Rick Thornquist: Wargames and Hybrids / Thurn und Taxis

Most people don’t know this, but back in my younger days I was quite the wargamer.  I discovered the Avalon Hill game Blitzkrieg when I was a wee lad and went on to a teenage infatuation with wargames.  Many Avalon Hill games were played, including Squad Leader and all of its expansions.  I also played games from SPI and immersed myself in their monster games such as Atlantic Wall and Wellington’s Victory.  I even played a full game of War in Europe (now THAT was a monster)!

When I left my hometown to move to Vancouver I left my wargames behind but the interest in the games stayed with me.

As I got into German games I harkened back to my wargame days and started to reacquire some of the old games.  I tried to get back into them, but grew frustrated with the voluminous rulebooks and long playing times (and lack of opponents wanting to play a complicated multi-hour game).

Fortunately, a few games have surfaced in the past year or two that combine wargames with the shorter playing time and elegant mechanics of German games.  These are being called ‘hybrid’ games and I’m very excited about these games.

Probably my first exposure to a hybrid was the Dirk Henn game Wallenstein.  This is one of my favorite games - a great mix of wargame and German game with a wonderfully novel method of resolving battles - the cube tower.  I still love Wallenstein and am very much looking forward to the game’s sequel - Shogun - that is coming out later this year.

Another superb hybrid is A Game of Thrones: The Boardgame.  A combination of wargame, German game and Diplomacy, it blends the genres into a wonderfully engaging game.  Every time I’ve played it it’s been great.  The first expansion for the game has fixed some of the niggling problems with the base game and there’s another expansion coming soon. 

I recently played Twilight Struggle and thought it was really good hybrid.  It combines a card driven wargame with a German style area control game beautifully.  My only real quibble with the game is the reliance on dice rolling for some things (oh, and the atrocious spelling mistakes on the board).

An aside about dice… Dice rolling is one of those things that German games have been able to get away from, for the most part, and I think that’s a good thing.  Whenever I see a new game where dice are used to resolve something I always roll my eyes.  It’s just been done a million times before - couldn’t the designer have come up with something different?  One of the reasons I was so enamored with Wallenstein and A Game of Thrones: The Boardgame is that they completely dispensed with dice and replaced them with innovative combat resolution mechanisms.  Hopefully we’ll see more hybrid games coming up with innovative ways of resolving combat that get away from typical dice rolling.

But I digress… With the current crop of hybrids, I’m able to scratch my wargame itch while playing games that don’t require encyclopedic rules or days to play.  And that makes me happy.

Games Played
The games I played this week consisted mostly of my booty of new games from the Gathering.  I played Carrousel, Um Krone und Kragen, Thurn und Taxis (four times), Blue Moon City (twice), Zig Zag, Medici, and Memoir ‘44.

Thurn und Taxis
Some games get better the more you play them and for me, Thurn und Taxis is one of those games.  I played it four times this week, including my first two player game, which was very good. 

The first time or two you play this game I think it’s very normal to just concentrate on what you are doing and mostly ignore the other players.  The game reaches a new level when you start looking at what other players are doing.  I’ve played the game probably ten times now and am now getting the hang of some of the subtle strategies.

This game is being discussed as Spiel des Jahres material and I can actually see it.  The game plays very well, isn’t too complicated and it looks good.  I would be shocked if the game wasn’t at least nominated for the award and I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if it won.

That’s it for this week!

© 2006 Rick Thornquist

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Comments:

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My beef isn’t with dice per se, but the random method of combat resolution (with the players unable to adjust to the randomness) that so many wargames use.  Consequently, I don’t see the cube tower in Wallenstein as any kind of improvement over dice.  It’s almost as random and can lead to really wonky results (you might wind up with more forces than you started with!).  A Game of Thrones, however, does combat resolution right, IMO.  Players have considerable control over results, and card effects are limited, so that the superior force usually wins.  There’s a bit of bluff and double-think, but just enough to lend some spice and uncertainty.  That’s the proper way to ditch the dice. Posted by Larry Levy on Apr 25, 2006 at 08:36 AM | #

"An aside about dice… Dice rolling is one of those things that German games have been able to get away from, for the most part, and I think that’s a good thing.  Whenever I see a new game where dice are used to resolve something I always roll my eyes.  It’s just been done a million times before - couldn’t the designer have come up with something different?” But, couldn’t you say the same thing about games that use cards to resolve anything?  I guess it matters to me how much power the dice have in a game.  Tonga Bonga and Elasund make nice use of dice. Posted by Ogdred Weary on Apr 25, 2006 at 06:24 PM | #

Larry - I love the cube tower in Wallenstein because it’s such a novel idea.  True, it’s still random, but the randomness is tempered by knowing the troops you throw in plus the troops already in there.  I’ve also seen neat maneuvers where someone will do a minor attack to load up the tower with his cubes before his main attack.  You can’t do that with dice! David - Cards, especially as they are used in A Game of Thrones, are not open-ended randomizers like dice.  With dice it is theoretically possible to get the same result over and over - not so with cards (unless they are shuffled every time). I’m not condeming the use of dice in every game - in some instances they can be used very well.  I think Can’t Stop, for example, is a brilliant use of dice.  The dice in games like Tonga Bonga and Elasund don’t bother me that much. It’s just that in wargames dice have endlessly been used for combat resoluation.  It’s been done a million times.  My wish is that designers would come up with something new instead of relying on the tired old dice to resolve conflicts. - Rick Posted by Rick Thornquist on Apr 25, 2006 at 08:27 PM | #

I think I have a better way to create randomness in combat without dice and I can summarize it in one word: Plinko. Posted by Mike Pennisi on Apr 26, 2006 at 08:38 AM | #

David, I agree entirely with Tonga Bonga--that’s a very clever use of dice. As for Wallenstein, Rick, the cube tower was swiped from Im Zeichen des Kreuzes of course, but your point is still valid since only about three people played the earlier game.  I understand the appeal of the device and the possible ways to manipulate it, but it doesn’t bring enough to the party to make me overlook its randomness.  So I guess we disagree on the tower.  There’s probably only one thing we CAN agree on:  dice really don’t reach their full potential in gaming unless they have worms on them!  :-) Posted by Larry Levy on Apr 26, 2006 at 08:43 AM | #

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