Kris Hall: Holes in the Line

There was a time when, if someone mentioned the phrase “war game,” gamers would immediately think of hex-grid maps and cardboard counters.  Avalon Hill and SPI and their smaller brethren thrived for a while by churning out hundreds of games with zones of control and combat results tables.

Nowadays, I can think of at least two major sub-genres of the war game genre, and neither one is necessarily dependent on hex-grid maps or cardboard counters.  I’m talking about card-driven war games and wooden block war games.  Both these sub-genres are currently popular, and show no signs of becoming less so.  In fact, many of the most popular conflicts for war gamers are well-covered by games in these categories.  If you’ve been following my columns over the last few weeks, then you know that there are two different grand-strategic card-driven war games about the American Civil War (For the People, and The Price of Freedom) with yet another on the way (Lincoln’s War).

But today I want to talk about two popular conflicts that are not covered by games in both of these genres, and how surprisingly that is.

I’m not talking about the American Revolution.  There is one block game on this war (Liberty from Columbia Games), but no card-driven war game on this subject currently in print.  But Mark Herman (usually considered to be the founding father of the card-driven war game genre) seems to working on a reprint of We the People (probably to be re-titled Washington’s War), so this hole in the line will be plugged. 

No, I find it odd that no one has yet attempted to design a grand-strategic American Civil War block game.  Most of the block games that Columbia Games has released tend to be operational in scope, and perhaps this has created the impression that the block system works best at the tactical and operational scale.  But Europe Engulfed and Asia Engulfed (from GMT Games) and Columbia’s own series of combinable European theater games should have made it obvious that strategic-level conflicts can become viable block games. 

Columbia Games has produced two semi-strategic Civil War block games—Bobby Lee and Sam Grant—but these are not true simulations of the entire conflict.  I am waiting for a block game with a map that spans America from Baltimore to Texas.  One that uses the block system to create the fog of war that plagued Civil War commanders (and nearly paralyzed McClellan).  I think a moderate complexity block game on this subject has a chance of being quite popular.

The other and even more surprising hole in the line is a lack of a true card-driven grand-strategic game of the European theater of Word War II. 

But wait, you say.  Ted Raicer’s Barbarossa to Berlin is a card-driven game of the war in Europe.  Well, yes.  But it starts in 1941, and deprives players of the some of the early-war options that make playing grand-strategic war games so much fun.  I want the option of trying for Sea Lion right after whacking France.  I’d like the British to have the option to invade Norway.  I’d like all the interesting diplomatic options (German-Spanish alliance) that a card-driven system should be able to handle with reasonable simplicity. 

Totaler Krieg also has a system based on cards, but it is not a card-driven game in the same Hannibal/For the People/Paths of Glory mold that we are used to.  Cards in Totaler Krieg are used more for production purposes than for generating events or operation points. 

I find it quite odd that no one other than Mr. Raicer has tried to design a Mark Herman-style card-driven game on this conflict. 

If anyone out there is thinking of trying, may I make a request for a game of moderate complexity?  We already have a simple game of the war (Axis & Allies Europe) and several games of considerable complexity (Europe Engulfed, Third Reich, Totaler Krieg!), but the middle ground has not been conquered yet.

© 2008 Kris Hall

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TSR’s Europe Enflamed may fit your request for a mid-complexity WWII wargame? I’ve only played it a couple times and it’s long, but it’s not overly complicated.  It actually reminds me of a block game in many respects. Posted by Scott Russell on Apr 25, 2008 at 12:14 PM | #

It’s been a very long time since I’ve played that one, but if memory serves, that game is on the simple side. Posted by Kris Hall on Apr 25, 2008 at 09:28 PM | #

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