Hexed And Countered

Tag: Decision Games

  • World War I: Deluxe Edition (Decision Games) — Gameplay (Part 1)

    World War I: Deluxe Edition (Decision Games) — Gameplay (Part 1)

    After the first look, the real question with any strategic-level wargame is how the first turn feels, and in World War I: Deluxe Edition from Decision Games, the first turn is 1914, with all the weight that carries. This is Part 1 of the playthrough.

    The whole war, from turn one

    The Deluxe Edition covers the entire Great War at a strategic level, and I start with a full top-to-bottom look at the map so the geography makes sense before any units move. From there it’s into the summer impulse phases of 1914: the German invasion of Belgium, the thin but critical Eastern Front, and the mobilization of the Balkan states. Even this early, the game is asking real questions: where to commit, when to accept a risky combat differential, and how to spend mobilization points that never quite stretch far enough.

    Early impressions in play

    What comes through in Part 1 is how much the opening moves shape everything after. The decisions aren’t flashy, but they’re consequential, and the system does a good job of making 1914 feel like a genuine fork in the road rather than a scripted opening. If you want the components-and-rules overview first, I covered that in the first look. This is the game in motion, heading toward the winter of 1914 and the hard choices waiting there.

    The campaign continues in future parts. Subscribe to follow it through the war.

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  • World War I: Deluxe Edition (Decision Games) — First Look

    World War I: Deluxe Edition (Decision Games) — First Look

    Putting the whole of World War I into a single boxed wargame is an ambitious ask, and World War I: Deluxe Edition from Decision Games sets out to do exactly that — the entire war, from the opening offensives to the final collapse, on one strategic map. In this first look I open the box, walk the components, and cover the rules well enough that you’ll know whether it’s a system you want to spend time with.

    The whole war in one box

    Strategic-level treatments of the Great War live or die on how they handle the things that actually decided it — the grinding stalemate of the Western Front, the wider war in the east and south, and the slow arithmetic of attrition and supply. A first look is the place to see how the map, the counters, and the sequence of play frame those problems, and whether the design keeps them legible without drowning you in chrome.

    This is the opening of a series — gameplay follows, where the system gets tested where it counts, on the table. Watch the first look for the overview, then follow along as the war plays out.

    First looks here always lead into full playthroughs. Subscribe to see how this one holds up in play.

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  • Napoleon at War: Deluxe Edition (Decision Games) — Marengo

    Napoleon at War: Deluxe Edition (Decision Games) — Marengo

    Marengo is one of history’s great near-run things. On the morning of 14 June 1800, Napoleon had badly misjudged the Austrians and spent most of the day losing; by evening, a counterattack turned catastrophe into the victory that secured his hold on France. That kind of swing is exactly what a good battle game wants to capture, and in this one I take Napoleon at War: Deluxe Edition from Decision Games onto the Marengo field.

    A day that turned late

    The interesting design question at Marengo is timing. Get the tempo wrong and you’re simply replaying a defeat; the system has to give the late reinforcements a chance to matter without handing them the day for free. Watching it play out is the best way to judge whether the Deluxe treatment strikes that balance — and whether the classic Napoleonic tension of lines, columns, and cavalry reserves comes through on the table.

    More Napoleonic battles, played through in full. Subscribe to follow the campaign.

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  • D-Day At Tarawa Review: One Square Mile of Hell, Indeed

    D-Day At Tarawa Review: One Square Mile of Hell, Indeed

     

    D-DAY AT TARAWA

    John Butterfield is a designer who is both well-known and beloved by solitaire wargamers. From the classic Ambush! to the soon-to-be released Enemy Action: Kharkov, Mr. Butterfield has delivered a slew of well-imagined solitaire games that are both fun, historically accurate and definitely tough to win.

    This review is on one of these classics – and it’s not a new game. But as they say when you buy a used car, it’s “new to you” and in this case, that’s true for me. My initial foray into the “D-Day at” series which was created by Mr. Butterfield and began with 2009’s D-Day at Omaha Beach. D-Day at Tarawa was the second game in the series, originally released in 2014 with a second edition boasting a mounted map board (among other improvements) followed in 2017. All the “D-Day at” games have been published by Decision Games with Tarawa being followed by Peleliu (2015), Iwo Jima (2018) and the upcoming D-Day at Saipan (scheduled for summer 2022).

    I decided to go with D-Day at Tarawa as my entry point for this series, based on two factors: first, I am a sucker for Pacific Theater games and a Marine Corps fanboy (despite being a USAF veteran) and second, I had read that Tarawa was a better introduction to the series than Omaha Beach. This put in a good spot amongst its “siblings” – Peleliu is considered extremely tough and Iwo Jima, the first in the series not designed by Butterfield, has taken a lot of flak (of the printed variety) for, among other things, its abandonment of the firing “dots” used by Butterfield in the previous entries in the series.

    D-Day at Tarawa currently boasts a solid 8.2 on BoardGameGeek, .1 behind Omaha Beach and Peleliu, but well ahead of the much-maligned Iwo Jima entry (6.9). Having now taken it for a spin, I feel it’s time to provide my thoughts on this classic.

    ONE SQUARE MILE OF HELL

    Tarawa itself is an atoll in the Central Pacific, consisting of several islands, the largest of which is Betio (pronounced Bay-sho) – and it was here that the 2nd Marine Division landed and did fierce battle with the Japanese defenders over three days beginning on November 20, 1943. The invasion was the first in the Central Pacific portion of the U.S. forces’ island-hopping campaign that culminated at Okinawa 19 months later.

    I’d highly recommend for anyone who likes to get to know a game’s setting before playing the book “One Square Mile of Hell” by John Wukovits and also, if you have Amazon Prime, you can watch at no cost the 2005 documentary “As It Happened: Tarawa” which uses archival footage and some interviews with surviving Marines who took part in the battle. 

    The title of Wukovits’ book is an accurate one-sentence descriptor for the battle the 2nd Marine Division faced on Betio. The game does a fantastic job illustrating just how tough this fight was – up to, and beyond (for some) the point of frustration. The frustration is due to the way the game models the difficulty the Marines had just getting to shore, let alone what happened once they did make it onto the beach.

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