The Dark Valley: The East Front Campaign 1941-45, was titled after a Winston Churchill quote to Joseph Stalin, referring to “the dark valley” of the war. More or less as a joke, I promised when The Dark Valley was published that any future games using a variation of the rules system for TDV would include “Dark” in the title. But war being war, that turned out to be an appropriate adjective to use, and TDV was followed by The Dark Sands: North Africa 1940-42, and now The Dark Summer: Normandy 1944, with more darkness almost certain to follow.

So what constitutes the “Dark” rules system and makes it different (or similar) to other games on these topics? Basically the games are based on a chit-pull mechanic to activate your forces. This is hardly unique, but the system does use some twists on the typical chit-pull games. (I would also note that I originally started work on The Dark Valley back in the early 1980s when chit-pull activation was rarely seen, and I was inspired by the work of Eric Lee Smith.)

The Dark Valley Components

In the Dark system the Activation chits are designed to accomplish several goals through a simple mechanic. The first, and by no means least important, is to make the Dark games highly enjoyable for solo play. In my almost 50 years in the hobby, I have played a lot more games solo than against an opponent, and I know I’m not unusual there. The randomness of chit-pull systems allows the solo player to be surprised without the need for a complicated AI.

The second goal of the chit-pull mechanic is to introduce an element of fog of war without the need for hidden mechanisms that would, again, negatively impact solo play. You have in front of you more information than the historical commanders ever did, but you don’t know if you’ll be able to take advantage of that info before the situation changes. Effectively your knowledge is rendered tentative, depending on the following order of chits drawn, and this helps put you in the mindset of generals basing their decisions on incomplete knowledge.

The Dark Sands Countersheet 1

Third, the chit-pull provides a degree of interaction typical in war but absent in most Igo-Hugo systems.  You aren’t moving simultaneously (as forces can and do in real life) but you have to take into account the possibility that the enemy will get to retreat-or strike first-before you can get your desired ducks in a row.

Fourth, by having different types of chits for each side, and varying the mix of chits over the course of the game, you can model all sorts of weather, tactical, operational, administrative, diplomatic, and political effects that would otherwise each require their own rules. For example, in The Dark Valley the effects of weather are largely built into the chits available during winter and fall and spring mud turns. At the same time the growing power and abilities of the Soviets is illustrated not only by an increase in the number of chits available to the Soviet player, but the type of chits available. The Soviet army in 1944 is not just bigger, but operationally far more flexible because of the specific chit mix. Meanwhile the German army of 1941, which can literally move circles around the Soviets, finds itself increasingly hamstrung by a declining chit mix which represents both the increasing effects of the Allies in other theaters but also the ever-more heavy-handed interference of Hitler in military affairs. By late 43 the two combine to rob the Germans of most of the flexibility that made the Wehrmacht such a formidable opponent.

The Dark Valley Maps (lined up to form one big map)

In The Dark Sands the chit mix allowed me to represent the changing priorities of the Axis and Allied high commands, as well as the rather slow increase in operational skill on the part of British commanders. When the Axis pay attention to North Africa, Malta is suppressed and the Axis chit pool improves, but when the East Front inevitably reasserts priority it declines.  Individual generalship also plays a part in the chit mix (as it does to a lesser extent in TDV) with chits for Rommel, Monty, the Auk, etc.

There are two big differences in the chits between The Dark Valley and The Dark Sands. First, in The Dark Sands reinforcements/replacements arrive randomly and for each side during the game turn, rather than at the start of the turn as in TDV. My desire in both games was to stick to a generally historical arrival (and withdrawal) of forces. But while the east front was always the priority for the Soviets and until 1944 for the Germans, North Africa was always secondary to Berlin. And though a priority for the British, events elsewhere (in Greece, Syria, and the Far East) caused an ebb of flow of Commonwealth forces and supplies as well. Without varying turn of arrival (which could have too great an effect on play based on something out of either player’s control) I added chits to provide some uncertainty in the available forces.

The Dark Sands Maps (West, Center, and East)

The second big difference between the first two Dark titles is that in TDV there is no limit (apart from the chit mix itself) to how many Action Rounds the Axis or Soviet player may have in a row. It is possible in July 1941 for the Axis to activate for eight consecutive rounds. Not likely, but possible. Likewise in summer 1944 the Soviets may activate round after round while the Axis watches in horror. I was able to do this because the size of the theater, the size of the forces involved, and the times at which one side can potentially dominate the other in such a fashion mean that such runs of chit-pulling are catastrophic/wonderful without being in themselves decisive. But in North Africa the forces involved are much smaller, and the situation more brittle. There I was reluctantly forced to impose a limit on the randomness of the chit draw, so that Rommel couldn’t annihilate the 8^th Army (or vice versa)  before the opponent could respond.

Which brings us to The Dark Summer: Normandy 1944. Unlike the two previous Dark titles, each of which covers multiple campaigns across an entire theater of war, The Dark Summer covers a single campaign on a limited front over the course of three months rather than years. But the size of the forces involved are much greater than in North Africa, and the Normandy campaign’s effects on the outcome of the war were enormous. As an operational topic it was an obvious fit with the Dark series.

Next time: How The Dark Summer compares and contrasts with The Dark Valley and The Dark Sands.

Articles in this Series: Part One  Part Two  Part Three

Author: Ted Raicer