plays pretty quickly in less than 90 minutes and really is a great representation of the battle and its history.

In Action Point 1, we took a look at the beautiful Game Board and its area movement scheme. In this Action Point, we will examine the units available to both sides and compare their relative strengths and weaknesses.

Units

As a block wargame, all of the units in the game are represented by wooden blocks that have stickers affixed to them representing the fighting forces of the Spanish and the Ottomans. There are generally 3 types of units including Infantry, Cavalry and Naval. Infantry is a large category that includes Arquebusiers and Pikemen for the Spanish and Turkish Janissaries and Azab for the Ottomans. Cavalry units are fewer and include Albanian Cavalry for the Spanish and Sipahi for the Ottomans. Each Infantry and Cavalry sticker has a central icon with groups of dots printed on its sides which represent their Combat Strength and the number of dice that each unit will roll in combat. The blocks range in Combat Strength from 2 to 4 dots as not all units have the same Combat Strength. The number of dots oriented at the top of the individual block units represents the current Combat Strength of the unit and can be reduced when entering combat and taking losses. Naval units do not have dots, as they are used in a different way to Infantry and Cavalry units.

All blocks start the game at full Strength and each time a block receives 1 or more hits, it will be rotated counterclockwise so that the top of the block shows the Strength it has remaining. When a Spanish block loses its last Strength Point, it will be removed from the game permanently. The same will happen for Turkish Janissary blocks but for eliminated Ottoman Azab and Sipahi Cavalry units they will be able return to the game at the end of each round during the Reinforcement Phase.

Fleets represent the use of galleys as artillery platforms to support the land forces in their siege and to provide the opportunity to perform some amphibious landing operations with ground troops. The Fleet discs are placed on the board horizontally, unlike the other blocks, and in this way their presence is not hidden from the opponent. Fleet blocks cannot leave the sea areas and count as Artillery Batteries when playing Bombardment and Friendly Fire cards. Once placed, Fleets do not move during the game.

Let’s take a quick look at the statistical makeup of the opposing forces.

In the following table, you will see the number of different types available to each of the combatants. The Ottoman forces have a numerical superiority as they have the most Infantry units with 26, comprising 10 elite Janissaries and 16 Azab. The Spanish have just 21 Infantry, with 10 of those being Arquebusiers and 11 Pikemen. The Ottomans also have the edge in the number of Cavalry units available with 6 Sipahi as compared to just 1 Cavalry unit from the Spanish in the form of a single Albanian Cavalry. The Infantry typically are the backbone of the army and will do most of the fighting and do most of the damage while the Cavalry units will be used to move ahead quickly to seize key areas and set up defenses to allow for the Infantry who have slower movement to catch up. Each side has 2 Fleets and these are vitally important for the Ottomans as this is the means that they can bring onto shore additional units to siege Castelnuovo.

And a look at total Combat Strength for each side. But, first it is important to explain the Combat Strength of each of the units for both sides. The Spanish Arquebusiers have a Combat Strength of 3 as do their Pikemen. This means that these units will roll 3 dice in combat and will be able to take 3 hits before being killed. The Ottoman Janissaries have 4 Combat Strength as do the Azab. When you simply multiply the Combat Strength by the number of blocks of each type you will get their Total Infantry Combat Strength. The Ottoman has a total of 104 Combat Strength spread out amongst their 26 Infantry units and the Spanish have a total of 63 Combat Strength among their 21 Infantry units. This can be used to get a quick idea about which side is better and has more power but this can be deceiving as the Spanish have the walls which can slow down the sieging Ottomans and absorb hits as well. The Ottomans have 49.1% more Infantry Combat Strength than the Spanish with a numerical difference of 41. A fairly significant difference and when coupled with the fact that the Ottomans can bring back killed Azab units where the Spanish Infantry are removed from the game, it is easy to see that the Spanish have the tougher time of it. Also, the Cavalry advantage is on the side of the Ottomans with Sipahi having a Combat Strength of 4 as compared to the Spanish Albanian Cavalry’s Combat Strength of 2. This gives the Ottoman the advantage in Total Cavalry Combat Strength of 24 as compared to just 2 for the Spanish.

I do want to point out that the Spanish have better Leaders and some of their units are considered elite and gain advantage on their combat rolls. The Arquebusiers Blocks have a +1 printed on them as a reminder that they have a +1 bonus to their combat roll and this is a major advantage in combat.

The other difference in combat is a unit’s priority and when they get to roll their attack dice and if hits are scored steps will be removed before lower priority units get to roll. The priority is as follows:

Pikemen go first if enemy Cavalry is present and they are fighting in clear or rough terrain.

Cavalry, if no opposing Pikemen are present and the battle is fought in clear or rough terrain.

Arquebusiers.

All other Infantry will then attack simultaneously.

Cavalry, only if there are opposing Pikemen in clear or rough terrain.

Hits are scored when players roll a modified 5 or 6 result on their 6-sided dice. Remember that Arquebusiers get a +1 to hit, which means they hit on a roll of 4-6, which is a huge advantage. Also remember that there are Leaders and certain Leaders will give a +1 bonus to specific troops that are located in their areas.

Leaders must always have blocks of their side present in their areas on the board but do not count toward the 3-block limit per area. Leaders Agi (Ottoman Janissary Leader) and Sarmiento (Spanish Leader that affects all units with him) grant benefits to the dice rolls of the units they escort. Leaders do not have to accompany specific units and as such can move with any unit in the area they are in, or they can stay there with units other than the ones they originally moved in with. But Leaders must perform the full movement with the units they started moving with as you cannot drop or pick up a Leader during movement. You can move units from where the Leader is without taking the Leader with them, but some units will need to stay behind so the Leader is not alone in the area. If during combat, all blocks accompanying the Leader are eliminated, the Leader is eliminated as well.

Artillery Batteries

Both players have Artillery Batteries at their disposal, which represent vitally important siege pieces used to both defend and attack the city walls. These Artillery Batteries are in the form of red and green cannon meeples (they are very cute) and make a huge impact on the presence of the board as when they are placed they command respect. The Batteries allow players to play cards that fire from a distance and there can never be more than 1 of these Batteries in a single area of the map. The Spanish player’s Artillery Batteries are placed at the beginning of the game and cannot be moved while the Ottoman player can install an Artillery Battery when building Trenches with any cards that allow it. They can also move the Batteries through areas connected by Trenches using those same cards.

In Castelnuovo 1539, the Spanish and Ottoman fighting forces are deeply asymmetrical. The Spanish field a small, fixed and irreplaceable garrison of elite veteran Tercios focused on defense and repairing fortifications, whereas the Ottomans possess an overwhelming, recyclable horde of Azabs, Sipahi Cavalry, and Janissaries arriving by land and sea. You will feel the asymmetry in the game and I think that it is really very well done by the designer to represent this very difficult siege from history.

We published an interview on the blog with the game’s designer Francisco Ronco and you can read that at the following link: https://theplayersaid.com/2025/06/06/interview-with-francisco-ronco-designer-of-castelnuovo-1539-from-draco-ideas-coming-to-kickstarter-june-17th/

In Action Point 3, we will take a look at the different types of Command Cards and discuss how they are used.

-Grant

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

Card #88: National American Woman Suffrage Association from Votes for Women from Fort Circle Games

Votes for Women is a very interesting card-driven game that covers the American Women’s Suffrage Movement from 1848-1920, culminating in the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment which granted women the right to vote. The game is a 2-player game, that has a fully developed solitaire mode with an “Oppobot” and offers a cooperative mode for those who don’t wish to play as they Opposition. The Suffragist player will have to push Congress to propose the Nineteenth Amendment, and then focus on campaigning to have a minimum of 36 states to ratify the Amendment. The Opposition side will try to prevent Congress from proposing the amendment and failing that to have 13 states reject the amendment.

The game uses cards in a fairly traditional CDG way as there are events that can be be taken or the cards can be played to do things like Campaign, Organize or Lobby Congress. Each card has a specific Card Era that is used to create of the each players’ Draw Decks. Late cards will be on the bottom of the deck, Middle cards will be in the middle of the deck and Early cards will be on the top of the deck. The Suffragist and Opposition decks each have one Start card that will be placed in the player’s hand at the start of the game. Some Event Cards have a prerequisite and some of the cards require a player to roll a 6-sided die and only take the the action on a roll of 3-6. Otherwise, the Event Card is discarded with no effect. The cards in this game are also steeped in historical details, from the name of the events that tie back to specific individuals or happenings, to major moments in the struggle. This game is about the history of the struggle for the right to vote and it is very good!

One of the more interesting aspects about the mechanics of the game is the use of Campaigners to go about trying to influence the attitude of the people and legislators regarding the Nineteenth Amendment through the Campaign Action. When a card is played for a Campaign Action, the player rolls a die, either a 6-sided or 8-sided die depending on what cards have been activated, for each Campaigner they have in play. The player then gets to take the dice and their results, which range from 1-8, and assign a specific die to each of their Campaigners. Each Campaigner may then place the corresponding number of cubes, matching the Campaigner’s color, in the States within the region that the Campaigner is located in. The player may spend a Button to move the Campaigner to a different region, but all of the corresponding cubes must be put into the same region. This is a great way to get a lot of influence out on the board to begin taking control of various States for the final vote in the game. This also is a very efficient way of doing this as you will be rolling 2-3 dice for your Campaigners and then spamming the States. With that in mind, today’s card is the National American Woman Suffrage Association and it provides the Suffragist player with a new Campaigner (purple) to place out specifically into the Atlantic & Appalachia Region that includes the States of Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland and Delaware. The card also grants the Suffragist player with 3 Buttons that can be used as described above to relocate a Campaigner from one state to another. This card is very helpful and should be played for the Event 9 times out of 10 and will make a huge difference in the outcome of the game. Once a 2nd or 3rd Campaigner is deployed, I tend to take Campaign Actions rather than some of the less intensive placement options or Events.

The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was an organization formed on February 18, 1890, to advocate in favor of women’s suffrage in the United States. It was created by the merger of two existing organizations, the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). Its membership, which was about 7,000 at the time it was formed, eventually increased to 2 million, making it the largest voluntary organization in the nation. It played a pivotal role in the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which in 1920 guaranteed women’s right to vote.

Susan B. Anthony, a long-time leader in the suffrage movement, was the dominant figure in the newly formed NAWSA. Carrie Chapman Catt, who became president after Anthony retired in 1900, implemented a strategy of recruiting wealthy members of the rapidly growing women’s club movement, whose time, money and experience could help build the suffrage movement. Anna Howard Shaw’s term in office, which began in 1904, saw strong growth in the organization’s membership and public approval.

After the Senate decisively rejected the proposed women’s suffrage amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1887, the suffrage movement had concentrated most of its efforts on state suffrage campaigns. In 1910 Alice Paul joined the NAWSA and played a major role in reviving interest in the national amendment. After continuing conflicts with the NAWSA leadership over tactics, Paul created a rival organization, the National Woman’s Party.

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

We also published an interview on the blog with the designer Tory Brown and you can read that at the following link: https://theplayersaid.com/2020/09/07/interview-with-tory-brown-designer-of-votes-for-women-from-fort-circle-games-currently-on-kickstarter/

In the next entry in this series, we will take a look at Frederick Douglas from For the People 25th Anniversary Edition from GMT Games.

-Grant

So schreibt sich Spielegeschichte: Auf dem SpieleWahnsinn 2026 in Herne kennengelernt und in entspannter Viererrunde als Bestie knapp verloren, weil ich dann doch zu übermütig war und meine geheime Identität als Raubtier vorzeitig enttarnt wurde. Eine interessante Erfahrung, die sich allerdings im viel besuchten Gerne der Hidden-Movement-Spiel abspielt, von denen ich schon eine ganze Menge besitze. Trotzdem ist La Bête ausreichend anders.

Alles neu? Keineswegs, denn La Bête wurde schon 2023 auf der BerlinCon in lokalisierter Version als „La Bête – Die Bestie“ von Multivers vorgestellt. In Frankreich gab es das Hidden-Movement-Spiel vom Autor Charlec Couronnaud schon ein Jahr länger. Inzwischen ist es wieder auf Deutsch verfügbar und befindet sich nun im Vertrieb von Koalla Spiele. Die sind mit ihrem Geheimtipp Kauri desselben Autors auf der Empfehlungsliste zum Kennerspiel des Jahres 2025 gelandet. Auf dem diesjährigen SpieleWahnsinn in Herne am ersten Maiwochende ergab sich durch einen freien Tisch für meine Spielrunde und mich die Gelegenheit, „La Bête – Die Bestie“ vor Ort kennenzulernen. Wie das alles im Jahr 1764 eine Geschichte ergibt, die wir in weitergedachter Scotland-Yard-Manier gemeinsam gegen die Bestie spielen, erfahrt Ihr im Audiomitschnitt direkt vom Koalla Spiele Messestand – reingelauscht:

„La Bête – Die Bestie“ bietet als Blickfang eine schön atmosphärische Optik mit auffälligen Holzfiguren und wuchtigen Identitätsscheiben. Genau diese wurde mir auch zum Verhängnis, denn wenn der passende Ermittler meine wahre Identität herausfinden kann, dann habe ich als gejagte Bestie verloren. Dabei wollte ich doch nur ein paar Dorfbewohner von ihrem elendigen Leben erlösen. In Gestalt des vorab gewählten Raubtiers wähnte ich mich recht sicher und dieser Übermut wurde mir schließlich zum Verhängnis, als sich die Ermittlerschlinge enger zog. Dabei hätte ich auch gut und gerne das Wolfsrudel, der Graf, der Teufel oder alternativ der Landstreicher sein können. Nur alleine meine Position aufzusuchen, die ich Runde für Runde sowieso offenbaren muss, reicht für die Ermittler nicht aus. Stattdessen müssen die mich innerhalb von drei Spieljahren mit jeweils vier Jahreszeit-Runden davon abhalten, meine 25 Opfer zu töten oder eben meine geheime Identität zu entlarven. Dabei stochern die Ermittler wie genreüblich ein wenig im Nebel herum und werden allzu gerne von der Bestie in Bluff-Situationen gelockt.

Mir hat die Spielpartie gefallen. „La Bête – Die Bestie“ auf Seiten der titelgebenden Bestie Spaß gemacht, weil ich wissend statt deduzierend agieren konnte. Zudem fand ich es äußerst amüsant, den wilden Spekulationen der lieben Ermittler zu lauschen. Die lagen erstaunlich oft richtig, nur um sich dann doch für eine alternative Vorgehensweise zu entscheiden. Während sich die bis zu vier Ermittler gemeinsam offen absprechen und sich so auch gegenseitig bei Regelfragen helfen können, spielt es sich auf der Gegenseite der Bestie doch recht einsam. Deshalb solltet Ihr in dieser Position auch das Regelwerk ausreichend verinnerlicht haben, denn unklare Regeldetails oder gar falsche Spielzüge behindern bis zerstören die Spielpartie. Die dauert auch nur rund 60 Minuten, sofern das Ermittlerteam nicht immer alles bis ins letzte Detail durchdenken möchte. Wer eine gute Mischung aus Fury of Dracula in kürzerer Form und Scotland Yard mit moderneren Spielmechanismen und einem atmosphärischen Thema sucht, der kann sich hier bei „La Bête – Die Bestie“ richtig fühlen.

Wenn Ihr allerdings wie ich die Hidden-Movement-Spiele Die Akte Whitechapel, Der Whitehall Mord, Mind MGMT, Nuns on the run, Terrorscape und 1ers Contacts im Spieleschrank stehen habt, dann stellt sich die Frage, ob „La Bête – Die Bestie“ ausreichend anders ist. Vom Grundprinzip durchaus vergleichbar, aber besonders durch den thematischen Hintergrund und die Nutzung der verschiedenen Identitäten mit ihren Sondereigenschaften eine Bereicherung für das Genre. Wenn Ihr Euch somit am Genre noch nicht satt gespielt oder weiterhin dort Euer Lieblingsspiel noch nicht gefunden habt, dann ist diese Bestie durchaus eine Anspielpartie wert.

It’s Women’s Day! A great opportunity to look pair a book and a game on the American women’s suffrage struggle: The Woman’s Hour (Elaine Weiss) and Votes for Women (Tory Brown, Fort Circle).

Check out my previous Book & Game posts here:

Eastern Front: Russia’s War and No Retreat! The Russian Front

Reformation Era: Four Princes and Here I Stand

The Second Hundred Years’ War: The Rise of the Great Powers 1648—1815 and Imperial Struggle

Prussia in the Seven Years’ War: Frederick the Great. A Military Life and Friedrich

The Book & Game

The Woman’s Hour was published in 2018 by Viking Press. It focuses on the campaigns for and against Tennessee to ratify the 19^th Amendment which enshrined women’s suffrage in the US constitution – as the 36^th, and decisive, state to do so.

Votes for Women was published in 2022. It is Tory Brown’s first published board game. The card-driven game can be played in a solo or cooperative mode with the player(s) representing the American suffrage movement from 1848 to 1920 against an automated opposition, or with two to four players facing off against each other (half of them for, the other against women’s suffrage). In either case, the suffrage players must win 36 states (either by shoring them up decisively during the game, or in the final vote on ratification of the federal amendment) to win.

Connections & Conclusions

At first look, book and game seem to have very different scopes. After all, Votes for Women sets in with the Seneca Falls Convention (at which women’s suffrage was first voiced as a political demand in the United States) in 1848 and covers the following 72 years, whereas The Woman’s Hour begins with the arrival of activists Carrie Chapman Catt, Sue White, and Josephine Pearson at the Nashville station in the sweltering summer of 1920. Yet as the narrative progresses, background stories are woven into the tapestry – on the context of the 1920 presidential election, suffragists’ previous efforts to gain voting rights for women in the states and to lobby for a federal amendment, the women’s suffrage movement’s relationship with abolitionism, and all the way back to Seneca Falls (and a little bit of Abigail Adams’s “Remember the Ladies”). If you have played Votes for Women, you will recognize many of the people and events on the cards from the early and middle periods of the game when reading The Woman’s Hour.

What unites book and game is their focus on procedural politics. Historical change does not simply happen, nor is momentarily decided upon. Instead, it is brought into effect by the “strong, slow drilling into hardwood boards with passion as well as sound judgment” (Max Weber). The drills used come in both cases from the toolbox of political activism:

The Woman’s Hour details how suffragists (suffs) and anti-suffragists (antis) lobbied the Tennessee lawmakers, how they organized in associations and clubs to channel their activists’ time, funds, and energy, and, of course, how they campaigned for public opinion to win the hearts and minds of the American people with newspaper articles, public speeches, great processions, and all kinds of civil disobedience.

Votes for Women makes these the three actions from which the players choose on a given turn: Lobbying (for and against the 19^th Amendment in Congress), organizing (to gain the crucial buttons which are the currency for some powerful in-game effects and die re-rolls), and campaigning (which spreads influence cubes and thus eventually decides if enough states come out in favor of ratification of the 19^th Amendment or not).

As we’ve mentioned civil disobedience already: The women’s suffrage movement was no monolithic bloc. One of the great dividing lines was that of styles: The more conventional part of the movement, organized in the late 19^th and early 20^th century in the National American Women’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA) led by Carrie Chapman Catt, paid close attention to appear as respectable as possible (knowing full well that their demand for equal suffrage was enough of a provocation to the male public opinion of the time). Others adopted a more radical style, inspired by the British suffragettes: The Women’s Party, led by Alice Paul (and represented in Tennessee by Sue White) referred to the president as “Kaiser Wilson” in reference to the German war enemy, burned him in effigy, and (successfully) provoked the police into arresting activists over minor infractions. The dainty young women and respectable matrons who served some prison time then embodied the injustice of depriving women of their vote.

The Woman’s Hour details these fractions within the movement, as NAWSA and the Women’s Party led entirely separate campaigns for Tennessee’s ratification of the 19^th Amendment. While infighting was avoided, the reader is left to wonder if the movement could have been more effective if not for these parallel structures – or if the split between a more moderate and a more radical wing was able to compel a broader spectrum of audiences by working in parallel.

Votes for Women depicts the multifaceted character of the women’s suffrage movement by splitting the suffragist player into campaigner figures and influence of cubes of two colors (yellow/gold, the traditional color of the American women’s suffrage movement, and purple, a color which Alice Paul had coopted from the British suffrage movement). As several Opposition event cards target the highest concentration of one or the other color, the Suffragist player is well-advised to aim for an even spread of colors in the individual states.

Votes for Women also tackles another split in the women’s suffrage movement which is outside the scope of The Woman’s Hour – that on strategy. After the initial push for women’s suffrage as a part of a great campaign for equal suffrage regardless of sex and race had failed in the aftermath of the Civil War, the suffragists disagreed on how to proceed: Some pushed for a federal amendment to the Constitution (like the 15^th Amendment had codified the voting rights of black men), others wanted to win voting rights in the individual states first. While the struggle for women’s voting rights was eventually won with the ratification of the 19^th Amendment in Tennessee, the voting rights advances in the individual states had laid the groundwork: Wyoming had established women’s suffrage as early as 1869, Montana sent Jeannette Rankin as the first woman to Capitol Hill, and by 1917, women in 19 states – mostly in the West and Midwest – had won the right to vote (sometimes only in a limited fashion, like voting in local elections).

Votes for Women’s stance is that it needs both – after all, the game is lost for the suffragist player if their lobbying fails to get the federal amendment through Congress, but to win, they need the strength amassed in dozens of local campaigns to have the amendment ratified in enough states. The game, however, makes a statement about timing: While it is possible for the suffragist to have Congress pass the 19^th Amendment in the mid-game already, that is a decidedly risky strategy which gives the Opposition a lot of opportunity to snatch individual states and rack up the necessary 13 rejections which mean the failure of the amendment. The ideal move for the suffragist is to build up the strength in the states as much as possible before pushing Congress into action as late as possible. While that is not without its risks (Opposition can still try to throw wrenches in the wheels of congressional action), it spreads them more evenly between federal and local action.

As mentioned above, equal suffrage spread from the American West and Midwest. It had a much harder time in the Northeast and in southern states – like Tennessee. The southern states were not only more conservative in general, suffragists also faced specific obstacles there: Many southern whites remained committed to the cause of white supremacy after the defeat of the Confederacy in the Civil War. Enfranchising women would give the right to vote to black as well as white women, and in the mind of the white supremacists, white women would be much less likely to actually exercise it (be it because they, as “proper” women, would rely on their men to represent them, or because they would not go to a polling station where they might meet with Black Americans). Others, while generally in favor of women’s suffrage, resented the method: After the Civil War, the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th Amendments had enshrined certain rights (including male voting) for Black Americans in the Constitution. Federal amendments were thus unpopular with many southern whites.

As The Woman’s Hour details, this provided for a lot of traction for the anti movement in Tennessee. Activists like Nina Pinckard and Josephine Pearson railed against carpet-bagging outsiders swooping down from the North to meddle with Tennessee’s affairs, warned of impending “negro domination”, and appealed to the chivalry of southern men to rescue their women from being thrown into the dirty cesspit of politics. That they themselves were knee-deep in that cesspit – after all, they were political activists! – bothered them as much as modern-day “tradwives” are bothered by the fact that their plea for women to be submissive to and dependent on their men is at odds with their often successful social media enterprises.

Inherent contradictions aside, the antis’ arguments needed to be countered by the suffs. Many of the white suffragists were willing to make rhetorical or substantial compromises: One of NAWSA’s most-cited statistics in the Tennessee campaign was that the number of white women in the south exceeded that of black men and women combined. Enfranchising women, so the more-or-less subtle subtext, would thus not threaten white supremacy – it might even strengthen it. In the end, the tacit agreement was like that found after the Reconstruction amendments designed to protect Black Americans’ rights in the South: The women’s suffrage amendment made its way into the constitution. Yet voting rights were overseen by the individual states, and federal institutions looked the other way about the blatant disenfranchisement of black voters in the South until the Voting Rights Act almost half a century later.

Neither The Woman’s Hour nor Votes for Women shies away from this uncomfortable part of the women’s suffrage movement: The protagonists of the movement are not portrayed as infallible saints in the book. While they held wildly progressive views for their time on women’s suffrage, their stances on issues of race and class were often more in keeping with those of their contemporaries. They also made tactical mistakes, like Carrie Chapman Catt railing against outsiders trying to influence Tennessee – a charge that was immediately turned against her, a Northerner herself, and restricted her visibility for the remainder of the campaign. And most of them were willing to make compromises for the cause of women’s suffrage – sometimes with themselves (Carrie Chapman Catt supported the US effort in World War I against her pacifist convictions lest the women’s suffrage movement be branded unpatriotic), and sometimes at the expense of others. In short, they were human.

Would the 19^th Amendment have passed in Tennessee if the suffragists had been less willing to assuage the fears of southern whites about “black domination”? – Probably not – maybe another state could have become the decisive 36^th then, but all likely options had been exhausted before.  Did the Black Americans in the South, men and women, suffer from the continued disenfranchisement after 1920? – Undoubtedly.

Suffragist players in Votes for Women face the same strategic and ethical question (of course, with infinitely lower stakes): One of the most powerful cards in the game is The Southern Strategy which places an immense amount of suffragist influence in the South (representing the union between suffragists and white supremacists). It does open the suffragist for some counter-plays from the opposition, though. Savvy suffragist players might hold the card from turn to turn to play it as late as possible, as an uncounterable stratagem in the final struggle for women’s suffrage. Victories won that way have an odd aftertaste, I assure you.

Since Votes for Women has been released, it’s been in the top 5 of games I have played most often. And while I rarely re-read books, especially non-fiction (because there are always intriguing new books to read), I have come back to The Woman’s Hour and have now both read the physical book and listened to the (excellent) audiobook production. Besides all their worthy exploration and analysis of history, that speaks to both the game and the book being excellently crafted, incredibly engaging pinnacles of their respective medium.