Stripped Down for Parts: Arquebus: Men of Iron Volume IV

 

 

A couple of months ago (to the delight of many), the fourth volume of the Men of Iron series, Arquebus: The Battles for Northern Italy, 1495-1544 (GMT Games, 2017), was put up for a proposed reprint on GMT Games’ P500 list. For those new to this, new games and some reprint go on a pre-order list, where Regular Joes can commit to buying a copy or two of the proposed game at a reduced price (around 30% off, so nothing to sneeze at), when the game is released. Once the pre-orders reach the 500 mark, the game will be moved to the Made the Cut, and it will be given a place in the production queue. After a time – subject to a number of variables but usually somewhere between eighteen months and several years – the product is printed and shipped to GMT’s warehouse (and only then are the Regular Joes asked to part with their hard-earned cash).

Arquebus has been out of print for a number of years, before the release of the Men of Iron Tri-Pack (2020), a re-release of the first three games in the series. With the announcement of a fifth volume in the series, Norman Conquests: Conflicts of the Normans and their successors in the 9th-11th centuries (GMT Games, 2023), it had to only be a matter of time before Arquebus got its own reprint.

A year-and-a-half ago I managed to pick up the last copy of Arquebus hiding on a back shelf of my FLGS (next state over, along with 1960: Making of the President (GMT Games, 2007) and combined free shipping – how could I say no?). I already had the MoI Tri-Pack and had pre-ordered Norman Conquests, the fifth volume in the series as well (unfortunately the budget wouldn’t stretch to cover it when it arrived from the printer, so I had to cancel my preorder; maybe one for the Summer Sale). 

When it arrived, I ripped off the shrink, admired the components, read throguh the rules and glanced at the scenarios, then placed it on the shelf it shares with other games I haven't gto to the table yet. The Arquebus product page tells us that the new printing will be straight reprint; no re-jigging except for fixing any known errata. So, as a community service, I’d like to present my unboxing of Arquebus: Men of Iron, Volume IV, so you can get an idea of what you can look forward to, when the Second Printing is, well, in print.

The box art is in keeping with style of the earlier games in the series, with a cover illustration capturing a snapshot of martial action at the foot of a bridge, a mass of straining bodies of men and horses, sweeping swords, raised maces, broken lances and everywhere the dying and the dead. It’s an intimate scene of desperate, harrowing massed combat. The Credits for the game list Rodger B. MacGowan as the Art Director for Arquebus, and also attributes him with the Package Art and Design. Mr MacGowan is particularly well known in wargaming circles for his use of period photography in the graphic work on game covers (like Paths of Glory (GMT Games, 1999), and one of my personal favourites, the Avalon Hill edition of The Russian Campaign (Avalon Hill, 1976), recently reprised in GMT's Fifth Edition release (GMT Games, 2023). It's a fact sometimes overlooked that Mr MacGowan is also an accomplished artist who contributed this original, evocative work for the cover of Arquebus.

The box-back informs us that Arquebus is a game that can be played in one to five hours by one to two players, that it's roughly four out of nine on the complexity scale and scores seven out of nine for solitaire-play suitability (I'm inclined to agree on both counts; the MoI game-system introduces some novel mechanics, but it's by no means difficult to grasp, and while there are no inherent solitaire rules, the system is well suited to two-handed solo play). Here we also learn that the units represent roughly 500-1,000 soldiers or 150-200 Men at Arms, and four to six field pieces. The map scale is 125 metres (about 135 yards) to a hex. 

The previous entries into the series consider battles that are somewhat geographically localised and represent a period of evolution in warfighting, such as the preeminence of cavalry and the armoured knight in the early Crusades (Infidel) or the reemergence of infantry and the growing understanding of the potential of combined arms tactics in the early fourteenth century (Men of Iron). Arquebus focuses on the Italian Wars of the Late fifteenth to early sixteenth centuries. Firearms began to appear to the field of battle, supporting bristling blocks of Swiss Pike alongside more traditional crossbowmen, but by the middle of the 1500s, guns had been steadily replacing the bow in mass combat. At the same time, the Swiss pike formations had been overhauled by the German Landsknects as the mercenary band of choice. Taken together, the battles represented offer an interesting historical snapshot of the evolving battlefield.

Arquebus Rule Book and Battle Book (scenarios and Example of Play).

Any game in the Men of Iron series is quite playable. The rulebook runs to just twenty pages; eighteen actually, when you discount the cover page (which incorporates the Table of Contents), and the back cover, which includes a pretty thorough index (by section rather than page number), the production credits, and a short bibliography for folks like me who like to read more about the history they’re playing (this could probably be said of most historical wargamers).

The rulebook and Battle book are both printed on glossy, reasonably heavy-weight paper stock (though this may change with the new printing, given the reprint games in the Tri-Pack have all shifted to matt paper of slightly lighter gauge, which I actually prefer for readability). Both are set out in the two-column format in common with most GMT publications. The layout is sensible, the writing clear, and the examples and illustrations elucidating. Scattered throughout the rules are little box-text design and play notes that further clarify how something works or why it works that way in the first place.

The Rules have probably benefited from being in their fourth release. While these are series rules, each iteration is tailored to the historical situation being portrayed in that game-set. In Arquebus, only the units appearing across the scenarios are included, and these are used in the illustrated examples of play throughout the rulebook.

Rule Book (sample page).

Anyone who has played another Men of Iron game will be able to pick up a copy of Arquebus and run with it. Seventeen and a half pages of the rules will be familiar to the practiced player; a mere column is given over to the three Special Rules unique to the situation and era, including Gun Wagons (fortified carriages, like placeable pillboxes) and the Swiss mercenaries’ reluctance to fight if they haven’t been paid.

I also wanted to point out, the rules are permeated with the wit and irreverence that designer Richard Berg brought to all of his games. Everyone who knew or had dealings with Mr Berg has a story or several about the man who arguably has had a broader and more far-reaching impact on wargaming than anyone. The rest of us feel like we’ve got to know him a little through the glimpses of his personality and humour expressed in his rules.

Battle Book (sample page: Ravenna scenario).

The Battle Book will also be familiar to anyone with experience with the Men of Iron series. This runs to forty pages, with the first two pages given over the cover/Table of Contents, and a prefacing historical note and a couple of paragraphs onset-up and selecting units. Then it’s into the battles. Each scenario gets a column or two of historical context, clear instructions on the initial set-up of the counters (with a reproduction of the game-map indicating the positions or placement area of the various “battles”*). The Battle book also offers a detailed, five-page example of play, followed by one-page example of combat. The back cover has a very helpful Extended Sequence of Play. I’d recommend photocopying this and laminating a couple of copies to have to hand. I’d wager you’ll find the answer to around 80% of at-table queries on this page alone.

A note on game balance

Before we go any further into Arquebus, please note that the scenarios on offer here will play out to their historical conclusions a lot of the time. Historically, battles were rarely even matches, and any tactician worth his salt would avoid a fight if he could unless he could press some advantage. Richard Berg created scenarios that reflected the historical reality of the situation (based on the best information available to him). In all of the scenarios in Arquebus except Pavia, Mr Berg spent time and column inches addressing the Game Balance in terms of the historical situation portrayed, and in Cerignola, Agnadello, and Marignano he presented some options for addressing the lack of balance in those battles. 

Three counter sheets

Arquebus boasts three counter sheets, covering the French, Spanish, and Venetian forces and the Swiss mercenaries. Like other Men of Iron titles, the counters and markers are a uniform ½”. As someone who needs to reach for his reading-glasses more often than I like to admit, I’m less of a fan of small counters in games, but with the sheer numbers of pieces on the board in some scenarios (and the sheer number of scenarios in the box) makes ½” counters a sensible choice, though I’m glad I finally invested in some 3mm Perspex sheets and a pair of tweezers.

Sample counters (underlit; the photo doesn't do justice to the colours of the counters).

Even for their diminutive size, the unit and leader pieces are still clearly readable on the board (let me just grab my reading glasses), and all the pertinent information is available in each. The thing that suffers most from the size of the counters is the artwork; each unit is illustrated with an individual figure – standing or mounted, as per its type and disposition – and the little illustrations are quite remarkable in their detail, some of which is lost or obscured at that scale. For Twentieth-century conflicts I prefer NATO symbology, but the illustrated counters on Ancient and Medieval/Early Modern games add to the verisimilitude of the play experience, in ways I don’t think I’ve credited enough in the past.

Player Aid Cards, front and back (or, outside and inside).

The game comes with two duplicate Player Aid Cards. These are three-panel (tri-fold) PACs covering the necessary charts for resolving ranged and close combat and shock effects on units, including Swiss Shock Reluctance (as mentioned in the special rules). The nifty thing about the tri-panel PAC is that the centre panel is just a little wider than the two outer panels, so you can have it folded down to a roughly 11” by 8 ½” package with the melee (charge and shock) charts on one side and either the Weapons System Matrix or the Range Combat charts showing on the other. It took le a little while to cotton on to this, but I’ve come around to it.

The reverse (interior) of the PAC presents a suit of Terrain Effects Charts, six in all (for the battles of Agnadello, Ravenna, Marignano, Bicocca, Pavia and Ceresole; the Cerignola and Fornovo TECs are printed right on the map – efficient use of space all round).

Track card.

Arquebus also features an 11” by 8 ½” combined Flight Point Track and General Track. For the uninitiated, the Flight Point track is where each side tracks their accumulated Flight Points. This number grows with each unit or leader lost in battle. At the end of every free activation, each player rolls a die and adds the result to their current Flight Point quotient. If the total exceeds the Flight point threshold for that side and scenario (these thresholds are all helpfully pre-printed on the track, though I personally found the small, brown font on the beige background a little difficult to read), that player loses the game.

Battle of Pavia map (the largest scenario in the pack).

Anyone familiar with the Men of Iron series will feel right at home with these maps. The game comes with two double-sided map-sheets. The maps are relatively simple and clean looking. the battle-spaces are relatively free of terrain obstacles or cover (compared to, say, a WWII western front  game set at a company or battalion scale), but this reflects the orthodoxy and practical considerations of mass-warfare at the time. Well into the late Middle Ages, the choice locations for battle would offer broad, clear spaces uninterrupted by obstacles to allow flexibility of manoeuvre.

Battle maps for the battles of Agnadello (left) and Fornovo.

Only one of the battles of the battles – Pavia is played out on a full map. Three – Agnadello, Ceresole, and Marignano – are given full 17” by 22” half-maps; Ravenna and Fornovo play out on maps 22x25 hexes (a slightly reduced half-sheet), while Bicocca and Cerignola are won or lost on maps of 25x14 and 14x12 hexes respectively. (In his scenario notes, Mr Berg mentions that Cerignola is a perfect scenario with which to learn the MoI system, and good for solitaire play,)

Battle maps for the battles of Ceresol (left), Bicocca upper right), and Cerignola.

The way the maps are presented, it’s possible to leave the map-sheet closed at the centre fold for most of the smaller battles without having to back-fold the crease, saving room at the table (playing Ravenna or Marignano, you can still have half of the unused map tucked in under itself).

Good, readable dice and a roll of baggies (#simple_pleasures).

I was a little surprised that Arquebus didn’t come with a travel riser (the cardboard insert many games come with to prevent the materials inside the box for shifting and getting corner bruising during transit. I’ve noticed this is more common in games with mounted boards or lots of material generally (like the glut of maps, counter sheets, PACs and booklets in the MoI Tri-Pack box) It may be that this is less of an issue with paper map-games. My copy of Arquebus would have been five or six years old before I received it, and there’s no telling what kind of handling it may have received getting from Hanford, California to Melbourne, Victoria, but it was a little shy of pristine when I received it. I don’t think it’s an absolute necessity, but I wouldn’t like to speculate whether you’ll see an insert in the second printing copy or not.

What you will see is a couple of quite nice ten-sided dice and a little roll of baggies, enough to accommodate all the counters and markers from the game in some semblance of order. If you are counter-tray inclined, fear not: the two-inch box will comfortably hold two trays (probably three at a stretch if you’re one of these ungrateful heretics that keep all their dice separate from their original games), and still fit the booklets, maps and PACs.

So that's what you can expect to find in the Men of Iron, Volume IV: Arquebus reprint. I really hope his has piqued your interest. It warrants noting that the Men of Iron Tri-Pack us also being offered on GMT's P500 page for a second printing. This set contains all three earlier volumes of the Men of Iron series - Men of Iron (GMT Games, 2005), Infidel (GMT, 2011), and Blood & Roses (GMT, 2014), as well as the stand-alone Agincourt scenario that originally appeared in C3i magazine. At the pre-order price of US$59.00, the Tri-Pack is a real bargain. It's currently about half-way to making the cut, and could benefit some love.

I'll get to reviewing Arquebus closer to printing (as well as the MoI Tri-Pack). In the meantime, click on the title links; these will take you to each game's BGG page, where you'll be able to see some better component shots than I can currently offer. As always, if you've read this far, thanks for sticking around, and please feel free to comment with suggestions, accusations, or hints on lighting. 

* Battle in this sense is used to indicate all the forces under the command of and loyal to an individual leader. It’s an unusual word in that from its earliest recorded usage, it had multiple meanings, operating as both a noun and a verb, with the meaning implied by context in which it was used. From Middle-English, it could be used to describe a fortified tower, a contingent of troops under a leader (such as Offa’s battle), military exercises (training at arms), a contest of arms (the action of martial pursuit, at either the personal level, like a duel or single combat, or troop level, the activity of doing battle), or even to describe a fight between animals (such as cock- or dog-fighting).

State of Play: Commands and Colors: Tricorne – Bennis Heights

    

 

Monday we played at T’s place. “What do you want to play,” he said. “Surprise me,” I said. When I got there, he’d just finished placing the last block of Commands & Colors Tricorne: The American Revolution (Compass Games, 2017), Bennis Heights scenario. I’ve got a feeling we’ve played this at least once before – when I first got hold of C&C Tricorne we went pretty hard on it for a while, but I don’t think we played through all the scenarios. Still, a game is a game, and there’s almost always something new to learn from a C&C game.

Opening state (the Hessians and light cannon were brought up
to full strength before we started).

Bennis Heights is a six-banner scenario. Normally I would expect any other six-point Commands and Colors game to resolve itself in around forty-five minutes to an hour. That was not to be the case in this instance.

Every iteration of the Commands and Colors system from Battle Cry (Avalon Hill, 1999) on is its own thing. They all share the same DNA, but they’re closer to cousins than siblings. Commands and Colors: Tricorne has traits not carried over into the other games, and that’s what makes it sometimes frustrating, but always interesting.

C&C Tricorne’s closest cousin it Commands and Colors: Napoleonics (GMT Games, 2010); they are set in historically and technologically adjacent eras, and share some similarities between unit profiles. The American soldiery was trained and structured broadly on the British model, and many of the Colonial officers had fought in the French and Indian War alongside the very British officers they were now facing in battle. After the close of hostilities in North America it would barely be fifteen years before British troops were battling the French Revolutionary Army under General Napoleon in Egypt and Syria.

The Hessian attempt to roll up my Right flank was blunted, then reversed.

The central difference between C&C Napoleonics and C&C Tricorne is one of scale. While it’s never really spelt out in such terms, a unit of infantry in C&C Napoleonics is usually in the ballpark of a brigade or division, whereas the unit size in C&C Tricorne is much smaller. This is reflected in the differences in ranged combat. In both games, combat with a unit in an adjacent hex is considered melee of close combat. Ranged combat takes place between regular infantry at two hexes distance in C&C Napoleonics (with the notable exception of the British Rifle Light). In C&C Tricorne, the standard maximum rage for musketry is three hexes, while the American Rifle units can reach four hexes, though at extreme ranges the quality of fire is reduced.

Which brings us to the second difference in C&C Tricorne (which is an artefact of the first), the dice available in combat are effectively halved. A Regular four-block unit engaging an enemy unit in melee or at two-hex range will roll two combat dice. The results are the same as in other C&C flavours, hits on symbols and, in melee, on crossed sabres. This is where it gets interesting though, A flag result will force a retreat, unless the defender can produce a reason to ignore said retreat (say, leader proximity, or being supported on to sides). If the unit takes the retreat, however, the owing layer must roll a number of dice equal to the blocks remaining in the unit (an intact unit gets one extra die to roll). This is a Rally roll, a check to find out whether the unit’s commanders managed to maintain order and cohesion in the face of said retreat. If the owning player doesn’t roll at least one Flag symbol (“rally around the flag, boys!”), then the unit is lost, assumed to have made for the rear, broken. That’s work a Victory Banner for the opponent as assuredly as if the unit was pulverised in combat.

All this has been by way of explanation for why last night’s game took nearly two hours. Bennis Heights was a qualified win for the Colonials historically. The British troops and Hessian mercenaries tried to turn the Colonial forces (superior in numbers but thin on experienced professional soldiers), but could not better the determined American forces.

This general result played out last night. After an ineffectual opening cannonade and some minor manoeuvring on both sides, T’s British forces began to move up unevenly, pausing to take pot-shots at my American regulars (the ones not tucked safely into forest groves), until a Line Command card allowed him to get his Hessians all adjacent to my Right and Centre-Right troops, hoping to turn my flank and roll up my line. Much of the fire thus far had been ineffectual; T had taken first blood with a lucky shot at one of my Regular units at the left of my Centre in the third round, but it was the sixth before anyone – also T, as it happened – managed to actually score a Banner. This wasn’t for lack of trying. With Every ranged fire I managed to push units either at back with withering fire (rolling a flag or two) but every time, even at reduced rolls of to or three dice, T seemed unable to not produce a rallying flag to keep the unit on the board.

Around turn ten or eleven. Colonials 4 to British 3.

The game began to shift in my favour around about turn 8. T was up three Banners to my one. With the play of a Line Volley order I was able to hold my ground (remain in position) and fire at range. It took some tricksy shooting but I was able to reduce the Hessian Grenadiers to one block and push back a reduced (three-block) Hessian Regular formation, forcing the first Rally check of the game that T failed.

Even though T managed to gain a block (Reform combat card), for his Hessian Grenadiers, I was able to destroy what cohesion remained with an Inspired Leader order, and – most embarrassingly for T – with my one engaged Militia unit (Revenge came wiftly when the Militia were run off the board on the next card play with three Retreat results from the avenging Hessian cannons). That was the last unit loss in combat on either side. Due to some remarkable Rally rolls, mostly from T, many units managed to stay in the game when they would likely have been destroyed outright with the higher damage rolling of a C&C Napoleonics game. This is why a what we thought would be a one-hour game ran to nearly two-and-a-quarter. But this isn’t a complaint, though; aside from the distraction of a couple of work calls, we were both fully engaged in the action and the unfolding narrative on the board. You can’t really ask for more than that from a game.

Of the six banner I won, only two were for units destroyed in battle, and only one of T‘s three. The rest on both sides were the result of failed Rally rolls, and most of those, only when the unit had taken hits over two or more combat actions and had been reduced to one or two blocks.

End state: a hard lesson for the British.

By the end of the battle, Bennis Heights was strewn with dead and wounded Hessians and Colonials. While the exchange’s victory went to the Colonials, the British did manage to preserve his cannon and some of their national forces in good order, with no loss of leaders. Some small comfort for the officer required to explain the lack of success against the insurrectionists.

 

 

Stripped Down for Parts: Rebel Fury: Battles of the American Civil War

 

 

So, I got mail on Friday. Two much-anticipated games that seem to have been on GMT’s P500 list for longer than I can recall, the reprint/revision of Mark Simonitch’s France ’40, 2nd Edition (GMT Games, 2024) and Mark Herman’s Rebel Fury: Battles of the American Civil War, Vol. 1 (GMT Games, 2024). While I’ve been looking forward to both for some time, France ’40 - as I understand it - is essentially a reprint with some new shine, while Rebel Fury is all new, sort of. I will get to France ’40, I promise, but lately I’ve been on a bit of a American Civil War kick, so today I want to talk about Rebel Fury, and there’s a lot to talk about.

Rebel Fury had its origin in Gettysburg, which first appeared in issue 32 of Roger McGowan’s C3I Magazine. Having never played Gettysburg, I can’t say with any authority what has changed or remained from the original game.

Simply put, the cover art for Rebel Fury is great. It’s clear and compelling, announcing the subject of the contents both verbally and visually. The three pairs of battles are each represented by three separate illustrations depicting an event from one of the battles.

The three pictures used on the cover are all lithographs produced by a company called Kurz and Allison, which specialised in sentimental, patriotic battle scene prints (among others) from the mid-1880s and into the early part of the next century. Frames lithographs were a popular wall adornment at the turn of the century in households that couldn’t affords paintings. The representations aren’t the most accurate of depictions of Civil War scenes and events, but Louis Kurz’s illustrations illicit a sense of heroism and triumph in the face of adversity, tinged with a little jingoistic pomp. Kurz, though Austrian by birth, was himself a veteran of the Union Army; perhaps he chose to highlight the positive aspects of the events portrayed because he didn’t want to expose an ignorant public to the true brutality of war, even forty years later. Or perhaps he just wanted to sell more lithographs.

The cover also announces that Rebel Fury is the first volume of a planned series, The Civil War Heritage Series. From what I've seen so far, the response to Volume 1 has been pretty positive, so I think we can count on at least a second set of battles to hit the P500 list before too long.

The box back offers details of the scope and style of play of the game, outlines some of the features of play and the battles covered, and states parameters of play; the game is firmly a two-player game (though special rules are included for playing the Battle of Fredericksburg as a single player introductory game) and that it is recommended to players 14 years and older. The unit scale in Rebel Fury is division/brigade scale with regimental detachments, The map is a half-mile to a hex, and turns represent half a day. The difficulty for the game is rated 3 out of 9, and I think going over the rules that I’d concur with this evaluation. I don’t think I’d meet with too many problems teaching Rebel Fury to an inexperienced gamer. The Solitaire rating is listed as 5 out of 9; apart from the introductory rules for Fredericksburg, there are no explicit solo rules or Rebel Fury, but I think an experienced lone player will have no issues double-handing this game.

Mark Herman is one of the most careful writers of rules I’ve experienced. Every sentence is crafted to deliver a point or to elucidate a possible point of confusion. If something is repeated, you know its important to the game, or more accurately, to the way in which the game is played. I think some designers slip into a little shorthand sometimes without realising it, and experienced gamers don’t see a problem in this because, well, we know what so-and -so means in this part. Somebody on YouTube – I forget who (maybe Ardwulf) – quipped that Herman’s response to nearly every rules-query on BGG regarding Pacific War, Second Edition (GMT Games, 2022), was “Go back and read the rules; it’s in there.”

I’m still on my first read-through of the rules for Rebel Fury; I’m in the habit of reading the rules to a new game twice through before popping some counters out and pushing them around on the board. The rulebook is not long, but I’m finding myself referring back constantly to the glossary of terms used in the game, which I had read already, but they warrant harking back to for clarification. The glossary (2.5 Definitions) does a lot of the heavy lifting in explaining a given term or notion in context of rule functions.

Rulebook sample page (extended movement example).

I’m making it sound like the rules are hard to read. They’re not. They are, as I’ve already suggested, clear and concise, and there is no trimmable fat here. It’s the concepts that are new (to me, at least). The booklet is twenty-four pages in length, but the actual rules come to a mere fifteen pages when you take out the four pages of extensive movement and combat examples, the comprehensive index, production credits, cover page and end-page with a handy Sequence of Play an Attack Resolution tables. The rules are presented in a familiar serif font at about 9-point at a guess; I find it easy enough to read without glasses. Both the Rulebook and playbook are printed in the heavy-ish weight matt-finish paper that will be familiar to fans of the GBACW or BoAR series games.

Playbook sample page (Battle of Chattanooga scenario brief).

The playbook also comes to a total of twenty-four pages. The first two pages cover some extra details concerning the scenarios generally (Setup conditions, Reinforcement, scenario-specific Victory Conditions, etc.), and the last couple of pages are given over to some in-depth designer notes about how and why Mr Herman put the game together the way he did. The rest is given over the scenarios (or, more accurately, Battles), of which, as mentioned previously, there are six. These each run from two to four pages, covering special rules and victory conditions, and set-up tables for each side, helpfully colour-coded.

There is an absence of historical prefacing to the scenarios. Some commentators have expressed their profound disappointment at this. I think it’s probably part of an effort to keep the page-count down, which in turn helps keep down the price of the finished product. Being a keen reader, I am more disappointed in the lack of a bibliography. I’m sure over the course of his career, Mr Herman has gathered a wealth of head-knowledge regarding many aspects of the American Civil War and the particular battles covered in this volume, but I’m almost as sure that the designer would have had at least a couple of historical treatments to hand for reference inn the construction of the scenarios. With any luck, maybe we’ll see an Inside GMT article offering some recommended reading covering the campaigns featured in Rebel Fury, and in particular, which books he kept in reach during the design process.

The scenarios are presented in a uniform format. Each begins with the name and date of the battle, notes on the battle-length in game turns and Artillery Points for each side, applicable Special Rules, and Victory Conditions for that scenario, and a set-up table for each side. Set-up has been made significantly easier by the inclusion of a separate set of troop counters for each battle – no having to sort through all the CSA counters for Early’s or Anderson’s brigades.

Both the Rulebook and Playbook are peppered with Design Notes. I’d encourage anyone taking the time to learn Rebel Fury to read through these. Mark Herman has taken efforts to make the game appealing to as broad a range of players as possible. The three pages of Designer’s Notes and the box-text throughout the shed some light on why certain decisions were made in the construction of the game experience. And, really, anything Herman has to say is worth noting.

Maps (good things come in threes).

Rebel Fury comes with three 22” x34” maps. Each map accommodates two battles; the first covers the battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the second, Chickamauga and Chattanooga, and the third. Battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania.

Chickamauga-Chattanooga Map (apologies for the quality -
here's a close up so you can see some of the detail).

 

The lighting in the pictures don't to the maps justice, but you get the idea.

The maps are really quite lovely in their own right, and I fear my poor photography doesn’t do them, justice. The styling is reminiscent of civil and military maps from the period. The colour palette for the maps are soft greens and browns for the terrain, something close to an Aegean blue for the rivers and streams, and black for the roads, trails, railway lines and towns, all against pastel cream base which brings out the depth of the other colours.

The maps, along with all the counter art, are the work of Charlie Kibbler. Research for the maps was prepared by Kibler and the late Rick Barber, working closely with the designer. There is a touching tribute from Mark Herman to his colleague and friend on the last page of the Playbook.

Off-Map Display.

A map extension is included for the Battle of Fredericksburg scenario. The rules regarding this are covered in 6.4 Entering Off-Map Units, on page 9 of the Rulebook. I’ll probably talk more about this in the review, so for now I’ll just say that is looks interesting and it must add something to the game, or it wouldn’t be here.

Player's Aid Card (front and back).

The Player’s Aid Cards (the game comes with a duplicate pair) are single panels, double-sided, and contain all the charts and tables necessary for play on the front side, including an abbreviated Sequence of Play, Battle Rating Summary, HQ Removal Check Table, and the Tactical Position Determination and Attack Results Tables. The reverse side offers the game’s Terrain Effects Chart. Terrain can impact on a unit’s formation (compelling it to shift (flip) from Maneuver to Battle formation, disrupt a units Zones of Control/Influence, or offer a bonus in defence. That’s as deep into the tall grass as I’m going to get here; I’ll pick over the niceties more in the forthcoming review.

Combined Turn Track and Moves/Attacks display.

A shared display keeps track of the game turns elapsed in a give scenario, and remaining moves or attacks in a turn. Rebel Fury does a bunch of game functions in a simple but (to me at least) novel way. I don’t want to get too bogged down in the minutiae here – I’ll save that for the review – but suffice it to say, movement and combat actions get passed back and forth, starting with the player holding the initiative, until one player passes. At that point, the non-passing player can also pass, ending the phase, or they can establish a number of remaining actions based on the status of their forces and a die roll (with a ceiling of nineteen).

Two counter sheets (with full unit sets for each battle).

Rebel Fury has been specifically designed as a low counter-density game; the unit and distance scales helps in this regard. The game comes with two counter-sheets. These are mostly 9/16” counters representing units and HQs, fortifications and fieldworks. Then there are a small number of smaller, 1/2" counters. Mostly these represent smaller detached units (regiment-sized) as detailed in the scenario. As mentioned earlier, there are complete sets of Federal and CSA troop counters for each scenario in the game. As mentioned on the back of the box, it would feasibly be possible to play three separate games with five friends at the same time (though you might want to photocopy the turn track sheet so you’re not getting in each other’s way). This is of course, sheer fantasy; most gamers have enough trouble finding two players available at the same time for a game of Churchill (GMT Games, 2015), but it’s a nice idea.

Unit and HQ counters, Front (Maneuver Formation).

Unit and HQ counters, Back (Battle Formation - not the unmounted cavalry).

The counters are quite attractive. The Union is represented in a muted blue, the Confederates in a beige. In fact, the colour palette for the whole production is forgivingly downplayed. There’s enough differentiation between the forces that there is no danger of confusion, but you’re not getting slapped in the face by an onslaught of bright colours, which I garners my thankful appreciation.

The basic unit is the Division, and these have two states; Maneuver Formation and Battle Formation (see the close-up photos). When in Maneuver formation, a unit can move up to four hexes (double that in an activation if they continue on roads or rails), but some terrains and enemy Zones of Influence will stop a unit in its tracks and require it to change to Battle formation, ending its movement for that turn. Some terrains will stop a unit and switch it to Battle Formation as well. While in Battle formation a unit can only move one hex per activation, but they’re ready for battle, so there’s that.

Yes, there are spurs, but they're tiny.

On the subject of the counters, these little guys come out so cleanly – without even resorting to a craft knife – that I’m considering the wisdom corner-clipping. Who am I kidding; I’ll probably end up clipping them anyway, but I’m going to play a game or two unclipped first, just for the nostalgia value, if nothing else.

All in all, Rebel Fury promises to be a playable brigade-level game of broad scope, and simple enough to teach through play. One aspect of particular appeal to me was mentioned in the online description (but not on the box – though I can understand not wanting to commit too ardently to this), that at least some of the scenarios will play out in an hour or so. Regardless, this is a game that appeals to me in so many levels, not the least that it should play out quickly, one everyone involved has their heads around the rules and stick to the Sequence of Play. As always, the a PDF rules are available online on the Rebel Fury product page of the GMT website, so I’d encourage you to have a look at those. 

A review will be forthcoming (as usual, after I've managed to get this to the table three or four times). In the meantime, thanks for reading this far, and good gaming.

Erratum

After posting, I realised I'd neglected to mention a crucial component of the game (and one less crucial). But what could be more war-gamey than adding errata after publication?

Rebel Fury comes with two ten-sided dice, one blue, one grey, as befitting an ACW game. A roll of 0 is treated as a zero result, not a ten. The dice pack also includes a special red six-sided die, printed with explosions on three faces, and a weary or stumbling soldier silhouette adorning the other three. This is "used exclusively in retreat situations in certain terrain types". 

The game also comes with baggies enough to accommodate each force in each battle separately, and divide the marker counters up in a useful way. I've always wondered how companies come to the number of bags appropriate for a game, and how they ensure the right number goes into each box. Do they weigh them on extremely delicate scales? Do they get the work-experience kid to sit down and count fifteen and only fifteen bags out 3,000 times? 

It should be pointed out that Rebel Fury comes in a two-inch box, deep enough to accommodate all the materials and a couple of counter trays, if you're more a counter tray person than a baggie person. What surprised me a little was the game comes without an insert. These are added to games to keep the components from moving around too much in the box during shipping, which may cause some bruising. This is probably more of an issue with games incorporating mounted maps. My copy came all the way to Australia and arrived in perfect condition, so I don't think it's an issue in this case.

State of Play: WWII Commander: Battle of the Bulge

   

 

On the back of finally running off a review for 1944: Battle of the Bulge (Worthington Games, 2020 – you can find the review here), I realised I was keen to revisit another fast-playing Bulge game, John Butterfield’s WWII Commander: Battle of the Bulge (Compass Games, 2020). I played it a lot two-handed when it first arrived, but haven’t pulled it out in a while, and hadn’t played it against another human being until last night.

I was on the fence for WWIIC:BotB (another annoying acronym, sorry), for a long time. I came close to buying it a couple of times, but always saw something I wanted more at the time. The clincher for me was the announcement of a second volume, WWII Commander: Market Garden (Compass Games, likely release 2024).

Early morning, December 16, Some of the Allied troops
begin the game engaged with the enemy.

I decided to go easy on T and play out the three-turn short scenario, Drive to the Meuse. I probably needn’t have; it’s a laudably simple system and T picked it up by the end of the German surprise attack rounds. But it did make for an earlier night.

T played the Germans. To reflect the sheer unexpectedness of – and lack of preparedness for – the counterattack among the Allied leadership, the German player gets three ‘surprise’ impulses before the first game turn begins. In these pre-start impulses, the German player can only activate infantry units (this is merely prep work - he’s saving his armour for the big push), so they cannot drive deeply into the Allied held territory, but the picket line of American forces is so thin, T was able to neutralise one cavalry and two infantry units (and take control of three areas) before the counteroffensive really even began.

Early German advances.

Once the game begins, the days impulses are tracked on a track marking off the daylight hours in 1½ hour increments, with the Germans acting on the half-hour impulses and the Allies on the solid hour impulses. The Germans always have the first impulse of the day and the Allies the last. In an impulse the active player can activate all his units in one area (this will never be more than three units). If the units are in an area also occupied by the enemy, they must attack the immediate threat; neither side can leave an area also occupied by the enemy (called a contested area in the game). Otherwise, they can move to an adjacent area (and perform an attack if enemy units occupy that area), armour units can move two areas if sticking to the roads, and they ay be eligible for Strategic movement (I’ll come back to this).

Like any Bulge game, WWIIC:BotB is all about lines of supply, particularly the German lines of supply, and Drive to the Meuse more so, because of its single victory condition. A win is tantalisingly within reach of the Germans, if they can gain control of an area adjacent to the Meuse River with an in-supply armoured unit. It’s tough call, but it should be possible. T made a good show of it in his early impulses, managing to clear a way through the thin line of American troops marking out the front, and clearing a way for the 12SS Panzer division to make it clear through to Duffet early in the December 17^th turn (the second full turn). What he failed to do was build a support corridor by concentrating his efforts on maintaining a clear path behind the 12^th SS to keep the division in supply. Building that kind of reinforced corridor in so short a time is challenging, but I’m sure there must be a way to do it (though in my solo games I haven’t yet been able to make it work).

Activated units get a black reminder cube when they're done. These are all taken off
in housekeeping at the end of the day/turn.

WWIIC:BotB is a clever game in that while it’s kept relatively simple, adds a lot of the conditions at play for both sides by adding some rules exceptions. Strategic movement – traversing three areas instead of one or two – is possible if the movement takes place on a contiguous road and begins and ends in areas free of enemy units. Strategic movement is available to all allied units (reflecting the superior levels of resources available to them) but only to armour units on the German side (the German infantry not having the trucks to hand, and all the fuel being quarantined for the panzers). This is a definite plus for the Allies, with a greater distance to cover and their reinforcements coming on piecemeal from different points on the map edges, but it prevents the Germans from quickly securing their flanks in their big push.

While he reached the Meuse more quickly than I’d been able to manage in a handful of games, my allied units managed to close every access road to his position, cutting T’s supply line and prohibiting his near victory, but it took every resource at my disposal to snatch that defeat. I thought T had it in the bag when he took Bastogne in the second half of December 17 (turn 2), but he didn't press his advantage and I was able to manoeuvre some rather weak units to cut all the supply roads, some enough of a distance from his troops to not be harassed, others uncomfortably close to full-strength infantry and armour units. Most remained unmolested. In the last couple of impulses T saw what I was doing but it was too late; the damage had been done.

We’re keen to play though the full game next week. That can be won by victory points alone, although it’s still a slog for the Germans. All the Allies have to do is block the German advance as best they can, the in the later turns, supply shortages will begin to cut the Germans’ legs out from under them. Time will tell.

 

End-state. Two German divisions crossed the Meuse into Liege, but had
their last supply access route severed in the final impulse of the game.