Review: La Primogenita

 

 

In 1941, Allied forces invaded Italian-held east-African territories to ensure the security of the British communications and supply lines between Egypt and the Empire’s possessions in the Indian Ocean. A swift resolution to the action was crucial to allow the Allied troops involved to reinforce their comrades in the North African theatre. This is the background of Kim Kanger’s latest offering, La Primogenita (Legion Wargames, 2022).

La Primogenita is a redevelopment of Kanger’s earlier game, The Road to Cheren (Revolution Games, 2013), which used a chit-pull order activation system. The game was received favourably, if the comments on BoardGameGeek are anything to go by. La Primogenita retains most of the elements of the original game (force structure, map style, but expands the parameters of the map, and replaces the chit-pull orders system with a new order-selection system (more on that later).

Appearence

La Primogenita comes in a sturdy, lightweight box with evocative cover-art featuring aa famous propaganda poster from the region (featuring the slogan, Rìtorneremo! – “We will return!”). As mentioned, the map is very close in appearance to that of the Road to Cheren, but has been increased in size from the standard 17”x22” to 22”x25 ½” (six-panel folded). The terrain elevation runs from Flat, through Rough and Mountain, to Alpine. The colour pallet reflects the harsh environment, and the incorporation of elevation markings help to convey to the players the sheer scale of the undulating countryside in this part of the world (with some points reaching over one and a half miles vertically). Rivers are marked, but don’t affect movement as the country had been experiencing drought conditions for several years before the outbreak of hostilities. The counters a clearly visible on the map-sheet, although it has been argued that the combination of primarily red and green units in wargames can be a hinderance to some players with colour-blindness.

Setting up for a solo game

The playing pieces are simple and effective, using NATO icons for the unit type, with the other information clearly visible (I was able to read the counters without resorting to reading glasses). The rules are also clearly printed and well laid-out, with particular attention given to the innovative order mechanism. It would be churlish to complain about a lack of index; I really didn’t experience any problems finding what I needed to when consulting the sixteen-page rulebook.

Also included are two orders charts, one for each player to lay out their orders selection, and two bi-fold orders explanation player-aids, which can helpfully double as shields when secretly selecting your orders.

Play

While La Primogenita is a relatively straight-forward wargame, it is a showcase for Kanger’s novel order allocation system, which replaces The Road to Cheren’s order chit-pull mechanic. Each side has a set of order chits displayed on a board in three sets; Main Orders, Minor Orders and Combination orders that work in conjunction with specific Main orders. During each turn, after housekeeping and supply-check phases, the players – in secret – choose four orders to execute in that phase. The orders are numbered variously through the two sets, and when revealed, these orders are laid out on the Order Track in their numerical order, from highest to lowest, with each order being returned, face-down, to its position on the order table. The orders are then executed in that order. After the option of some rail movement for the Italian player, a second round of orders are chosen. Some previously used orders (back-printed) may be reused in this round, but at the cost of a second order-slot.

The Order Track, with selected orders in numerical order
(Arial bombardment always comes first)

Main orders generally apply to all units, while Minor orders usually apply to a single unit. Up to three Combination orders can be selected and held for use in conjunction with a sympathetic Main order.

The rules for supply reflect the difficult terrain that the action was fought over. Units must remain withing eight Movement Points of a supply depot. There are placeable supply points for the Allies, but these are limited in how many units they can support at full strength. When the last order for the second round is executed, Emergency Reinforcements (placement of any reinforcements due that turn not already delivered by an order) are placed in their appropriate places with a disrupted marker, a resupply check is made of all units (with any out-of-supply units marked with a Low-Supply marker), Units completely out of supply are removed, and a points-check is made for sudden death victory conditions. If the Allies reach 20 points, they automatically win; if, after the sixth turn they fall below 7 points, a well-deserved automatic win is given to the Italian player.

Casualties taken on both sides

Appraisal

Kim Kanger is, for my money, one of the most innovative game designers working today. He focuses on conflicts that have been largely ignored by the broader wargaming community, like this small forgotten chapter in a much larger theatre of war. The order-bidding system in La Primogenita is revolutionary. It’s not something that would be appropriate to just any situation, but it was literally made for this historical moment. When I unpacked the game and began to read through the rules, I wondered if I’d easily get my head around the orders selection mechanics, let alone be able to instruct new players in it. My first game was a two-handed solo play-through, and while I struggled in the first round and made a few mistakes in the second (like completely ignoring the combination orders for both sides), by the fourth round the order selection and play had become second-nature. I found it remarkably intuitive after I’d gone through the process a half-dozen times.

With their superior armour, mobility, and air-support, one could be forgiven for assuming – all things being equal – that the Allied player should win handily at least 70% of the time. But time is against the British, and a competent denial-of-progress defence by the Italian side, utilising the natural limitations of the terrain on stacking and movement, can slow the advance of the Allies and put the defenders on a more equal footing. La Primogenita is a remarkably well-balanced game that defies assumptions and offers many, often torturous, decision-points in every round of play.

La Primogenita is no one-trick pony. This is a game that richly rewards repeated play. It is a gem of a game that won’t outstay its welcome in any hurry.

State of Play: Undaunted: Normandy (3/6)

 

Just a quick update. Monday night T and I returned to the bocage for the third scenario of Undaunted: Normandy, Raid Across the Canal. A slight change to the feel of the scenario with the objectives for both sides simply being the acquisition of victory points through securing various points on the map. To be fair, US forces begin at a slight advantage, already holding a 2-point position as their spawning tile. The Germans (under T’s command) did everything right and probably should have been able to take the day. I had a lucky suppression shot with one of my machine-gunner units, tying up his rifle squad long enough to give me a slim advantage, and a lucky break with the last card draw allowed me to position my own rifle squads to claim control over the two terrain sections I needed to claim victory. Had it not been for that lucky draw, the day could have easily gone to the Germans.

I think we are both really enjoying the game. It’s definitely a wargame, and it emulates a lot of factors of squad level actions in a simple but functionally realistic way, but with its level of abstraction, Undaunted: Normandy is probably the gamiest wargame T and I have played together (with the possible exception of Battle Line). The deeper I get into the play of Undaunted, the more I respect the design decisions that went into putting the game together. I’ll Try to get some thoughts together for a review some time soon.

Meanwhile, I’m thinking about changing it up next week and introducing another 6x6 game to the mix; T is getting too good at the ones we’ve played so far for any confidence of a win.

State of Play: Banish the Snakes (yes, also not a wargame…)

 
 

Wednesday night saw the opportunity to get a relatively new game to the table. I ordered Banish the Snakes (GMT Games, 2023) at the very last minute to make the cost of overseas shipping for The Russian Campaign (GMT, 2023) worthwhile. I'd been intrigued by the prospect of the game since it was launched on P500 a couple of years ago, but thought it would be more of a curiosity than a game I’d be inclined to play a lot. And, to be honest, I thought the theme would be a hard sell for nearly everyone I regularly sit down at the table with. Eventually my curiosity got the better of me, and that amazing Terry Leeds board sealed the deal for me.

I’ve now played Banish the Snakes twice; the first – the weekend before – was a solo run-through with three saints, and due to time limitations I didn’t see the game to its conclusion, but the ten or so rounds I played through gave me a good feel for the play of the game.

A tough audience

The Wednesday game fielded five saints, including powerhouses Patrick and Palladius, I was going to sit out and run the game, but B convinced me to join in the fun.  We played the standard game. The first round revealed some particularly recalcitrant druids, and Strathclyde fell within a handful of rounds. Things looked bleak at times, but never truly dire. Even with the toppling within a round of nearly every freshly converted king, the players would rally, optimise their plus-modifiers, and overcome the next challenge.

Not all co-ops fall into this pattern. The Grizzled (Sweet Games/CMON, 2015) creates a very strong shared narrative around the play of cards, but this may be an artifact of the tricks woven into the game that involve and impact the players more viscerally, like the potential for a character being struck mute with fear in a game situation driven by table conversation.

One thing I’ve noticed in my – admittedly limited – experience with co-operative board games is how at some point the play tends to devolve into a group puzzle-solving exercise. This is particularly apparent in games like Pandemic (Z-Man Games, 2008). Co-op games often seem to tend toward the puzzle-end of the game spectrum; I guess the escape room concept was the inevitable evolutionary result of this tendency (personally, not a fan). The play experience is usually still enjoyable, but some of the investment in the dressing of the game, which in a game like Banish the Snakes is a huge draw-card to play, can be lost. Personally, I think this is a shame, especially with a game so rich as this in theme and history. But I think this is really an issue for me, and people should take the joy of play where they find it.

In the end, and by the grace of God, the challenge was met and Ireland was converted by the tireless works of the Lord’s vessels. Or alternatively, the parameters of a successful completion of the tasks set by the inscrutable game designers against our puzzle-masters were met. A victory for logic and good planning.

State of Play: Undaunted: Normandy (2/6)

 

After a hiatus of nearly a month, I’m finally on track with my 6x6 ambitions, with the second game of Undaunted: Normandy. Once again T played the German defenders, while I took on the US forces. We played Scenario 2: Montmartin-en-Graigne. T commented that this was a more interesting scenario then the first, with the introduction of the machine-gunners. I explained that the early scenarios are designed to introduce new units, rules and concepts, with each scenario building on the knowledge gained from the last.

The photos are reconstructions of the situation at the beginning
and end of the scenario; I left my phone in the car and couldn't
take any snaps of the actual game.

It first T didn’t think it was fair that he couldn’t make damage hits with his machinegun, but within a few rounds he was supressing my rifle squads with grim resolve, while working his own riflemen into the best positions to reign effective fire on my GIs. The initiative changed hands like a hot potato over the course of quite a long exchange. I finally secured a very narrow victory, having lost three of my five cards for each rifleman unit before finally taking the last flag position.

What isn't shown here is the rather tall pile of Rifleman and
Scout cards removed from my deck due to T's disciplined
and punishing fire.  

I’m surprised by the difference in feel of Undaunted: Normandy compared to Undaunted: North Africa. I’ve only played U:NA a handful of times, and always alone, two-handed. The mechanics are practically identical, the modifiers for terrain cover (though obviously not identical terrain) and the sweep of actions available to the various combatants, but the action is quite dissimilar. Part of that might be the objectives involved; in Normandy, the emphasis is on reaching and securing – and holding on to – crucial positions on the map, whereas so many of the North African scenarios involve blowing things up. This might be a superficial observation, and I’ve played both games combined less than a dozen times, and it may level out some with further experience. I wonder how much of the sense of difference I’m bringing to the table myself through what I’ve read of the soldiers’ experience in the two theatres. The action described in Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers is a world away from the manner of operations described in Giles Milton’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. All this aside, Undaunted: Normandy is proving to be a rewarding use of our weekly gaming time.

Review: Chancellorsville 1863 as a solitaire wargame

  

Chancellorsville 1863 (Worthington Publishing, 2020) is, in broad terms, the spiritual successor to designer Maurice Suckling’s earlier game, Freeman’s Farm 1777 (Worthington, 2019). The two games share a similar quality, with the game board of each looking more like a tactical map of the conflict represented than any kind of conventional playing surface. I confess, when Freeman’s Farm appeared on Kickstarter, I balked at it. I’d been a frequent backer of Worthington’s campaigns, and had never been disappointed with a final product, but looking at that map, I could not make the imaginative leap to it being an interesting tactical situation to play. So, when the Chancellorsville KS campaign came up, I didn’t really consider it for the very same reason. I was also put off a little by the hidden movement mechanism (again, mostly through a lack of understanding – I can be a bit thick, sometimes).

I think I stumbled across a video review of Chancellorsville 1863 on YouTube, and as I watched it, I became more intrigued by the ideas and mechanics embedded in the game. It helped that the reviewer was both enthusiastic and articulate about what made the game work so well. If I find that review, I’ll add a link to it here – it as definitely worth the time, and will probably explain some things better than I can here.

I managed to score a copy a little before Christmas (a very happy day; Tarawa 1943 arriving in the same package). I unboxed it, read the rules through, and even set it up to get a feel for it, but I didn’t tackle it immediately. I think I was still a little intimidated by the prospect.

So far, I haven’t had the chance to play Chancellorsville against a real opponent; that particular pleasure awaits. I did hold off playing it for a while because I really wanted to try it as a two-player game, but I got fed up waiting. My curiosity got the better of me. Reader, I played it alone.

Before I go on to the game play, I want to spend a moment on just how  beautifully and thoughtfully this game has been put together. The board is mounted (not to everyone’s taste – which I get – but I like them), with the operational map centre, two reduced maps at one end for tracking hidden units in the two player game, and various place-holds and tracks for general and solitaire play. With the exception of the cards you’re holding, everything fits neatly on the board. And the whole thing is so damn visually appealing. The units are long wooden blocks with the commanders of each division or corps stencilled on them in clear white print. The momentum points and redoubt markers are also painted wooden cubes, and the map, and all the printed titling on the board, match the style of cartography and typesetting of the era. The attention to these details elevates the play experience. Of course, this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s familiar with Worthington’s recent game output.

An unnecessarily thorough victory

Chancellorsville plays like it was always intended to be a solo game. Nothing about the solo experience feels like an add-on or an afterthought. The victory conditions are the same as if you were playing face to face, and the hidden movement is abstracted to a track on the board. A deck of cards (actually, two decks of cards – one each for the Union and CSA forces – allowing the player to take either side in the battle) dictates the movements and functions of the opposing side. You would think that the random element to the opposition’s orders would lead to wasted or self-defeating action, at least from time to time, but the orders are drafted in such a way that there is rarely a wasted action. The “Bot” keeps you on your toes. Each card will order two or three units, with prerequisite conditions and alternative orders, so it’s unlikely the opposition will do nothing in their turn (this has happened occasionally, but it just leaves me feeling like the game is planning something even more vindictive for the next round).

I initially played as the Union, and I only won on my fourth time out. I still haven’t won playing the Confederates. On the face of it, the game feels weighted toward the Bot; the opposing side isn’t hampered by the cost of a cohesion point for each movement, and will often get two attacks in a single round. But this is balanced by the You-the-Player accruing Momentum points and having sole access to the tactics cards on which to spend those points. Also, the first couple of games, the Bot deck felt awfully shallow for what I had to accomplish in terms of victory conditions, but having played it some more – and actually winning once or twice – it now feels pretty well balanced; still a challenge, but not an insurmountable one.

I’m looking forward to a time when I can get Chancellorsville 1863 to the table against another actual human being, if nothing else than to try out the hidden movement the way Maurice Suckling intended. In the meantime, this game offers a really satisfying solo experience.

State of Play: Apocalypse Road (not a wargame, but…)

 

I wouldn’t normally report on a non-wargame here, but it’s always good to see a new game get to the table, even if it’s somebody else’s. Wednesday just gone saw Apocalypse Road (GMT Games, 2020) get its first test drive (after sitting on B’s shelf for over a year; but I’m in no position to judge or criticise). No, it’s not a wargame, but it was so much fun, I thought it deserved a little blog-loving.

Apocalypse Road is the direct descendant of Thunder Alley (GMT, 2014), Jeff and Carla Horger’s stock car racing game. In fact, the seed of Apocalypse Road was there from the beginning; in a recent interview with Dan Pancaldi, Jeff Horger mentioned that when playtesting Thunder Alley at gaming conventions, the most common questions were variations of, “Can we shoot at the other cars?”

Each player picks a team, and choses four cars from their selection of eight to begin the game. There were five of us playing, so twenty cars were spread across the four-lane starting section, but the game can accommodate up to ten “teams.” Going around the table, each team leader plays a movement card out of their hand of six cards. The movement is dynamic in that, depending on what type of movement action you play on a vehicle, it may push or pull other adjacent cars along, and after a car has moved, it’s flipped over to the other side (same illustration and markings, but a slightly darker background) to indicate that that vehicle has been driven. When each player’s four cars have moved, the round ends, unwanted remaining cards are discarded, and everyone’s hands are replenished back to six cards for the next round. 

Depending on what your vehicle is packing, you might be able to fire at another car, either at the beginning or the end of your movement, and some cards let you ram opponents. Each car can take six points of damage, and some have a higher threshold for that pain (each car has an armour rating of one to three), but sometimes a single hit will take a car out. When this happens, you pick one of your remaining cars, and start over. Rinse and repeat until there’s a winner or until you run out of cars.

There was plenty of action with twenty cars on the track, and it wasn’t long before we saw the first casualty. By the time the winner made the required 20 victory points, a total of twelve cars had been, well, totalled.

Even with five teams, the race didn’t take much over two hours to reach a victor. Because of the dynamic nature of the movement, everyone is engaged in the action all the time. I cannot overstate how much fun this game is to play, and the fact that it can be played in an evening on a school night is a big selling point.

Haiku Update: Wednesday night shenanigans

 

Apocalypse Road:

ennui in the Aftermath

drives Drivers to drive.

State of Play: Battle Line; or, Down the Rabbit-Hole

 

So, on Monday night I had this thing - I'm the treasurer for a university-based History group; we organise half-a-dozen lectures each year about some fairly random subjects, under the aegis of the History of Science, Ideas and Technology. Monday was also our Annual General Meeting, and as treasurer, I had to give a short report on the state of the group's bank balance We're in the black). The talk was interesting with lots of questions afterwards, so when I managed to extract myself from the throng, i was a little late getting to T's for our scheduled second Undaunted: Normandy excursion. To add to this, T's wife's (and my wife's) aunt and uncle are over visiting from the UK for a week; lots of hellos and hugs all round and pictures of their new granddaughter, and another twenty minutes is lost. When we manage to extract ourselves from that throng, it's getting late and I'm not sure I have a game left in me.

T to the rescue. For his job job, T has to travel overseas sometimes, usually a couple of times a year. When he's in the States, I'll arrange for a couple of games to be shipped to his hotel, and he's happy to mule home for me. T's done this for years, so last time I bought his own copy of Reiner Knizia's Battle Line (GMT Games, 2000). Monday night, T pulls out this little gem, and we squeeze in two matches before I drag myself home to do the bookkeeping from the aforementioned AGM.

Now, I like to think of myself as someone who is present during a game. I think about what I'll be doing next while the other guy is taking his turn, and I try to not run out the clock with deliberation. If I'm playing Commands and Colors Anything, I know what card I'm going to play next as soon as I've picked up my next one, and have a pretty good idea of what I'll likely play after that. I try to maintain that kind of focus and discipline in whatever I play (wargames, I mean; I'm probably a little more cavalier with multi-player family games, and I have been known to reach for my phone in RPG sessions when someone else is hoarding the spotlight or um-ing and ah-ing about what spell they are going to cast next). 

I do this mostly because I assume my opponent is bringing their best game, and I owe them the same measure of respect. And I can usually do it. In nearly every game I play with any kind of regularity. Then there's Battle Line.

Don't get me wrong. I love Battle Line. I love the structured theme of the game, the mathematical underpinnings, the press-your-luck mechanics. It is on-the-fly strategy distilled into a game that can be over in twenty-five minutes. Except...

Battle Line is maybe my White Whale. I feel like I have a pretty firm handle on it, but I lose more games than I win. Something about Battle Line gets under my skin and makes me question every decision before I've even settled on it. I always suspected I had a play-issue with it, but it wasn't until Monday past that I realised how big an issue it was. Let me set the scene: T had already taken the first token, second in from my Left, and was in a strong position (setting up a Phalanx - three of a kind) on the second in. He'd also played a purple suit 3,4,5 Wedge (straight flush) on the third from Right. I was feeling strong in my Centre with a Yellow 7,8,9 Wedge on Centre-Left and and a Phalanx of 9s in the Centre, with enough 10s either already played or in my hand that I was sure it couldn't be assailed. I had the Blue 4 and 6 in my hand and as far as I could tell, the Blue 5 hadn't come out yet. I'd kept the Centre-Right position completely open because I really wanted to play that blue Phalanx when the 5 showed. But I had a Red 4 in the third from Left position and the blue 4 I 'd been hanging on to: I was pretty sure - but not certain - that T wouldn't be able to make a formation that could beat 4s, as he had a green five opposite and nearly all the fives were already out, and I had the green 6 in my hand.

I didn't realise until T asked if I'd done my turn, after he'd finished with a call from work, that I'd been stuck in a feedback loop, weighing up playing the whether to play the fours or hold out for the Blue 5 for a Phalanx play for NEARLY SEVEN MINUTES. I apologised, got on with the game, and proceeded to lose, of course. 

In my Wednesday group, we talk about analysis paralysis. I thought this was something somebody had come up with at the table, but it is actually drawn from psychology to refer to the overthinking of a problem that is driven by the fear of an unfavourable outcome. I don't think what I'm experiencing is fear-driven; it's a twenty-minute game, always between friends, and I'm simply not that invested in the outcome.

Driving home, I thought about my decision fugue (that's the name I've given it). As I thought about it, I started to recall other instances in adulthood where I'd got so deep into the circular reasoning of deciding my next play, that I'd lost my perception of time and opponent. Nearly every single time, it was during a game of Battle Line. I'm not saying it's endemic to my game - I'm sure I've played Battle Line through quite often without experiencing this, but I'm also sure it's the only game I've played often where it happens with a noticeable pattern of frequency. Seven minutes is a long time, probably the longest decision fugue I've experienced, but two to three minutes at a time would not be uncommon for me, and nearly every instance of this has been playing Battle Line (one time I can remember that wasn't was my introduction to New Angeles (Fantasy Flight Games, 2016), but I think that was driven more by the unfamiliarity of the situation and being a little bewildered by the options available on my first time out.

I think the decision fugue (in my case, at least) is driven more by the procedure of the decision-making than by apprehension over the outcomes the possible decisions. Decisions in Battle Line are initially based on very limited, explicit information - all you have to work with is what you can see in your hand. A couple of rounds in and presented with more explicit information - the cards that have already been played, as well as any new cards you've drawn for your hand - but the beginnings of a completely new tier of information, the information suggested by what cards your opponent has placed and where. Say they've put down a green 8; they could be holding another 8 or two, or they may also be holding a green 7, which would mean they're hunting for a green 6 or 9. They don't know that you're holding the green 9, but in two rounds they'll play the green 6 on a possible three of a kind with the red 6 that they placed as their opening move, so it's probably 8s they're hunting, which would explain why two of their last three pick-ups have been drawn from the Tactics deck; they're probably looking for the Companion Cavalry card which will give them the third 8 they need for a Phalanx, which in turn suggests they're already holding another 8, but they might be hoping to use that in another contest, maybe that lone yellow 7 sitting alone on your extreme right flank?

As more cards are revealed, the pools of explicit and implicit information grow steadily. But the chances of a specific card that hasn't yet appeared being held by your opponent. This is the only time a skill in card-counting could possibly be of some use in a game of Battle Line. Your opponent has just drawn another card from the Tactics deck; that's their fifth Tactics draw (incidentally giving them a reasonable chance of picking up that Companion Cavalry card), but they've only played two so far. That means four of the cards in their hand are troop cards. To keep things simple, let's say there are six cards left in the Troop deck. That means there is a 60% chance that orange 5 you're hoping for is still in the deck, with a 40% chance that it's in your opponent's hand already. Except you can't help but think if your opponent did hold it, they would have used it to make up that 2-3-4 orange Wedge on your Centre Left contest into a 3-4-5, just to be safe. Since that play, they've only picked up one troop card, so the odds are now (in all likelihood) closer to around 15%* of their holding that particular card. If you each pick up and play a Trop card the next round, those odds shift to about a 33% chance of the orange 5 being held by your opponent, if you haven't picked it up yourself in that round. 

It's a lot to think about. I don't think everyone goes into this much detail at the table with Battle Line or any other game that doesn't have money riding on it. I swear, it's only when playing Battle Line that my thinking turns so analytical over what I would still class as a pretty unserious game. 

That's it. I have a lot more to say about Battle Line, but I'm going to stop it there. I realise I've been talking about the game like everyone knows it well. I'll swing around again and look at how the game works and how it plays - a review, if you will - some time in the future, when I've cleared some of the backlog of games I've already flagged for review here. 

* Actually a little better than 14.2857%, if you want to get pernickety about it.