Stripped Down for Parts: World War II Commander: Battle of the Bulge

 

 

I wasn’t sure I really needed another Bulge game, but there were a couple of things at play with WWII Commander: Battle of the Bulge (Compass Games, 2020). Firstly, it’s a John Butterfield game. Butterfield is a legend in game design, with a particular focus on solo games. He was one of the first designers I recognised by name. When I was a kid, just getting into gaming, he designed two of my favourite solo games, The Wreck of the BSM Pandora (SPI, 1980), and Voyage of the BSM Pandora* (SPI, 1981), both of which first appeared in Ares Magazine. Since then, he’s produced such renowned classics as RAF: Battle of Britain (West End Games, 1986; Decision Games, 2009), and Enemy Action: Ardennes (Compass Games, 2015) and Charles S. Roberts Award-nominated Enemy Action: Kharkov (Compass Games, 2022), to name but a few. The guy makes solid games.

Secondly, it looked for a while like the Bulge game was going to be a one-off, despite the series title and badging. But earlier this year, Bill from Compass Games announced that the second game in the series should be coming out around the first quarter of 2024, and that will be WWII Commander: Market Garden (Compass Games, ~2024). Now, to me, Operation Market Garden is one of the most fascinating situations in the European theatre, so on hearing this, I wanted to try out the system ahead of its release.  

Looking at the back of the box, the publisher advises that the game is of a low complexity level with high solitaire suitability, and that the average play-time is 1-3 hours. These are all big ticks in my book. Reading the description, we find this is actually a physical re-implementation of a Boardgame style computer-based wargame Butterfield developed for Shenandoah Studios. I don’t have a lot of experience with computer versions of board wargames (I did play way too much Panzer General on my flat-mate’s computer during the second year of my degree), but I confess this was one of the things that put me off trying WWII Commander: Battle of the Bulge before now.

The box back also gives a list of the components in the game, but it doesn’t go into very much detail, so I’ll go through the list and elaborate a little on what you can expect.

Mounted map: the game comes with a 22” by 26” mounted map, a panel-width narrower than what I think if as a full-sized (22” by 34”) map, but there is a lot of game packed into this reduced space. The actual play area takes up most of the board. This is a map of the region the battle was fought, a patchwork of dense forest, patchy woods and small towns, criss-crossed with a network of roads and cart-trails. In this case, it’s really a patchwork map. One of the key design decisions on the WWII Commander series has been to go with area movement, with district borders and rivers remarking one area from the next. This isn’t the first Bulge game to use area movement; the first of the FAB (Fast Action Battle) series of games, FAB: the Bulge (GMT Games, 2008) has a full-sized, slightly more complicated area-movement map of the same region. This was the other reason for my initial reluctance to buy into the WWII Commander series. I own the other two volumes in the FAB series – I like FAB: Golan ’73; I haven’t played FAB: Sicily, but it looks promising – and I was hoping for a reprint of The Bulge. Alas, GMT has made the decision to close the FAB series.**

The map itself is a clear representation of the Ardennes region over which the battle took place. A lot of ink has been spilt over the difficulty of reading some Bulge game maps (I’m not going to single anyone out here), but it don’t think anyone will have a problem with this rendition. The map is quite gorgeous in its own wintery way. The roads and sector-borders are clearly presented, and unobtrusive symbols on the eastern-most areas mark out the range of the German artillery without disturbing the representative terrain. The whole thing is evocative of heavy woods and deep, dirty snow.

Turn and Time tracks in detail.

The map board also incorporates the map legend, Victory Point track, turn track and day track. Each day is divided up into nine functional time periods across the course of the day, with the two sides getting to commit one action each during each period. The Germans get a bonus action at the beginning of the day, and the Allies get their bonus action at the end of the day cycle, then the day marker moves up to the next calendar day the battle recommences.

One more thing worth mentioning; the map board sat almost perfectly flat right out of the box. I like a mounted board, but a bard that you can play om without leaving a couple of 3” boxes sitting on the folds for an hour or so ahead of time to press the kinks out is something to be cherished.

Two sheets of Counters. The game comes with two sheets of easy-punch counters; the unit counters are a forgiving 0.75-nch and represent divisional level forces in the combat. The sheets also offer Turn and VP track markers and smaller circular fuel shortage and out of supply markers. The graphics are simple and easily readable. Infantry is represented by a generic soldier, while the mechanised infantry and armour are represented by a silhouette of the predominant vehicle of that division. The counters are little pre-rounded works of efficiency, with the divisional designation and logo I the top right and top left corners respectively. The number in the bottom left corner is the unit’s strength (the number of dice rolled in combat), while the number(s) in the diamond on the right are the to-hit chances; you need to roll that number or less to score a hit on a die. Some armour as two diamonds with differing number. These are elite armour units, the higher number (in the red diamond) is the to-hit while attacking, the lower number (in the black diamond) is the to-hit while defending. A lot of the units – mostly armour, but also some infantry units – have more than two steps, so two or even three counters may represent the same unit. The counter density for the game is relatively low, which isn’t a bad thing in an area movement game.

The astute reader will have noticed the lack of a movement rating on the unit counters. Manoeuvre in the Ardennes was difficult at best – and often near-impossible – for both sides of the fight. The movement rules in WWII Commander capture this difficulty simply and elegantly; leg infantry in the game can move from one section to another section in a turn. Motorised infantry and armour can move one section, or two in certain circumstances. Manoeuvre is still a crucial element in the game, but you’re going to have to plan ahead, and have a back-up when things don’t go the way you expected.

Rules Booklet. The rules for WWII Commander: Battle of the Bulge are tight and well-written, with lots of illustrations for rules examples, and they come in at a scant twenty pages (including scenario set-up notes). In my experience, Butterfield has a good feel for rules, conveying sometimes complex concepts in an understandable way (or maybe he just has exceptional developers to work with).

Sample spread from the rulebook.

Order of Battle cards.

Two Orders of Battle. WWII Commander: Battle of the Bulge also include two orders of battle cards, one for each side in the battle. I’m a big fan of orders of battle; they are a good way of keeping track of multi-step unit pieces, as well as keeping your reinforcements on order. And with the smaller gameboard footprint, they’re not a big an imposition on the table.

PACs, front and back.

Two identical Player’s Aid Cards. The PACs for the game are excellent; double-sided, they cover all the basics of the game; Sequence of Play, Movement, Combat, Supply Sources and Out of Supply/Fuel Shortage Rules and the exception rules around Surprise Turns are all covered briefly and succinctly, all without resorting to 6-point font.  

Play Sequence Example Card. Not included in the box-back roster is a turn example sheet. This might seem superfluous to some, but after reading the rules I was a little confused about how the turn-order actually plays out. This cleared it right up. This is something for which I’ll take my hat off to Compass Games; every game that comes down the pike has a senior staff member shepherding it along, and they have the power to delay a release if they don’t think it’s quite there yet, or if it just needs an extra component or an explanatory note. This looks like what was the case with Battle of the Bulge, and I’m really grateful to whoever saw the need and took the time over this.

50 Activation markers, 40 German control counters, and seven 10-sided dice. Units can only be activated once in a turn and the tuns each have nine rounds, so the little black wooden cubes are used to indicate which units have been activated. This could have been done with another half-sheet of counters, but the cubes lend a nice tactile experience and are a good visual prompt for both sides. 

The same goes for the German control counters. Sector control in the game is crucial in identifying whether or not a unit is in supply. The Germans begin controlling eight of the eastern-most areas on the board. Each area the German player gains control over is marked with a stenciled wooden disc.

Again, this could have probably been done with cardboard counters, but the screen-printed grey discs that make a little clicking sound when placed on the mounted board add a level of verisimilitude to the experience of play, a reminder that losing or gaining a sector will have consequences for your game.

The dice are good high-impact plastic stock ten-siders, with running 0-9. These will also have consequences for your game.

Box and lid set. This seems obvious, but games haven’t always necessarily come in a box. That said, the Compass Games material I’ve bought in the past has fluctuated in box quality a little. Everything I have bought recently has been in a good, well-fitting box and lid set, but I don’t know if that’s been a general move away from the lighter cardstock boxes I’ve seen in games like Revolution Road (Compass Games, 2017), or if the sturdier boxes are reserved for flagship products and series games. Time will tell, I guess.

All in all, WWII Commander: Battle of the Bulge looks like it will offer what it sets out to, a fairly broad-brushstroke, divisional level wargame portraying a particularly tough situation for both sides; glancing though the rules, I think three hours might be a little hopeful for a first game, but once you get a feel for the cadence of play, a two-and-a-half- to three-hour game should be achievable. I also think are area movement/area control is a good choice at a divisional scale for an Ardennes game (and for the upcoming Market Garden volume).

I imagine some people will be disappointed with this treatment of the Ardennes counter-offensive. And that’s okay; since the release of John Butterfield’s last treatment of the Bulge, Enemy Action: Ardennes, in 2015, no less than eight other Bulge games have been released, including Dean Essig’s Standard Combat System treatment, Ardennes II (Multi-Man Publishing, 2023 - two maps), The Last Blitzkrieg (Battalion Combat Series, Multi-Man Publishing, 2016 - three maps), and Bruno Sinigaglio’s A Time for Trumpets (GMT Games, 2020 with a magisterial five full-sized maps and twelve counter sheets). If you have the space and the time, there are options.

The next thing for this game will be to see how well it plays solo. The back of the box gives it a high suitability for solitaire (no hidden information), but – unusually for a John Butterfield game – the rules offer no solitaire guidance. The full game is thirteen turns, plus a German Surprise Turn at the beginning, to reflect the Americans being caught flat-footed, but there is a shorter three-turn scenario sketched out, Race to the Meuse. I’ll do a couple of play-throughs and report back. Stay tuned.

 

* Butterfield is revisiting Voyage of the BSM Pandora in a new game available for preorder from GMT called Away Team: Voyages of the Pandora (GMT Games, TBA). This will be a primarily a solitaire game (but co-op-able) of space exploration, and the early component pictures look gorgeous. Needless to say, I’ve already ordered my copy. With luck it may be out by this time next year (thought that might be a little hopeful).

** FAB designer Rick Young has been developing a new series on the bones of the old FAB system. This will be called the Battle Command system, and the first volume, containing two games, The Bulge and Operation Crusader, is also available for preorder on the GMT website.