I am doing my second play of All Are Brothers (but first related here), this time with the “The heights of Solferino” scenario.
I copied something I saw on bgg : the shaken will be a yellow bingo chit, the disrupted will be a red one.
This scenario uses only the center of the map. the force seem balanced. The ideal goal of the French (grey) is to capture the “heights of Solferino” (green tokens) by end of turn 8, and the orange by end of turn 11.
Turn 1 action
The French have an ideal start, positioning west of the hill and drawing “Attaque Brusquée” event. It give an infantry an assault with a +2 column shift. Only drawback is that it has to be played directly. The Austrian artillery already has to concede an hex and its height advantage.
Fortunately for the Austrian, they manage to activate the V Corps and push back the French.
Situation around Solferino at beginning of turn 2
Turn 2 : the French 1. Corps have success in everything they try. With there superior artillery and again some “Attaque Brusquée” event they are at the doors of Solferino. Meanwhile, the Imperial guard and 2. Corps take position. The Austrian command does not react yet.
Situation at the beginning of turn 3Beginning of turn 3 close up around Solferino
Turn 3: the French 1. Corps continues its push, starting with an “Attaque Brusquée”.
They roll 11 and get a tough fight Assault result. Both moral check go in their favor, resulting in 2 moral hit on the Austrian. They lose another artillery get a step loss for infantry.
The Austrian fail all their command activations. They manage to lose the first Solferino objective hex. But the French decide to not push their advance to the city, afraid of the retaliation from the units in the other city hexes.
If the 1. Corps is doing an elite job, the high command messes up on the logistic. The 2. Corps is not allowed to advance east -per scenario rules- and is completely blocking the road -per bad played decisions- for the Imperial Guard, who have to go partly off road and waste time.
And here we are for a huge battle. Persian vs Persian, with some elite Greek Hoplite mercenaries.
Setup
Due to the very diverse composition, the armies are the most interesting of the scenarios played until now. But the fight seems very unbalanced.
Loyal army starts with a chariot charge. The javelin one going to close combat, the archers keeping distance…
… the light infantry on the rebels left front crumbles and 4 rout (# bead). But on the other side, the Peltasts covering the Greek mercenaries flank hold still and remove the 3 chariots charging them
Situation after the resolution of the turn 1 chariot charge
On Artaxerxes left flank, the heavy cavalry took some distance to make it harder for the slow hoplites to come to close combat. The others wait in line.
End of turn 1 A
In the middle, the cavalry and foot archers are raining some arrows on the rebels. And on his right flank, the medium infantry failed to activate (trumped) and are looking from afar.
End of turn 1 B
Turn 2 : Some archers and chariots harassment continues on the rebels left side. The light infantry is completely routed, the rebels close on Cyrus bodyguards…
The peltasts in a moment of bravery charge the chariots, forcing them to take some withdrawal cohesion hits. But they got too optimistic and it result in all but one being routed. The rebels light cavalry manages to keep the archers in check, avoiding some brutal pursuit. At the same time Artaxerxes infantry tries to flank the greek hoplites but fail to achieve a decisive result. The hoplites continue their advance, almost unbothered by the rain of arrows.
End of turn 2 A
The medium infantry is late to the action but Cyrus bodyguards are surrounded.
End of turn 2 B
Turn 3 : The hoplites close the distance and remove all but one heroic archer unit. But the heavy cavalry annoy them on their right, and the Egyption infantry in the middle needs a lot of work to get removed due to their quantity. Three flee the battlefield but there is still a wall of bodies holding.
End of turn 3 A
On the right Flank, Cyrus and his bodyguards charged some chariots and managed to remove almost all of them and pursuit a few archers. Artaxerxes infantry is almost there…
End of turn 3 B
… but it is already too much for the rebels who surrender.
It is a bit disappointing the the most interesting army compositions are there for such an imbalanced battle. It is written in the scenario book and confirmed on the board, the rebels have almost no chance.
Rebels got some successes, punishing Artaxerxes being overly aggressive, and the whole infantry flank was delayed enough, but the mass of the opposition is overwhelming.
Very interesting scenario, more playable than what the size suggests. The archer center divides the board in two different battlefields. But Artaxerxes has to attack fast on his right flank, because the greek hoplites are way better than anything on the board. I guess that will make this scenario run similarly every time.
Let’s continue exploring the Hoplite scenarios, the next one is Delium. An army of Athens against one of Thebes, with the beginning of their experimentation with a deeper phalanx.
For the first time, following a tip on bgg, I replace the box cohesion counter with some “number beads”. It helps a lot for the visibility. I also use some bingo chips for some status effects.
After a false start with to many errors (momentum and rally restrictions forgotten for leaderless army and march through the hill made too easy) the game is ready to be started again. I will play with the optional rules that make the Thebans start in “walk” order and roll on the table once they have an enemy Hoplite in LOS. Without it, it seems believing some who already played it, the Thebans take too much cohesion hit through the hills and got picked up easily by Athens when they reach the other side.
Round 1 : The Theban phalanx start their advance through the hill. On the Athenian left flank the Theban skirmishers start to confront the Athens ones. On the right however they advance too much seeing the cavalry already activated, but a lucky momentum row for Athens and two of them get picked up by the cavalry.
End of round 1
Round 2 : On the left flank, the skirmished majority pays of and one of the 2 Athenians flee. On the right one, the Thebes cavalry with a some good lock on there side, manage to get rid of the Athenian cavalry.
End of round 2
Round 3: An uneventful round. But the deep Theban phalanx comes to line of sight.
End of round 3
Round 4 : The Theban deep phalanx obliterates the last Athens skirmisher. The Thebes skirmishers throw javelins and stones at the Athens hoplites. 4 of the 6 last Thebes phalanx come in line of sight and will be able to charge next round.
End of round 4
Round 5 : Athens get a free initiative and tries to flank the over advance Theban massive Hoplite. But it goes horribly wrong when they hold and then charge them on their own flank. One less phalanx for Athens, the rest holds
End of round 5
Round 6 : The double Theban Phalanx wins its engagement, and charge and rout another one. The center holds. On the right, Thebes crumbles.
End of round 6 and end of game
It is a weird scenario. Feels like the standard Hoplite charge with extra steps. It is too long for what it is at the end. The scenario I liked the least for now. I feel like it should start on round 4 with the Theban charges through the hill. The rest feels unnecessary and slow to start.
At the end the result of the game is the expected one. Strong left side of the Theban holds. Right flank Athenian majority wins.
I decided to skip the massive battle of Platea, to go to the next Mycale. It is anyway the biggest battle for now.
It is a battle of Persia between Athens and Spartan reinforcements. Persian have the number advantage.
Round 1 : Athens decide to not rush forward and wait the Spartan. Persia takes the defensive position, for a drm in defence, at the price of not being able to move or attack. Both light infantry go around and try to see if they can outflank opponent.
End of round 1
Round 2 : Nothing much happens, first skirmish between the light infantry of both sides
End of round 2
Round 3 : Skirmish between light infantry becomes bloodier but stays balanced. Spartans are almost in position.
End of round 3
Round 4 : Greek light infantry wins the skirmish. Persian medium infantry notice they could have done something since a long time and leave their shield wall position on the right side, hoping to get the initiative on round 5. Spartan are in formation. The game will start.
End of round 4
Round 5 1st part : Persian medium infantry get first activation, and momentum. The whole Greek infantry is in retreat.
Round 5 after Persian activation
Round 5 : The Greeks are ready and seeing their flank disappear go with the charge. It works as expected and they manage to punch a hole in Persian defenses.
End of round 5
Round 6. The Persian infantry on the left holds against the odds and manage to kill the Athenian leader and Overall commander, for a 15 points hit to the morale. Another holds a Spartan Hoplite. The rest is liquefied, but some manage to rally. On the flank where the light infantry skirmish happened, the Persian take advantage of their victory there and threaten the Greek flanks.
End of round 6
Round 7 : Now the Persian defense are shattered on their left. Persian are above their flight points and should lose at the end of the turn. But the archers save the day and rout the victorious Hoplites. The Greek light infantry tries to rally but completely fails and almost all light infantry are added to the flight points.
Situation at end of round 7 and end of game
End result : 64 flight points on the Greek side (board say 62 but I count 64 now). 47 on the Persian side.
It is a weird end. Greek would have won if they didn’t try to rally on last turn, which is very “gamy” and makes no sense. Could have been very frustrating in opposed game. Also the 15 points for an unlucky leader death hurt them a lot.
But at the same time they have a lot of routed army on the map and if the game continued it is not clear if they could have gather enough momentum to “finish the job”.
Lessons learned from the game :
Be careful when you try to rally, it could cost the game
The rules to go through an own unit is less punishing than I thought, and Persian took advantage of it at the end when they read the rulebook
I completely forgot the hoplite drift to the right, I don’t know if it would have been relevant
The flanking maneuver from the Greek where stupid and would have been punished hard if the Persian side understood it sooner.
The first game of Hoplite where some maneuver happens. But I don’t know how it would go if Athens decided to charge on turn 1. Also some choices of what to do with Sparta. They could be sent through the hill, it is slow but I don’t think the Greeks can be punished for waiting. I would like to play it opposed to see what strategies the Greek side can come with but it is the most open scenario of the box for now. Also the first one where terrain matters.
On the rules side, still some mistakes. I don’t remember all of them. At the beginning I treated the Stream as Minor River, which had some impact for both sides, I had to adapt to correct it halfway through in a way that makes sense. But I can play a few impulses without checking the Rulebook.
Persian troups are threatening Athens, let’s see if the legendary charge can push them back.
The map is a little bit overkilled but it has its effect on the board. Placement is forced and Athens will have initiative for the first 2 turns. They can decide a charge and run 8 hexes for the cost of 1 cohesion hit.
Beginning of turn 3 they are not in range and ready to charge. Persians decided to take the historic approach, not doing anything fancy and standing ready to shoot arrows.
Most of the Persian archers rout under the pressure of the running armored. The center holds but it is looking good for Athens.
Time for Persian counter attack. They manage to hold everywhere, rout the weaker central hoplite unit, killing its leader in the process. So far still historical. Athens should win on the wings and close on the persian infantry.
Then it goes wrong, in the next activations, their best leader is wounded and 2 more hoplites run away, the Persian center expands on both side menacingly.
An then, except for the platea smaller hoplite unit cleaning routed archers, everything that could go wrong does go wrong. They even get another unit breaking in trying to engage.
The hoplite manage at last to rout a Persian medium infantry… only to flee under a volley of arrows.
The Persian can now stand still and enjoy the view of the Greek army running away, but for their last activation they get cocky and try to mop up. In some weird turn of faith, the Persian leader dies in Personal combat, as the same time as the Greek one when his routed army manages to hold the contact check and does try to defend against the Persian doing the pursuit. But except for the unnecessary death of their leader, it removes everything from the board, except some skirmishers and the heroic Platea unit, only one to manage somehow to fight.
That was a catastrophic day for Athens. Not so much decision making in this scenario, it just showed how swingy the game can be, and how it can be impossible to manage anything if the luck is not on your side.
80 rout points for Athens, double what they needed to lose. It was not the most interesting scenario. I will probably revisit it in the future as a learning scenario when I teach the game to someone. And I hope for a more realistic result. But was fun to see the horror story for the Greeks unfolds, bad luck after bad luck.
2nd game of Hoplite, here we have a small confrontation between Greeks and Persians. The scenario tells us the mobility of Persia should be challenging to overcome for the Greeks, and historically they didn’t have any solution for the chariots. Lets see.
The first error… all the Persians in one bag was a bad idea, it started with some long sorting.
The setup is quite free. I decide to put the Persian infantry the most backward authorized. The cavalry archers and the chariots go to the front. For the Greek part not too much to think, a line of Hoplite, forward to spare a little bit their legs, and the 4 skirmishers in front of them.
picture is blurred but we see the idea
Opening move, the Persian army chooses to go with the Cavalry and with some lucky shots, and a direct draw of the momentum, removes one skirmisher and starts to annoy one hoplite…
… ready to withdraw at the first move in front of them, which is a Greek skirmishers activation.
One cavalry panicked a little bit in the withdrawal fire, losing all their ammo and taking cohesion hit on the retreat.
The Greek army decides to advance en echelon, keeping the right flank on the back to contain the cavalry and be ready to cover the back of the units running forward. But the leftmost hoplite has to deal with a chariot mighty charge.
They survive somehow the charge of 3 chariot passing through their lines. They now have to pray the gods of the dice to win the initiative.
It works. They do a reverse movement, pass their engagement roll, kill the leader in personal combat, remove 2 of the 3 chariots in the battle, roll successfully to avoid the rout, the 3rd chariot does not.
At the same time a running hoplite deletes the last chariot of the formation, who already took way too much damage charging a skirmisher. No point for historical accuracy.
Unfortunately for them, no time to celebrate. On the other flank, the Persian heavy cavalry manages to go around the hoplites supposed to contain them. With a successful momentum they can play again, engage on from the flank, and rout it before they can react.
Rule mistake visible here. I placed some move markers on the cavalry and they took one cohesion hit for moving again. It shouldn’t, it is only for medium and heavy infantry.
Round 3. On the right flank, one hoplite manages to form the square, covering his friend running forward. On the left flank, the formation that removed the chariots is completely disconnected from the rest of the army. And in the middle the phalanxes that ran forward are now out of command.
The Persian cavalry surrounds the over extended formations, routing one under a volley of arrow.
Round 4 The Greek leaders try to run to the forward formations. The two last advanced hoplite manage to stay put and survive the next wave of shots.
But coming from the rear, the heavy cavalry has time to go around the squared hoplite formation to confront the one that was running forward. However they are too far to flank it. With a successful reverse maneuver, the hoplite faces them forcing the cavalry to engage through a wall of pikes. The cavalry takes heavy hits, but it is enough, the hoplite formation breaks, and the Greek army runs away.
38 to 20 rout points. Had the forward hoplites reached the Persian infantry, they maybe would have managed to rout enough units to steal the victory. But the poor command decision to not send a leader with them did cost the the precious activation needed to engage. Too bad, the lucky early success against the chariots gave them some good chances.
I think the idea not to send the whole phalanxes forward on first impulse was not ideal. They got flanked anyway and were too late to support the push to the weak Persian infantry.
Fun scenario, 30 rout points is low, battle could quickly turn. I made some poor decisions for both sides. It is one I will probably revisit later.
An operational wargame with 6 pages of rules ? That’s intriguing.
The game happens during the first Italian war of independence and covers the march of Radetzky through Italian territory until the capture of Novara. It opened the road to Milan where a last fight will force the surrender of Piedmont army to keep the Austrian hold on northern Italy intact.
The campaign
When you setup the campaign game, the contrast between the one counter sheet and the two maps is striking. It is a huge territory for the Austrian army to take. In gameplay, this translates in a feeling of race against time for the Austrian army.
Battlefield view halfway through, The yellow cubes on the left are the objectives for the Austrian army. They start at the yellow cube on the right
The map is extremely interesting, the Austrian lines will have to extend through two major rivers to be able to keep supply to the far away objectives. For the Italian side, it translates in holding long enough the many defensive positions and withdrawing before being surrounded.
The basic mechanic is well thought. Every turn you “seed” some command chit to the chit pull cup. And that number scales during the day to fall to one in the night turn. When you draw a division chit you put it anywhere on the map and activate units of said division in its range. You can cheat the system every two rounds with a general persona chit that activates 2 or 3 divisions in its range. Every turn you have also an “independent” chit that activates any 3 units in its range of 1 hex. It is simple to understand and is directly engaging. That said with activation chit being placed anywhere on the map, you can activate any out of supply unit behind enemy lines without any drawback. I will tackle the consequence of this later.
But victory cannot be at all cost. If one side has 20 more strength points in the lost pile than the opponent it is instant defeat. Almost every battle result asks the players (attacker and/or defender) to choose between retreat and hold at cost of unit steps. If you retreat you are shaken, forcing you to waste an activation before attacking again (or wait for the night). Than can be very costly to the Austrian, once again playing on a clock. You always have to think if it is too costly to hold/advance short term and also for the instant win. In gaming perspective it is some very interesting decisions
Too light ?
Where the game starts to have its limits very quickly is with the rules. A lot of unanswered questions force the players to take decisions that have some balance implications. The game being small production and having a low player base, answers are often only two random people guessing on bgg forums.
The most important being, in case of attack and defense if both are retreating, in which order ? But also some like Cavalry withdraw can the first hex be in enemy zoc ? Do ford count as road for movement bonus ?
In playing we had to decide on rules on the fly on what seems fair/logical/in the spirit of the game.
Another weird thing is unit can always force march for double movement, giving cavalry unit up to 13 hex movement even when shaken and of supply. Supply is checked at the end of the night turn and units stay out of supply (half combat value, no shaken restore) for the next 4 turns. That means before the supply round, it is a counting festival, where you have to check that no unit from opponent have a path to the important points of your supply line. And as I said before, the chits can activate units anywhere on the map, this stranded one strength unit behind enemy line can cut the whole army. It is annoying and doesn’t feel right. With experience I guess you play correctly around it and you will have to balance your advance with being sure you let not enemy unit unattended. But again, thematically there is something feeling wrong there.
The first game I played finished that way. Oh you missed that my shaken cavalry has a path to this crossroads 12 hexes away, too bad your whole army is out of supply for the next day. Cavalry can always retreat the moment they are engaged, which is a nice feature of the game providing some interesting interactions. But it also makes them awfully difficult to contain, without even speaking about remove them.
Closer view of the frontline from the Italian perspective. The surrounded stack will cost them a lot.
Conclusion
This game is in a weird place. Being very light on the rules it could be easily an entry wargame. But the campaign needing at least two long sessions play and the supply rules being so punishing make it not the best choice for beginner. The smaller scenarios are only there to learn the rules and are not interesting enough to justify the buy by themselves.
That being said, it is a fun one. The map is once again great, and the moving battle with one side having to rush works well for tension. Also chit pull and the smart mechanic of seeding the divisions that go to the cup is really working well.
Its place is as a light weight game for heavy weight players. I played twice and can see it being played a few times again. I guess with experience I will manage to tweak the rule questions in the intended direction. Also, as a not house rule person, it is for once a game I want to house rule. I would like to find something for the shaken units behind enemy lines.
I tried today Tanagra, the smallest scenario of Great battles of history episode 15 : hoplite.
It is a quick phalanx to phalanx battle. Hoplite works as a chit pull, with a momentum chit to be able to re activate a formation. Here each side have only one formation, and the momentum can be used to activate the 2 Athenian light cavalry for Athens, and to roll to take control of them for Sparta. In the scenario book it is said they change side, the last thing I read is that they charge the wrong side in the battle confusion.
Both side ready to fight. The distance and order of the units is free. I made it the closest possible without thinking.
First activation first mistake, the first chit was Athenian momentum, which I rolled and passed the test to activate them… but it is supposed to be Sparta initiative, and the side with initiative choose the first formation to activate. So they should have gone first
Sparta counter marches and engages, everyone holds.
They draw their momentum but fail the roll to take control of the cavalry
Last chit is Athens real activation, they make their last unit reach the combat but have some catastrophic rolls and fail all their phalanx saves.
And that was it… enough for their army to give up.
Once the placement decisions were made, not much choice in game, just heavy armored men running to one another. With the distance I randomly picked between the armies, it gave clearly an advantage to play second. The distance was not enough to reach on first activation. But whatever the speed, the second was closing the distance. They get bonus to die roll for running units and get to choose where to attack. They can go 2 to 1 against the most advanced enemy units wherever possible. Would have been closer if the 2d Athens activation came before the Spartan one.
Anyway one turn. 2 hours : installation, go through the rules, play most steps following slowly on the book. It is a lot lighter than Alexander.
Great Battles of History (GboH) has an interesting place in the wargaming world. Almost all the people I play with own at least one or all games of the Series. And at the same time none of them, really, none, has ever played. GMT releasing some deluxe editions with a huge amount of content surely helped the FOMO and collector part of people buying those.
For my part, like everyone, I never played, but I also didn’t own any. When a gamer in my area upgraded his copy to get the new deluxe of Great Battles of Alexander to have the extension Tyrant included (and be sure his collection of a game he will never play is complete), it was an opportunity to get my hand of a pitiful not last and not complete version. And because I am also an human with the same flaws as others, I rushed to buy a copy of Tyrant on bgg at the moment I realized it had good reviews and was missing.
The system
So, what is GBoh ? GBoH is not really a system, the title of the section is already not accurate. There is no system rules per se, but a very similar set of rules for each of the box in the series (15 of them), covering different moments and places of antiquity. I don’t really know other games in the system, just read a little bit around. What I will say may not be accurate for other games of the series.
The first thing you notice when you start reading the rules, is that the turn order is complicated. Initiative is at the same time how fast a leader can play, and how many units it could activate. A one initiative leader will activate first but will also activate only one unit. You have to activate your lowest initiative leader, but you could roll a die to make a better leader take the initiative, but if you do, you will give the opportunity for an opponent leader to steal the initiative, removing this possibility for other leaders, but if he fails, he won’t activate this turn. You didn’t understand in the first read ? That’s how this whole section of the rules feel. But, once you understand it (after 3 games on my side) it is quite a smart system. I know some other games in the series replace that with chit pull, it is probably way better in term of on-boarding.
Then you install the game, and it strikes you, even the small scenarios are intimidating. And apparently in SPQR or Caesar it is even bigger. You have this massive line of units waiting their command and no idea what to do. Once you manage to pass this initial internal moral check, you activate the fastest initiative leader, and you send units to the front.
And there it strikes you again. The first combats you resolve are a grind. First you check if unit take cohesion hits. Then you check if someone has advantage. Then you look at the weapons matrix to see on which table of the CRT you will roll. Then you look at the potential DRM will be induced. Then you roll and add cohesion hits to both side. Then you check if some leaders got hurt in the process. Then if one side has 3 times more hits than the other side they take 2 more. Then if one side has the same amount of hits as their cohesion value they rout, or roll for the phalanx type units. Then all units with one less cohesion hits than their value roll to see if they rout or hold and heal a little bit in the process. Then if some units are routed the attacker must advance.
First attempt from Alexander army to cross the Granicus and being brutally repulsed. Don’t do that.
And because it would be too easy, each step has to be done for all combats before going to the next one. It is a good idea because you have no information about how other combat will work and no “blitzkrieg effect” like the rulebook says. But if you have 5 shock combat to resolve (which is not much in this game) your mental ram will overflow.
Shock is the most complex, the rest is very logical, but still a lot, and exceptions everywhere. Like for range you have to understand : range fire done in movement phase, hit and disperse tactics instead of movement, reaction fire at any time, -1 to fire table if you moved, except if it were a javelin moving forward. Cavalry archer can fire when they withdraw.
When you can rotate a unit or not is also an art to master.
Once you got all that that’s great. But I will tell you the first battles will take a lot of time, with a lot of mistakes and forgotten rules. I highly recommend playing alone a smaller scenario a few times and checking the rules in between a few time
The components
Before talking about the elephant in the room, don’t forget to check the elephant rampage rules, and remember elephants don’t rotate the same as other units (I don’t remember how and am too lazy to grab the rules). So, the elephant in the room : this game is fiddly. You have a cohesion hit counter for each unit that you have to update all the time, a low ammo/no ammo counter, some potential leader wound counter, a rout/rally counter… It can easily go to a 6 tokens stack for one leader and one unit. After more than 10 games, I still don’t know the most practical way to organize the counters on the board. I believed the worst game ever on this matter was Antiquity (great game by the way), how wrong I was.
The empty beige maps are pushing people away, but once you played you appreciate the readability it provides. You don’t want extra distraction to this already complicated task. And the game is already asking so much to your brain without terrain, you feel a certain sense of relief when your read in the scenario book “use the Gaugamela map” (the featureless one).
How does it feel ?
It is.. a blast ! I can understand it is hard to believe after this wall of text I just wrote. Learning this game feels the same. After the grind of 5, 6, 7 games, you get a sense of it, you roll mechanically the 2000 times needed for each fight, you find some reminder tricks on the parallel resolutions, and the battle unfolds in front of you.
I got quite a memorable moments, like Alexander getting wounded in a cavalry charge crossing the Granicus. I like the mental adaptability needed to try to hold your army in a kind line. I enjoyed doing hit and run tactics with Persia cavalry until they crumble under the weight of the opposing Phalanxes. I felt the panic when opposing units overwhelmed mine and started to attack from the rear and routed the low maneuverability phalanx units
Play accuracy bonus for Alexander wounded charging through the Granicus
The initiative trumping is an interesting risk reward mechanic. Is this opposing leader activating again worth my leader risking 1 in 5 chance to not play in a roll to avoid it ? Is trying to get initiative so important that I am ready to risk giving my opponent momentum ?
I don’t know if historically accurate (no one knows), but the battles unfolding feel believable. And with so many die rolls, the odd results add some flavor to the story. You get attached to your unit that survived against the odds to go flank the opponent. You cry with this early crumbling phalanx. You feel the tension of this melee going way too long with both side holding with all they have.
If it is balance you search, you won’t find it here. All scenario go from slightly unbalance to a steamroll. You have to be ready to accept it when you start. That being said, some odd results with a bit of luck and bad decisions gave the disadvantaged side more victories than I thought. And the tension is always there, whatever side you play.
Conclusion
“Small” scenario oppening moves
After playing around 15 times, I ordered Hoplites. Not because I don’t like this one, but because I feel a slightly easier activation mechanic (chit pull) and some smaller scenarios will help me onboard my players in this adventure. I am also in a crusade of teaching each and every player who hold this game and never played.
If you are one of this players, having one game of the series watching you menacingly from the dusty top of your shelf, go ahead and face it. The first game will be awful. The second will be even worse. You will re read the rules and feel you played a completely other game. You will painfully search for some playthrough on Youtube and see those are filled with even more errors than yours. You will try again. And at some point, you will check the rules only to double check and you will see the reward. At that point you will feel confident enough to hold the weight of the rules for 2 players and you will play opposed. You will then be of the 1% of wargamers who can play GBoH, and you will know how good it is.
I discovered Men of Iron almost at the same time. If the period is not the same, it feels like an extremely light weighted version of this game. I have a lot of similar sensations when I play it. I would recommend using it as a learning step. The similarities will help a lot, and the games are different enough that it will not be confusing. I know of the “simple GBoH” rules. Those are out of print at time of review and I was already in the process of learning when I read about those. After reading a little bit about it, they feel like a legit thing. This game may be too complex. There is some times I noticed an exception I forgot and complained that it’s too much.
But anyway, it is worth it. You like hex and counters ? You are interested in antique history ? Go for it, it need patience, but at the end there is nothing like it.
The 30 years war is a complex period to understand. You have to go through the politics of the Holy Roman Empire, the religious turmoil in Europe, the crumbling Spanish empire, the Habsburg family tree… Designing a game that presents the whole of the period is quite ambitious to say the least.
Cuius regio presents us with a lot of different scenarios and a beast of campaign. Let’s be honest, at time of review, the campaign seems like a distant thing I may tackle in the future.
The mechanics :
But let’s start with the beginning. The base mechanics of the game are quite straightforward… like a game of Ludo : select a pawn, roll a die to see how far it moves, next player. The only difference is that the map is hex based, the pawn can bring an army with it and that together they can attack and take cities.
In a more serious note, and appart from that, it is far from a light game, there is a lot to keep in mind. For example your armies have a zoc of 2 hexes if they have cavalry, unless opponent army has 2 times the amount then it ignores it. The first actions were a grind, with a lot of interruption and rule checking. Some instinctive stuff learned from other games doesn’t apply here, for example you can continue to move after a battle. It makes sense in the game but it is the kind of rules that you want to double check because it feels “weird” at first. After a few activations, 3 battles and 2 times through the reinforcement/politic phase it becomes surprisingly smooth.
And then it shows its real face : it is one of the most technical games I played in a long time. You are free to decide the order of activations of your armies. Once they activate, they have a huge potential of action. But because a unit cannot stay without a leader, you cannot let units behind to hold ground, every move you do makes you weaker somewhere else.
Your activations are limited by a fatigue mechanic that works really great. Units start the turn with 0, end of their activation they get +1, battle they get 1 or 2 more depending of result, and unit with 5 cannot activate until next turn. Fatigue is also a negative for move and battle. That means you could activate your best army on your first 2 activations to push through a disorganized opponent. But that comes with the risk of having your best army stranded with a -5 in combat, stuck out of supply in the middle of nowhere. Done that, not recommended.
How it feels :
Even on the smaller first scenario, you would think with 3 armies and a quarter of the map available, decision making would be obvious, it is not. In my first game, Tully, only competent leader on Empire side, decided to die in leader check (double 1) in his first combat in Bohemia. The consequences for this alternative history are probably huge, in short term empire troops looked in disarray Protestant armies rampaging through Austria.
But even there when I thought scenario is dead on second activation, an heroic run through Bohemia to take Prague with the somehow reinforced army running through cities and burning them… to rout in a battle they had advantage and lose their precious artillery train and with it all hope for the Imperial side.
It was eventful, it was tense, it was interesting, and finished with desire of a rematch, with the painful situations becoming precious experience. What I thought would be only the rules learning small scenario is a board game in itself I want to play again. It felt so hard to play correctly I am sure there is quite a bit of replayability before the scenario is played optimally by both side.
The game is quite thematic, armies pillaging everything just to maintain themselves, the map coloring itself with flames token in their path. Leaders coming and leaving, but the war still raging on.
I am a chess club player and an avid wargamer… and mechanically speaking, the feelings and calculations I did during the game were closer to chess game than classic gmt. Is it bad ? Depends who you ask, but I think players should be warned. There is also a high risk of analysis paralysis, when you feel every move you do has huge drawbacks.
What is not like chess is the randomness. Combats are swingy, one die roll for result, one for bonus fatigue, one for leader death, deal with it. It is well done, it is quick, and you have to be ready to lose any battle. You can never go confident and push through. The fatigue die roll is completely arbitrary. You have always to prepare for the worst.
Components :
The map art is impressive, my only and petty complaint there is that we have to hide all the beautiful cities on the map with functional control markers.
In the small complaints I also hate the amount of manipulation to go from 5 to 4 units and the loss of readability. When a 10 infantry 5 cavalry unit lost 10% with stragglers, the army going from 2 counter to 9 was annoying. I recommend using a dice for the 1-5 value or finding any other way… or not being lazy and sort your units tokens, but that’s asking too much of me ! (Yes it’s maybe a me problem)
And last one, I feel I have to go through 2000 player aids every time I search something, but at least everything is there and everything is clear. I don’t feel there is a lot more than Simonitch 4X series, and I don’t understand how it was not possible to get away with the same folded player aid. Some info from it could be also on the sides of the map. It makes the first step into an already hard to onboard game bigger than it should.
Conclusion :
One of my favorite game of the last years.
Tells a story, asks the player to think, has a huge amount of replayability. Each scenario is a full boardgame in itself and there are 6 of them, plus a campaign covering the 30 years.
The learning curve is huge. I think the only way to play the campaign or longer scenarios is to have a dedicated opponent who did the smaller scenarios with you . I also think the hidden armies make the game even more interesting, but there again you really need an experienced opponent.
It is already quite a task to find people to play wargames live, asking them to be dedicated to such a demanding game may be a bigger challenge than the learning curve of the game itself.
If this one stays on my shelf in the future, it will be only because of this last point. If I hype one of my players enough, then it has potential to have a lot of table time.
But again, you have to know what it is, I recommend it, but I think players have to know where they are going and what this game really is.
