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An Introduction to Battle Command: The Bulge

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Tabletop Simulator image of the map board for BC: Bulge

Returning to The Bulge

You probably don’t have to be around our hobby long to know there are a lot of “Bulge” games. However, for those who haven’t seen or heard this – Bulge games depict a specific German counteroffensive fought on the Western Front in the winter of 1944, towards the end of WW2. The campaign was named the Battle of the Bulge because it produced a serious bend in Allied lines. It was fought in and around the same Ardennes region the Germans launched their famous blitzkrieg through in 1940, leading to the fall of France. As one of the major confrontations between the US and German Armies in WW2, it has attracted a lot of attention from designers.

The campaign began with the Germans on the strategic offensive, and the Allies sent reeling. The Germans aimed to knock out Allied supply dumps in Belgium, and dislocate Allied advances towards the Rhine river, and the industrial Rhineland – heart of Germany’s war effort – beyond. They were hampered by the weather (they began the attack on 16 December), unrealistic expectations from high command (particularly Hitler), and fierce resistance from the Americans. The offensive stalled, and then the British and Americans counterattacked, driving the Germans back.

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Order & Opportunity: Victory

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Recently, a new game named Order & Opportunity: Making of the Post-Cold War World Order entered GMT Games’ P500 list. This is the second in a series of articles about the game. The first article discussed the game’s perspective to the post-Cold War period.

In this second article we’ll look at the game’s concept of victory.

From the profile page: Order & Opportunity is a 2 to 4 player game with a dedicated solitaire system about the making of the post-Cold War world order covering the first decades of the 21st century. In the game, the United States, Russia, China, and the European Union compete over the control of the agenda and ultimately over victory points in the dimensions of economic, political, cultural, and security power projection. Order & Opportunity combines card-driven, asymmetric game play to produce a topical and thematic historical game on a global scale. The game offers a distinctive and captivating play experience at every one of its player counts.

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The Last Hundred Yards Mission 14.0: Another Bump in the Road — A Narrative Style AAR

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September 18, 1944: On the main road to Nijmegen, north of Veghel, near a small village the locals called Voederheil, Captain Speirs lowered his binoculars and swore to himself. The fleeting grey figures he had seen moving about in the buildings ahead could only be Germans, and that meant yet another delay. His men were tired. He was already eight hours behind schedule, and now he had to deal with another blocking force. After conferring with Lieutenant Higgins of Able Company, they moved out. As he turned to leave, Speirs could hear Higgins muttering something about “just another bump in the road”.

Since this was to be a joint operation with Able and Baker companies, Captain Speirs had put Lieutenant Higgins in nominal charge of the combined units as he had the most combat experience. So, Higgins gathered the other lieutenants: Ricci, Kelly, Stillwell, Reynolds, and Garcia. Before he began, Higgins looked across the road at the reduced squads of Baker company. They had been hard hit in the past few days and looked it. Reynolds only had one squad left. Of course, Able company wasn’t much better off.

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Order & Opportunity: A Perspective to the Post-Cold War Period

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Recently, a new game named Order & Opportunity: Making of the Post-Cold War World Order entered GMT Games’ P500 list. This is the first in a series of articles on the game.

From the profile page: Order & Opportunity is a 2 to 4 player game with a solo variant about the making of the post-Cold War world order covering the first decades of the 21st century. In the game, the United States, Russia, China, and the European Union compete over the control of the agenda and ultimately over victory points in the dimensions of economic, political, cultural, and security power projection. Order & Opportunity combines card-driven, asymmetric game play to produce a topical and thematic historical game on a global scale. The game offers a distinctive and captivating play experience at every one of its player counts.

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How Combat is Resolved in Iron Storm

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The development of Iron Storm has been going smoothly over the past few months, and the game’s core systems are now close to finalised, with only small tweaks being made as our dedicated playtesters continue to push it to its limits. In this article I will give an overview of the game’s combat system, which is something that a few people have been asking about and we don’t expect to change significantly before publication.

Iron Storm is a relatively simple game that uses straightforward mechanics to capture the core aspects of WWI in Europe, and combat is no different. At the beginning of the action round the active player can initiate Offensives in any contested space, usually by playing an Army card that matches one of their armies in the space (there are also some special cards, such as High Command Orders, that can be used to initiate an Offensive in any space).

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Inferno – Replay and Tutorial by Christophe Correia, Part 3

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Below you will find Part 3 in an Inferno Replay and Tutorial series from Cristophe Correia originally published on The Boardgames Chronicle blog. You can read Parts 1 and 2 here and here. Enjoy! -Rachel

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Imperial Eagles: Air War in the Pacific 1941-43 — Allied Aircraft

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Since the Japanese need someone to fight, this second article for Inside GMT will describe the planes with which the Allies oppose them in Imperial Eagles.

The US Army Air Force has aircraft in almost every campaign in the game, and more models than any other service.  These are the planes which held the line in the Pacific for the first two years, showing incremental improvement through the end of 1943 while the more modern types went to Europe first.

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Here I Stand Game Example: Two-Player Variant

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What follows is a detailed, turn-by-turn actual two-player game pitting the Here I Stand game designer Ed Beach as the Papacy player against a collective group of other skilled players playing the Protestant side. This group included several HIS playtesters and a number of ConsimWorld Forum members. The ConsimWorld forum board was used to debate each Protestant move within the group and to reach consensus for the best choice. Play was accomplished by PBEM using Cyberboard. This PBEM game started August 18, 2007 and ended October 22, 2007, going 7 turns before a victor was declared.

It is best to play out this recorded game with an actual game board (or Cyberboard) with the HIS Rules and HIS Two-Player Variant Rules at hand. If you are new to HIS, read the Rules Book and Scenario Book first. Stepping through this game can be helpful in learning the game and rules. The game perspective is from the Protestant players eyes and the Papacy player’s cards are not known ahead of time. Simply pull the appropriate card from the main deck (or diplomacy deck) when the Papacy card played is revealed.

Click the image below to read the full 18-page game example of the Here I Stand Two-Player Variant:

Click image to see full 18-page PDF
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Inferno – Replay and Tutorial by Christophe Correia, Part 2

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Below you will find Part 2 in an Inferno Replay and Tutorial series from Cristophe Correia originally published on The Boardgames Chronicle blog. You can read Part 1 here. Enjoy! -Rachel

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We Built This City: 3-Player Variant for Urban Sprawl

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Urban Sprawl is a master stroke of game design. It’s at the top of my underrated gems list, and one I’ve been singing the praises of to whoever would listen for years now (making new fans in the process). The challenge has always been the play time, particularly for a first play. Because if you are just learning a game with the level of interaction in Urban Sprawl, 3-4 hours can be a lot to ask. So I made a variant called “We Built this City” that can be played in under 3 hours (the one catch being that it is three player only).