State of Play: Sons of Anarchy and some 1944: D-Day to the Rhine

 

Lately Wednesdays have been back to roleplaying, so nothing to report here, but this week we were down one of our number, so B pulled out The Godfather: Corleone’s Empire (CMON, 2017), and Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem (Gale Force Nine, 2014). I’d played Eric Lang’s Godfather game before – a solid, thematically-compelling worker-placement game. The consensus at the table was leaning to Sons of Anarchy, though, and I wasn’t really that invested in either game, so I went along with it.

I never watched the series on which the game is thematically based, even though I heard recommendations from the most unlikely sources (economists, theatre-folk); try as I might I couldn’t get all that enthused for it. I never found Breaking Bad that compelling, either.

No game pics, I'm afraid. I was distracted playing the damn game.

I’m happy to say that the game was another matter altogether. Eschewing the trap of trying to incorporate characters into a media-tie-in game, the designers went with keeping the trappings of the series – the named gangs, locations that commonly appear or are integral to the action – and used these building blocks to create an interesting, diverting, and well-balanced game that doesn’t outstay its welcome. The mechanics are a combination of worker placement and resource management, with a novel bidding system that sees the value of a commodity dropping with a higher number of units being offered (flooding the market with product). The playing area is three mandatory location tiles and a selection of nine random locations (out of twenty options, making for a good level of replayability), all drawn from places depicted in the series, with each location offering something more or less useful.

Being a worker placement game with limited locations, there will inevitably be some altercations between gangs. This can result with valuable “dudes” ending up in the emergency room, or the morgue.

There are three currencies in the game; money, drugs and guns. These are, to a degree, interchangeable, and different game functions allow the exchange of one for another one a one-to-one basis or sometimes higher. But, as in life, the only currency worth a damn is cash; whoever has the most cash on hand at the end of the game wins the game (though the others might count in a tie). Needless to say, it was down to the two of us who had played before, with H and me tied for the lowest score (respectable walking-around money, but not enough to retire on). And, to its credit, Sons of Anarchy plays quickly (as promised on the box) – even with two newbies, we were done in about an hour-fifteen.

Sons of Anarchy was, as I said, interesting and diverting, a great way to kill an hour, a good filler game (every self-respecting gamer should own a couple). While I don’t feel the need to hunt this down for myself, I would not begrudge playing it again.

Stock photo; better than I could get on the day.

I also managed to carve a little time to of my week to finally get 1944: D-Day to the Rhine (Worthington Publishing, to the table, albeit in a rather truncated manner. I didn’t have a lot of time, but the game comes with a one-turn learning scenario to get you used to the nuances of the game. I’ve played Dan Fournie’s other WWII game, 1944: Battle of the Bulge (Worthington, 2020), which has a lot going for it, and this game, while very different in scope, plays in a familiar fashion. It essentially a classic IGO-UGO system, with the flexibility of fire and movement in whichever order you choose for each unit. Action points, called Resource Points here, are allocated each game turn, and can be used to strengthen depleted units or resurrect annihilated ones, and t activate units for combat and movement. In a nice touch, one RP will activate multiple units in a single attack if they hail form the same command (units are colour-coded for just this reason).

Dice hit on symbols, simultaneous Attack and Defence rolls. Combat can be brutal.

D-Day to the Rhine plays similarly to Battle of the Bulge, and promises to be a fast-playing game, once the nuances are assimilated. In the full game, the Allies have nine turns to make it into Germany and secure key locations, driving off the map to Berlin or Hamburg to seize victory, and it’s up to the Germans with their diminishing resources to stop that from happening.

End of the German turn; damage dealt, but at a heavy cost.

This short scenario has just whetted my appetite; I really want to get this to the table sometime soon. The sooner the better. Maybe next week I’ll be able to carve out an afternoon to play out the full game.