Flames of War: A Bridge Too Far – The Battles for Oosterbeek and Arnhem

Photo at beginning of game showing most
of the Allied miniatures.

Ian brought round yet another boardgame for me to try - Flames of War's Market Garden game. I elected to play the Allies. As you would expect, they have airborne troops that need to be reinforced and resupplied by air and ground forces that need to smash their way through to link up.

The Allied strategy does require a plan but going up the central road is a pretty obvious option as that route has most of the points on it.

An early attack on Arnhem Bridge by my airborne troops. It seemed the right thing to do. I took the bridge but could not hold it.

It's an interesting game but odd in some ways. It comes with some miniatures but very few. The board is divided into zones  and these can attack and defend regardless of the miniatures. In some ways the miniatures are a distraction.

There were some ups and downs but it was with great satisfaction that a combination of my airborne and ground forces took Arnhem bridge on more-or-less the last 'Battle' of the last game turn.

Late in the game Ian attempted to cut my supply line by attacking out of an empty zone into an empty zone. This was actually in error as even empty zones have to be in supply and Ian's wasn't. So the moves were taken back leaving me with the victory.

Thanks to the points I had accumulated, mainly from seizing bridges but also from captures of troops, I achieved a 'Strategic Victory' which is the best sort of victory you can get.

It was an enjoyable game but I am left more struck by its oddness than anything else.

Race to the Rhine

Thanks to my friend Ian I’m currently enjoying a boardgame bonanza. My penultimate experience was Race to the Rhine by Jaro Andruszkiewicz and Waldek Gumienny, a game of resource management in which you compete against other Allied players to be first across the Rhine. In a two-player game one player always takes the central command, Bradley, while the other plays Montgomery (along the coast) or Patton (to the right). I was advised that Patton was the easiest option so that's what I chose. There are just three resources: fuel, ammo and food. You have to get these to your forces at the front via chains of supply lorries, but you also have to contend with a buildup of German forces blocking your path or cutting your supply lines. Germans pop up when you attempt to occupy a new town or courtesy of rival players. Despite going through a very weak phase during which one of my corps was isolated, another had run out of food and my supply lines were constantly being cut, I just managed to pull it off. The game is very cleverly designed. It has a certain 'unity of design' which gives it a convincing feel, and I imagine it has great replay and solo value.

Patton's Corps are in blue. One is awkwardly placed behind Bradley and needs to backtrack before going anywhere. Making good time. Patton's command enjoys additional minor supply points on the edge of the board, so you don't have to bring everything up from the start position. Accross the Rhine (bottom right) but cut off. The supply line is restored and the game won, although the leading unit is out of food.

Axis and Allies: D-Day

View from the beachheads.

My friend Ian brought the Axis & Allies: D-Day boardgame round. As I’m still in recovery mode, I thought a boardgame would be less demanding. I'm not a regular boardgame player, so anything like this is quite a novelty.

I played the Allies. The Allied objective is to take and hold Caen, St Lo and Cherbourg. The Germans win if they prevent that.

The sequence of play is driven by a stack of cards. They are always in the same order and you play through the stack each turn. Interspersed ‘Fortune’ cards improve or degrade your performance of each action. Players are left with the choice of where to move and attack.

For the Allied player the main challenge of the game is how to divide resources between the three objectives. At one point I was contesting all three with some chance of winning the game, but the Germans retook St Lo and I just didn’t have enough resources left in the vicinity to counterattack.

The game is obviously quite abstract but I think it does quite a good job of capturing aspects and flavour of the Normandy campaign.

The game is fairly attritional - as was the reality. Playing through the card stack is rather repetitive but it speeds up each turn as some cards are single-use and discarded and you become more familiar with the sequence.

The game certainly works and would be good to play from time to time, but it’s not the sort of game I’d want to play regularly.

The only major design fault is the very small print on the order cards, which is extremely trying for anyone over 40. On those grounds I think this game is best left to younger players.

Battles of Napoleon

Battles of Napoleon is a hex board game with miniatures which was published in 2010 and is no longer in print. Despite a superficial similarity in appearance to the Command & Colors series of games, it plays quite differently.

Board games with miniatures are said to be the wave of the future, and I would say that miniatures games with hexes or squares are effectively converging from the other direction. This was thus a game I was keen to try.

My friend Ian, who owns the game, chose the Salamanca scenario and gave me the French with the warning that I was unlikely to win, but fate decided otherwise. The British were stronger, particularly in cavalry, but I had more artillery and a good position on a ridge line defending the three objectives which start in French hands.

The aim of this scenario is to take a majority of the objectives, but you can also win the  game by destroying a certain number of units or killing the enemy c-in-c.

The initial French deployment. The British are yet to set up.

The British made a frontal assault in column and uphill which gave me two  bonuses in firepower. Coupled with a  run of skillful dice throwing (!), the British attack shattered on the French rock. The British may have suffered from bad luck but I believe they would have needed an equally exceptional run of good luck to have succeeded in their strategy.

The French hold firm while the British begin to suffer.

I'd certainly be interested in replaying this game from the British side. My strategy would be...well, you'll have to wait for that!

I really enjoyed the game and I think Napoleonic buffs would prefer this game to the more abstract approach of C&C Napoleonics.

My introduction to Command & Colours

The first scenario from Command & Colours Napoleonics

Despite my enthusiasm for wargaming with hexes and blocks, I played my first couple of games of Command & Colours Ancients only last year, although I had previously played a couple of games of BattleCry, the ACW variant of the system.

As the game system has been out for some time and most readers are probably more familiar with it than I am, I won't attempt a comprehensive review, but I would like to share a few points in its favour for the benefit of anyone who hasn't played it. One's first impressions of a game are always improved by winning. I did win both games, though my opponent inevitably attributed this to lucky dice throws rather than tactical genius!