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.