Overthinking it: Games as therapy

 

 

Note: I've wrestled with posting this for a while, and I've re-written it about four times now. While it It deals with mortality and its onlookers, the ones affected by it peripherally. I don't imagine this post will be for everyone. If you're squeamish about such things, or if the subject just hits too closely, it may be best to skip this one. Normal transmission should return shortly.

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I’ve talked about this elsewhere on the blog, but I’m bringing it up one more time to illustrate a point. In 2010, my wife Jess was hospitalised with complications from a MS exacerbation that came close to ending her life and subsequently put her in rehab for three months while she learned to walk again. It was during this time that my brother-in-law T and I started playing a weekly game of Command & Colors: Napleonics (GMT Games, 2010). I had only been in possession of the game for a month or so before Jess went into hospital. I was spending my days in the ward and my nights eating toast and not sleeping very much. T and his wife P – Jess’s eldest sister – had me around a several times for dinner in those early weeks, mostly to make sure I was looking after myself, and when Jess was communicative again, she told me I should go have a game with T one night. So I invited myself over and took my copy of  C&C: Napoleonics with me. When offered, T chose to play the French.

At the end of our first game (Rolica (French First Position) – 17 August 1808), T told me I should come over the following week so we can each play the over side. And that was the start of our nearly sixteen-year Monday night game tradition. Over those first few months, this was one of the things that helped keep me on an even keel in the face of a desperate and only sporadically resolving situation.

I bring this up now because life is a crap buffet, devoid of even the smallest measure of fairness or justice or consideration. After some months of unwellness, P was diagnosed with MND. Anyone who has lost a loved one to this shitty, humourless joke of a condition knows what it does to the sufferer and to everyone around them, and has my deepest, most profound sympathy. I’m not going to dwell on it here; that's not my story to tell.  

The other week, when T and I played the Eggmühl, Day 2 (French Right) scenario, that was a little less than a week after P’s diagnosis. She had been progressively less well over the previous four months, and we hadn’t seen either of them for most of that. Both T and P are medical professionals, and quite senior in their respective fields. Neither is under any illusion regarding what is to come. When I got to T’s place for our game, he looked haggard, flat, beaten.

We played the game. We did not talk much at all before or during the game, except a little about various moves or tactics, and about the historical situation of the scenario. For about an hour-and-a-half we were immersed fully in the challenge to hand.

After the game, as we were packing up, T seemed less deflated, more his old self. We talked. I asked him some questions about what comes next, how P was handling the situation, how their kids (both adults now) are taking it all, and he answered everything with full statements, rather than vagaries and platitudes. For eighty-something minutes we’d taken a little vacation from the weight of everything bearing down on the family, but upon T most of all. It was still there when we returned, but he was a little rested and better prepared to face it.

In her excellent book, Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World*, author Jane McGonigal relates a story from Book 1 (Part 94) of Herodotus’s The Histories:

Now the Lydians […] were the first of men, so far as we know, who struck and used coin of gold or silver; and also they were the first retail-traders. And the Lydians themselves say that the games which are now in use among them and among the Hellenes were also their invention. These they say were invented among them at the same time as they colonised Tyrsenia, and this is the account they give of them: --

In the reign of Atys the son of Manes their king there came to be a grievous dearth over the whole of Lydia; and the Lydians for a time continued to endure it, but afterwards, as it did not cease, they sought for remedies; and one devised one thing and another of them devised another thing. And then were discovered, they say, the ways of playing with the dice and the knucklebones and the ball, and all the other games excepting draughts (for the discovery of this last is not claimed by the Lydians). These games they invented as a resource against the famine, and thus they used to do -- on one of the days they would play games all the time in order that they might not feel the want of food, and on the next they ceased from their games and had food: and thus they went on for eighteen years.†

Many things mentioned by Herodotus are questionable in their veracity, but this story, to me, seems plausible; it has the patina of truth to it. That a society would look to games as a distraction from their woes seems both believable and healthy. When my wife was in hospital and there was absolutely nothing I could do to help her, I took some solace in Marcus Aurelius, Søren Kierkegaard, and our weekly Commands & Colors game. These things helped me make sense of what I was experiencing, giving my conscious mind a brief remit from my own sense of ineffectualness, and allowing some clear time for my subconscious to work the intellectual and emotional baggage that I couldn’t actively think my way through.

I’m not trying to diminish or cheapen the real pain people face in their lives. And I’m certainly not trying to say that wargames or games in general are a salve for that pain. Games are not a replacement for lived experience. But lived experience can be harrowing. A game can offer a brief respite from the anguish of the moment. But more than that, it can lend you the space to build or restore a framework through which to approach or deal with the ongoing horridness. At least, this has been my experience.

After the game, T spoke of their immediate plans; to get P out of hospital and comfortably back into their home; welcome their second grandchild – a girl, due (at time of writing) in just a week or so – into the world; to be participating grandparents in the child’s life; and, of course, playing the games that are an enduring part of their family traditions. He spoke in terms of short-term goals, and of the tactics to be employed in making P’s life as full and as fulfilling they can. Listening to him talk about it, T didn’t sound like a project manager running through procedures and milestones; he appeared more like a general marshalling all of his forces for battle.

 

* I cannot recommend this book, and McGonigal’s more personal follow-up volume. Superbetter: How a Gameful Life Can Make You Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient, highly enough. McGonigal is an academic, game designer. and brain trauma survivor (her recovery  from which she addresses through the course of Superbetter), and a very entertaining and engaging writer. There are also a couple of TED-Talks and other presentations available on the Internet, but your a grown-up; you can find those for yourself.

† This online text is from G.C. Macauley’s translation, first released in 1890, but still a worthwhile translation. I have the Barnes & Noble Classics paperback (EAN: 978-1593081027) which it looks like is still available in print and doesn't cost all that much.

 

 

State of Play: Battle Line - making peace with the chaos

 

 

 

The game: nine Flags (red pawns), a sixty-card Troops deck and a twenty-card
Tactics deck, and a four-page rules sheet. The handy reference card
I downloaded from BoardgameGeek.com

I arrived at the expected time for a game with T (remarkably on a Monday for our sometimes inappropriately named Monday night game), only to find he had a visitor. T is taking some extended leave from work, and his boss had come around to discuss a few matters regarding his area. T’s taking a few months off to deal with some things. After introductions, I scurried off to make some coffee and rustle up a suitable diversion, nothing having been set up as yet.

T keeps his games in his home office, among the family’s extended game collection. The shelves run floor to ceiling on the back wall, with most of the wargames on the top shelf. There was no way I was climbing on his swivel chair to try to retrieve something from up there, but a did spot something just about at eye-level which seemed perfect for a truncated game and a chat.

I’ve written about the Reiner Knizia game Battle Line (GMT Games, 2000) previously (and more than once). I have a storied relationship with the game. I like it as a game, and it ticks a lot of boxes for what we’re all about here at A Fast Game – Monday’s session took about forty-five minutes from taking the box down off the shelf to putting it back in its spot. Battle Line a numbers game, which doesn’t appeal to everyone, but I like to play the percentages in a non-gamble-y way.

If you haven’t played it, it’s much more a war-themed game than a wargame; the game involves setting out nine wooden pawns, called Flags. This is the battle-line of the title. Play involves each player consecutively playing a card from their hand before one of the flags, trying to construct three-card runs Adjacent to the flags, then drawing a replacement card from either the Troop deck or the Tactics deck. When each side has completed a run, they determine which side has won and place the Flag on the winning run. The game is won when one side has scored five flags or three adjacent flags (harder than it sounds).

The Troop deck is made up of variously six suits of ten cards each, rated 1 to 10 in value, and these are used to make runs in the following configurations (in descending order):

Wedge – Straight flush

Phalanx – Three-of-a-kind

Battalion Order – Flush

Skirmish Line – Straight

Host – Any other formation (numerical values tallied)

So, a Wedge beats a Phalanx, which in turn will prove more than a match for a Battalion Order, and so on, down to the Host (in a competition between Hosts, the greater value of Troops showing up will carry the day, in the case of a tie, the side who completed their run first is the winner of that Flag). The Tactics deck mixes the straight mathematics of the Troop deck up a little. Various Tactics cards can be played to stand in for a particular (or any) card required but not drawn or allow the removal of a card your opponent has placed, and its re-placement on a run on your side of the battle-line. These are the wild cards that add a little chaos to the mathematical order of the game.

Flags placed cards dealt, anticipation building.

There’s quite a lot going on at the moment in life outside of games so, interestingly, T chose not to draw any Tactics cards at all – usually he’ll draw around half a dozen in a game – and I only drew one, and then only when I needed a Hail Mary for a run I was trying hard to build (I’ll come back to this), which paid off in the short term. We were both playing a fairly pure mathematical game. There’s an argument in literary theory and the development of the detective genre in the late nineteenth century and especially the rise in its popularity after the Great War was a societal response to the diminishing influence of religion as a source of assurance in everyday life; when people lost faith in God, there was still a need for a sense of order, and people retreated into a world where wrongdoers always received their comeuppance, and Truth was always revealed, Order inevitably restored. Battle Line may just be a perfect game for restoring a sense of balance, for a little while at least, in the face of life’s topsy-turviness.

At the outset, the goal for me is to try to win the game by garnering three adjacent Flags. I have never accomplished this, nor have I ever seen it done.* But I have to believe it’s possible, though it might require your opponent to be oblivious to your machinations and entirely absorbed in his own. To accomplish it you need to set an anchor, a solid, insurmountable run at least third Flag in from either end. This will give you the opportunity to win the two flags on either side, or two consecutive flags from the anchor. I can’t say this has been an effective strategy, having, as I said, never won with three adjacent flags, but it carries a kind of logic that I find compelling. And try as I might, I haven’t come up with a better opening.

Needless to say, this is what I tried to do from the outset. I don’t think there is a positive or negative effect related to playing the first card; T did in this game. The first card placed in a run can suggest some clue as to what your opponent is planning to place at that flag, which will in turn suggest what cards he his holding or hoping to collect. I used to approach every game like this, what you might call the Great Detective approach, parsing the evidence in the search for meaning. This way lies madness. I’ve adjusted my approach to Battle Line,

A blow by blow of cards played would be tedious beyond comparison. Instead, I’m going to present some photos of the developing game with some extended commentary on each for the reader’s edification.

About half-way through the game. No Flags claimed yet. I'm working on a Skirmish Line
(straight) for the third from my  right and hoping I can build a Wedge (straight flush) in the
Centre - most of the Green suit haven't been revealed yet. I've already written off the extreme
left Flag, but praying for Elephant reinforcements for the second from right. Straight flushes
are the ideal, even with lower value cards, but you have to play with what you're dealt.

.

I was pretty confident with my Hypastpist Phalanx (second from left) until T began building
his own  out of Light Cavalry, one after another (and one point higher in value). That was
the first flag to fall in the game. 

I'd been holding the purple 9 and 10 for eight or nine rounds, so when T laid out the purple 8
I knew I needed a bit of luck, or some clever Tactics.

The only Tactics card drawn in the entire game, but it paid off.  Alexander gave ne the purple
Heavy Cavalry I needed to beat T's Wedge with the actual purple 8. A case  of winning
the battle but losing the war.

I've just now realised T awarded the third Flag from my left to me incorrectly and I didn't
notice at the time. Clearly his Wedge (straight flush) beats my Phalanx (three-fer), so
technically, he won with with a three-adjacent Flag when he closed his 3 three-of
-a-kind, beating my 1 three-fer at the far left *about three rounds before
the game's natural end.

In the end, the game came down to the last two Flags, which were both taken quite handily by T. Even with a more sanguine approach to the game, I can get a touch of white line fever with some runs; I hold out too long for one result and miss the opportunity to close it with a less optimal but still serviceable formation, only to lose it to an unimpressive but still effective opposing run.

There is a purity of thought in crunching the numbers in Battle Line, a certainty in the absolutism of the game’s parameters that offers a kind of comfort. T likes to use the term, “Playing your own game.” There is the space of play and there are the boundaries, quite distinct. The space within becomes a manageable world of probabilities, where options can be weighed against one another, and you can feel a small measure of control over your own fate, however illusory. It‘s a strange thing, but a game that once represented a kind of chaos in miniature has evolved – for me at least – into something, if not peaceful, then somewhat controllable. I don’t think T ever had the issues I've had with Battle Line – or if he did, he certainly hid them more convincingly, but It seems to have become a safe harbour for him as well.

End state. As mentioned, T should have won about a half dozen rounds earlier, but
in the end, the honourable Opposition was shrouded in all kinds of victory.

 

* While I was finishing this post, I caught up with T for another game. We played Battle Line again, and T won with a three adjacent flag sequence at his extreme right flank, which duplicated the technical result here.

 

 

State of Play: Commands & Colors: Napoleonics – Eggmühl, Day 2 (French Right), 22 April, 1809

 

 

Reader, the drought has broken. T and I have played our first Monday Night game (albeit last Tuesday) in close to four months. The reason for returning to this tradition is related to the reason there has been such a long break. This may be the subject of a Blog Note in the future; while it’s good to get back to gaming on the regular, the circumstances are the stuff of a George Eliot novel, and loom over the table like a thunderhead.

We were supposed to meet the week earlier, on the last day of the first Quarter – this obviously didn’t come to fruition – but when I asked then what T would like to play, a new game or something familiar, his reply was, “Something I can WIN”. This week we played has T’s house, so I suggested he set up a Commands & Colors: Napoleonics (GMT Games, 2010) scenario from either The Spanish Army (Expansion 1 - GMT Games, 2011) or The Austrian Army (Expansion 3 – GMT Games, 2013); scenarios from both sets tend to feel weighted in favour of the historical victors, being the French in nearly every case.

Opening state.

I arrived to be greeted by the sight above, the French Right flank of the Battle of Eggmühl (or Eckmühl), the second day, 22^nd of April, 1809 (the day and month, at least, coinciding with my birthday). We kind of tore through the Austrian scenarios when we first got our copies because The Prussian Army expansion came quite soon after the release of the Austrians and we'd been looking forward to that one most of all, but we did play all of the scenarios at least twice.

Eggmühl was a big, sprawling battle fought over an extended front, and the French Right is the fourth of five scenarios in the Austrian Army expansion are devoted to diverse parts of the battle. The French were the larger force overall, and this is reflected in this scenario. The French have eighteen units and four leaders, compared to the Austrians with just sixteen units and three leaders. The French player also has a hand-size of six cards to the Austrian player’s four. The situation of the scenario calls for the French player to be aggressive, pushing every advantage; he will gain a permanent Victory Banner for each unit he can manage to march over the Austrian back line (off the far side of the board).

Claude, who decided I was in need of an Aide de Camp for the battle.

The Austrian player has some good defensive terrain and the enlarged Line infantry units, but he also has the negative qualities that come with commanding the Austrians. In melee, those five block units are a match for the French line, but they’re flighty – the unit will retreat to spaces for each retreat it cannot ignore, either from the presence of a Leader or from being supported on two sides.

The game began on a hopeful note for the Austrians; the French brought blood and fury down upon the Austrians on their left and right with a Bayonet Charge, but fortunately the Austrians replied in equal weight. Neither side clamed a Banner, but the Austrians gave nearly as good as they got. I countered with an Assault Right Flank. Having such a small hand, I decided I couldn’t afford to bring any of my rear-most troops, ordering only those within shooting range of the Line and Artillery along the ridgeline. This earned me the first banner of the game, with a French Line unit whittled down in detail by consecutive attacks. As it turned out, this early success wasn’t a harbinger of victory for the Austrians.

By the third round, T moved upon my works in his Heavy Cavalry, which he had been nudging into up, completely routing two of my weakened Line units (and taking two banners), and wreaking havoc among the other units on my right. I responded with a Cavalry Charge, which matched my Light Cavalry with his Heavy, taking out all his mounted units (except for an attached Horse Artillery formation that had been left behind in his attack putting may one banner ahead in the count.

The offending French Line unit, just before it advanced into the hex
"vacated" by the fleeing Grenzers.

I only managed one more banner – another reduced Line unit – before T began his systematic march to victory. A Literal march in on case; as mentioned earlier, the Special Rules for the scenario stated the French earned a banner for each unit moved off the board over the Austrian base line. T managed this, but not before using the Line unit (reduced to three blocks) to force a Grenzer Light unit to make a tactical advance to the rear with two retreats, thereby eliminating it, then adding insult to injury by advancing after battle into the units vacated space, which put the canny French on my baseline, ready to advance over the very next turn (as part of a Recon In Force order).

After dealing carnage with his Give Them Cold Steel order in the turn six (which brough us up to six-all), T was able to pick the low-hanging fruit of a couple of single block units remaining defiantly in the field with an Attack Centre (three units ordered), to claim my last two Victory Banners and the day for the French.

End state. Claude offered his sword, which was refused.

An eight-banner game resolved in just seven turns, eight to six. Having taken more than half the number of banners required for victory, my honour was satisfied, and the surviving Austrians slipped away with the diminishing light, to regroup and prepare for their next encounter at Aspern-Essling, a mere month hence.

 

“The difference between tragedy and the tragic is inevitability.”

̶  Willy Russell, Educating Rita

 

There are those who complain that C&C scenarios are often tragically unbalanced, giving little opportunity for the historical loser to gain a win. If I was among these folks, I might point to this scenario as proof. I don’t think this is true, though. T and I have played nearly every scenario in the canon at least twice* – each playing each side over consecutive weeks – and often the same player would win both games. As I’ve suggested elsewhere, I think there is a danger in seeking perfect balance in wargames. I was pretty pleased to get to six banners in an eight-banner game. Eggmühl, French Right might be weighted somewhat in favour of the French, but what of it.

I’m more interested in (an admittedly rather schematic) historical reconstruction than a game of chess dressed up as Napoleonics. I played a fairly uneven game, partly because of the cards dealt, and I think partly because we haven’t played anything in four months and had misplaced my mojo. I could possibly have done more in my left by pulling my Line units into forest cover or cajoled my Grenzer Light Infantry units up off the base line and int the battle at all (the tyranny of section Order cards). In the end though, T worked the situation admirably with the tools at his disposal, rolled a lot better than me, and earned the win. It was close enough to be a tense game. Win or lose, I’m here for the challenge. And the fun.

 

* I'm pretty sure there are two or maybe three EPIC scenarios we haven't yet got around to playing even once, maybe another one ot two we have only placed a single time. All of the Army scenarios have hit the table at least twice int he last sixteen years, and some of the Peninsula battle we've played maybe a dozen times.

 

Claude once more, stoic in defeat, but planning for a triumphant return.

 

 

Stripped Down for Parts: Burning Banners: Rage of the Witch Queen

 

Hefty. and very square.

 

And now for something completely different. I wrestled for a long time with whether or not to purchase Burning Banners: Rage of the Witch Queen (Compass Games, 2024). Firstly, it’s a big investment, both of cash and space (regular readers will know we live in a smallish apartment, and storage space is at a premium – I can no longer afford the shelf-space for “occasional” games). I’ve also been leaning harder into historical games over the last couple of years, selling or giving away many of the “family” games I’ve bought over the last ten or so years, and keeping just a handful of favourites.

In fact, around the middle of last year, I made the decision not to acquire Burning Banners. I drew a line under it and moved on, telling myself it’s too much to commit to. I’ve been divesting my collection of a lot of RPG material because I’ll never get around to using most of it. Since beginning A Fast Game, I’ve been doubling down on historical gaming, not all war-gaming exclusively, but I have avoided fantasy an sci-fi (that’s not to say I’ve cleaned house, but in the last three years I’ve bought just one Sci-fi game, To Honor Grandfather (Cheese Weasel Logistics, 2025), and that was pretty much solely because of the Traveller RPG connection (I have every intention of grabbing the Belter (Game Designers Workshop, 1979) re-release from Compass Games when it finally lands.*

That resolve was shaken by a couple of confluent events. First, I stumbled across a review by the gentlemen of The Player’s Aid in my YouTube recommendations, and my FLGS was selling copies for a very reasonable price†, along with a 10% discount because it was the end of the year and obviously that reignited my interest – fairly passively, but definitely kindled.

 

The cover illustration is a Chris Moeller original and a fan favourite (Billy Thomas mentioned it was one of his favourite covers during a recent Town Hall). It well conveys the feel and tone of the game inside; a group of heroes leading a haggard army against the titular witch-queen, Lilith and her horde of otherworldly minions. The rendering in purples, distant blues and browns make the banner titles in red and white pop on the box.

The cover also lists the six playable factions of the game; three “bad-guy” factions – Orcs, Goblins, and the Army of the Night – and three factions who may seem like good guys in comparison the others – the Oathborn, Fjordlanders, and the Eastern Empire.

I should just take a moment to mention the weight of the game. The box comes in at a little under 3.9kg (8½ lbs). If you have a bad back or impoverished upper-body strength, you may require the assistance of a burly friend or manservant to get the game home.

Box-back.

Burning Banners is a fantasy game, replete with the trappings of a fantastical setting. It’s set in the imaginary world of Kalar, where six races battle, sometimes in alliances, sometimes on their own, for supremacy, glory, treasure, and whatever the scenario’s victory conditions dictate. Let me say form the get-go, I get that fantasy games may not be your thing. But be in no doubt that Burning Banners is every bit a wargame; combat is gritty and sometimes lethal, and fortune smiles on the well-prepared.

The box-back offers a glimpse into the setting, with its rich internal history and lore. It also presents a taste of the gorgeous map art, some of the denizens of Kalar (the map extract and counters are shown at true size; 1” counters and 1 ½” hexes), and some sample cards and coins (the game even has a production component for each player’s forces).

The game breakdown is one of the nicest I’ve seen, with icons for each qualifier drawn from the game art. The game’s complexity is rated at low/medium; Burning Banners has two modes of play, the Basic Game is a straight-forward wargame of armies clashing and trying to gain the upper hand, while the Advanced Game introduces Heroes, Spells, and superior artillery (Monsters) to pound and confound the enemy. The scale of the game is one “Imperial League to a hex and a yearly turn cycle of four seasons, while each unit marker represents an Army or a Hero.

Popping the hood.

The game duration is listed as an hour plus, depending on the scenario (I’d estimate at least two hours for the shorter multiple player scenarios using the Advanced Games rules), and there are scenarios accommodating two to six players. Burning Banners’ solitaire suitability is given to be Medium, though I think that would be a little higher with the Basic Game scenarios, and the recommended age of players is, of course, fourteen and up.

The post cards. Superfluous, but they do look really good.

The first thing you see upon removing the lid is a small bundle of art prints. These are referred to on the back of the box as postcards. They serve no in-game purpose, but they replicate some of the character art from the game on a much bigger scale than you’ll see on the counters. I’m a bit ambivalent about this kind of thing in games, but I didn’t grow up in a world with videogame art books and people who collect pop-culture character bobbleheads as a retirement plan, so I’m not qualified to judge.

The Rulebook.

Burning Banners comes with three booklets; the Rulebook, the Campaign Book and a Traveller’s Guide to the World of Kalar. All are printed on nice, weighty semi-gloss stock, presented in full-colour and profusely illustrated, and rendered in a Palatino-reminiscent typeface and font size that never had me reaching for my reading glasses.

Sample Rulebook spread. Readable and well illustrated.

The rulebook runs to sixty pages. The first half is devoted to the rules for the Basic Game, though more is presented here than will be used in the introductory scenario. The next fifteen pages of the rulebook cover the Advanced Game, introducing rules for Heroes, Monsters and how they and the various card decks interact with the game. The last quarter of the Rulebook offers a guide to the different card types (Hero, Magic, Treasure, and Blessing), a five-page glossary (always a good idea when presenting new concepts), and a helpful guide for reading the counters on the back cover.

The Campaign Book. Scenarios are called Campaigns in Burning Banners.

The Campaign Book boasts no less than twenty-nine scenarios (referred to as Campaigns in the game), with guidelines on how to link the final ten into a Grand Campaign of truly epic proportions (cue Battle of Five Armies music). The scenarios are really well laid out graphically, with easy-to-read symbology for the involved factions and their turn order, and colour-coded stat-block-style boxed notes highlight the pertinent information for each faction involved in the given scenario (Starting Income, Opening Builds – available currency for building your initial army and any bonus Heroes – and any Special Rules as applicable). Each scenario also includes a contextual paragraph placing the current campaign in the context of the larger history of the era.

Sample Campaign (No. 16 - three faction).

For the shorter Campaigns, everything fits onto a single page. As they get more complex, these expand to two pages, but are always laid out over an open spread – no needing to flip a page back and forth.

The Traveller's Guide to Kalar. Worth reading.

Also included in the game is a Traveller’s Guide to the World of Kalar. This is a sixteen-page distillation of the lore of the Burning Banners universe. This is a place that Mr Moeller has obviously inhabited for some time, fleshing out a history and pantheon of the game world as lovingly as Greyhawk or Glorantha.

The Traveller’s Guide has been prepared with an eye to brevity and humour. While this isn’t critical to game play, it’s definitely worth a read, and to have on hand for players acquainting themselves with the Heroes and events in the game for the first time and helps contextualise the action and the stakes as the Campaigns play out.

Four 22' by 17" mounted map sections that meet up perfectly.

Mr Moeller is first and foremost an artist; it was his job for many decades with Wizards of the Coast and is still his passion. This is obvious in Burning Banners and, to my mind, most clearly in the game’s map-boards. The map was hand-drawn in the style of fantasy cartography going back to the Lord of the Rings. This means that the illustrative quality of the play surface can only be appreciated from a single view, but this should hardly matter during play. Cities and settlements, terrain and rivers are all beautifully rendered and use a mix of textural cues and symbology to convey information about the battleground.

Sample map, laid out and looking really pretty.

The game map is divided into for mounted sections. Practically speaking, these fit together very well (immaculate edge-matching), and the segmented map allows for many scenarios to be played on one of two of the map sections, rather than having to clear the whole table for each Campaign. Each section is 22” by 17”, making the whole map roughly comparable to a two standard-sized map game footprint with a portrait orientation. The hexes are a full 1½” across, the better to accommodate the 1” unit markers.

Map detail. Nice.

The map is hand-drawn; every city, village, tower bridge looks a little different. There are coniferous forests further to the north and deciduous groves to the south. The overall effect is stunning, but these details aren’t all simply for show. Rivers are lined in black as far as they are navigable, and subtle symbology brings a wealth of usable detail to the board without taking away from the overall effect.

Counter sheet 7 - markers and currency (apologies for the reverse order - the pics loaded
on top of each other instead of consecutively, and I didn't have the patience to
fix it on the fly).

Counter sheet 6 - mostly Control markers.

Counter sheet 5 - Monsters (brown) and Sea Monsters (blue), oh my!.

Counter sheet 4 - Goblins.

Counter sheet 3 - Orcs (black edge) and Army of the Night (suitably red).

.

Counter sheet 2 - Fjordland (blue), Oathborn (grey) and some Army of the Night.

Counter sheet 1 Eastern Empire (purple) and Fjordland.

 

Burning Banners comes with seven easy-punch counter sheets. These are mostly populated with counters representing units – Armies, Heroes, Monsters, and Siege Equipment. There are, of course also markers and tokens used in play or for tracking activities, or for indicating factional control over locations are about ⅝” in size. Finally, coin tokens in 1s, 5s and 10s are available to keep track of the production economics of the game.

The unit counters are remarkable, not just for the (again) hand-drawn representations of the unit types, but for the clever economy of presentation. Central to the design is an image headed by a title explaining the unit type (some of the more common units have multiple illustrations depicting the same unit type). A coloured bar down the left edge distinguishes the faction, while a torn brown strip on the right will intricate if the unit has been damaged (on the verso of the counter or just started off as a weak unit. Each unit has a build cost in the top-right corner, in a point-up yellow square; this represents the cost to create or repair the unit. Some armies are Feral, wild beasts under factional control; these are marked by their production cost appearing in an elongated (diamond-shape) yellow square with a vulpine face in the bottom half.

An army’s Movement rating is indicated in the lower-right corner. In most cases this will be an unadorned number. In the case of Huge allies (wyrms, giant eagles, actual giants), this number will appear in a black hexagon.

The combat Strength of a unit is indicated in black or white bars, or a combination thereof, in the upper-right corner of the counter. White bars represent Light Dice (d6s), while the black bars indicate Heavy Dice (d8s). In combat, one die is rolled for each bar on the counter, of the colour matching the bar. Hits are 5s and up, so a one-third chance of a hit on a Light die, and a one-half chance on the Dark dice. In combat the Defender also rolls; every successful roll by the defender blocks (cancels) one of the Attacker’s hits. It’s an elegant mechanic for a less civilised age.

The Player's Aid Card, Front (right-side) and back.

And Inside the fold.

Burning Banners comes with two Player’s Aid Cards. These are 11” by 17” bi-fold cards and they are laid out rather brilliantly. The front panel covers Combat Resolution, the inner panels offer a clear explanation of the Turn Sequence, Actions, Free Actions, and the Winter season procedure (this kicks in with the Advanced Game), And the back panel offers an annotated Terrain Effects summary.

The nominal bad guys (vampires are still bad, right?).

The nominal good guys.

Each of the six factions has its own Faction Display, a small, double-layered board that houses the faction’s available armies, heroes and other markers, and reminds the player of the special attributes particular to that faction (e.g., the Fjordlanders are accomplished seafarers; they can move by ship as a free action, and can increase their sea movement by two).The  double-layer design with cut-outs for the units and other markers probably isn’t necessary, but it is a nice touch, and will probably appeal to gamers more familiar with Euro-games. Burning Banners is an obvious candidate for hobby gamers who have tried something like Scythe (Stonemaier Games, 2016) and are emboldened to try something more classically war-gamey but aren’t quite ready for Death in the Trenches (Compass Games, 2022).

The Season Display, kind of the odometer and fuel gauge of the game.

Game progress is recorded on the Season Display. This display card and the Magic Card Display, which is used in the Advanced game along with the cards, is mounted on a medium-heavy weight of cardstock (both are single sided). The Season Display has a Season Track representing three game years, Spring to Winter, a Turn Track for the participating factions, and an Income Track, for, well, keeping track of each faction’s current income. Each season is a Turn in game terms, and each scenario offers guidance as to the opening and closing of the given campaign; Campaign 17, for example, runs over six turns, from Spring of Year 1 to Summer of Year 2.

The Turn Track has six columns, each with three positions denoting the three phases of play each faction works through in their turn. The scenario notes dictate the order of play, and Faction Tokens are placed on the Turn Track for each faction represented in the current Campaign. This is a neat way to keep everyone on the same page, but for multi-player games, I think I’d be commissioning one (reliable) player to manage the admin of the tracks, to avoid overreach (that is, people reaching over the board, knocking pieces or – heaven forbid – drinks in the process).

The Magic Card Display, like it says on the label.

As previously mentioned, the game also comes with a Magic Card Display. This isn’t as fancy as the double layered Faction Displays – it’s simply a board marked with places to keep the fresh Spell and Treasure decks and the discard piles for the played Spell and Blessing cards. I’m just getting to the cards now, so you’ll have to bear with me for a moment.

As I’ve mentioned, The Magic Card Display and Season Display are presented on a nice weight of board, but I didn’t mention they also feature rounded corners. It’s a minor thing, but it demonstrates the careful thought that has gone into the production of this game. Along the sides of the

Four sealed card decks as they come, 206 cards in all.

Burning Banners is a card assisted game. At least I think it is. I’m only just starting to delve into the Advanced Game rules, but as I understand it, the cards are there to offer random adjustments, in the form of boons and Blessings, or acquired as Treasures.

Every fantasy story should have a little magic, and the cards are how this is introduced into the game narrative. There are three types of cards; Spells, Treasures and Blessings. The Spells and Treasures are drawn from shared decks, while each active faction has its own Blessing deck. During play, the cards a player as collected through the course of play (during the Arcane Study phase of a turn) can be spent to improve the odds in a fight or become “owned” by the faction in the case of Treasures.

The cards themselves are very nice, printed on a typically good weight of cardstock. They are attractive without being overdone – they don’t each sport individual illustrations or fancy fonts. Instead, they each sport a Title, a game function presented in a text box in the centre of the card in a eminently readable font and size, and some colour-text in a slightly smaller font at the bottom. Overall, great presentation, and nothing to distract from the gorgeous map and counter art.

Clarifications. Just don't call them errata.

Finally, the game does come with a couple of two-column sheets of notes. Before you start on a song and dance about errata in Compass games, the two sheets (two and a half pages) of notes are all Clarifications, note further explaining this or that rule where an early adopter of the game has found the Rulebook somehow lacking. I for one welcome these notes, I can be a bit of a meathead at times and any assistance is welcome.  

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I am pleased to report that I have punched some Burning Banners counters and pushed them around the board a bit. While I’ve started going through the Advanced Game rules, I want to play through the introductory scenario a coupe more times to bed down the learnings from the Basic Game before I punch any more counters, maybe even run through it with a second player. I’ve been reluctant to go for multi-player games in recent years, but Burning Banners is a game that will appeal to the Wednesday group (which often swings between four and six players), and there are a lot of two-player scenarios included as well. As I mentioned, a big selling point was it being a Chris Moeller game – like John Butterfield’s output, I’ll pretty much try anything Mr Moeller chooses to release (that I can afford). I’ll write up an AAR for the first competitive game, and see how we go from there.

 

* Since writing this unboxing, I’ve noticed a serendipitous connection among the games mentioned here. Burning Banners designer and illustrator, Christopher Moeller was also responsible for the Compass-version Belter counter graphics. Needless to say, they look quite nice.

† At least it was a reasonable price to my mind. Milage may vary.