Review: Brief Border Wars

 

 

We need a short, victorious war to avert a revolution.

- [attributed to] Vyacheslav von Plehve, Minister of the Interior to Tsar Nicolas II.

 

 

Brief Border Wars (Compass Games, 2020) is a set of four games using the same basic system, with exclusive rules for each game, to explore four little regarded modern conflicts (one, I‘ll admit, I’d never heard of before getting the game), which all occurred within my lifetime. The series rules for Brief Border Wars are based on Brian Train’s earlier game, Ukrainian Crisis (released in a double-pack with “The Little War” (Hollandspiele, 2017), which began as a response to the Russian “liberation” of the Crimea in 2014. I haven’t played Ukrainian Crisis, but I have played quite a bit of Brief Border Wars now, and I feel comfortable talking about it.

 

Appearance

The box-cover of Brief Border Wars is reminiscent of the old SPI quad games, with a picture representing each of the four conflicts featured in the set. The first “proper wargame” I ever owned – one that wasn’t a cience fiction or fantasy-based gamewas a second-hand copy of SPI’s Modern Battles II: Four Contemporary Conflicts (SPI, 1977), so his set off some nostalgia chimes from the get-go for me.

The game covers four limited conflicts; the So-called Football War between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969, Operation Atilla – the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, and the 1979 Chinese incursion into Vietnam, referred to as the Third Indochina War. Then we skip forward to 2006 for the Israeli incursion into Southern Lebanon Second Lebanon War.

Initial set-up for Operation Atilla: the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, 1974.

In the box you’ll find one set of series rules, four sets of exclusive rules, four single-sided maps, and a deck of 54 cards (good quality, but since you’’ go through the entire deck every game, they probably warrant sleeving), as well as counters and two dice. The production values on all the components are very good. The maps are heavy, matt-finish paper. I’ve tended to play under a plexi-sheet, but they lay flat enough that you don’t need a cover if you prefer the naked surface. I’ll come back to the cards later, but I would like to take a moment to talk about the dice, because it’ my one fundamental issue with the came as it comes. I’m not the first to bring this up, but in a single round of combat it’s not unheard of for both players to be rolling ten or more dice. And the box offers two, one black and one white. These days, ten-sided dice are readily available from hobby stores and online. My advice would be, before you try to play any of the battles in Brief Border Wars, secure a handful of ten-siders – at least eight or ten of them, more if you prefer each player to have their own set. Nine or ten dice will cover most of your combat actions, though occasionally you may need to re-roll a couple of the unsuccessful dice to make up your quota.

The four maps are presented as topographical of the contested area; these may be actual photographs or doctored illustrations based on photographs of each contested area. Each map is divided into areas, usually with a national border segregating one country’s sovereign territory from another’s (with the exception of Operation: Atilla, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974). The game comes with a single sheet of counters for all four games. There are some administrative counters shared between the four games, and each side fields around sixteen to twenty-something units, depending on the battle.

Honduran forces meet Venezuelan units inside the Honduran border, (the Football War, 1969).
The bold red line is the national border, the dotted lines define areas for movement, while
the golden lines are roads, which may facilitate swifter movement for motorised units.

The base rules-set is a mere four pages – I mentioned its simplicity – printed on bi-fold cardstock, like a PAC.’ At first, I thought it was a curious choice, but with so short a rules-set it makes sense. The first couple of times we played, I found myself referring to the rules a lot, so it was really easy to find what I needed.  The exclusive rules are also presented the same way. Each set of exclusive rules included a Sequence of play on the back page, so they double as a PAC.

 

Play

Brief Border Wars, like many quad games before it, uses a set of series rules, which in this case amount to a mere four pages, and some exclusive rules (usually another four pages, five in the case of the Second Lebanon War). The rules are clearly prepared and easy to comprehend. My brother-in-law, coming to the game with very little background in hex-and-counter wargaming picked it up very quickly, and was holding his own by the second game (I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention absolutely crushing T in our first game together, the Third Indochina War, but I maintain losing a game is the best way to learn a game).

Play is card driven. The card-deck is two matching suits of cards, each twenty-one-card suit identified on the back with a grey or white stripe. Each faction is delegated one or the other suit in the scenario instructions. In the Card Selection Phase, one of the players draws six cards off the top of the deck, and divvies-up the white and grey-striped cards. This random distribution means that there will often be a disproportionate number of cads going to one or the other player. Whichever player holds the higher number of cards goes first, and the players take turns playing their cards until the last card has been played. Sometimes this will mean a player is playing two or more cards consecutively to end the turn. This may lend a temporary advantage to the player in question, but given the nature of the decks, the advantage of numbers will swing to the other player in consecutive turns.

Exclusive rules folio for the Second Lebanon War.

The twenty of the cards in each suit have two values, Combat and Movement, and each card may be used for one or another of these. The numbers on a card dictate how many units may be activated by that play, either to engage in combat (with an enemy unit or units in the same area) or it the card is used for Movement activation, the number that can be ordered to move. As a rule, units activated for movement can move from their current area to an adjacent area. In some cases, mechanised units can move through one area and into a second in a single activation if a single road links the traversed areas. A unit entering an area with an undisrupted enemy unit must stop, nor can it leave that area so long as an undisrupted enemy unit is present (this can be useful for anchoring your opponent’s units in place). Units sharing an area with enemy units aren’t compelled to fight, but until all the units on one side are disrupted or have been forced to retreat, nobody is leaving that area.

Combat is simultaneous; both sides roll and establish the number of hits against the other. The units in Brief Border Wars have one big numeral (usually value 1-3) in the bottom-left corner. This is the unit’s Combat Value, and it equates the number of dice it will roll in combat. The instigator declares which units are participating (and they may be able to call in air support to add to their number, while the defender in the space can add the defensive value of the terrain in the area (as marked on the map; +1 die each for forest or mountains (these stack if both are present) plus another two if the area sports a city). The respective buckets of dice are rolled, and hits are garnered on results of 5 or 6. Distribution of hits on the units involved is decided by the side dealing the violence.

The Combat Value of a unit does double-duty. If a unit receives less hits than it’s Combat Value, it is flipped to its disrupted side, which shows a lower CV. While disrupted, it can’t move or attack. But it can still defend itself without penalty. If the unit received more than it’s CV, it’s removed from the area and placed in the faction’s Damaged Units box. It’s possible to get them back in the fight (rebuilding the unit), but you must spend your limited card resources activating it for movement, then roll a on a single die to move the damaged unit from the Damaged Units box to the Rear Area box, then another activation to get them back onto the map. While not a permanent loss, units sent to the Damaged Box may never see action again before game’s end. This can lead to some difficult decisions around force maintenance for both sides.

Who can tell what the future holds (beyond more uncertainty): Random Event Card.

The remaining card in each suit is a Random Event card. A random event table features in the exclusive rules for each game. When the Random even cart is played the drawing player rolls a d6 and consults the table. The random events add some uncertainty to the play and may affect one or both sides.

Each player also holds six Special Action cards. The player may choose to use one of these cards in lieu of an activation card. A Special Action card may be used to un-disrupt all the disrupted units in a single area (kind of a field refit and consolidation action) or all the disrupted units in the Rear Area. Like all nice things in Brief Border Wars, these are a limited resource and should be used selectively.

Vietnamese units (red) desperately try to stem the tide of Chinese forces streaming
over the border in the Eastern near the line of delineation (the red dotted line) between
the Eastern and Western Fronts.

The forces are asymmetrical, as was the situation in each historical case, and there is a definite sense of aggressor and aggrieved in each situation (in the context of the battle). As a rule, the aggressor has the upper hand in forces and materiel, but the defenders usually have the home ground advantage.

The game ends with the completion of the seventh turn (occasionally at the end of the sixth turn due to political pressures (a possible random event). Assessing victory is simple. The aggressor accrues Victory Points for holding locations – usually cities – with unchallenged, non-disrupted forces (i.e., areas with at least one functioning unit and no undisrupted enemy units present).

 

Appraisal

Brief Border Wars lives up to its name. The four conflicts represented ran from a few days to a couple of months in duration, and the consequence for each influenced relations between the antagonists for years or decades after.

Venezuelans and Hondurans both call in air support.
(Please forgive the sloppy unit placement.)

This game ticks a lot of boxes for me. One of the things I love about these situations is the low counter density. On a 17” by 22’ map (the game is not at all a space-hog) it can look a little busy, but the counters are manageable. This is one of the factors that make the game an excellent introductory wargame for newcomers.

Having said that, there is a lot of strategic depth to the game. As the antagonist, it’s a simple thing to see what you need to do; there is some flexibility in your approach, but you essentially have to take and hold a certain point-value real-estate to win any kind of victory. But you’re not only playing against your opponent; you’re also playing against the clock. You may have seven rounds in which to achieve your mission, but you can only count on six of them. And with twenty action cards in the deck, if you get an early run of your own cards, you know that is going to come back and bite you later in the game. Any of the scenarios in Brief Border Wars shouldn’t take much more than ninety minutes to play. Once you’re familiar with the dynamics and the, for want of a better word, the nature of the game, You should be able to get a complete game played inside of seventy minutes, including set-up time.

The situation in the Third Indochina War at the end of Turn Four.
(Please forgive the plexi-flare).

The battles are remarkably well-balanced. While the contesting forces are uneven (one side always has the advantage in men or materiel on paper, but the smaller force always has the home-ground advantage and can often run a mostly defensive response to the aggressor’s incursion and have a good chance at denying them their victory conditions. This and the intuitive rules (combined with the low counter density, and a healthy level of randomness in the combat and the twice-visited Events Table), all contribute to making Brief Border Wars my go-to game for introducing really green players to the nuances of wargaming.

Another aspect of the game is its awareness-raising value. Brief Border Wars presents four seriously under-represented battles. With each one, Mr Train offers a brief historical context, painting the broader geopolitical context of the particular conflict. A bibliography for each battle would have been nice, but I can appreciate that being left out for the sake of maintaining the brevity of the rules.

Brief Border Wars is still available for order through your FLGS, and can be purchased directly from the publisher (at time of writing, at a discounted price during the Compass Annual Catalogue Sale). There will be a Brief Border Wars 2 (Compass Games, ~2025) coming – probably as early as the first half of next year – promising more of the same, but with a difference; the battles featured in the second volume will date from 1913 through to the beginning of the Second World War, including the Italo-Greek War and the Battle of Khalkin Gul. For a challenging and satisfying wargame that’s playable in a shortish time, I can’t recommend Brief Border Wars highly enough. That it’s actually four games in one is almost gilding the lily.