An
Introductory Wargame
So – what makes an
ideal introduction to wargames? Well, you'll need to define ideal,
introduction, and wargames. I'm cheekily not going to it, but I'm
going to say that Battle of the Scheldt: The Devil's Moat
by Decision Games is, at least, a very good introduction to
hex-and-counter wargames. I say on the basis that my wife played it
and enjoyed it. She plays hobby games generally (and successfully),
and wargames in amongst that, but her only hex-and-counter experience
previously was The US Civil War
(GMT Games, designed by Mark Simonitch). She simultaneously enjoyed
it and found it bafflingly dense. My current campaign game of
Rommel's War both bemuses her
and takes up a lot of precious space in the dining room she could
probably use better. But this worked.
Battle of the
Scheldt, designed by Christopher
Cummins and Eric R. Harvey, utilises the Fire &
Movement system, one of a number
of simple systems Decision Games use in their Folio Game Series. Fire
& Movement covers 20th
century warfare (where Musket & Saber,
for instance, covers 19th
century warfare); the main rulebook is 8 pages long, whilst the
exclusive rules for this scenario are 4 pages long. The game also
includes a 17”x22” map and 100 counters. All components are
functional-to-good – the rule are pretty clearly laid out, the
counters are alright (with nice national colour schemes), the map by
Joe Youst is as simple and attractive as his usual work. But why is
it good – at least
as an introductory game?
Well,
I suppose in one sense it has to be a good game, and we should
address mechanics. But there's something about the “feel” -
accomplished both by the core mechanics and the scenario chrome –
which means that, once it's proven to function as a game proper, it
can also function as a way to understand and engage with wargames as
history and as conflict simulation (which are slightly different
things, I'd argue, without desiring to prove why at this point).
A
Short Mechanical Overview
A
Fire & Movement game will
consist of a number of turns, each of which will consist of one
player taking their own turn and then the other player taking theirs.
Each player turn consists of 4 phase – Movement, Combat, Mobile
Movement, Mobile Combat. All units can move and attack in the first
two, as appropriate; units marked as Mobile that have not already
acted can move and attack in the Mobile phases. This allows armoured
exploitation, which obviously fits the WW2 dynamic. Only one unit
(counter) can be in a hex, though movement and retreat through
friendly hexes is possible. There are soft zones of control (ie the 6
hexes around a unit), limiting but not blocking enemy movement, and
affecting retreats after combat.
Combat
is resolved by totalling the attacking units' Attack stats, comparing
them with the defender's Defence stat, and then adding Support
markers (on which more in a moment) to find a “differential” (the
difference between the two totals). The attacking player then rolls a
six-sided die and checks the result on a combat result table (CRT),
with the column being the differential and the dice result being the
row – the better the differential for the attacker, the worse the
column's results are for the defender, and so forth. Fire &
Movement does something quite
clever with the CRT, integrating terrain into the CRT directly. You
look at the top of the CRT, where the terrain is listed, find the
right terrain row, and read along to the differential; this scales
results in favour of the defender in a simple way. Of course that
loses some of the delicacy possible with a separate terrain effects
chart (TEC) – you can't have one terrain type double defence points
whilst another just gives one column shift in favour of the defender.
Support
markers replace specific counters for air and artillery assets, and
are rated with a number which influences the differential (+2, +7,
etc). In Battle of the Scheldt,
you randomly draw from your side's pool of facedown counters each
turn; in other games in the system your pool is fixed. You return all
your counters at the end of each turn and draw again. These are used
as part of a bidding mechanic in combat; the attacker gets to put one
down first, or not; then the defender; then the attacker again; and
finally the defender. There's a bluffing element in here (is he going
to put down a marker or not? can I get him to waste a token for
minimal cost?); there's a question of resource management (what other
combats are going to happen this turn? am I going to attack in my
player turn and so need to conserve markers?). This is clever and
fun.
The
other way you can use them – as part of an attack without an
attacking counter, as part of a “bombardment” - is pretty lame.
Not inherently, but the lack of restrictions on where bombardments
can happen and the fact that if the attackers lose they have to
damage their nearest counter (“friendly fire”) mean you'd have to
houserule to make this worth the risk in most situations, and to
ensure the breach in immersion isn't too extreme. In my two and a
half plays, I haven't bothered doing that. No harm is done by leaving
them out.
The
Feel of a Wargame
That
question of immersion brings me back to what I in fact think is a
great strength of the game and system. A good wargame, for me, isn't
simply a good game (though it is that); it's a game which utilises
the theme (war – and a specific war or battle) to engage the player
in interesting decisions and to help them understand historical
situations. Perhaps in a more nuanced sense, it combines the two so
that players inhabit something like the historical decision space (or
an interpretation of it).
This
game achieves that. What's most interesting from a design perspective
is that the game offers a relatively small number of big decisions.
It offers any number of small decisions and tests of skill, but for
the German player there's really only one big decision (seek to hold
the Allies short of Beveland for most of the game, or defend the
peninsula's neck whilst counterattacking further up the map to mess
with the Allies). Indeed, for the Allies there isn't even a decision
on that scale – the biggest decisions are about where to stick
amphibious landings on a very limited coastal stretch.
But
it is by limiting that decision space but making the management of it
challenging, and adding in small bits of historical feel, that the
game triumphs. The Germans have initially useful reinforcements and
can even heal damage from some of their units early in the game –
but they have very few counters and very soon their forces are in
irretrievable decline. The Allies have a lot of units and a lot of
replacement points, as well as useful batches of reinforcements later
in the game, but they suffer from very real time pressure which makes
every delay infuriating, whilst the need to cycle out weakened
brigades and preserve their limited Mobile units means a lot of
thoughtful management and manoeuvre. The scenario-specific movement
rules and CRT help with this – moving through the ubiquitous
Flooded areas is painfully slow, whilst the high likelihood of
indecisive combat results in urban areas can make the Germans very
hard to shift from their basement bunkers and church spires.
Meanwhile, the Canadians landing in the Breskens Pocket in their
amphibious vehicles or the special German 88mm Anti-Tank support
marker (which can be played as a bonus marker against Allied tanks)
are really nice small touches which make the era seem more real –
this isn't just a wargame, but a wargame about World War 2. The
scenario accurately depicts the superior numbers and firepower of the
Allies, whilst also showing what a slog the campaign was – but in
an enjoyable and immersive way. It does all this in a simple way, as
well, which shows up many more complex systems.
A
Primer for Wargaming
The
relative obscurity of the battle and the useless Bombardment rule are
the only downsides to this system. Those are trivial issues, and as a
hex-and-counter to introduce a new player to, this is an attractive
proposition. It does many of the things which the subgenre ought to
do, and it does them well – from the tactile illusion of moving
markers in a battlefield war-room to immersing the player in the
nuances of the conflict through the big movement and combat rules and
the little historical add-ons. It does them with simple and readable
rules, running the same length as or shorter than some popular
Eurogame rules (12 pages to Catan's 16 or Pandemic's 8). It can even
play to more or less its stated length – 2 hours. No good wargame
is, I think, going to be strictly “light”, but the clarity of the
rules and the surprising depth of the simulation mean this feels to
me like a great primer for people who might be interested in wargames
but find them intimidating or inaccessible. There are other very good
primers to wargames in other subgenres, but this is my favourite so
far in hex-and-counter. Decision Games' Mini Series may be even
better; I'll be playing some entries in that soon.
Conclusion
Aside
from one rules niggle, and the general issues of sourcing non-GMT
wargames outside the USA (Esdevium Games do have Decision in their
catalogue, but it's a very spotty selection), this is a solid game,
and potentially a very good primer for hex-and-counter wargames.
