Battle for Moscow - A Wargame Review

This is a review from a series of articles I am writing about my foray into wargaming. The introduction to these articles, with a bit of background, can be found: here.

My previous review in this series looked at Strike Force One, a very basic introduction to some of the main ideas found in hex and counter wargames. I enjoyed playing it, and it piqued my interest, but after playing it several times I was interested in tackling something with a bit more depth. Luckily I found just that in Victory Point Games’ printing of Battle for Moscow.

Battle for Moscow is a small, beginning level hex and counter wargame that simulates the Battle of Moscow during the start of World War II.  Battle for Moscow takes the ideas introduced in Strike Force One (zone of control, retreat paths, combat tables, etc..) and builds upon them to deliver a deeper play experience. Due to this added complexity, and the actual historical setting of the game, it feels much less abstract than Strike Force One, and stands on its own as a game that can be replayed multiple times, while remaining enjoyable.

Components:

Battle for Moscow comes packaged in a plastic bag, with 40 full color double sided counters, a foldout cardstock map, and cardstock turn tracker/player aid. The 4 page rule booklet is concise, but informative, and the full color illustrations do a good job in describing the different movement and attack scenarios that the player will encounter. A welcome bonus for the new wargamer is the BATTLESSON sheet that goes into some detail about the wargaming hobby.

All of the components have a matte finish, and have been handcrafted using high end desktop publishing equipment, so the artwork on the map, counters, and in the manual is vivid and readable. The only complaint I have with the components is the fact that the handmade nature of the counters can cause the front and back of the counters to be slightly misaligned. This is purely a cosmetic concern, however, and doesn’t affect actual gameplay at all. Victory Point Games is looking into upgrading the equipment they use to create die-cut components, which should alleviate this issue in new games manufactured after spring of 2012.

Setup:

Setup in Battle for Moscow is fairly easy: players place their pieces on the indicated hexes of the game board. Each unit in Battle for Moscow is double sided. This is one of the new concepts introduced in the game. Both sides of the unit counter have numbers printed on them, representing the unit’s movement allocation and strength of the unit. One side shows the unit’s full strength capability, while the other displays the unit’s half-strength capability.  During gameplay, a unit can be damaged, but not completely destroyed; and likewise, reinforcements can be brought in to bring a half-strength unit back to full strength.

Setup for the Russian player is a breeze. He just places all of his units in the indicated hexes, with the half-strength side facing up. All of the Russian units have the same statistics, so it doesn’t matter where they are placed. The German player however, has to give some more thought to his setup process. The German player’s units are all brought in at full strength, but he has two different types of units – armored units, and infantry. Even within these two different types, units have different strength and movement stats, so initial placement for the German player can have huge implications during the game.

When a player is first introduced to the game as the Russians, looking at the initial setup can be intimidating. The German player has many more units on the board, and they are all at full strength, while the entirety of the Russian army is at half strength. This is a bit deceiving, because due to reinforcement rules, and geographic factors, the Russian player actually has a bit of an advantage. I must meekly admit that I have yet to win a game as the Germans, although I have come very close a couple of times.

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This is who I am...

Potion Making: Practice - An Alchemical Review

While Russia might not be well known for producing games, it can’t be denied that the country has had a huge impact on gaming in general, through the creation of a single game. During the time of the former Soviet Union, a computer game was created in Moscow that would forever change the face of gaming, making ripples in the world of video games, and board games alike. The computer game, originally programmed on the Soviet made Elekronika 60 minicomputer by computer engineer Alexey Pajitnov, was called Tetris.

Even though Tetris was released on computers and consoles in the mid 1980’s, its influence can be found even to this day in modern board games: from Knizia’s geometric manipulation game Fits, to David Sirlin’s Puzzle Bobble inspired deck builder, Puzzle Strike. It was due to this influential history, that I was very interested to see how the gaming landscape was developing in Russia, and if there were more hidden gems being cultivated there.

Russian publisher RightGames, has been making games for the Russian market for several years now, but has recently chosen to print a handful of its more successful games in English, and selling them directly to the English speaking market through their website www.russianboardgames.com. As of now, RightGames has translated four titles into English - Potion Making: Practice, Evolution, The Kingdoms of Crusaders, and The Enigma of Leonardo. Of this collection, the title that jumped out at me first, and that I am going to review here, is the alchemy themed card game Potion-Making: Practice, designed by Sergey Machin.

In Potion Making: Practice, players are compete to retrieve cards from a common stock, which they use to complete alchemical recipes. Players not only make the potions alluded to in the game’s title, but also talismans, powders, and a handful of mythological creatures. These different items are created by combining simple elements, or sometimes, more complex potions and powders that have been created during the game. After all of the cards have been played, the player with the most points is declared the winner.

Components:

Potion Making: Practice is beautifully illustrated. The choice of colors, layout, and illustrations on the cards make for a wonderfully thematic experience. The whole package offers a medieval alchemy theme, and the subject matter might evoke thoughts of current fantasy literature like Harry Potter. But, with the choice of vivid colors and combinations in the potions and illustrations, players could just as easily place themselves in the position of a wandering Romany (Gypsy), mixing love potions, and crafting secret magick trinkets during his travels.

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Strike Force One - A Wargame Review.

This is a review from a series of articles I am writing about my foray into wargaming. The introduction to these articles, with a bit of background can be found: here.

The first game that I played was Strike Force One, Designed by Jim Dunnigan and Redmond A. Simonsen. “Strike Force One” was originally published in 1975, and designed as a very basic introduction to wargames. It was rebublished, and given a graphical facelift, in 2007 by Victory Point Games, as the first of their BATTLESSON line of games. Victory Point Games' BATTLESSON line is their beginner, teaching line of games that work to teach the basic mechanics found in wargames, and give the player some initial strategy to get them started.

Components:

Like all of Victory Point Games' offerings, Strike Force One comes packaged in a plastic baggie, with components printed on a high end desktop publishing setup. This process delivers colorful, clean components that serve their function nicely. The printed components sport a matte finish, so they don't have the glossy look of other games that use an offset printing process; although, in some ways this can be a boon, as overhead lights won't cast a glare across the pieces during play.

Strike Force One comes with a small, thick cardstock map; a set of 12 die-cut cardboard counters; some charts to determine combat results; and various printed booklets describing the basic and advanced rules, as well as a very insightful, illustrated playthorugh of a typical game. This playthrough is accompanied with commentary to explain the rationale behind each move, and better familiarize the player with the strategies and tactics required to play. All of the components are full color, but have a simple and direct art style.

The Game:

It is important to remember that Strike Force One, first and foremost, serves as a game to introduce the basic mechanics of wargames to new players. The basic game plays with 10 units, on a 9x8 hex based map. The game takes place during a fictional encounter between the United states and the Soviet Union in West Germany during the mid 1970's. One player assumes the role of the United States, defending the cities pictured on the map, while the other player controls the Soviets, attempting to sieze control of at least two of the cities. The game consists of only 4 rounds, so each game only takes 15 minutes or so, but the simplicity of the game allows players to focus on the core mechanics that the game teaches. There are two distinct games in the Strike Force One package, the basic game, and the advanced game, and each one of these games focuses on teaching a distinct toolset.

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Greeting, Professor Faulken - My Experiences with Wargames.

 As I've mentioned before in my reviews and editorials, I tend to be a regular fixture at thrift stores. Throughout the years I have found and collected a small pile of unpunched wargames. These have remained unpunched all of these years despite a definite curiosity on my part to learn what has driven such a passionate segment of the gaming hobby for so many decades. However, whenever I open up one of these large-scale games, and entertain the idea of playing one, I get roughly one third of the way through the rulebook before my brain begins to shut down.

I'm not exactly sure why this happens; I enjoy many complex games, and usually have no problem embracing new rulesets. Perhaps it is because wargames have a storied history, and just like eurogames have a vocabulary of mechanics that are intrinsically understood by the players of that genre. Where Euros have understood mechanics such as worker placement and hidden role selection, wargames also have their own set of mechanics and ideas; concepts like: zone of control, stacking, and supply lines. Without really understanding how these these mechanics worked and interacted with each other, I had a hard time visualizing how the game would play out, especially when confronting them all at the same time, and I found myself a bit intimidated.

Recently, I decided to take the plunge, and really learn what wargaming is all about. Alan Emrich of Victory Point Games was very gracious to facilitate this process by selecting a few games for me that he thought a beginner should start out with. I hope to chronicle my exploration of wargaming through a series of game reviews of these titles. My reviews will be from the viewpoint of a total wargame beginner, so may not have the depth of experience found in a similar review from a hardened grognard, but since these games are meant to serve as an introduction to the genre, I hope that my experiences will resonate with others in my position.

I am also bringing along for the ride, my 15 year old daughter - who, at first, was abject with the thought of having to play with armies and tanks. She is definitely not a stranger to complex strategy games, and can mow through heavy hitting euros like Dominant Species. But, she is new to wargames, and has the unique perspective of someone who really doesn't think that she will find anything interesting in the genre. Although, I was very surprised at the direction her opinion turned when we began to play these games.

As of this writing I have played a few of the games, and I am really starting to understand why people enjoy this genre of games. I consider myself to be very open minded, and try very hard not to generate any preconceived bias in my thought process, but I was surprised at how much I really misunderstood about wargames. I lived my childhood as a boy growing up in the 80's, and as a result, my view of games was strongly molded by the “Ameritrash” games of that era. Often military in nature, and usually requiring a handful of dice, the typical "Ameritrash" didn't have a whole lot of deep strategy in it, instead focusing on a more narrative, luck based experience. I had assumed that because wargames consisted of dice, and strive to simulate the events that occurred during historic battles, that they would share this “dicefest” type of randomness. I was very wrong in this assumption, and wonder how many others like me may share this misconception.

What I discovered was that the dice in the hex and counter type wargames that I played did not generate a random experience, but instead were used to add a very limited about of randomness to the game - more of a vehicle to simulate calculated risk. This risk, and uncertainty played a huge part in driving strategic decisions. Like the WOPR computer from the movie Wargames surmised when playing simulations of Global Thermonuclear War, “The only winning move is not to play”; it is often strategically critical to hold off on even making an attack roll unless you are assured that any number to come up on the die will either further your strategy, or at worst, result in a draw. This completely changed my understanding of how dice could be used to simulate randomness in games - in a limited, controlled manner that did not detract from the strategy of the games.

Over the next few weeks I will post my reviews and musings about the games I have played, starting with the 2007 Victory Point Games reprint of the 1975 tutorial game Strike Force One.

Jump to an article in the series:

Strike Force One Review

Battle For Moscow Review

Paul Koenig's Market Garden: Arnhem Bridge Review