Alfred Wallace: Warning!  Wargame Content!

Take a few deep breaths; find a happy place; prepare to explore new horizons—and we can get through this brief foray into wargames together without too much trouble.

One of the games I bought at the WBC was A Victory Lost (AVL), a popular and critically acclaimed new wargame from Multi-Man Publishing.  I’d heard nothing but good things about it, and it was on sale, so I picked it up—and it just so happened that Josh got in touch with me a few days later and asked whether I perchance had a copy of AVL that he could try out?  I naturally said sure and went over that Sunday for a day of fun and bloodshed on the Eastern Front.

Josh had not had much previous experience with wargames: one unimpressive foray with Hammer of the Scots and getting almost all the way through the rules for Panzerblitz many years ago.  Reading through the rules for, and playing around with, A Victory Lost, I thought that it wouldn’t have been my first choice for a first wargame.  The rules aren’t enormous, but they had some peculiarities to them.  The game isn’t huge, but it isn’t small, either; I’d have picked something a little smaller.  Finally, there aren’t many non-wargamers who see a game on the shelf and think “I have got to play a game on the war in the Ukraine in 1942-43.” It’s not an immediately graspable subject, like Waterloo or Normandy or Gettysburg.

Hex-and-counter wargames present certain difficulties for newbies or those used to Euros.  The rules are relatively long, complex, and fiddly.  There are a relatively large number of pieces, which tend to be more complex than the typical wooden cube.  Luck tends to play a much larger role in wargames than in most well-regarded Euros.  This is why I tend to think theme is important; it’s easier to get “invested” in a game if the topic is of particular interest to you.

That said, AVL has become the wargame for non-wargamers as of late.  For its type—a fairly traditional hex-and-counter wargame, with zones of control, a combat results table, and the other trappings of the breed—it is pretty streamlined, with clear graphics and reasonably well-defined roles for the players.

Josh took the Soviets.  There are fewer special rules for the Soviets, and their role in the game is pretty simple: Kill Germans and capture territory.  The Germans, for their part, have a few wrinkles, so I decided (as the more experienced player) to take them myself.

Josh began the operation auspiciously enough, overrunning the very weak Axis allied units—the “Roadblockistans,” as they are sometimes called.  To eliminate a unit in the game, you usually either have to overpower it to a vast degree or encircle it.  The Axis minor allies are usually the only ones really overpowered; by the end of the game, there was a huge pile of eliminated Italian, Romanian, and Hungarian units, and relatively few eliminated Soviet and German units.

I thought I was doing a fine job blunting the assault, but then Josh discovered some poorly-located gaps in my defenses—there are rarely well-located gaps in defensive lines—and rushed through towards his objective cities.  Doing so, however, strung out his lines of communication, and that gave me precious time to realign, which sadly required yet more sacrifices from the Italians, et al.

Eventually I stabilized the front, and—much like history—pushed Josh’s Soviets back out of some of the objectives he had taken.  By this time it was getting kind of late, and we called it there as a marginal German victory.  It took a little longer than I had anticipated, but that was mostly because neither of us had played the game before, and one of us had never played a game like it before.

We closed out the evening with some fillers.  A favorite of mine was Tumblin’ Dice.  I’m on the lookout for interesting dexterity games, and this one does nicely.  One to keep an eye out for.

And, thus, a fine evening of wargaming and whatnot came to a close.  I think we both rather liked A Victory Lost.  Both sides had a very different feel to them, which I always like to see.  I, for one highly recommend the game.  It surpassed my expectations for introducing newbies to wargaming (or at least one newbie), and I quite enjoyed it myself.  As fine a definition of “gateway game” as they come, in my book.

Finally, a brief update on the current Amun-Re game we have going.  The Old Kingdom’s just been scored.  As of this moment, I’m heading into the New Kingdom with two (2) (dos) (1+1) victory points.  Granted, I do have the most money, but not by much.  Almost certainly not enough to make up nine-plus points.  Will our hero break double digits?  Stay tuned!

© 2007 Alfred Wallace

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Comments:

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Good article. AVL is on my list to play, but I still haven’t even got Fire in the Sky to the table. Clark Posted by Clark Rodeffer on Aug 24, 2007 at 08:49 AM | #

I liked AVL but felt it was a little long for what you got out of it. I realistically can’t see it playing in much under 5 hours. I wish they had done something a little bit more interesting with the CRT. That CRT with its A1s and DR2s, losses for only one side ever and no attacker losses at all after 3:1 hasn’t been mainstream since the early 70s and might have been considered quaint in the 80s. I really like what Mark Simonitch has done to spice up fairly standard CRTs in his games (Ardennes ‘44 and Ukraine ‘43) to make them more evocative and interesting. Something, anything, to make AVLs combat results feel a little less dry would have helped, I think. Anyway, this isn’t to say I didn’t like AVL; I did. But much like Fire in the Sky, I just really wish it were a couple hours shorter to play. Posted by Chris Farrell on Aug 24, 2007 at 12:07 PM | #

Well, Chris is right, a couple of hours off that game and I’d have thought it was delightful.  Of course, most of the extra hours came from not only my lack of familiarity with the genre (by the way, it was Panzer Leader, not Blitz!) but primarily from my complete inability to pick up chits without knocking down many others....  Chris also touches on the one real issue I had with the enjoyability factor, which was the really dry CRT.  I think you should be able to buy more dice and if you roll triplets you can set off the family atomics over the Stalingrad Pocket.  I don’t know what Mark Simonitch has done, but I’m glad somebody is doing something. All in all, I am extremely happy that I played it, and it reaffirmed my belief that, for me, these games may not actually need to be played to be enjoyed.  I think I could have gotten nearly as much from reading AVL as from playing it.  Although the company would not have been nearly as enjoyable.... Posted by Josh Adelson on Aug 24, 2007 at 07:08 PM | #

I didn’t mind the CRT for the most part.  I think it did a pretty good job of modeling a fighting withdrawal without messing around with replacement points and what-have-you.  I do wish, however, that there were some way to trade retreats for step losses, or else attacking cities becomes a little too see-saw.  But, then, I have traditionally had a fondness for quaint wargames.  (Up Front, anyone?) I think it should take rather less than five hours.  ‘Course, I prefer to not put any thought into my moves.  It speeds the game up, and provides a handy excuse for why I lost. I dunno what it was, but I could never really grasp Fire in the Sky.  Sure does look nice, though… Josh has an interesting point about reading AVL vs. playing it.  I wonder if two wargamers ever have gotten together to just read rules to each other?  Or maybe a tournament… Posted by Alfred Wallace on Aug 24, 2007 at 07:31 PM | #

You lost?  News to me! Posted by Josh Adelson on Aug 24, 2007 at 08:21 PM | #

I meant that in general, I like to blame my losses on my refusal to think.  (My victories, of course, are the expected result of efficient contemplation.) I do refer to our particular game of AVL as a German victory...sorry for the confusion! Posted by Alfred Wallace on Aug 24, 2007 at 09:54 PM | #

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