Review: Freeman's Farm 1777

 

 

As a reviewer, I’ve always felt like I’ve had a responsibility to maintain a level of objectivity when it came to the things I reviewed. I worked on my university's newspaper (a weekly, back then) for a number of years, and when I wrote about a band I liked or an author I respected, I’d be up-front about it from the get-go. So, without getting too fanboy-ish, I should say in advance that I really like the designer Maurice Suckling's games I’ve played thus far – I’ve reviewed two of them on this blog already, so that’s about 15% of the reviews published on A Fast Game thus far. And here’s another one; Freeman’s Farm 1777 (Worthington Publishing, 2019). This wasn’t by intention; it’s just panned out that way. Suckling’s published boardgames, four published so far, with a fifth slated for mid-2024 after a successful Kickstarter campaign, have been released by Worthington Publishing. I happen to be a fan of Worthington’s games as a rule. When I first played Chancellorsville, 1863 (Worthington Publishing, 2021; I wrote about this earlier in the year), I wasn’t familiar with Professor Suckling’s oeuvre. He is the designer 1565: Siege of Malta (Worthington Publishing, 2022), and the brilliant Chancellorsville, 1863, which shares its design DNA with Freeman’s Farm.

Since playing Chancellorsville, I’ve been keen to try Freeman’s Farm. A couple of months ago I managed to get a second-hand copy in very good condition. Now, after playing it several times, both two-player and solo, I feel like I’m ready to talk about the game.

Freeman’s Farm 1777 is a broad brushstroke simulation of the consequential battle at the end of Burgoyne’s Saratoga campaign during the second full year of the American Revolutionary War. The battle was supposed to be the culmination of the long march General Burgoyne had lead from Canada that began with some initial successes (the taking of Fort Ticonderoga and a qualified victory at the battle of Hubbardton) to a string of withering losses and costly wins, the worst being that of the Battle of Freeman’s Farm.

The British applying pressure on the Colonial right.

Appearance

Like every Worthington game I’ve ever come across, careful consideration has been put into every aspect of the production of Freeman’s Farm. The board is roughly 17” by 22” in size and mounted. The map represents the field of battle in the style of a map from the period. Like the board for Chancellorsville, there is no hex or grid overlay. Instead, initial positions for the units present at the battle are marked out in a bold colour representing the nationality of the units, while subsequent manoeuvre locations are marked in lighter hues, with guiding arrows to demonstrate which units can access these secondary and tertiary positions. The positions are also labelled and are referred to as such in the relevant units’ orders lists. The position of Freeman’s Farm, in roughly the centre of the play area, is tenuously held by skirmishers under Learned. If Hamilton (British Regulars) can dislodge these skirmishers (an attack order, with a successful hit to remove the skirmishers), that unit may move into the contested Farm space. Freeman’s Farm can also be occupied by both Learned and the Hessian mercenaries under Riedesel (green blocks, British left flank). In each of the left corners of the board (by the players’ orientations) is a Combat Results Table, both unobtrusive and useful, as this is a game of swift and heated action.

The game pieces representing troops are elongated wooden cubes, while artillery is represented by wooden discs. I like a game with wooden pieces; I appreciate the visceral sense of loss when a force is reduced block by block. Each hit will remove a block; for the British, some first hits will remove skirmishers, allowing them to traverse to more advantageous locations.

Units are also represented by cards, to be displayed before the player. Each card offers the choice of orders available to that unit when activated, the number of dice the unit will roll in combat and the special conditions in which they may gain an extra die, and most also present a Morale track to trace the unit’s diminishing cohesion. Each time a unit is ordered, it drops one Morale point. These can also be lost as a result of combat, and once a unit drops to six points remaining, the player must roll for a Morale check; if the result on a single die is higher than the unit’s current Morale level, that unit is broken and disbands.

Hamilton has taken Freeman's Farm, but can he hold it
under the pressure from Poor and Glover 

If one side can destroy – or cause to break – three of the other side’s rated units (i.e., a unit with its own Morale track; for these purposes, Breymann (Reserve) on the British side and the Colonial Artillery do not signify), they will win by sudden death victory. If the game plays out the full fifteen turns without a clear winner, the British lose the game. Historically, the British won a pyrrhic victory at Saratoga; while they held their ground and claimed the day, their losses were so grave as to make leave them in a weakened state for the following battle at Bemis Heights three weeks later, so the victory defaulting to the Colonial forces feels right.

The whole package comes in a sturdy two-inch box, adorned with an evocative cover illustration, presumably of Morgan’s Rifles sniping at the Redcoats gathering for a charge. As I’ve said, presentation is Worthington’s strong suit.

Nixon's chance to dislodge Phillips' guns.

Play Experience

Each player begins with a fifteen-card activation deck. These are shuffled and the player’s draw three cards from their deck. This is their starting hand. Beginning with the British, the players take turns playing an activation card, paying the one-point cost of activating that unit on its Morale track on their morale track for that unit, and then choosing an order from those listed on that unit’s record card. The active player also earns momentum points (represented by black cubes), which can be used as a form of currency in the game, to purchase rerolls or Tactics cards, of which there are always three on display in a tableau within reach of both players. These tactics cards usually offer some small advantage for play in a subsequent round (such as adding an extra die to an attack or forcing your opponent to reroll one die from their successful attack), though some have persistent qualities. At the end of the Colonial player’s turn, the cards all shuffle down a rank left-to-right, with the right-most card being discarded.

Each unit has a selection of orders it may carry out on activation, including movement or engagement orders, sometimes in unison. This may sound limiting, but it actually makes the play run more smoothly, and the orders are coherent with what actions that unit in its current position would be able to perform. Once you’re used to the sequence of play, the game finds its own cadence.

Brief respite (sample Tactic card).

Freeman’s Farm moves along quickly, both in two player and solitaire modes. The back of the box says “Victory within one hour,“ and as I have observed elsewhere, Worthington has the most reliable game-length advice of any game publisher I’ve come across. All of the games I’ve played – two-player and solo – have come in at between 45 and 55 minutes. That being said, it’s a pretty intense 50-odd minutes, and not for the faint of heart.

The best endorsement I can offer for Freeman’s Farm actually comes from my brother-in-law and regular gaming buddy, who was my first human opponent. When we finished the game with T’s defeat as the British; the first thing he said, was “Can we play this again next week?”

Appraisal

Freeman’s Farm is a new take on a pivotal Revolutionary War battle that has been modelled in countless wargames, including Worthington’s own Hold the Line: The American Revolution (Worthington Publishing, 2016).

Fraser's regiment breaks under the pressure.

Much like David Thompson, Maurice Suckling brings a unique sensibility to tabletop wargaming. Coming from a background in videogames, Suckling now teaches different aspects of game design and history at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York state. His upcoming games, Crisis: 1914 (Worthington, slated for the first half of 2024), about the events and negotiations in Europe that lead with tragic inevitability to the outbreak of the Great War, Peace 1905 (Fort Circle Games, ~2024), which simulates the peace negotiations held by the belligerents at the conclusion of the Russo-Japanese War, and Rebellion: Britannia (GMT Games, ~2024), which has made the cut on GMT’s P500 list, all speak to a diverse interest both in history and in gaming.

Like Chancellorsville, 1863 and 1565: Siege of Malta, I cannot speak highly enough of Freeman’s Farm. I don’t think it will be as enthusiastically re-playable as Chancellorsville, which has a few more things going on mechanically (hidden movement in the two-player version and simulated hidden movement in the solo bot) which keeps it fresher, but that’s probably an unfair comparison.

On its own merits, Freeman’s Farm offers a simple and fast-playing but deeply immersive and tactically confronting play experience. It may seem like a one-trick pony, being essentially a single-scenario game with rigidly programmed movement and action, but that would be looking at it through the lens of hex-and-counter play. The rigidity of the options is the very thing that makes Freeman’s Farm such a compelling game experience. The inability to do whatever the hell you want at any given moment models the difficulties of command and situational awareness in the period and in this particular battle extraordinarily well. This is one of those games that will reward repeated play with frustration and understanding in equal measure.