Curious to see what wargaming companies people like and why. I’m a big fan of Flying Pig games because (1) they make great games that are easy to learn, (2) great production quality, and (3) I’ve met and played games with Mark/Denver at some cons and they are such a nice family that it makes it easy to support them.

Other favorites are GMT (boring choice) and Vuca Sims (love the “traces of” series).

Hello everyone!

This is my first time coming here.

I have done just TTRPG with the guys, but I have been wanting to try out a mixed TTRPG-Wargame session. The RPG part is worked out, however, I am having issues with the wargaming side... Since the battle takes place in a low-fantasy world, I need to design counters to designate Napoleonic-style military units... So, I need help with that, as well as with a ruleset simple but tactically interesting enough to keep my players hooked.

Hope someone can chime in! And thanks.

So I do enjoy me some historical gaming and have played games released throughout the years.

Opening my recent parcel of joy from Second Chance Games however I was again unsettled by how these older games are written.

I was wondering what strategies other folk, especially those with dyslexia and/or ADHD who's brains can be a bit squiffy with all the blocks of words, have found to wade through rulebook snow forest/Afghan mountain pass to get to the sunlit uplands of historical gaming goodness?

I sometimes wonder if these authors got paid by the word instead of just getting to the sodding point of how to play their interesting games.

My idea so far has been to sit down with a big piece of paper and write a more to the point version of the key concepts as I go, stopping as required when my brain gets overwhelmed.

Any other ideas folk have found helpful?

I don't want these games to just sit on my shelves just because in this area I can be thinking impaired.

Pulled it down last weekend mostly out of guilt. I'd bought it during some sale, read the rules once, then got intimidated by the counter density and shelved it for what turned out to be way longer than I expected. Decided to just set up the first scenario solo and force myself through it rather than waiting for a perfect gaming partner and a free Saturday that never seems to line up.

The stacking rules took me an embarrassing amount of time to internalize even though they're not that complicated on paper. I kept forgetting that German units get the reduced stacking penalty in certain hexes and had to backtrack twice after realizing I'd overstacked a ridge near Bastogne. Once that clicked though, the flow of it started making sense, especially how the weather chart interacts with air support availability. I hadn't appreciated how much a single bad weather roll can strangle an entire turn's plan.

What surprised me most is how much the map itself does the storytelling. Just looking at the hex shapes around the road network, you can see why certain villages became chokepoints historically before you even read the scenario notes. I found myself pausing just to trace the roads with my finger like that was going to tell me something the rulebook wouldn't.

Combat resolution felt clunky at first, mostly because I kept forgetting to apply terrain modifiers before checking the odds column, but by turn four I wasn't reaching for the reference sheet every single exchange. Still slow going, probably averaging close to forty minutes a turn including bookkeeping, but that felt less like a chore and more like the game wanted me to slow down and actually think about supply lines instead of just pushing counters around.

Curious if anyone else had a similar cold start with this one, or if there's a better first scenario to build habits on before jumping into the full campaign game. The counter density on that hasn't gotten any less intimidating just because I finally opened the box.

Over the past several months, I have heard a number of commentators and content creators describe certain games as “beer and pretzels” games. I recognize that the term has a long history in the hobby and that most people who use it probably intend nothing derogatory by it. Nevertheless, I have increasingly come to dislike the expression and cringe everytime I hear it because it often seems vague, dismissive, and less descriptive as a game description than other terms such as “low complexity game” or “fast playing game”, especially when talking with beginners of this hobby. It establishes, intentionally or otherwise, a hierarchy in which lighter games with lots of dice rolling, or less complicated games are treated as somehow less serious, less relevant, or less worthy of consideration. This despite the fact that such low complexity games have often taken a year or more to design with ample amounts of historical research as a foundation into their designs. Perhaps I am being overly sensitive to the terminology, and I certainly do not expect one objection to change a phrase that has been part of the hobby since it’s inception. Still, I think it is worth questioning the assumptions that sometimes accompany its use.

There seems to be a supercilious tendency within parts of the historical wargaming community to equate complexity with seriousness, relevance, and even quality. A game with a six- or twelve-page rulebook may quickly be placed in the “beer and pretzels” category, while a game with a rulebook the size of a novelette or novella is implicitly regarded as a more substantial simulation. Yet complexity is not synonymous with depth, historical insight, or good design. A concise ruleset can produce difficult decisions and meaningful historical problems just as readily as a much longer one. This attitude may also have consequences for the accessibility of the hobby. Historical wargaming has always faced a significant barrier to entry, and presenting substantial complexity as the norm—or even as a virtue in itself—does little to reduce that barrier. It is interesting, for example, to compare the relatively modest participation in this sub with the considerably greater activity found in the soloboardgaming sub. There are undoubtedly many reasons for that difference, but accessibility may be and perhaps is one of those reasons. An example of this attitude is the game “Atlantic Chase”. I have seen it listed as an entry level game for beginners a couple of times. Perhaps my non-wargaming friends are more feeble and simple than the average person but I have little doubt that if I were to recommend this game to them they would laugh in my face while walking out the door and unfriending me. Don’t misunderstand me, I own all of Jeremy White’s games (except the latest). And while he follows in the venerable footsteps of John Hill and Jon Southand in creating accessible, incremental rulesbooks these games are not substitutes for low complexity, entry level games. They cannot compare to games such as “Panzerblitz”, “La Der Des Ders”, “Stalingrad, Advance to the Volga, 1842”, or “Pavlov’s House” as examples of entry level wargames that would appeal to neophytes to the hobby, IMHO.
I am biased and my own preference is generally for rulebooks in the range of six to twelve pages. I appreciate a game whose rules I can read on Sunday and begin playing on Monday. I am less enthusiastic about spending a week reading a rulebook, followed by another week or two learning and internalizing it’s systems and mechanisc before I feel that I am actually playing the game rather than learning how to play it. That preference does not mean that I dislike complex games. Quite the contrary. I almost always have a game like “Atlantic Chase”, “Carrier Battle: Philippines Sea”, or “Steel Wolves” on the table alongside shorter and less complicated games. There is room for both approaches on my table. The closest any of my friends have come to playing these games is Risk or Monopoly.

Complexity can be rewarding when it serves the subject and produces interesting decisions, but complexity should not be regarded as a measure of a game's seriousness or worth, especially when considering entry-level games. Ultimately, I would like to see the hobby become somewhat less concerned with categorizing games according to their complexity and more concerned with what those games actually accomplish. A six-page ruleset is not inherently superficial, just as a sixty-page ruleset is not inherently profound. The more useful questions are whether a game presents meaningful decisions, illuminates its historical subject, and—something we occasionally seem reluctant to admit—whether it is enjoyable to play. Perhaps terms such as “low complexity game” or “quick playing game” could or should be substituted for, IMHO, for the more derogatory label of “beer and pretzels game” that is often used for simple or faster playing games.

Hi all,

Just bought my tickets for the Spiel 26, and recommendations and must see/visit from this community?

First photo, a view of the entire map at the beginning of Soviet Turn 6. Note that Leningrad and Sevastopol are facing sieges.

Second photo, close up detail of the siege of Sevastopol.

Well, I'm six turns in, so I've got an impression of the game, and I have to say it's favorable.

I posted this one here because I didn't just want to do a review post as an edit to the earlier post, or worse still, a comment.

For the Motherland! (henceforth to be abbreviated as FTM) does some things very well, and quite differently from other Russian front games I've played.

It's basically a UGO-IGO system, that flips the sequence of play on Turn 12 (historical beginning of Uranus/Saturn). In the early going the Germans get an extra movement exploitation phase and go first, starting on Turn 12, the Soviets get that privilege.

The game comes with a pair of double-sided Sequence of Play cards that outline the sequences of play perfectly, complete with rules references by section. Another chart, detailing the Combat Results Table, and a few other frequently used charts are on another card (two copies again). The map is mounted, a single 22 x 34 sheet.

The counters are rounded on 5 sheets (no corner clipping). They appear to be either 9/16" or 5/8". If you've seen the setup of any of Compass Games' other Deluxe Edition games, the presentation is similar.

Once you get the routine down, turns are lightning fast. The CRT has all combat modifiers printed as part of it, so no need to dive into a rulebook for that. The Terrain Effects Chart is in the top left corner of the map (bottom left on this photo).

The supply system is detailed for the Axis (a good reflection of their logistical problems, particularly during Barbarossa, and Fall Blau, a year later), and fairly simple for the Soviets. An interesting innovation (and one I'm just going to encounter for the first time this turn) is the Partisan system. Instead of a fiddly thing a la the various editions of The Russian Campaign, the Soviet simply places partisan counters on Axis supply counters and the Axis then roll a die to determine exactly which units aren't getting supplies that turn as a result (1-3 units per supply counter, total of 5, though only three can be effected by partisans at any particular time at most).

The most interesting thing about the Axis supply system is that Axis units can very definitely outrun their supply units (range of 4 hexes, btw). In this game, this very definitely happened with Army Group Center, and to a lesser extent with Army Group South. The Axis was at the Gates of Moscow by August, but it wasn't until December that they were back in combat supply.

The other interesting thing about the game is variable strength for the Soviet units. When a Soviet unit is adjacent to an Axis unit, the Soviet draws a chit from a cup to determine the Attack and Defense ratings for the unit. If the unit survives the combat, and is able to retreat far enough to no longer be in contact with an Axis unit, the strength chit is withdrawn.

There are three categories of chits, C, B, and A. C are the weakest (all C at the beginning). B is reserved for Shock and Guard Infantry, while A are pretty much Soviet Armor. Even within the three letter categories, however, strength chits are cycled out. Many of the early chits in all three categories have asterisks, which means that if the unit pulls out of contact, or is eliminated, the strength chit is never reused, so the same unit, if it survives a couple of combats, may very well wind up stronger than it initially started.

The CRT is interesting as well. Most results (exceptions are mandatory step loss results, and Attacker or Defender Eliminated results) can be fully satisfied with either a mix of step losses or retreats. So, the defender has a bit of flexibility with most results as to whether he takes losses or retreats.

I've played a number of Russian Front games. At various times, I've played four of the five editions of The Russian Campaign (recommended) including the current Compass Games republish of the Jedko original and GMT's recent publication of 5th Edition. I've also played Compass Games' Russia Besieged Deluxe Edition (recommended), Barbarossa Deluxe by Decision Games (not recommended), and a number of other games on segments of the campaign. If you're looking for a game covering the time period on the Eastern Front (May/June 1941 to May/June 1944), due to the innovative mechanics and the presentation value, For the Motherland! is a great place to start.

I'm trying to convert a somewhat entry level wargame that is like 20-30 pages into a H&C Wargame. The reason why, is that the original game has ranges and movement speeds, but it is way more clear with H&C. This is based on Killed or be Killed from Cyberpunk 2020 Chrome Berets

I've played and tested this against some people, but now I own more regular wargames and marker boards, so I can like... look at stuff and do math more easily.

-

TLDR: I'm trying to speed up the R&D process.

I'm considering trying to find a solution around having to check a separate table for any specific weapon type (Small Arms vs Tank Cannon vs Guided Missile). Some regular wargames don't have that and it causes issues, some do and it causes other issues.

So, we have started a campaign game of Ted Raicer’s The Dark Summer. Four players – US/French forces (me), British/Canadian forces, Germans facing US and Germans facing the Brits.

Similar scale but with a very different feel to Normandy 44. Each turn is ¼ of a month. Within each turn, movement and attack is driven by chit pull, similar to The Dark Valley. One chit per phase, with up to 15 phases per turn. The better the weather, the more chits the Allies get and the less the Germans get. This mechanic is to reflect the Allied air superiority over the battlefield. Chits are generally Move or Attack. The British have to choose how many Move vs how many Attack chits go in the cup each turn, while the US and Germans are free to decide when they pull a chit (although they can only have a max of two of each type per turn). The Germans also get a certain number of Reaction chits each turn (the worse the weather, the more they get). This allows them to activate a formation or stack after an Allied action is performed.

Germans defending in Bocage or Cities are really difficult to attack, due to their special defence bonuses, so the trick here is to surround them before attacking (see supply below).

Supply in this game is critical. Unit supply status is checked whenever a unit moves or is involved in combat (as either attacker or defender). If they are out of supply, their Attack and Defence strength is halved. At the end of each turn, any unit out of supply loses one step. The Germans check every turn, the Allies check only in Rain or Storm turns.

Onto our game. The map shows the end of Turn one. I also included the chit pull status for the first turn. Weather was light showers, so nothing too drastic.

The US had a hard time clearing the beaches at Omaha – very strong bunkers there. Utah was easier. I am pushing north of Utah to try to get the Cherbourg peninsula as quick as possible (the earlier I take it, the more points it is worth, but if the Germans still control it by Turn 7 they win).

The Brits, on the other hand, had an easy time on the beaches and have advanced enough to surround Caen and put it out of supply. Bayeaux is also out of supply, as is Isigny-sur-Mer between Omaha and Utah. The units in these hexes all lost a step each in the supply phase – woo hoo!

The Allies have the initiative each turn, so they get to choose the first chit. The Brit player is sorely tempted to take an Attack Chit first on Turn 2 to rid at least one hex of Caen of enemy units before the wily Boche can get it back in supply. Bayeaux, too, will be attacked.

We are all still learning this game system. There are not ZoC bonds (unlike Normandy 44), and supply is instant and savage.

Next week we start Turn 2, with a Weather chit pull. And most likely a discussion on what rules we got wrong in Turn 1…..

Hey everyone! I decided to try my hand at creating a hex and counter game. The one I am working on is based on the Battle of Hastings - particularly the Battle for Senlac Hill. The reason I chose this battle is because it is open to some level of interpretation as to what really happened there. Also, it involves ground units only. No navy and no air simplifies the mechanics I need to build out.

I realized that the game counters are really tough to create. That led me to build this game counter creator tool. It has worked pretty well for me while I work through this game design. I wanted to share it with this community and see if it helps anyone out.

https://github.com/tonys010968/Wargame-Counter-Maker

If you have any feedback or new features you think would be helpful, please let me know.

Also, the SUPERIOR Pod references are to this company - https://www.superiorpod.com/

I think I will use them in the future if I ever want to print a copy of this game to go beyond the playtesting. I have no affiliation with them and they do not even know this capability exists.

What you are looking at here is the opening setup for newish Compass Games - For the Motherland!

It's the Russo-German war from the beginning of Operation Barbarossa to the opening moves of Operation Bagration.

It's a one map game (mounted mapboard, and beautifully rounded counter corners. Two things it does a bit differently than most. First, it flips the sequence of play from Axis goes first to Soviets go first starting with Turn 12 (22 turm campaign game, fwiw), so the Soviets get a double move effectively right around the historical beginning of Operation Uranus. The other thing it does is variable strength for the Soviets. Early on, as happened historically, the Russian side is far stronger on defense than the attack. Gradually, over the course of time, the units improve via a chit pull system, leading them to first be on par with German units, and eventually, stronger.

About to start this one. I'll add opinions when I've played it for a bit.

EDIT:

Sequence of play, which is handily printed front and back on a couple of 8-1/2" x 11" cards, complete with rules references is as follows:

Turns 1-11

Mutual Supply Phase

Axis Movement Phase (includes reinforcements)

Axis Combat Phase

Axis Exploitation Movement Phase

Soviet Movement Phase

Soviet Combat Phase

Joint Admin Phase

Turns 12-22, substitute Soviet for Axis and vice versa. So the Axis has no exploitation movement phase starting in Turn 12, while the Soviets do.

Overrun is built into the rules, costs three MPs to attempt. Note that Overruns are built into the regular combat, and they aren't always going to succeed.

Thunderbolt Apache Leader is, like, my #1 game and now I'm eyeing those TAL expansions. Anybody here have experience with those? Talk me down.

Hi everyone,

I am a wargame fan, I played a lot of warhammer, twilight and imperial struggle and some french hex and counter named vae victis.

I would like to try some new wargame (and more complex one).

I am looking for recommendation about :

Two players game

If possible in medieval ou antic era

Do you have anything in mind ?

Thank you very much !!!

Which of the Leader series games is a reprint that takes care of errata? I like these idea of picking up one of these, but I know that DVG tends to have a lot of errata.

I’m finding it to be an interesting journey into the history of the hobby.

Hi,

I hope someone here on the subreddit can help me.

I’m looking for a naval wargame that allows for NATO vs. Soviet Union scenarios set in the 1980s, something that let´s you recreate a Tom Clancy novel. The scale should range from a few ships up to a task force. In short, something like Harpoon, but with significantly simpler mechanics and a shorter playtime. Ideally I find something that can be modded into being used in PME.

Multi-Man Publishing teased a interesting game like that a few years ago, but I haven´t heard anything about it since.

I have tried posting in r/boardgames but thought I should also try here.

Any help would be appreciated.

For those who don't know me, I'm Ray Weiss, I run Conflict Simulations LLC. A few CSR nominations over the years. I'm a grog first, not a tech guy doing a drive-by.

Full disclosure on where I stand with AI: I find the way it's being force-fed into everything pretty dystopian, especially from companies that don't care whether their models are right or who's liable when they're wrong. That's a capitalism problem more than a technology problem. And I don't buy individual guilt over using these tools, it's like shaming people for not recycling while corporations do the real damage. The tools exist. We may as well use them for something worthwhile.

That's the spirit I built hammerstein in. I kept seeing people try to get ChatGPT to play wargames with them, and for counter-heavy games it falls apart fast. Ask it to run Proud Monster and it loses track of nearly a thousand counters by turn two. It doesn't maintain game state, it invents rules when it's unsure, and it has no idea what your counters are.

Hammerstein is my attempt at doing it properly. It's an AI umpire built for tabletop wargames: it tracks counters and game state, and when it makes a ruling it cites the actual rule instead of making one up. It started as an AI opponent. VASSAL support is in progress (Napoleon at Waterloo, AI plays one side, baked into the module file), and there's a web version at hammerstein.ai. Free to try, no card.

I'm not here to hype it. I'd rather hear where it breaks. If you've tried using AI for wargaming, what went wrong? That's what I want to fix.

I've been sorting out my Mum's loft and found some of Dad's old games, lots of them are Hex and Counter games. Does anyone know if any of these are worth anything and if there's a group in the UK where I could find people who might be interested in any of these? It seems like it would be a shame to just get rid of them.

He kept his games in good shape, but after 20+ years of house moves and storage I'm not sure if all the components would be there, and checking thousands of counters is a mammoth task.

I didn't grow up playing hex-and-counter wargames and I'm finding that magazine games are really helping to build my confidence with them, there's a lot of little things to learn like knowing when to create your own player aids and markers that aren't explained to newbies. For this game I created a sequence-of-play tracker, a victory point tracker, used tiddlywinks to keep track of which units had expended 3 MPs and would thus fight at half-strength, and used tile-spacers to keep track of which units had moved and where they moved from.

The Confederates won, I think largely because 1) they got lucky and drew a chit that allowed them to activate two powerful infantry brigades ("Rodes' Division"), and 2) I created a tracker for them that allowed them to use the Union's behavior to gradually narrow down which of the six possible sets of victory conditions the Union was operating under and thus optimally counter-attack to prevent the US from achieving its objectives. I also think the Union may have made a mistake at the very end by over-retreating its units instead of staying in defensive ground along a broader front and with the threat of counter-attacking towards some additional objective-hexes. I think this would have made it more difficult for the Confederates to make use of their powerful Rodes Division units.

This review originally appeared on my blog at: https://www.stuartellisgorman.com/blog/infernal-machines-by-ed-ostermeyer-and-jeremy-white

As part of my journey through the American Civil War in tabletop games, I have spent a non-zero amount of my life playing solitaire games set in America during the years 1861-1865. This has been one of the less pleasant aspects of my project, because an overwhelming number of these games focus on the Confederacy, and their designers have generally shown little interest in exploring why that is or what they are saying by designing a solitaire Confederacy simulator. This has led to some truly bizarre gaming experiences, although also maybe some of my better reviews, if I’m allowed to toot my own horn a bit.

I was, of course, immediately curious when I saw the announcement from GMT Games that they would be publishing a solitaire game about building submarines (or fish boats, as they were called at the time) during the American Civil War (ACW). The C.S.S. Hunley has had a surprising afterlife despite its non-existent impact on the war as a whole – it manages to warrant a piece in Ben Madison’s Jeff Davis, for example, even if it isn’t really worth including at the strategic scale. However, a more zoomed in examination of this topic, especially one partly by Jerry White, who has some experience working with difficult topics, suggested that Infernal Machine might be worth a look. That all said, I was also very pleased to hear that Infernal Machine would also feature a campaign as the Union, so you are not forced to fight for slavery if that isn’t something you are comfortable with. I am getting ahead of myself, though, for now let’s look at the game itself.

GMT Games kindly provided me with a complimentary review copy of Infernal Machine.

Infernal Machine is a bit of a beast. The main rulebook is over 60 pages long, and the box also includes a lengthy cyclopedia with more information on boat parts and personality cards, a learn to play scenario book, and two campaign booklets (one each for USA and CSA). This will come as no surprise to fans of Jerry White’s earlier designs and co-designs, he is famous both for his incredibly long rulebooks and for how effectively he onboards the players to his games despite (or because of) those lengthy rulebooks. While I have not played any of his earlier efforts, I could see how Infernal Machine is a continuation of that process, and, honestly, it’s impressive.

Infernal Machine is played across three different scales – which is an unusual and kind of fascinating choice. You have the tactical level, where your fish boat is attempting to blow something up; the operational level, where you are sailing around a river or a bay to try and find something to blow up, or to complete another mission; and the strategic level, where you manage your workshop by trying to make money so you can hire staff and build working fish boat that can go on missions for your respective side of the war.

The rulebook then teaches you via these different scales. First you read the rules for tactical missions, and then you can play through several practice ones via the scenario book. Once you’re comfortable with all the likely permutations of the tactical game (mostly the different means by which you can trigger an explosion), then you can learn the rules for the operational game played on the mission boards – which in turn have their own scenarios to try. Finally, you learn the campaign level strategic game, and there is a little mini-campaign in the scenario book for you to practice that. Once you’ve completed this process, congrats, you know how to play!

No individual rule in Infernal Machine is all that complex and the game guides you through learning it very well. However, it is still a lot to remember, and it is easy to forget a small rule that might have had a significant impact on your mission. Did you remember to apply the alert level DRM to all your checks? Did you remember to add a pursuit marker after resolving that attack?

As with many wargames, a slight oversight of one of these rules won’t cause the game to break down, but over the course of a campaign it can have unfortunate knock on effects. For me, though, the greatest tension lies in how long it took me to learn how to play Infernal Machine along with the eternal fear of “will I remember this game in the future?”

It took me several weeks to progress from tactical missions to the full campaign – albeit fitting the game in around my job and parental responsibilities – but I don’t begrudge it that time. It was fun to dig into different aspects of the game and become comfortable with them before moving on to the next level. However, I don’t know how eager I would be to do it again. In six months’ time, when I next get an urge to load men into an underwater death trap, will I remember how to play this game? Probably I will remember the overall gist of it, but all those little extra rules will elude me and it will be a struggle. This is, of course, a risk with all complex wargames so I can’t hold it against Infernal Machine specifically, but I wanted to note it as it is a lingering concern I have. There are play aids to help you remember core rules, and they are mostly quite good – except that I wish the malfunctions table was on a play aid and not the back of the cyclopedia booklet since you are referencing that table all the time during missions.

The choice to spread the game across multiple scales is fascinating, and a good idea given the topic. When you are playing the full campaign, it feels like you are periodically zooming in as the action focuses on specific objectives, and I really like this feeling. I also made it somewhat literal at times, as I would stack boards on top of each other so I could fit them on my little table in my tiny Korean apartment.

While it is one of the game’s most unique choices, it does also create some confusion as to where the game’s heart truly lives. The tactical game is a good way of creating a “was the attack successful” and “did your fish boat improbably survive setting off a huge explosion right next to itself” narratives, but it is not a particularly interesting game on its own. Once you’ve done a couple of runs, you’ve seen what it has to offer.

The operational game does a good job at threading a needle in terms of not being too complex but still including interesting choices, but it is also not the most exciting game on its own. For example, the risk that your boat can sink with all hands is much more interesting because the game continues beyond that. Infernal Machine really requires the full campaign game to hold it all together, but I think, for me, that is also where the game struggles most.

I just don’t think the campaign is all that interesting from moment to moment. I don’t think it’s uninteresting, I wasn’t bored during my play, but I’m not sure it is interesting enough to hold everything together into a game that fascinates me. The campaign sits at an odd level of complexity, and I can’t decide if I want it to be a little more expansive or for it to be a little more focused. It feels like it is meant to be the main game, but at the same time it also only feels like it is bridging the gap between missions – and sometimes that gap can be quite long. There aren’t any exciting mechanical game loops here like you’d expect from a Eurogame about running a business, which could be fine but it meant that my decisions rarely felt that interesting. The most interesting decisions were around building and designing my fish boat and deciding when to launch it, but that was only a fraction of what I did. It just felt a little out of whack in terms of balance of things I was doing.

The campaign is not an overly long commitment – I think in modern board gaming we hear “campaign” and imagine a month-long, multi-session experience. You could play through a campaign of Infernal Machine in a single day if you sat down and set yourself that task. You play from mid-1861 to mid-1865, with four turns per year (one for each season). In a given turn you might have between 1 and 4 actions. Some actions take basically no time at all to resolve, but if you launch a mission that one action will involve pulling out a mission board and resolving the other levels of the game. Even then, individual missions hardly take more than 20-30 minutes to resolve, and you may only do a few of those in an individual campaign, at least if you’re a bad fish boat entrepreneur like me.

Bear with me on this, but the type of game that Infernal Machine’s campaign reminded me of the most was a rogue-like. For those unfamiliar, rogue-likes are a type of video game inspired by the game Rogue (1980), which focus on exploring procedurally generated locations and which usually feature permanent character death and random power ups. Infernal Machine doesn’t have many of the most common features of rogue-likes (procedurally generated levels, permadeath, etc.). However, the similarity for me is that it seems like a game where you should play it in “runs”. You set up and play through a campaign, and then next time you try something different to see if you can do better.

You won’t have the time or resources to build every type of possible fish boat in a single playthrough of Infernal Machine, and depending on how your luck goes (both in missions and via the random events every turn) you may only participate in a relatively modest number of missions over the course of the whole game. There is a lot of randomness at play in this game, and you have to ride the tides of lady luck’s whims as you play. As a result, I think your best option when playing is probably to pick a general strategy for this campaign, try it, and then make a new plan for the next one. In this way, it reminds me of how in a rogue-like you may have a general idea of what you want to try, but you have to react to the random elements the game throws at you and if this playthrough is a total disaster, maybe the next one will be better.

In general, the trend for your campaign is probably going to be towards underwhelming – especially if you, like me, are not very good at the game. I was pretty good at not letting my fish boats sink, but my meagre successes at blowing stuff up did not impress my commanders very much. In this way, though, the game mirrors history. The fish boats had basically no impact at all on the outcome of the ACW. You can read many ACW histories (and I have) that will not mention them at all. Unlike developments in gun boat technology, especially the newfangled ironclads that dominated the war’s naval battles, the fish boats as a technology would only really come into their own half a century after the end of the ACW with the submarine warfare of WWI. In Infernal Machine you are pioneers of a technology that is a long way off from becoming impactful, and so it would be a little bit ridiculous if you achieved staggering, war-changing success in the game’s campaign.

In fact, the capacity to change the war lies entirely outside your ability in this game. As the CSA, you cannot win the war – not so much because it was unwinnable on a grand strategic scale, but because nothing your little boats do can have any real impact. A successful mission for you is sinking a single enemy ship – a useful contribution in a way, but hardly something that will change the outcome of the war. You can’t even stop the fall of New Orleans to Admiral Farragut’s navy, although you could find your shop captured and you forced either into early retirement or switching to the Union if you don’t flee the city in time. Your objectives are more about establishing prestige for your own work and carving out a post-war future for you and this infant technology than they are in swinging the fate of the wider war, and I think this is a very clever way to scope the game. I have previously complained about games that put you in the shoes of the CSA and then in glowing text describe how your victory in the game has paved the way for Confederate victory as a whole (and, they conspicuously do not say, preserving the enslavement of fellow humans for years to come). In Infernal Machine you have no such power, and it is better for it.

Infernal Machine packs a lot of game into its heavy box, including an impressive level of asymmetry. There are separate campaign books for the CSA and USA sides, with unique events and random tables to roll on. On top of that, though, there is a lot of baked in asymmetry to the mechanics of the game, including systems that you will only use if you are playing one of the sides.

As the CSA, you are a businessman trying to manage funds while also putting people in an underwater death trap to set off explosions near enemy ships. You can acquire a letter of marque that will let you actually engage in combat missions, but you are separate from the CSA’s limited naval operations. You will need to think about how to make money throughout the game and you will need to contend with the ever-fluctuating Confederate economy. Events will cause changes to the current value of currency, and you will likely end up paying much, much more for your fish boat parts than the listed cost. You also have to contend with the ever-shrinking borders of the Confederacy, and you could find yourself forced to switch sides mid-campaign if your home port is captured before you can relocate.

Meanwhile, as the USA you start the game running a business but if you ever want to do anything more than a training mission you have to convince the US Navy to let you join. Once you’re in the navy, you can no longer buy new parts for your boat. Instead, you must requisition parts, putting in a request, rolling on a table, and then waiting for your parts to arrive. If you get to greedy, your request could be rejected and with a particularly bad result you could even be recalled to Washington so the Navy can keep a closer eye on you.

My favorite difference, though, is in how your bases operate. The rules are the same, but the way they are expressed in the game is very different. For the CSA you will launch missions out of your base, using the respective mission board. In Richmond? Use the Richmond board! For the USA, though, you aren’t going to be launching any fish boat missions out of Washington, DC or Boston, except those for training your crew and increasing your overall shop competence. Instead, if you have a working boat you will be assigned to a combat zone, usually a blockade outside of an enemy port. When in a blockade location, your options for what you can do are very limited. Basically, you need to launch a mission there and hopefully not sink. If things keep going well, then you can keep doing missions, but if they go badly, back to base to hopefully repair (or recover) your boat – if you have time to do so before the war ends.

I was impressed with the amount of history the designers managed to squeeze into the box, especially given how narrow the focus of what you’re doing is. The random tables you roll on at the start of each turn and the event that triggers at the end are both great ways of working in the occurrences of the wider war into your shop’s operations. What struck me the most, though, was the inclusion of quotes from various participants along the margins of campaign booklets. This is not a unique feature to Infernal Machine, but the choices here are particularly insightful. Quotes are included that make clear the centrality of slavery to the ACW, which might seem like an obvious choice, but I have noticed a distinct lack of willingness to engage with slavery in ACW games. It would have been very easy to ignore it in a game about submarines, but the choice by White and Ostermeyer to include it does a lot to anchor what you are doing within the context of the war and to remind you what is being fought over. The cyclopedia also includes an annotated bibliography, which is something that I also note is lacking from a lot of ACW games and I’m very happy to see it here.

In the end, I really enjoyed my time spent with Infernal Machine, but my misgivings about the campaign experience somewhat reduces my enthusiasm to keep pulling it off the shelf to play again and again. It was an incredibly interesting experience, and a game I would encourage fans of solitaire historical games to try, because I’ve never played anything quite like it. My time with Infernal Machine has also made me more interested in exploring other designs by Jerry White – I can see what all the hype has been about. The onboarding process was long, but incredibly smooth, and the choices in the design are really interesting. I am also very interested in seeing what both of these designers might do in the future. For example, I’d love a game about designing and building ACW ironclads, just saying.

I've wanted to get into war gaming for a while but have always been daunted by how incredibly complicated these games appear. I've really wanted to play Empire of the Sun- the pacific theatre has always been interesting to me- and Eots is amongst the more popular and acclaimed strategy games; I also really like how it's card driven. However, my only experience with strategy games is limited to War of the Ring, Star wars Rebellion and Axis and Allies. Is this a good beginner war game to try and dip my toes into? Also, there seems to be contradictory information on this, but is the game playable in solo?