This is getting harder and harder to do. Valor & Victory, as I’ve said many times before on this blog…and to whoever will listen, is one of my favourite squad level tactical board wargames. I liked it so much, in fact, that I purchased a properly made up copy from the designer rather than stick with the free print and play.
That means I was genuinely excited to hear that Valor & Victory was getting a Steam release from Slitherine and Yobowargames. Unfortunately, my review of the base game was not entirely positive. While I liked seeing one of my favourite rulesets on the digital tabletop, I was put off by some clunkiness, bad AI, and the fact that Valor & Victory’s simplicity, while a boon on the tabletop, was unnecessary for PC.
Out for a walk to Stalingrad
Fast forward to now, and the game’s first DLC is making its way to Steam. This DLC covers the battle for Stalingrad and some surrounding engagements. This comes in the form of 13 new maps and 14 new missions and, of course, the Soviet Union as a playable faction.
It is great to see a pile of new troops and vehicles enter the fray and if I was able to purchase this expansion for the board game, I would in a heart beat. The content is interested and quite varied from heavily built up maps to more normal fare.
Scenarios are also good, with more than one clear path to victory and some entertaining set ups. Early missions will see the Soviets hard pressed to defend against a determined German attack, but it makes it all the more satisfying when it happens!
Content, Yes. Fixes, no.
One of my biggest problems with Valor & Victory Digital was the AI. It can defend reasonably well, given that the smaller scale means less movement is necessary, but it has a very difficult time attacking. More than once I was horrified to see the enemy break through with vehicles, and, instead of push on to the objectives, simply drive around to try and shoot at peripheral units.
I am also afraid to say that some of the things that frustrated me, like no option to alter the speed of dice rolls or to impact reaction fire, are still present and accounted for. I also ran into some bugs with the camera failing to scroll correctly and with some visuals hanging up.
I will stand by my initial reaction to say that multiplayer, as a substitute for the physical multiplayer of the boardgame, is still where the game shines. That and the potential for creative gamers to make interesting scenarios using the built in tools. But when the core AI is less than challenging and there are some continued niggling issues that gnaw at my enjoyment, I’m not entirely convinced this is worth the time.
An Unnecessary but Mostly Welcome Addition
While core gameplay remains the same as the base game of Valor & Victory, I was happy to see some more game features make their way from the tabletop to the digital adaptation in a free accompanying update. Some key missing features like support artillery, snipers, and air power are very welcome. It is nice that they are going to be included for free alongside the DLC.
But that begs the question, is the DLC necessary? If you’re interested in the Soviet counters and the new maps, then yes, but if Valor & Victory didn’t excite you the first time around, there is nothing substantial enough to change that opinion.
Finally, I’m just sad that I feel I have to give this DLC, and the Valor & Victory digital system as a whole a less than positive review. I love the board game, and maybe that is influencing my take here, but there are some sloppy feeling issues that very well could have been resolved between release and now. Content is all well and good, but, like the first tie around, I’ll be sticking with the board game now that my time reviewing the digital adaptation is finished.
-Joe Fonseca
⭐⭐
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Some good new content will please fans of the game, but longstanding frustrations remain, keeping this from being a must buy. There are better games out there.
LTAW received a copy of this game for review. You can find the game here. We get nothing if you click that link.
Counterfactuals can be a lot of fun if done well. SGS Operation Hawaii is one of those interesting ones that takes a reasonable, if unlikely, premise and explores the what-if through its gameplay. The result is a tight, entertaining game that I really wish had a physical board game release!
Counterfactual: Invading Hawaii
There was talk between the Japanese Army and Navy about the potential of landing ground forces on Oahu, but never really within the timeframe of the December 7 1941 air attack on Pearl Harbor. SGS Operation Hawaii does a clever thing in positioning the landing as a small scale operation, carried out by only 2 regiments, to wreak as much havoc as possible in the limited time they can be supplied. There was never really the cooperation this kind of invasion needed between both branches of the Japanese military. The army was reluctant to do anything to support a Naval led Southward Strike, and the Navy had to fight tooth and nail for the army support it did get for its invasions in South East Asia. Operation Hawaii supposes that the army could be convinced to give up a regiment for what could be a forlorn hope. This is reflected in how Operation Hawaii lays out its objectives and the overall shorter structure of the game. The key is to destroy as many military instillations as possible as the Japanese player.
What Makes Operation Hawaii Stand Out
First and foremost, SGS games are great for their exploration of less well known military campaigns. Operation Hawaii, as a counterfactual exploring an interesting what-if, fits into that mold. There are plenty of well researched and reasonable cards in both sides’ decks that highlight the interesting confines of this potential campaign. From the Japanese potential use of ships of the Kido Butai to support attacks near the coast, to the US organization of citizens to dig trenches and build defenses, there are a lot of great cards that really sell the atmosphere.
There are also a good amount of strategic decisions for both sides to take at the beginning of the game. The Japanese player can choose where to focus their attack, and at the cost of victory points, how much support to commit to the attack. The US forces can choose their disposition (without knowing where the Japanese are coming from) and can influence their starting resources. There is a good bit of replayability as a result.
The actual action is fast and tight. There will be a lot of quick skirmishes followed up by a solid battle or two as the American forces form up to meet the Japanese attack. Therefore it becomes quickly apparent that this is a game of speed and deception. If the Japanese player can get around the US forces, they have a better chance of carrying out their objectives, if the US forces can react to and stop the Japanese, they can preserve their island and blunt the attack. It plays well.
Downsides
This is a shorter game, on average, than most of the other SGS titles I played. My first campaign took 3 hours and my second 2. I do believe there is good enough replayability to make it worthwhile, and as I see this as a digital version of a board game, the heart of it is multiplayer, but be warned about campaign length.
I also encountered a few bugs in my pre-release version. Sometimes enemy planes wouldn’t be grounded during rain turns when the game states they should be, and I was unsure if a couple cards failed to have the desired effect, or if it was merely a missing graphical indication. I did see, at the time of writing, that a decent sized patch has gone out for release, so I hope that these issues are resolved.
Final Thoughts
Operation Hawaii is an interesting, entertaining, and simple wargame that touches on a fascinating what-if and presents it in a playable fashion. I enjoyed both of my campaigns and will definitely play more. But buyers must be aware of the short time to play of each game. I think it’s worth it, but ultimately I can’t make that decision for you.
-Joe Fonseca
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
SGS Operation Hawaii is being released today. You can check it out here. LTAW was given a code for the purposes of this review. We get nothing if you click the link.
Going into this review I must admit something important. Something that some of you may find disturbing and unnatural. I am a HUGE fan of the classic AGEOD series of wargames. I mention this because SGS Afrika Korps: Tunisia comes to us from Philippe Thibaut, designer of the original Europa Universalis and the AGEOD series, and his team. The AGEOD legacy is clearly evident, and while I’m about to go in depth as to how Tunisia differs, it’s best to remember that I have a personal attachment to this game’s forbearers.
How does SGS Afrika Korps Play?
Afrika Korps: Tunisia is a turn based operational level wargame where players take command of either side of the 1942-43 Battle for North Africa during the Second World War. Players take control of American, Commonwealth, and French forces or their German and Italian enemies, moving brigades, air support, and supplies around a colourful area map of the region.
Gameplay is more regimented than most wargames, with several distinct phases controlling the flow of a turn. These phases cover reinforcements, the play of special strategic cards, air attacks and movement, ground movement, battles, and any post-fighting shuffling that might happen. Personally, I enjoyed this structure because it helped minimize some of the analysis paralysis I know was a problem with older AGEOD titles. Being presented with a giant blank canvas full of units and options made those classic games a challenge to approach. Here I found the familiar ground presented to me in a clearer and more concise format.
Secondly, the structured turns, in addition to the card play mechanics and transparent dice mechanics, gives SGS Afrika Korps a distinct board game quality, one that is reinforced by the overall presentation of the game. As my wall of board wargames will attest, I like the feel of a good board wargame and found SGS did a solid job of presenting itself as such. This is an aesthetic and gameplay choice that some might not mesh with, but those who appreciate board wargaming and like the transparency and simpler rules that a board game-like PC game provides will be happy with SGS Afrika Korps.
Battles, whether they are air bombardments or conventional ground based attacks, operate along similar lines. Both sides will take it in turn to attack the other in rounds. Units like artillery will fire first, and certain special units, like Panzer Brigades or scouts, have special rules that will alter the standard flow of battle. I appreciate that a lot of the obfuscated information that hindered AGEOD games is now out in the open in SGS. Each unit’s roll of the die will be laid out during the battle to fly by as quickly or slowly as players like.
The importance of unit composition, like including artillery, air support, and scouts in most fighting formations gives players clear goals to strive towards, highlighting the supply and reinforcement issues that plagued this campaign. It will often be difficult to bring a balanced force to bear against your opponent, but when it happens, it really feels like you made it happen.
The cards may put some people off, but I enjoy what they add to the game. Like with board wargames, cards with special situational events on the help to simulate the wider war without bogging down players by forcing them to learn a million extra rules. Just know that the skillful use of tactical cards during battle and strategic cards during a turn will be an important part of SGS’s wider strategy.
Visuals and Feel in SGS Afrika Korps
Visually, I like what Tunisia has to offer. It is a relatively standard tabletop set up, but the unit graphics and photographs on the cards are nice. The only complaint I have here is that some unit art appears to be recycled, and I found myself highlighting units to remind myself if this indistinct French infantryman was a Zouave unit or a mechanized brigade. It’s odd because so many units have their own art, but not all.
There are several ways to control units, and that seems like a nice accessibility feature. moving stacks can be done by dragging and dropping or by right clicking, which brings up a coloured radius of areas that the stack can reach. A lot of information can be toggled on and off including supply maps and area stacking limits. There are a few video tutorials, but for those unfamiliar with the old AGEOD games, a few turns of trial and error will probably be necessary to come to grips with how Tunisia flows.
Final Thoughts
I really enjoyed my time with SGS Afrika Korps: Tunisia. It felt like a natural evolution of the AGEOD formula into something more accessible, understandable, and perhaps enjoyable for those who might have been put off by that series’ complexity. I appreciate the board game feel and aesthetics, but understand that some might be put off by the transparently game-y aspects of Tunisia. I think it’s worth exploring and am looking foward to more from SGS.
-Joe Fonseca
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
A fun, accessible, and pretty game that carries the AGEOD feeling into a new era. Definitely not for everyone, but for board wargame lovers or those who liked the concept, if not the execution, of the classic AGEOD titles.
A Steam Code was provided to Let’s Talk About Wargames for the purposes of this review. The game is available on Steam and through the SGS website.LTAW doesn’t get anything if you click that link.
Hello everyone! It’s my pleasure to announce here on the blog that Sunday September 19th and 9:00AM EST, Jack and I will be hosting the Paper Time Machines talk by legendary designer Volko Ruhnke!
Please come check out the stream for an enlightening talk about science fiction and historical simulations! Here’s the official description:
“Boardgames can transport us to different worlds by showing us on a tabletop how these worlds work. This is as true of fantasy and science fiction boardgames as it is of historical simulations, because great fantasy and science fiction draws from knowledge of human history to make its alien worlds work in coherent and realistic ways. Historical boardgame designer Volko Ruhnke will show how science fiction and fantasy boardgames and historical boardgames all share and can reveal facets of human affairs, including:
• The flow of resources in warfare: DUNE and Falling Sky (Caesar in Gaul).
• Medieval military operationa: War of the Ring and Nevsky (Teutons and Rus).
• Insurgency and counterinsurgency: Star Wars Rebellion and Fire in the Lake (US in Vietnam).”
We’ll be there to moderate questions and comments so if you want to get some words in with the big man himself about wargaming and conflict simulation, drop on by!
Hey folks! This will be a special, weekly column where we review what we reviewed, talk about what games we’re playing (for review or otherwise), drop some facts about new podcast content, and other news of that nature!
Jack: This week, my AC continued to be broken (and has been since the beginning of July. I crave death.), so I snuck downstairs late at night to my PC when it’s cooler, as the PC room is obviously the hottest area in the house. I got a bit of time in on the latest Panzer Corps 2 DLC, which is an interesting pivot for the DLC series that I appreciate, more on this to come as I get more playtime in, of course. Similarly, I played a little bit of Highfleet, which reminds me of some of those old flash games you’d find online years ago, but in a good way. Certainly very unique! Full thoughts on the way there as well.
In my time stuck in my room with my work laptop, I haven’t been able to do much wargaming besides, but I did watch an 80’s classic and prepare to play the associated board game, which is baffling that it exists. Expect a review soon of a game that makes light of a certain “danger zone.”
We’re also recording a new episode over the weekend with a guest, in which we’ll be talking about the gaming community and how it treats certain members, both as players and as developers. Expect that episode out towards the end of the month!
Pictured: An online game
Joe: I’m struggling! Work is still eating up 90% of my time and trying to get some gaming in for reviews in that final 10% is a bit of a challenge. But I am happy to say that I’m enjoying what I am getting my hands on.
I’m getting closer to completing Warhammer 40k Battlesector, and I’m happy to report in the meantime that my initial opinions have not changed very much. We’ll have to see what the end game content does for me.
I’m also chipping away at another more traditional wargame that should delight those of you who are interested in some classic JTS action. Hopefully that will come out as soon as I finish another couple scenarios.
Finally, and happily, the latest drops from Microprose are looking to be something special. With Jack’s take on Highfleet forthcoming, and my own look at Carrier Command 2, fans of outlandish and stylish wargaming have a lot to look forward to.
Some Official Updates from Publishers:
Slitherine is happy to report on the progress of Masters of Magic with this neat update about in-game events:
“There are several different types of events in Master of Magic, and they will all make a comeback in the remake: The map of Master of Magic is filled with various locations that can be explored by the player. These include things like fallen temples, ruins or mysterious caves where both treasure and challenge may await. There are also three power nodes, Sorcery, Nature and Chaos, and the magic towers that serve as portals between Arcanus and Myrror. All of those locations have an event attached to them, so that the appropriate path will trigger – combat if there are defenders, or loot if it is abandoned. Those events are fairly straight forward and apart from some extra fluff here or there, they will remain unchanged.“
“The land is scattered with the ruins of some past civilizations. Who were they, where are they now? No one knows. Beware, this place may be guarded.”
“All of the random events from the original MoM are returning, but they are slightly modified. In the remake, we want to give the wizard a chance to react to some of those events, instead of them being a simple notification of what occurred. You will always have the option to simply accept the default result, but in some cases, you will be able to either alter or even avoid the consequences. This will typically be achieved by offering a payment via mana/gold or other means that an event may respond to.”
Slitherine also released a new dev blog about Distant Worlds 2: You can read it here.
Age of Empires IV’s closed BETA is underway having started on August 5, and while personally we haven’t managed to get in on that, I’m cautiously optimistic about how AOE4 is shaping up. Let us know (if it won’t break a NDA) how much fun you’re having if you’re one of the lucky thousands who got in on it.
Solitaire wargames occupy a special place in our hobby. On the one hand, being able to sit down away from the noise of modern life to escape into a tabletop game experience, whether narrative, systems focused, or even just an examination of history, can be a relaxing and almost meditative experience. On the other hand, I know plenty of wargamers who are turned off by the transparency of the randomness of a lot of solitaire games, or who don’t enjoy some of the contraints placed on players to make engaging against an artificial opponent more of a challenge.
When it comes to reviewing a solitaire only game I try to come at it from at least three angles. First, will solitaire wargamers like this? Second, will this do anything to change the minds of those who dont? Finally, what about those who have never tried one? Is it friendly enough to newcomers?
Tiger Leader, from Dan Verssen Games, is my first exposure to the ‘Leader’ system of solitaire wargames and is definitely a good first impression, even if there are some systemic foibles and strange errors that irked me as I played. But what of the three types of gamers above? Who is Tiger Leader for? Let’s dig in, shall we?
What Kind of Game is Tiger Leader?
Tiger Leader is a solitaire wargame in which the player takes control of a Wehrmacht kampfgruppe and leads them through a campaign of World War Two. After selecting a campaign and performing some initial set up, the gameplay loop of Tiger Leader sees players building a kamfgruppe including infantry, AFVs, and artillery, recruiting officers to lead these units, and then committing them to battles on a weekly basis to overcome enemy brigades. After the set number of weeks, the campaign ends (barring an auto fail) and the total score of the player’s victories are added up to see how well they’ve done.
Throughout the weeks of a campaign players will have to manage the spending of campaign points, deal with the abstract movements of enemy units, fight tactical battles on a hexagonal map, and manage the stress and experience points of officers. It’s a detailed system without being overwhelming, and it keeps players on their toes from start to finish. I quickly became fond of how the different systems of combat and management come together to offer an entertaining roleplaying wargame experience.
To break it down, the real focus of the game is managing your kampfgruppe. After selecting the campaign and mission(setting the parameters for the battles of that campaign) players are given a set of resource points to spend on officers, units, and extras like trucks and scouting capabilities. There are a ton a vehicles in the base game, so I always felt like I was spoiled for choice. Playing through the Poland campaign for instance, I was happy to be able to choose a 38(t), a Panzer II, and a Stug to support my infantry.
Each unit has its own stats for anti-personnel and anti-armour attacks, defense, movement, special rules governing movement, attacking, and stress. These stats interact with the stats of the officers that lead them. Officers begin with different skill levels ranging from recruit to legendary. Each level has different modifiers for firing, speed of action, stress thresholds, and special rules (more on those later).
Each week players divide their forces into smaller groups to attack some number of enemy brigades. Resources will be stretched very thin, and more often than not players will have to throw their units against numerically superior forces. You are the tip of the spear after all. Battles are time limited, and victory only really comes from destroying the enemy brigade.
COMBAT! and MANAGEMENT!
During Each week’s battles, a randomized set of terrain hexes are laid out to represent the battlefield. In the base game these tiles are either clear or contain soft or hard cover. There is a lot of variety, with different tiles representing Europe, north Africa, or the Russian winter. I appreciate that battles can have wildly different layouts that will obviously impact tactics as players are going to be spending a lot of time on these maps. An issue I encountered was that the manual indicated that terrain should have a visual indicator as to which level of cover a hex provides, but none of that existed on my hexes. I decided to go with ‘forests’ as light cover and ‘built up areas’ as heavy cover.
Combat itself is an interesting puzzle. Players only have five turns (unless scouts are purchased to add a turn) to destroy enough enemy units to remove the brigade from the campaign. Enemy Brigades have a threshold of damage they can take before they become understrength, offering up some victory points and reducing their capabilities. A second threshold, denoting a destroyed status, gives up the rest of the points and eliminates them from the game. Making sure your forces can do enough damage in five turns to reduce or destroy a brigade is a difficult prospect, as each brigade will have its own spread of units and its own special rules, and players will have to take on multiple brigades a week to keep up with the campaign’s demands.
Combat basics involve getting in range, rolling dice, and inflicting casualties when hits are scored and defenses overcome. Player forces will be overwhelmed, but this is balanced somewhat by how damage is modeled. Every time a friendly unit takes a hit, a random chit is pulled from a cup with some type of damage (or rarely, a miss) printed on it. Enemies go down in one successful hit. The damage that friendly units receive persist and must be taken care of in between battles by spending points or using officer abilities.
Enemies act according to a chart that breaks down units into groups and has them move according to a die roll and their options. Tanks are more likely to charge forward into combat range while mortars are content to stay back and support with indirect fire. I found the system believable and fun. A good enemy roll would see them aggressively take ground, but after they had suffered significant damage, the dice were more likely to force a cautious withdrawal to covered positions. Being able to model this with one dice roll is great, as anything that reduces overhead while playing solitaire is good in my books.
Your own units are interesting to manage. Often less skilled units will have penalties to defense, or add significant stress when forced to move and fire. Deciding when to take these hits to do an aggressive push of your own is a fun challenge. But exposing troops to enemy fire can be deadly, especially for officers.
Officers are a core part of the game’s strategy. They add special rules to the units they lead, add modifiers, and sometimes allow units to move before the enemy. They can be wounded, killed, or acquire stress as the result of enemy hits, but making it through a mission also offers experience points that see your officers grow from mission to mission, leveling up and changing their stats. It’s a great bit of progression that makes the campaigns come alive, and make it hurt even more when an officer dies to a single hit, forcing you to cross out their names on the ledger and bring in a low level replacement. Such is war.
It’s not perfect though, some officers have literally useless skills. An infantry officer that gives indirect fire to a unit will never be applicable, as the only infantry unit with more than one hex firing range already has an indirect fire rule, for example. It’s little things like this that make me think a bit more playtesting and proofreading should have gone into Tiger Leader.
Final Thoughts
Tiger Leader is fun. A lot of fun, actually. It manages to cram a lot of interesting decisions into almost every segment of a campaign’s gameplay, from spending on units, assigning forces to combats, carrying out those combats, and how to spend precious resources to recoup after combat. There’s enough content and different campaigns, missions, special events, and units to offer plenty of replayability. The core system is easy to learn, and the game doesn’t take up too much tablespace.
Component quality is also quite nice, with the map, cards, counters and hex map pieces all sturdy, easy to read, and easy to organize. Once a campaign is up and running, there is very little overhead, and I love that.
That being said. It’s not perfect. There are a lot of little errors here and there in the manual and in how units and officers interact. A lot more playtesting and proofreading could have done away with these issues. Tiger Leader is also not a simulation, as I hope you gathered from the above descriptions. It is much more a puzzle and narrative experience wrapped in a fun military setting. You’ll have a lot more fun charting the progress of your officers, repairing vehicles, watching infantry upgrade from raw to veteran, and seeing how the game reacts to your decisions than you will trying to properly replicate blitzkrieg actions. I feel solitaire wargamers will appreciate the way the systems interact to provide a engaging experience, but I’m not sure it will win over players who aren’t into the idea of a solitaire game. I would encourage those who haven’t tried solitaire games to give this one a go. It was much easier to get into than some others I’ve played.
What About Solitaire?
I said I would include these sections for every game, but yes, Tiger Leader is a pretty great solitaire experience. I bet if would even work coop, if the player spending is divided and two players each build up a portion of the kampfgruppe to send into actions. In fact, I might try to do a game like that with my wife at some point.
Will Tiger Leader Stay On My Shelf?
Yes! The problems I had with the game rarely detract from the actual play of it, and I find it creates the sort of narrative solitaire experiences I like. While I will dig out GMT’s Fields of Fire periodically, I see Tiger Leader getting more table time because it manages to deliver narratively without being quite so involved. It’s the action movie, not the documentary.
When deciding if Tiger Leader will be something you’re interested in, you’ll have to understand that it isn’t perfect, isn’t a simulation, and has some sloppy editing and playtesting. But beyond those issues, Tiger leader is a fun, easy going, narrative puzzle game that will see you sighing in relief as your favourite officer gets off with only a wound, and cursing as your Panzer IV goes up in smoke after a single lucky shell.
THANK YOU to DVG for sending Let’s Talk About Wargames a copy of Tiger Leader for review!
As mentioned before, Valor & Victory is my current favourite squad level board wargame. It’s basically Squad Leader’s laid back and easy going little brother, and I’m finding myself more and more drawn to that kind of game when it comes to an afternoon of wargaming with friends. Maybe it’s the pandemic? Who knows?
In Valor & Victory, there are only a handful of rules to hammer down before diving in, but the system is robust enough to capture the fire and movement feel of WWII squad level tactics: Machine guns can wreak havoc and create fire lanes, pinning is essential on the assault, tanks can provide amazing support but can also fall victim to close infantry attack and AT guns. It’s not the most detailed game, and not the most accurate simulation, but it manages to convey what it should in games that take around 45 minutes for the experienced player. So, you know my feelings going in. That said, I’m not 100% sold on the digital version.
Valor & Victory Basics
Valor & Victory is a tactical game in which both players control leaders, squads, teams, AT Guns, and vehicles from the US, UK, and Germany fighting over geomorphic hexagonal boards representing Northern France. Each nation has a few types of squads at their disposal. The US for example has infantry, Rangers, and Airborne, each with slightly different profiles. Squads and teams can be equipped with heavy weapons and explosives that further specialize units.
Each scenario has one of three objectives: Capture key hexes, eliminate enemy units, or exit units from the board at certain spaces. The variety is there and its nice to see how far the game can take these victory conditions. But keep them in mind, they’ll become important to my frustrations with Valor & Victory.
On a given turn, one side performs a suite of actions before the opponent does the same. The command phase allows for rallying, joining and breaking down of squads, and the transfer of equipment. The Fire phase is for firing, and precludes later movement. Then movement, which can be interrupted by enemy reaction fire. Then enemy defensive fire, in which units that didn’t react fire can shoot. Then there is a final assault-move phase in which every friendly unit can move one hex. If this brings them into an occupied hex, an assault occurs.
Whether or not fire hits comes down to the roll of two dice. The total firepower of all the selected units in a hex is calculated, the dice are rolled, and the result is cross referenced to see how many casualties are taken. One casualty can be converted into a pin, but the rest need to be taken as losses.
Overall its a great system, especially on the tabletop. The simple calculation works to keep the game flowing, and there is just enough granularity to make interesting tactical choices the name of the game. On the PC though, the simplicity hurts the overall package, highlighting some of Valor & Victory’s biggest problems.
Valor & Victory Digital is…Good…If You All Make it Good.
There is a lot to like about the system, and the digital adaptation has promise, but the issue is that it depends entirely on how the community reacts to the launch, and how committed they are to mutliplayer and to scenario creation.
Here’s Valor & Victory’s goods:
The game is authentic. If you want a digital, multiplayer version of Valor & Victory that lets you play with friends across the country. You’re in luck. It does that and does it perfectly. The included scenarios are fun with friends and overarching system does what the V&V does, but it does automate some things like casualty application and defensive fire that some might want control over.
The scenario editor is great. Really, it’s fast, intuitive, and you’ll be cranking out modified ASL scenarios in no time. If the community steps up we could have a treasure trove of interesting scenarios in no time. Editors can set victory conditions, add history, deploy units and equipment, and choose from all of the included map boards in a variety of layouts.
Here are the not goods:
The AI is not great. In multiple games that I played, they barely moved. Or when they moved they did so haphazardly, dancing back and forth between positions. When the AI is tasked with taking objectives, they very rarely make decisive efforts to cross open ground, preferring to stand in cover and fire. Reasonable move to make, I suppose, but not when doing so will lose you the game. The AI is also a little wonky with its target selection. You can very easily bait anti-tank weapons to fire at infantry if they’re closer/more exposed than tanks.
The AI is better at defense, when the game becomes an exercise is how best to minimize casualties as you push towards objectives. The AI lacks a good deal of the reactive ability of a human opponent, and while I get it, AI is difficult, I was still saddened to see them put up such light resistance.
Valorous, Not Quite a Victory
The core is good! Really! If you’re going to play with friends, and if you’re going to engage with the scenario creator, Valor & Victory is great. If you’re looking for a single player board game experience, its not stellar. There is potential for updates, I believe, but I’m very optimistic to see what fans of the game will do with the resources available to them when they get their hands on it.
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Valor & Victory has a solid foundation built upon a great boardgame, and the included multiplayer and scenario editor are worth checking out. The AI is not great, which limits single player enjoyment.
Valor & Victory is currently my favourite tactical squad level board wargame. It scratches the Advanced Squad Leader itch with a massively simplified ruleset that I feel promotes quicker, more enjoyable games. Originally a print and play game that I tried making for a wargamer.com article years ago, Valor & Victory has stuck around, earning its keep over other similar titles like Conflict of Heroes and Band of Brothers. (Both good games, but never quite caught on with my wife and gaming group as well as V&V did.)
V&V definitely doesn’t cover as much of World War Two in detail as it’s 600 paged core rulebook sporting older brother ASL, but the open source nature of it means that an energetic community has put out some impressive content that meshes well with the base game, creating new maps, scenarios, and army units. In fact, a modern expansion was recently released for Print and Play on Boardgamegeek. So going into this preview it is safe to say that I’m a fan of the core game. Will that make me go easy on Yobowargames and Slitherine’s digital offering, or will it make me approach with the critical eye of the hardcore fan of the original? Well, first one, then the other.
Yes! V&V is Getting a Digital Release! But How Does it Play?
I have been waiting a long time for this. V&V feels like an excellent platform to create a digital game system from, especially one that takes into account the active scenario creating community that helps make Valor & Victory what it is today.
On a turn, play is conducted in phases repeated for both sides. The Command phase allows for rallies (automatically done in the digital version), for the breakdown or recombination of squads, and the transference of equipment. The Fire phase allows all active side units to fire. Movement allows units who did not fire to move, giving the enemy a chance to opportunity fire. The Defensive Fire phase allows the enemies who did not opportunity fire a chance to shoot, then an Action/Assault phase allows every active unit to move a single hex regardless of what they did that turn. This single step can include an assault, a deadly affair that is important in taking ground.
Combat works by totaling the firepower of a unit and rolling a pair of dice. the result is modified by leadership and terrain, and a total number of casualties is popped out. The defender works out how to allocate these casaulty points by pinning, reducing, and/or eliminating units. Close assaults are a little more deadly with unpinned squads causing a minimum of casualties on both sides.
The mechanics of V&V will be familiar to anyone who has spent any time with tactical board wargames, or in the digital space with Lock n Load Tactical Digital. LnL Tactical is V&V’s primary competitor on the digital market, and it is important (however much I might not appreciate it) to keep what LnL Tactical offers in mind.
The Preview Build
The preview build I had access to contained three missions plus a tutorial. The tutorial was more of a simple mission with pop ups that explained what each phase entailed. The math, for the most part, is laid out clearly during the game so there is little worry about, but it would be nice to see some extra bits of information like movement values printed on infantry units somewhere (They aren’t in the physical game, but there’s no reason not to include that information in the digital).
When firing, the unit’s firepower and the cross section chart pops up for ease of reference. Here’s the thing though. They need to include some way to modify the speed of dice resolution. V&V is simple, and the math is simple, and I appreciate that immensely on the tabletop. But it does mean that the dramatic pause given after each roll before the chime goes off and it declares ‘miss’ is way too long. All the numbers are there, making it near instantaneous for me to look, see what was rolled, and know whether its a hit or a miss.
The included missions gave some solid examples of the kind of games that V&V can do well. Games can be small scale actions or larger battles, with one scenario even including vehicles and a couple including guns. Both types play well but the larger games allow for a lot more tactical consideration and more interesting avenues of attack and defense. The only major downside at this point is the AI. It clearly needs work. I understand that the developers have said that it was currently their priority, and I’m glad that it is. The AI left a key objective unprotected after I overran a unit in one of my preview games, and it seems to focus fire on easy kills to the detriment of strong defensive plays. I know coding AI is difficult, but it could really use a tune up before release.
The visuals and sound design is fine at the moment. I like the music and gunfire sounds and the visuals of bullets flying and little birds floating by overhead are a nice touch of animation over what is essentially a boardgame made digital. Counters are clear and easy to read, and the LOS tool and phase menu option are big, tool tipped, and expressly easy to manage.
There is an included scenario editor, and what looks like a packaged way to upload scenarios for others to try. I believe this will be the lifeblood of V&V digital’s adaptation just as it is for the boardgame itself. A lively community creating interesting scenarios with the units and mapboards in place would go a long way to giving players the authentic V&V experience and extending the lifespan of the game.
V&V is Getting There, But It Needs Work
Maybe it’s because I love V&V so much that I’m not entirely happy with the digital preview that I got my hands on. I feel like the core is there, but that some key elements need addressing, mainly AI and the option to speed up or slow down dice roll resolution. I would also be happy to see some level of control implemented in terms of casualty removal. In the board game choosing when to pin or to remove units is often (but not always if the numbers are wrong) a tactical decision in itself. Here it is handled automatically. I would like to options in the finished game.
A note on a funny bug. Bugs are an issue with any early preview and I was warned that there would be some in this build. In one game a German officer advanced onto a space occupied by two US rifle squads and an officer and rather than trigger combat, he just sort of became one with the unit. This had the unfortunate side effect of passing over control of those Americans into the hands of officer Schmidt. Now he was firing with the full might of two rifle squads and taking hits on them as I counter attacked. The extraordinary powers of suggestion that Schmidt brought to the battlefield ended my attack and cost me the game. I didn’t expect to have to deal with traitor units in that scenario (nor, do I suspect, did the developers!)
Worthy of a Valorous Victory?
I believe it will be very soon. The core is solid and the quality of life improvements that I want to see don’t seem to be entirely out fo the question at this point. When compared with Lock n Load tactical, I feel like there is a disparity in content and in the complexity of the underlying game system. There is a lot more on offer for different periods in LnL. But I like the V&V system more. But because LnL is more complicated, it benefits more from a digital adaptation. V&V is a simple, tight system that contains very little that I find frustrating to manage myself during gameplay. That leads to the funny situation that I am actually a little more annoying playing the digital version with a purposefully slow die resolution system when the math is easy enough to do in my head right away. It will be a moot point with the inclusion of a system to moderate how long the game lingers on die resolution, but for now it’s a funny quibble that I have with the preview.
As it stands, I like what I’m seeing overall with V&V, and I think with some more work it will be a solid contender on the digital boardgame market. The scenario editing tools alone make it worth looking at. I think, with enough interest, there could be an unlimited number of good scenarios. (or perhaps just adaptations of every good ASL scenario?)
-Joe Fonseca
Thank you to Slitherine/Matrix for access to the preview. Check out the game’s page here. LTAW gets nothing if you preorder this game or any other game.
This was my first wargame magazine purchase a few years ago. my FLGS had a slightly dinged up box in the clearance section for a very good price, and as I was just getting into board wargames, I thought I’d take the plunge. It took quite a while to actually get the game on the table, and a little longer to figure out how to even play it correctly, but it served as a functional entry point to chit pull systems and some of the basics of wargaming like command, counter reduction, and CRTs.
Now that I’m on a reviewing quest its time to go back, give the magazine another glance, and give Blitzkrieg 1940 a couple plays to see if it will make the cut and earn a permanent space on the shelf.
What Kind of Game is Blitzkrieg 1940?
I spoiled it a little above, but Blitzkrieg 1940 is a two player chit pull wargame covering the Battle of Hannut and the Battle of Stonne in Belgium and France in 1940. The emphasis is on tank versus tank combat and gives the French some much deserved attention.
This is a very straight forward small counter wargame, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you just want a good old fashioned simulation, and this is the kind of game Blitzkrieg 1940 tries to be. Units have attack values, armour/defense values, movement values, and range values printed on their counters, and instead of NATO symbols there are pictorial representations of the leading element of a unit. I prefer this to NATO in almost everything but massive table hogs where recognizing units at a glance is easier with the symbols, but I understand where the preference for universal symbols comes from.
On a given turn players pull chits associated with different formations from a cup, but there are some fun little things that change up the formula. A replay token allows a formation to act a second time at the cost of exhaustion, and a general token allowed for the use of multiple units if some activation tokens were held in reserve. Artillery and air support, where applicable, was also in the cup ready to be drawn at the most opportune moment.
Combat, both firing and close assault were simple to work out, with combat in general being less deadly and more about suppressing and forcing retreats. The stars of each force are the tank units of course, and there are little shifts to the combat resolution when tanks have to deal with moving along through rough ground. There are a lot of little touches like this in Blitzkrieg 1940 that I like. I appreciate that using road movement for vehicles required sacrificing combat power by forcing tank units into a column.
So, Is It fun?
In general, yes. My wife and I enjoyed playing Blitzkrieg 1940. The mechanics are straight forward, the chit pull system simulates some battlefield chaos but allows for potential to control that chaos, and each battle offers a different type of game.
There’s really not much to say about it. I wish units were slightly more effective at destroying one another, in Stonne especially control of the town went back and forth repeatedly (which I admit is historically accurate and probably fine for 90% of players), and I wish the rules were laid out a little nicer. That’s it. I don’t have anything really earth shattering to reveal about Blitzkrieg 1940. I think it falls into the ‘more fun’ side of magazine games that I’ve managed to take a look at, but it really didn’t do anything so spectacularly that I feel the need to brag about it here. It’s a perfectly fine wargame. I bet someone who is especially interested in the period will get a bigger kick out of it, but for the rest, it’s perfectly playable.
I think the biggest issue is one that troubles a lot of smaller simulation games. Once you’ve played through each scenario once or twice, you’ve seen pretty much everything that Blitzkrieg has to offer. It does what it says on the tin but I don’t think that is enough for my wife and I to keep it in our regular rotation of wargames. It’s fun sure, but so are a lot of other games and I really don’t see anything spectacular here.
What About Solitaire?
Chit pull automatically makes a game more solitaire friendly, and since there is no hidden information I believe Blitzkrieg 1940 would work reasonably well as a solitaire game. The only issue comes from the ability to hold forces in reserve once they’re drawn from the cup. Setting up for killer combos will still be mitigated by the randomness of the cup draw, but the ability to manipulate how you use what comes out of the cup, while awesome for head to head, is kind of diminished in solitaire. Since everything else is perfectly serviceable, I feel the best case solitaire experience would be setting up one of the games, sitting down with a nice drink and the magazine, reading through the accompanying article, and then playing a game as a historical exercise. Absolutely a good time, but it feels like something that can only happen twice, once per scenario.
Will Blitzkrieg 1940 Stay on the Shelf?
No, unfortunately. The game is fun, but the lack of enduring replayability means that, in the verdant field that is my overstuffed shelf, this one really doesn’t have a place. It’s unfortunate, because I don’t think this is a bad game at all. It’s just a game that probably wont see much more table time, and for that reason I think it’s time to pass it on to someone else who might enjoy the scenarios at least a couple of times.
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 2.5 out of 5.
Perfectly serviceable chit draw wargame covering some less popular engagements. Great for a game or two, but by then everything to be discovered will be discovered.
Joe Fonseca
LTAW did not receive a review copy of this game. This was purchased. I cannot find a solid link to where to purchase it. My best guess would be through boardgamegeek’s Geek Market. Again, no affiliation. Or honestly just drop us a line and we can work something out if you really want a copy.
Bloody Mohawk had the potential to fill an open space on my wargaming shelf permanently. As a small footprint, low counter density, rules light game covering the French and Indian War, it fulfills the beer and pretzels requirement to be the kind of game my wife and I keep around to fit in the filler game section of our collection. We formed quite the sophisticated (read: overly complicated) system of filler games versus main event games as part of this whole downsizing quest, and there are spaces that need filling as we like to change up the Fillers almost every time. Despite that, it seems as if Bloody Mohawk is doomed to be sold on. It was tough to arrive at this conclusion, but we did, and I’ll explain below.
How Does Bloody Mohawk Play?
Bloody Mohawk is an introductory wargame from Bill Molyneaux and published by Lock ‘n Load Publishing. Players control either the British or the French and their Native American allies as they complete a whopping twelve scenarios covering important and even legendary engagements from the French and Indian War.
Bloody Mohawk is an IGO/UGO system with phases. The first player will move, the second will fire defensively, the first will fire offensively, then switch. I appreciate the defensive fire/offensive fire system as it makes for more tactical decisions on both sides when maneuvering forces. It matters what targets you’re giving to your enemy before being able to shoot, and I like that.
Counters are diverse, from British grenadiers to French Courier de Bois, and some have special rules that add to the tactical depth of the game. A lot of French units, for example, have a green ‘F’ printed on their counter giving them free movement through woods. Native American allies are also given special rules to reflect their combat prowess. On the offensive, when the enemy is not behind defensive works, they are allowed to throw two dice and choose the best result. To offset this and represent less traditional drill, their reduced side has significantly less power.
Combat is simply a matter of throwing a 10 sided die for the unit attacking, adding and subtracting modifiers like terrain, leaders, scenario modifiers like rain, and in the case of cannons, range. Fall within the unit’s combat power range and a hit is scored. If a leader is present with the suffering unit, they have a 50% chance of going down with the hit, making the correct application of leaders something else interesting to think about. There are also rules for retreating after taking damage, and following up. All pretty basic wargaming stuff, but that makes sense considering this is meant to be a basic wargame, and it was a basic wargaming I was looking for when I picked it up way back.
So What’s my Problem?
The last time my wife and I sat down to play Bloody Mohawk, we went through scenarios one to six. (It is a fast playing game) Unfortunately, we found that only in two of the six scenarios did we really feel there was much of any game to be played.
The first scenario, for an example, is basically won in one turn with the roll of a single die. If the French unit survives the first turn attack, it has a chance of escaping. If not, it dies. Now I understand that this is a tutorial scenario to get complete non-wargamers used to the rules, but it carries on from there. The scenario involving the rescue of a child is also decided by one die roll. If her family is eliminated, the French can easily walk her off the map before the reinforcements have any opportunity to do anything. Similarly the inability of the French to fire on the first turn of the Sideling Hill scenario means that they will receive overwhelming fire before the French player can actually do anything.
I have no problem with lopsided scenarios. They’re a staple of interesting wargaming. I do have a problem with scenarios that don’t allow for one side or another to act. After doing some investigating it seems like the designer, Bill Molyneaux encourages players to alter scenarios however they like, and perhaps Bloody Mohawk’s many short scenarios would be better if I took the time to do that, but I just really don’t have the patience to rebalance a scenario to make it playable. I do understand that this is an intro level game meant in part for parents and children to play after discovering it on a trip to a local heritage site, but I question the validity of the scenarios that will leave on side doing very little thinking, or even dice rolling. Where a bit more decision making could have both sides playing the game, here a parent will basically have to sit back and let their child play the favoured side, or else risk a ‘Why bother? I don’t even get to act before you win.’
It’s a shame, because the larger scenarios can be fun. When there are enough units on both sides and the maps are large enough to allow for maneuver, there’s a fun beer and pretzels wargame here. But it’s less than half of the scenarios given in the book. If I just wanted to play Bloody Mohawk’s Plains of Abraham scenario (a fun one) I feel I’d be better served finding a game that does only that, but better.
Production Woes
Some of my major complaints however, come from the questionable production quality. On the surface, Bloody Mohawk looks great. The counters are clear and nicely illustrated. The maps have beautiful art, and the components in the published version are thick card and good quality chits. But that’s where it ends.
There are typos everywhere. Simple grammatical errors litter the rules and scenarios. There are errors in some scenario descriptions including a scenario objective to burn a camp with no hexes indicated and no visual on the map representing a camp. (We guessed it was the three clear hexes, but who knows?) Finally, for some reason, a unit’s combat value is listed as 1/x. 1/7 for French Line, for example. I could not figure out what the 1 was for. There was nothing about it in the rulebook. It turns out, after looking on BGG, that it represents the range on the die that indicates a hit. Apparently there was an issue for new gamers seeing a single digit and not understanding that one must roll beneath that number for a hit. Fair enough, that’s a perfectly valid reason to change the counters. But I cannot understand why it is not then written 1-7 instead of 1/7. Perhaps that is nitpicky, but I had to go look it up and that felt unnatural. It’s just a little sad again given this is a game meant to draw people into our hobby, that anyone paying for this will see some shoddy copy editing and strange design choices.
Solitaire Suitability?
Bloody Mohawk is a clean IGO/UGO system with no hidden information and dice based combat. It’s the perfect example of a nice light solitaire ruleset that anyone can lay out and crank out scenarios in a short time, if they have the mind to play both sides without any AI support. But, all of my balance and scenario issues stand, though I can understand that lopsided games, even if they are lopsided to the point of one side barely doing anything, are more fun solo. Playing solitaire can also give an opportunity to test out altering scenarios and devising house rules unhindered. Perhaps this really will shine as a solitaire experience if one goes in knowing there’s work to be done. It’s not my type, but I can see it.
Final Thoughts/Will it Stay on my Shelf?
Since I’m no longer comfortable buying Lock ‘n Load Publishing games, Bloody Mohawk might have ended up my only remaining game from them, but I think it’s tragic that a lot of the problems I have with the game comes from its unfortunately shoddy production, less so its content. Some real copy editing, some proper playtesting, and a few passes by quality control could have done a lot to make this game more enjoyable in the long term. I don’t want to fight a game or house rule things to make them work, but I can understand that some people greatly enjoy that aspect of the hobby and for them there is a nice canvas in Bloody Mohawk.
There is probably a fun game in there for a carefully curated attempt to get non-wargamers into the hobby, and I love the fact that this was developed for that audience and to be distributed at heritage sites to help get a younger generation into the idea of experiencing history though games. I’m just disappointed that it doesn’t feel like enough work went into making the product the best it could be. This is the first game I’ve reviewed for this little quest that I won’t be keeping, and I’m kind of sad I’m saying that. I’m sure it’s a great game for some people out there, but its definitely not for us in the long run.
⭐⭐
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Simple, clean wargaming hindered by shoddy production, poorly playtested scenarios, and heaps of typos. There is some fun in there, but with less than half of the scenarios providing a good gaming experience, the price, and the time required to house rule it, should be taken into consideration.
Joe Fonseca
I purchased Bloody Mohawk on my own with a discount. No review copy was provided. Here is a link to the game’s store page. LTAW makes nothing if you buy it. Bloody Mohawk from LnL
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