2010 game purchases in review

I bought an unusually large number of new games in 2010 -- at least a baker's dozen -- and even more unusually, I played the majority of them! This is a welcome change from years past when i had high levels of purchases that didn;t make it to the table. Its been my experience that a game that doesn't make it to the table the first year I have it rarely make it later on.

In alphabetical order here are the complete new games I bought in 2010:

Arnhem: The Farthest Bridge - 0 plays. This is part of the new series of folio games published by Decision Games that are basically remakes of old SPI classics. The maneuver unit order of battle and map are identical to the old 1975 SPI Arnhem game, but there's a new game system with some significant rules changes. I bought this one in order to get a sense as to whether these represent enough of an improvement over the old game to warrant a purchase. I picked this one because I have more than a hundred Hexwar.com games under my belt using the old game for comparison. I like how some of the new rules look but final evaluation depends on getting this rather old-school hex-and-counter game played.

Axis & Allies Europe 1940 - 3 plays. I've only played this in conjucntion with last year's A&A Pacific 1940 as part of the epic Global A&A 1940 scenario but I've had a blast. I think the global game is big enough to mitigate some of the gamier aspects of the A&A system and yet simple enough to be a viable gateway, club, convention and game store experience. I expect more plays in 2011.

Battle Above the Clouds - 0 plays. This is the latest interation of the Great Campaigns of the American Civil War series, moving to the Western theater. I'm not entirely sure I like the new graphics, but until I get a chance to play it I can't be sure. This game was gifted to me by the widow of my good friend Mark Perry who died late last year. He had pre-ordered this game and when it arrived his wife decidedto give it to me rather than send it back. I do hope I getthe chance to play this one this year.

Battle Cry 150th Anniversary Edition - 6 plays. This update of the original Commands & Colors system game is one of my favorites for the year. I think it hits a sweet spot for gaming with newer and more casual wargamers and is an excellent intorduction to the system. This will undoubtedly hit the table a lot over this coming year as we start moving into the 150th anniversary era.

Battles of Napoleon: The Eagle and the Lion - 2 plays. This is one of the interesting trio of Napoleonic battle games that game out this year. It's probably the most involved of the bunch and has a real miniatures feel to it. I expect to get more plays in with this one over the coming year, although probably not qite as much as Napoleon's War and Commands & Colors; Napoleonics due to the lengthier playing time.

Commands & Colors: Napoleonics - 4 plays. This highly anticipated Borg title was well worth the wait. There are a lot of interesting twists to the system and it's a blast to play. The rules for squares in particular are interesting. Guaranteed to see more plays this year.

Cthulhu Dice - 0 plays. This trivial filler game surprisingly hasn't hit the table yet because thematically it's a little problematical for family play or with some of the more casual game groups I play with. I do expect to get a play or two in but it probably won't be played as much as it might have with a less grim theme.

Fires of Midway - 0 plays. I'm also surprised I haven't gotten this played yet. The stars just haven't aligned right, I guess, although that would probably be a more appropriate excuse for Cthulhu Dice. Still, it's one of my favorite topics and seems fairly quick to play, so I think it will get played before too long.

Gettysburg - 4 plays. This might be the surprise hit of 2010, getting played four times on three different sessions. It's slightly more approachable than Martin Wallace's Waterloo, which is similar. I expect to play this again this year as well.

Heroscape Master Set - Battle for the Underdark - 5 plays. It's hard to believe, but Heroscape started off the year with a new master set, pumped out three new Dungeons & Dragons-themed expansions -- and then died! It's too bad, but there's enough Heroscape stuff in my closet to keep me busy for years, the D&D foray added some interesting new rules (treasure glyphs, shadow spaces and Uncommon Heros) and I'm not even convinced that Heroscape is gone for good.

King Philip's War - 2 plays. This game prompted an unusual amount of mainstream press attention for a standard wargame when a newspaper journalist ginned up a little controversy about the game's topic among New England Indian tribes. The game itself is a nice little design with some interesting strategic decisions for players and opening a window to view an important, if obscure, episode in U.S. history. I hope to play it a few more times this year as there are some strategic lines I'd like to explore.

Napoleon's War - The 100 Days - 5 plays. The first out of the gate among the 2010 crop of Napoleonic battle games, this one builds off the popular system used in Hold the Line and the Wars for America series. Similar in scale and playing time to C&C: N, it will be interesting to see if it can hold its own now that the Borg game is out. It does have an advantage in set-up time over CC:N with the pre-printed maps and some find Borg's card-based section-restricted command system too artificial. I expect to get some more plays of this in as well, although I have to admit that CC:N has the edge with me.

Persian Incursion - 0 plays. By far the most serious wargame I bought in 2010. Persian Incursion examines the possibility of an Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear program. This arrived late in the year but I'm trying to get a couple of plays in soon. While a stand-alone game that doesn't require Harpoon 4 to play, it's still pretty involved and not just a casual sit-down game.

The drawbacks of victory points

I picked up the new Decision Games Folio Games series title Arnhem: The Farthest Bridge, which is basically a re-implementation of the classic SPI Arnhem quad game.


There are several interesting changes in the rules, but one that caught my eye is the simplified victory conditions. While the old game was decided by victory points, which could be earned by destroying enemy units and, for the Allies, maintaining units north of the Rhine, the new game's victory condition are much more straightforward. "The Allied player wins the game if he can at any time, (even if only momentarily) occupy at least two of the Arnhem hexes (3423, 3523 or 3524) with any Allied non-airborne/non-glider units." It goes on to say that occupying just one is a draw while if they never occupy any then the Germans win.


This is likely to be an improvement because I've long felt that victory-point based victory conditions have been the bane of wargaming. Now, I'd never argue that they should NEVER be used, but I think they've definitely been overused. They tend to muddy the clarity of a game and don't bear much resemblance to how victory is actually measured by historians, historical commanders, the politicians they worked for nor the public's opinion.


Often they're used when the designer can't think of a more elegant way to reflect the historical reason why commander's made the choices they made.


Playtesting in some Gettysburg game shows that USA players don't defend Cemetery Hill often enough? Well, let's make it worth some victory points! That may work, after a fashion, but I'm unaware of any accounts that suggest Major Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock decided to hold Cemetery Hill on the afternoon of July 1, 1863 because he was worried about Lee getting a "victory point" for it.


Most of the time a military operation is directed towards some aim and either that aim is achieved or it isn't and everyone, from civilian to private to general to president judges victory on whether that aim was achieved or not. Occasionally an aim can be achieved at such a heavy cost as to not seem worth it (often called a Pyrrhic Victory) but even here I'd say that some absolute measure is probably better than some victory point system.


Using victory points can distort play down some very strange lines unless the victory point awards are very carefully calibrated, sometimes to the point of rewarding an actual failure. In the old SPI Arnhem game it's possible for the Germans to win the game even if Arnhem Bridge is captured so long as they manage to cut the supply road a couple of turns. While I understand the rationale behind the rule, the fact of the matter is that no temporary blockage of the road (inevitably soon to be cleared) would have mitigated am Allied breakthrough over the bridge.


And likewise. an Allied advance that manages to kill most of the Germans in the area with low Allied losses might eke out some level of "victory" in the SPI edition of the game but if the Germans still hold Arnhem Bridge then the operation was a failure. Losing a few more battalions would have been of small import for a German army that had just lost entire divisions in the breakout from Normandy and subsequent pursuit The Allies lose a lot of points in the SPI version of the game, but really, if they had taken the bridge the destruction of the 1st Airborne would have been considered regrettable, but would not have turned the victory into a defeat.


Like I said, there are situations where VPs are useful, for example, in situations where attrition was the goal , but I prefer to have victory defined more simply. Almost invariably one side or the other is trying to do something and the other side is trying to stop them. If there are secondary factors at play I think it's better to provide some in-game benefit for doing something than simply handing out VPs for it.

Operation Market-Garden came to close this day in 1944

The survivors of the British 1st Airborne Division were rescued on this day (Sept. 26, 1944) 65 years ago.

This operation is generally considerd to mark the end of the end of the battle.



Operation Market-Garden is one of the most controversial battles of World War II. The stakes were high, the valor unmatched and the sides evenly matched. It was really a battle that could have gone either way and is one of the classic situations in wargaming.

It's not one of my personally focused topics. One has to draw the line somewhere and my main battles/campaigns that I follow are Midway, Gettysburg, D-Day, Bulge and Waterloo.

That said I do have quite a few games that touch on the battle. Most tactical WW2 wargame systems have a scenario or two on it like Memoir '44 or Tide of Iron. The TCS game Screaming Eagles in Holland is about one aspect of the battle.

Arnhem on Hexwar.com

Cvering the whole battle is the free introductory wargame Target Arnhem, but by far my most played game on the battle is the old SPI quad game Arnhem which is on Hexwar. It turns out it's one of the most popular games on that subscription PBeM service and it works surprisingly well, especially when played with the optional Fog of War rules. That option provides hidden movement, which aids the Germans considerably. The Hexwar stats don't differentiate between games played with Fog of War and those played without. but I think the majority of Arnhem plays probably use FOW. The Germans have won (as of Sept. 26, 2009) 4,513, the Allies 3,517 and there have been a mere 13 drawn games.

My experience with the game suggests that playing without fog favors the Allies, while adding Fog of War makes it an even contest between experienced players. I think the Hexwar results are skewed considerably because the Allied side has a very steep learning curve. One error and you lose, so many of those losses are part of the learning process. Once a player learns what he must do as the Allied player, then it becomes a very tight and even contest.

Target: Arnhem, the difficult subject

Target: Arnhem is an interesting little game, although some who have played it more than I have suggest it has some balance issues.

The larger problem facing Target: Arnhem and other games on the topic is something I'll call "scriptedness," for lack of a better term.

It's a pretty common problem in wargames, actually, and perhaps inherently so.

"Scriptedness" occurs when a game follows certain well-trodden paths regardless of player decisions. An example is chess openings, in which some clearly defined opening lines tend to dominate play and many potential openings are never used by anyone other than novices. The creative aspects emerge in the middle game as players depart from the openings.

In wargames the openings and even middle and end games can be much more explicitly seen as scripted. Sometimes the rules explicitly require certain activities. It's very common for there to be defined setups and often events such as weather and reinforcement occurs on a set schedule. Usually this straight jacket is defended on historical grounds, although this is also the source of the dilemma.

The actual, historical participants, of course, were unaware of any "script" for their campaign. The impenetrable fog of the future meant they were unaware of the proper lines of play. The fog of war meant they had no way of knowing the enemy OB or reinforcement schedule. Indeed, details of their own OB and reinforcements were often lacking.

A more "realistic" portrayal of the action might give players many options to choose from. The problem here, of course, is that players have the benefit of hindsight and a design would have to include many events that didn't occur and possible paths not taken in order to capture the environment faced by the actual participants.

The rub is player acceptance. A game that departs too dramatically from the historical "script," especially in a well-known battle such as Arnhem, will probably be criticized as unrealistic.

And it very well might be, unless the designer goes to great lengths to depict the reasons why certain decisions were made. For example, in the Arnhem operation, given a choice, player might opt to use one of the American airborne divisions for the Arnhem bridge drop and would probably make sure that drop, of all of them, gets sufficient airlift to be completed in one day.

But there were good political and operational reasons for the historical drop plan and those need to be reflected if any change is allowed. And, of course, the Allies were ignorant of the deployment of the SS units near Arnhem, while the player is not.

Target: Arnhem has a defined set-up for the German forces, but gives the Allies the choice on where to drop their units, although when they are dropped follows the historical schedule. Because it's a simple game, there are no rules that might reflect the nuances behind the historical choices, so it's an open question whether giving the Allies this much choice is appropriate.

It does make Target: Arnhem a bit less scripted than many other games on the topic, although it's still very scripted by most other standards.

Unless players are willing to be more open-minded about the potential lines history could follow, "scriptedness" is likely to continue being a common characteristic in wargames, especially wargames about Market-Garden.

Featured game: Westwall quad Arnhem

The Hexwar.com online game playing service provides a very user-friendly way to play some classic SPI/Decicion Games titles. Every game can be played just as the printed rules specified, which many players prefer.
But quite a few of the games also offer a "Fog of War" option, which causes units located a certain distance away from any enemy units to be invisible to the enemy player.
In many games this has a minor effect. There's not too much scope for hidden movement to effect things in Cemetery Hill, for example.
But sometimes the FOW option can really change the entire nature of the game. One game where this is true is Arnhem, and I believe the Fog of War option is largely responsible for the noticeable German bias for the game. According the Hexwar.com's statistics as of Jan. 27, the Germans have been victorious 3,703 times compared to 2,788 Allied wins.
Now, the Market Garden situation is inherently challenging for the Allies. They did fail in the historical battle and most games on the topic reflect the challenges the Allies faced. But of all the games on the topic, the basic quad game version of Arnhem seems fairly friendly to their cause. The German forces are very badly outnumbered and the map is depicted in such a way that the Allies' critical supply road has a wide buffer zone around it. In comparison, Target Arnhem puts the road within striking distance of flank attackers throughout most of its length.
The total German force totals 61 attack factors of 7-move infantry, 27 attack factors of 10-move armor/mech units, 6 attack factors of 12-move recon and 13 bombardment factors of artillery for a total of 107 factors. The Allied army comprises 68 factors of airborne infantry, 12 factors of airborne artillery, 26 factors of regular infantry, 16 attack factors of armor, 3 factors of engineers and 24 bombardment factors of artillery, for a total of 149 factors. On some turns the Allies also get up to 7 factors of air support.
While both armies suffer somewhat from piecemeal arrival and geographic dispersal, the Germans have it worse because the river lines and presence of Allied forces will prevent them from massing their troops, while the Allies benefit from interior lines. It;s fairly easy for the Allies to mass against the Germans, given prudent play.
The Fog of War option changes this all this. Now it's the Germans who can mass. Unable to be sure where the Germans might be coming from the Allies must spread out to guard the supply road, whereas the Germans can mass their troops to try to cut the road. There's a very big payoff in victory points for cutting the road and doing it a couple of times will probably be enough to win the game for the Germans unless the Allies manage to break through all the way to Arnhem in strength.
Hexwar.com statistics don't break down the Arnhem results between classic and FOW-style play, but based on my experience I think the vast majority of games are played with FOW.
It's an interesting way to play and highly recommended. Despite the imbalance, playing with Fog of War does seem much more authentic for this particular scenario.