“After the ‘War to end War’, they seem to have been in Paris at making the ‘Peace to end Peace'” – Field Marshal Archibald Wavell (speaking of the Paris Peace Conference, 1919)
To End All Wars is the latest game from AGEOD/Slitherine covering the First World War. It covers in detail the Western, Eastern and Middle East fronts, but also features map boxes where conflict can occur elsewhere in the world. The scope of the game is truly global.
The victory conditions (which are the same for each side) are frighteningly ominous as to the scale of destruction required.
It is a strategic/operational level game with the principal maneuver units consisting of armies, corps, and fleets. Smaller units can be used independently if a player wishes, but while this gives flexibility it also carries the risk of being overwhelmed by a larger force.
GARPA turns 50! Can we get a “w00t! w00t!” ? Last month it was all games that had already made the cut. This month? You gotta work for ’em…
No Trumpets, No Drums (One Small Step Games) Pre-order price of $44.95
New from OSS, No Trumpets, No Drums is a strategic- and high operational-level game of the Vietnam War from ’65-’75. Picking up after the French have left, and running past the departure of most US ground troops, this expansive game covers the ground campaigns, with a heavy dose of the political machinations that ultimately decided the war. It’s a hex-and-counter layout on your table, but the game plays on several levels and is conducive to team play, as well.
This is a remake of an earlier magazine game from the early 80s. They are hoping to get it out by the end of the year, but only if they can get enough preorders in to make it into production, so get to their website and place your pre-order. OSS makes some great games, from some cracking designers and developers.
University of Maryland Professor (and more importantly, wargamer!) Matt Kirschenbaum is on a European odyssey this summer. While in Switzerland for an academic conference, he made time to swing by a local museum and found an excellent display of wargaming history.
I was recently in Lausanne, Switzerland for a conference and, well, it rained the entire week. Looking around for something to do I noticed the Swiss Games Musuem, Le Musee Suisse du Jeu, was a short train ride away in the nearby town of La Tour de Pielz. Reading further, I discovered the museum was housed in a castle. A games museum in a castle? Let’s go! Upon arrival, I found two unexpected bonuses: first, the weather briefly cleared, *and* there was a special exhibition of WWI games on!
I don’t typically wear my emotions on my sleeve. In the last 20 years I think I have shed tears three times in front of my own wife. But there are certain events and historical phenomenon that bring out the sensitive, skinny-jean-and-mesh-truck-cap wearing emo in me…and World War I is at that top of the list.
Why, specifically? I don’t know. Maybe I view World War I through too romantic a lens and I believe so much of what has been written about it: “lions led by donkeys,” the “death of innocence” and “good bye to all that.” Those terms and the emotions, places, and situations they describe really resonate with me in a way that no other historical era does.
Zeppelins are portrayed in Valiant Hearts and you’ll have to learn how to take them down!
It’s strange because I had direct contact with World War II through my grandparents: its horrors and its triumphs – so much so that World War II became almost commonplace to me. Where and when I grew up, everyone had a father, or more likely a grandfather, who fought in it. World War I is murkier; I have never knowingly met anyone who was there, so I have constructed what it was like for combatants on all sides in my own head. And this has produced a war where vengeance and justice have been replaced with melancholy and the longing for “the way things were before.” By World War II the world collectively knew that there was no going back; during World War I this loss was still very new and very fresh. This hazy, general feeling of loss and grief is captured masterfully by Valiant Hearts: The Great War (VH:TGW).
