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Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2017 04:25:37 -0700 (PDT)
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Subject: Fort Worth Gamers: gaming session 08/05/17
From: Michael Ward <mward258@gmail.com>
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Saturday, 08/05/17 2 to 8:10 PM at the Hulen Mall food court, at 4800 South Hulen Street, in southwest Fort Worth, TX.

Two gamers at one table this initially hot, then overcast Saturday.


Today's game was Dave's new The Great War. It deals with tactical battles on the Western Front during World War One, between the Germans and the British.

After two hours of chitchat (hey, that's how we roll!) Dave gave me a brief rules run down, then we set up a scenario. For some odd reason the rule book contains 17 historical scenarios, two introductory (non-historical) scenarios, numbered #1 nd #2, and one "get your feet wet" unnumbered scenario. That's the one we played, so I'll refer to is as "scenario zero".

Here's a photo of a typical scenario. This is not the scenario we played, but as they all look *very* similar its fairly representational https://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/2627530/great-war . The board has two sides
"green" and "brown mud". As you can see using the brown side may be more accurate, but makes it hard to see anything but a big blob of mud. (Oh, did I mention the British units are also brown?) Every scenario contains 2-3 lines of
trenches on each side, and usually barbed wire in No Man's Land. So... basically every scenario looks like every other scenario. That may be fairly accurate for the time period they chose to simulate (1915 through half of 1916). But it makes for boring game play.

I've played similar games from the same designer, so a lot of the rules were half familiar. What was new (to fit the war and time period) was extensive trenches, off-board artillery strikes, and, the possibility of a random set-up element: the generation of pre-battle shell holes in No Man's Land.

We used the "green" side of the board so that we could easily see the brown trench network. The pre-bombardment placed about five shell hole markers in No-Man's Land. They are good places for attaching troops to temporarily rest as
they dash across the machine gun swept void of No Man's Land.

As to the units, almost all are standard infantry, with four figurines each.. The only special units we had this outing was: the German's had two machine gun
units, the British had a mortar unit, and we each had a special personnel bomber unit. (Basically a grenade tossing dude attached as a fifth figurine to a standard infantry unit.) We also both had one battery of off-board artillery,
that took 4 HQ tokens to activate each time.

I think we both began with two HQ chits. They can be traded in for things like artillery strikes, to activate certain combat cards, or to comply with some tactical cards to enhance its effectiveness.

The game has two decks. The 58 command cards and the 40 Combat cards. In most scenarios each side starts with a hand of five command cards and two combat cards. Each turn one plays a command card, and possibly a combat card with it.



Scenario Zero - I took the attacking British and Dave commanded the defending Germans. You would think with me beginning with almost twice as many troops as Dave (something like 14 to 8) I'd just roll over him. Nope! For I soon found out a hasty attack (which is what I did) with no artillery support, against an entrenched enemy with machine guns was doomed. My British Tommies fell in droves in No Man's Land, never once gaining the enemy's trench line.

I don't know exactly how many turns we played (I'd guess about 14), but I was making no headway. Finally I called in an artillery strike. I should have started with this, but the way the rules were written both of us had thought doing so was *much* more restrictive than it actually was. My late game bombardment did kill a couple of German figurines, but overall I was still being crushed. By this point Dave had 3 VPs of the 6 he needed to win, while I had none, as he'd obliterated three of my infantry units, and reduced two others, while I'd only slightly damaged two of his units. Oy!

At this point we could see the handwriting on the wall. My Brits were doomed. Tired of the whole mishmash we mutually decided to call it quits.

At that point the score was: Dave C / Germans 3, Michael W / British 0. Duration 91 minutes.


We then analyzed what we'd been doing wrong, and the game in general. As I mentioned earlier, I should have opened with an artillery barrage to soften up the Germans. But we'd initially thought the only way to do that was *if* one drew an Artillery Bombard command card and played it (which neither of us ever saw). I only found in the rules well after an hour in that wasn't the only way to call in a strike. Of course by that time my Brits had already been decimated.

As to the game in general, it suffers from being *too* accurate to its period/theme. Alas, historical does not necessarily equal fun. World War One was known as a meat grinder and that's what this game is. Its attrition with a capitol A. The defender ensconced in his trench is king. So like in history, the war drug on and on, as making any attack was basically suicide. Now the game could have alleviated this monotony by including some 1914 (pre-trench warfare) and some late 1918 scenarios (when the Germans were on the ropes). But
noooooo, they decided to go with the mid-war period where every battle looks almost like every other. Pffft!

I told Dave, frankly I was glad I got to try The Great War, but I really have no desire to ever play the base game again. Maybe, just maybe, I'll try again when they publish some 1914 scenarios, or some eastern front battles. Or if they add some "toys" (tanks, cavalry, gas attacks, flame throwers, stosstruppen, airplane strafing, etc.). Until then... pass! I think I've now played five of the Command & Colors line of games and this one is the runt.. Therefore I rated The Great War a "5" on BGG.

Side note: If I had been the owner who was forced to cut the brittle figurines off the plastic sprues I would have rated the game a 3.


Here are a few quotes from BGG from people whose thoughts about the game pretty
much matched mine.
- ... play can be slow and frustrating till someone is ready to go over the top.

- The scenarios are very similar. To win, the attacker must concentrate in one area and overwhelm the defenders there, but the C&C system spreads out your actions across three sectors, preventing such a concentration.

- The sides are too close in size for the attacker to survive.

- ... it is very difficult for the attacker to win. That reflects trench warfare but lessens it for some of my friends as a gaming experience.

- It’s suicidal to leave your trench and run across No Man’s Land, so your best bet is to use off-board artillery to hopefully soften the enemy up and then go over the top.

- ... the rule book and cards are rife with spelling and grammar errors as well
as extremely obtuse and awkward wording, making it more difficult to learn how
to play the game than should be necessary.



Done with the gaming portion of our session, Dave and I then chatted for another 90+ minutes about board games and other things.



See BoardgameGeek http://www.boardgamegeek.com/ for more information on the games mentioned above. And if you're in the area on a Tuesday night feel
free to join us for a game.

--
Michael Ward
Fort Worth Gamers
And check out our MeetUp page http://www.meetup.com/FortWorthGamers/ .
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