One of the things I’ve noticed since I started dangling my feet in the historical war game pool, is how absolutely essential the theme of the game is. The pressure to adhere to the facts presented by history pushes in from two directions at once, in a pincer movement. The designers are obsessive in the research of the stories behind the events they recreate, while the players are often fanatical and diligent, and won’t stand for factual inaccuracies or design liberties. Lanzerath Ridge is no exception, and through the designer’s notes alone you can get a real sense of the heroic struggle these soldiers suffered. The game itself adds an additional layer of attachment to the real people involved, who are represented by their photographs, names, and the roles they played. It’s sobering stuff.

Fighting against the tide

Lanzerath Ridge’s board is wide and represents the part of Belgium where the conflict took place. At the top of the board, the US troops have nine front-line defensive emplacements which they must protect at all costs. Behind those are a few other spaces with vehicles used for transmitting radio intelligence and calling in artillery support. Each of the front-line squares is protected with a one-time-use booby trap and some barbed wire further down the path. The German forces advance along six main channels, with a flanking channel on either side.

The gameplay is really easy once you get the hang of it. Flip three attacker cards and resolve them one at a time to see where the enemy forces are advancing, or to trigger machine gun or mortar fire. If an enemy unit is added to a track, all the units in front of him move along the path one space, with their aim to ultimately overrun at least one of the spaces. If they manage that, it’s game over. In reciprocation, you have five actions at your disposal each turn. Actions are either minor or major. Minor actions include things like moving from one space to a neighbouring one, or removing a disrupted token if someone came under fire previously. Major actions include firing your weapons at the enemy, and that’s where things get tricky.

If you choose to attack with one of your units you check their tile to see which die they roll (there are D6, D8, D10 and D12s included), roll it, and compare it to the value of the space the enemy is in. Rolling at least that value results in the enemy being despatched, but whether you hit or miss, it also means your unit is flipped and exhausted, meaning they cannot be used at all in the rest of the round. Not just for the rest of this turn, but until the entire Attackers deck runs out (there are four decks to work through during the game). You don’t need me to tell you that this is a bad thing. Some units can assist others, flipping to their exhausted side in order to refresh someone else and bring them back, but it’s still just a one-for-one trade-off.

The entire game is incredibly harsh. You can’t even use the same unit twice in one turn. If they’ve taken an action – say, moving to a neighbouring square to assist someone – they can’t do anything else until the next turn. You have a few machine guns at your disposal, but precious little ammunition for them. Reloading costs an action, dismounting a gun is another action, moving it is another, emplacing it is yet another – and this is even before you fire it again. Moving machine guns is important, as different defence spaces have different line-of-sight, and can’t shoot at every enemy.

Riding your luck

The very mention of dice in a strategic game like this is enough to make some people turn their noses up at it. There are times in the game when you’ll curse the dice in seven different languages, like when you roll a D12 to take a shot at someone who only needs a three to beat them, as it comes up with a two. Or when you have to roll a D6 to see which path a grenadier is about to come along, and of course it lands on the one path that’s already full, not the lanes you’ve cleared. Moments of anguish like that are more than made up for by the times when lady luck kisses you on the cheek. Rolling a D6 to call in artillery from your damaged jeep in a last-ditch effort, and hitting the only roll which would succeed – a six – is like winning the lottery.

Lanzerath Ridge is a game of trying to stack the odds in your favour in the hope that at least some of your planning comes off. There’s a clever distinction between the different actions available. Things like moving, reloading, assisting others, transferring ammunition – none of these needs a dice roll. These are plans you can make and be sure of at least having what you want, in the places you want it. The problem is that you’ve no control over which cards get flipped this turn. You don’t know where the next German push is coming from. Heck, you don’t even know if you’re going to be able to hit the soldiers you’re aiming at.

As much as the mechanisms at play here create an enticing, captivating game of highs and lows, it’s another thematic tie to the real situation you’re emulating while you play. Whenever fate hands you your backside with bad rolls, remember that this was a group of eighteen young soldiers. They were trying to slow the advance of a 500+ strong German steamroller during a winter’s day on December 16th 1944. Things were never destined to go well.

Final thoughts

Lanzerath Ridge is a brilliant solo experience. There is a competitive two-player mode, but the main game is what you’ll buy it for. Every time you play you’re guaranteed that things will go differently, which is pretty amazing when you consider there’s just one deck for each of the game’s four rounds. It only takes one defender to miss his shot and become exhausted for your best-laid plans to be thrown out of the window. I found myself getting really attached to my units, referring to them all by name as I narrated what was happening to no one in particular. This game removes the layers of abstraction that something like Salerno ’43 (review here) provides by connecting you directly to individual people.

I thought I’d done really well in my first win, scoring enough points for the 2nd highest award, the Silver Star, only to find out afterwards that I’d played on the 2nd-easiest difficulty. There’s a whole deck of Tactics cards to add in, along with additional constraints, which make things even trickier. The biggest problem the game has in terms of longevity is the fact that there is only one board, with one map. You’ll use the same four decks of cards for the attacks, and while the cards will come out in a different order, you’ll know that the fourth deck is full of flanking cards, for instance.

There’s no doubt that Lanzerath Ridge is a great game, filled with beautiful illustration and art, a great rulebook, and comprehensive player aids. You’ll get so much more than just a game from it though. Learning about the people and the battle that took place is not only incredibly interesting, it’s also humbling. You’ll learn to love Lt Bouck for his ability to have the Inspire effect for all units, and his Command ability, but when you look into it deeper, he was only 20 years old when it all happened… I was moved when I watched this video, featuring interviews with some of the soldiers who you control during the game. It just makes me feel so fortunate to be able to sit in my warm home and play this brilliant game, which has been lovingly and respectfully created by David. Wonderful stuff from start to finish.

Review copy kindly provided by DVG. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

Lanzerath Ridge (2022)

Design: David Thompson
Publisher: Dan Verssen Games
Art: Nils Johansson
Players: 1
Playing time: 60-90 mins

The post Lanzerath Ridge Review appeared first on Punchboard.

Note that Spruance Leader is my first game in the Leader series, so if anything I say sounds stupid, bear that in mind.

Tactical command

When I learned that the game would have me controlling all manner of destroyers in the North Atlantic, hunting submarines, taking down aircraft, and sinking other ships, I was expecting some kind of map in the box. Maybe a couple of oceans divided up into hexes as if by gigantic submarine bees. Not so. The main board is a tactical display which focuses on where the different vehicles are in relation to one another, and not where the conflict is taking place in the world. The maps, as such, are just representative illustrations of each campaign’s included scenario sheet. They’re only really there to give an impression of where the action’s taking place in each turn, not pinpointing it. It really conveys a feeling of something happening at the operational level.

During the game you’ll play out encounters in the North Sea, while some take you deep into the Mediterranean and Black Sea, as well as East Asian skirmishes around Japan and the Philippines. To do this you need to choose and outfit your fleet before anything else happens, and this could be a game all by itself. Every vehicle and every weapon you load onto your vehicles costs Special Option points, or SOs as the game calls them. The campaign sheet tells you how much you get to spend across your task force, and this is where you’ll spend a lot of time choosing who, and what is going into battle.

This is a good time to segue into the ship cards. They’re extremely detailed, and every time I chose a ship, I felt like I was playing a grown-up version of Top Trumps. Each vessel’s card tells you not only how much it costs, but also which weapons it can carry, and how well it can defend itself against subs, ships, and aircraft. You’ll see how noisy it is, how well it handles the stress of war, its skill level, its hull strength, and there’s even a photo of the real ship. There are two things to note here. Firstly, there’s a ton of extremely valuable information on a small card, which is great. Secondly, it’s a lot to take in and make sense of, especially when you’re learning the game.

Holy chit!

Spruance Leader was my first foray into the Leader series, and as such I didn’t really know what I was letting myself in for. I’m used to games with plenty of chits and sorting them into some kind of meaningful order, but Spruance Leader took it to a whole new level. Every ship has its own counter, as does every other vehicle. There are counters to draw for each encounter, counters for tracks, and counters for every single weapon. You’re going to need something to organise everything into, trust me on this. At least sort the ordnance if nothing else. I used one of the awesome trays from Cube4Me (this one in fact) to do just that. I can’t imagine trying to play the game without some serious organisation.

There are loads of cards too, including three double-sided cards per ship. Ships’ experience levels change throughout the game, giving them more abilities and better stats as they improve, so while you do need the cards, there’s a lot going on. Spending your SOs on these ships is where you’ll spend a lot of time when you play, and there’s a lot to choose from. The game helps to some extent, with the cards showing the year each ship was commissioned (there’s no using a 1990 destroyer in 1982), and also where it can be used, so ships destined for the Pacific can’t be used in the Atlantic campaigns. Even with these constraints, there are still many decisions to make, including not only which vehicles you want, but what experience level they begin the game at (detailed on the campaign’s sheet). Then once you finally settle on what you want, you’ve still got to choose the Commanders you want, and which weapons you’re loading. If you’re someone prone to heavy AP (analysis paralysis), Spruance Leader may well break your brain.,

Here’s the thing though. Some of you have read the above paragraphs and are pale and trembling, wondering how on Earth anyone could find that fun. Others, however, especially those of you who went looking for reviews of the game, are probably licking their lips at the prospect. There’s a certain type of person who loves the decision-making and huge variety of choices the game lays before them. Getting ready to take on a campaign takes time. It’s the equivalent of a ‘Session 0’ for a TTRPG, where you’re getting the story and the players ready to go. A prologue, if you will.

The main course

Once you’ve sorted who and what is going into battle, the game starts proper, and that’s where it shines. Roll dice, draw target cards, and fight the battles. Some areas in your campaigns have enemy task force patrols which add another level of danger, and there’s a see-saw balancing act between opting to face events and combat, and knowing when to choose a different target. Your ships accrue stress during battles, which is a bad thing, but defeating enemies reduces the chances of a difficult encounter, and removes enemy task forces from the map, which are good things. It’s the battles themselves which really define the game, however, and they’re brilliant.

You get to choose which of your ships are in the Screening force; those out in front of the Main and Protected forces. They’ll take more stress, but have increased detection and get to act first. Deciding which ships get attacked by the enemy is a simple process of adding chits to a draw cup, taking one out, and seeing who’s involved in the naval fisticuffs. Ships in the screening force have more chits in the cup, and therefore a higher chance of being drawn, which makes sense, as these guys are your first line of defence. You’ll send your helicopters off to drop sonar buoys in an attempt to detect submarines as the enemy forces inch ever closer, and the tension it creates is amazing. I love the way the board setup represents the battle, and the way the enemy vessels spread out representing both their range and their azimuthal angles. The inexorable creep of the more dangerous enemy ships leaves you with some tricky prioritisation choices to make

Attack resolution is really simple – it’s just a case of taking a base number from the attacker, applying modifiers from various effects, and seeing if that number is more damage than the defender can take. Rather than making combat anti-climactic, it merely makes it feel like the resolution of plans that were set in motion before. Spruance Leader is a game swamped in strategy and tactics, and it’s what it revels in. You start to form real bonds with the ships and commanders as they gain experience and get promoted, which makes losses feel like a punch to the stomach, while victories are truly joyful.

Final thoughts

A month or two back, I didn’t want to review this game. I’d spent well over an hour punching and sorting counters and cards, and I’d made two abortive attempts to dive into the game when I had an hour spare. Both times, I failed. There was just too much stuff. Too many rules, too many cards, too many chits. The rulebook isn’t great either, I found myself jumping back and forth between sections telling me which things I should do, and then how to do them. I tried the easy campaign in the North Atlantic and didn’t get past spending my SOs. From memory, there was something like 31 ships available to me, each with three cards, and I just had no idea what to pick, or why. It was demoralising and made me feel stupid, which I didn’t enjoy, because generally speaking I can turn my hand to games of any difficulty and understand them. Anyone with an interest in the Cold War era conflicts I’m sure would revel in the choices on offer, but I just couldn’t break through that barrier. That might be how you feel on your first play too, but don’t worry, there is a solution!

I was looking at the files section of BGG, because I wanted to print some more campaign tracking sheets (they include one in the box, but you’ll want more), and stumbled on this essential download from the game’s designer, Dean Brown, which contains not only updated rules, but also some great beginner level scenarios. These remove a couple of mechanisms from the main game, but more importantly, give you a suggested load-out of ships and commanders. After that, things went much more smoothly. I went from the deer-in-the-headlights out of my depth feeling of ignorance to understanding what does what, and how it all works, and I had an amazing time.

Spruance Leader is a brilliant game. The whole game revolves around the tactical decisions you make, and the feeling of investment in the choices you make is immense. Don’t kid yourself into thinking it’s something you’re going to play when you’ve got an hour free. The game itself may only last an hour or two at most, but the planning is something you’ll want to take your time over to get just right. If you’re a military nut with an interest in naval warfare, and don’t mind a steep learning curve, this is pretty much a must-buy, it’s as simple as that. For the rest of us, especially if you’ve never played a Leader game before, just be aware of those couple of pitfalls (sorting and organising, not downloading the beginner scenarios) and there’s a great game waiting for you too. The only downside I can see is that I’m probably going to have to buy Thunderbolt Apache Leader and Phantom Leader now.

Review copy kindly provided by DVG. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

Spruance Leader (2022)

Design: Dean Brown
Publisher: DVG
Art: Unlisted
Players: 1
Playing time: 90-180 mins

The post Spruance Leader Review appeared first on Punchboard.

A quick history lesson

Before I played By Stealth and Sea, I had never heard of the Decima Flottiglia MAS. If they’re news to you too, let me briefly tell you about their utterly terrifying job during the war. They were an Italian commando frogman unit, who piloted torpedoes into heavily protected harbours, to try to sink Royal Navy ships. Not in a submarine, mind. Actually in the water, holding onto torpedoes, trying to get into enemy waters. They had to attach the torpedoes’ warheads to the hulls of ships – by hand -, survive the explosions and being hunted, and hopefully swim to shore to be picked up by the Italian Secret Service.

And you thought your job was bad…

In the game, you control the three SLC (slow running torpedoes) crews, working against the clock to get into the harbours, do as much damage as possible, and escape. The game is played by spending action points on your turn, and taking your chances with the whimsy of the dice. Some actions are safe, like a small move, but if you want to make quicker progress, you’ll have to take chances. Everything takes time and effort underwater, so even something like turning your metal steeds costs action points. In a game where you might only get 11 or 12 turns to get everything done, every decision matters. It really feels like you’re up against it.

Damn the torpedoes!

The feeling of everything being against you, is one that pervades By Stealth and Sea. That’s not just a quirk of the game design, it’s another example of the game simulating real life. The real SLCs were plagued by mechanical problems, and this fact is reflected in the game. Take for example, the first game you play once you’ve punched the tokens and digested the rules.

You set the board up, get your SLC cards equipped with your pilots and equipment, and then look at the Forward Planning card for the particular mission you’re attempting. The very first card you play forces you to make two Fault Checks per SLC. That’s six checks – which you’re more likely to fail than pass – before the game even begins. In my first game, one of my SLCs had its ballast tank and warhead develop faults, so I couldn’t submerge, or attack my targets with it, without using turns to try to repair the faults. It gives you an idea of just what these submariners were up against.

It’s common in games for the designer to make you feel like you’re in a position of power. By Stealth and Sea is the opposite. The odds are stacked heavily against you. Between racing the dawn and the end of the game, your faulty torpedoes, and the patrol craft and spotlights scouring the ocean for you, you’re in for a rough time. Maybe that doesn’t sound like your idea of fun, so bear with me.

Rewriting history

Despite By Stealth and Sea being what is essentially a hex & counter wargame, it really doesn’t feel like one. It’s a solo game of creating your own stories. Sometimes those stories are about clutching victory from the jaws of defeat, sometimes it’s a sombre reminder of the horrors of war. And sometimes it’s an almost laughable series of calamitous dice rolls. Every action you take, each die that’s rolled, turns a page in the story you are writing.

The feeling of success when you get a good result from a mission is such a rush. That’s not me blowing smoke up this game’s backside, it’s the truth. It invokes that same ‘against all odds’ feeling that games like Nemo’s War and Spirit Island do so well. Setting up each mission can be pretty time-consuming if you follow the mission book to the letter. There are a ton of very small chits representing real ships, each with very small writing on them telling you which is which. The mission book asks you to find specific chits to place during setup, and it can take ages to find the ones you want. In all honesty though, that’s my only real complaint with the game.

The game features a full, historically accurate campaign to play through, but the best way to play is with the custom campaign. You still work through the missions in the same way, but your surviving pilots and SLCs earn upgrades if they aren’t destroyed. You can carry them through mission after mission, each time feeling slightly less predisposed to failure. It’s a great system which feels more like a legacy-style campaign, only without destroying things or altering the boards.

Final thoughts

By Stealth and Sea is a game unlike any other I’ve played. The way it pits you in what seems like – and often turns out to be – an unwinnable situation, is utterly compelling. The level of depth and accuracy it goes into with the background is akin to the GMT games I love so much. Each of the SLC operators even has their photograph on their card, which adds a personal connection that’s often abstracted from even the most hardcore wargame. It feels poignant, and losing an operator during a campaign mission is devastating.

Theme aside, the game itself is great. There’s no such thing as a dead turn, or a brief respite. If you want a break to repair or recover someone, you need to find somewhere relatively safe to do it, and waste a turn doing it. Don’t even get me started on the tension when your ballast is broken, leaving you unable to submerge, with HM Navy bearing down on you. It all evokes a sense of drama and claustrophobia, especially once you make it inside the harbours and look to detonate your warheads.

If you’re a solo gamer looking for something a bit different, go and buy By Stealth and Sea. It’s as simple as that. It’s an experience you’re unlikely to find in any other game. The game isn’t difficult to play, but it can feel punishingly unfair to try to do well at. Far from being a condemnation of the game, it’s one of its greatest strengths. The stories the game weaves as you struggle your way through the years of war, combined with its deep roots in real history, make it a game not to be missed. Incredible stuff.

Review copy kindly provided by Dan Verssen Games. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

By Stealth and Sea (2020)

Publisher: Dan Verssen Games
Designers: Nicola Saggini, David Thompson
Art: David Thompson
Players: 1-3
Playing time: 45 mins

The post By Stealth and Sea Review appeared first on Punchboard.