State of Play: Dawn’s Early Light: The War of 1812 (The War Room Ten Game Challenge #4)

 

 

The situation at the end of turn 1 (I forgot to get a shot of the initial set up).

 

At last, the drought has broken, both of us are healthy and rested, and work travel is done for my game buddy. This week, T and I sat down to tackle a proper Card-Driven Game (CDG), David McDonough’s Dawn’s Early Light: The War of 1812 (Compass Games, 2020). This has been a long time in the making; back in early May, T and I sat down for a three-turn run at it the Monday before T headed overseas for a couple of weeks (little did we know two weeks would turn into the better part of three months, but I digress).

I’ve been keen to play Dawn’s Early Light against an actual opponent for some time; that’s the reason I put it on my Ten Wargame Challenge list. I played it a couple of times double-handed when I first got the game to get to know it, but it’s not the same experience with CDGs.

T and I haven’t played a lot of conventional CDGs together (outside of Commands & Colors, of course).  During the lock-down of 2020, I introduced him to the Steam version of Twilight Struggle: the Cold War, 1945-1989 (GMT Games, 2005), which helped to keep us sane, but I can’t think of a single Ops/Event CDG we’ve played face to face before now.

Dawn’s Early Light plays over eight turns with a shorter Prelude turn kicking off the action. The Prelude turn involves completely dealing out the twelve-card Prelude deck, then, starting with the Americans, each player taking turns playing four cards. The eight played Prelude cards are then shuffled into the 1812 deck (this deck makes up the majority of the cards in the game; at turn five, a shorter 1814 deck is shuffled into the remaining Each player plays through their seven-card hand through the course of a turn, drawing another seven cards at turn’s end.

There’s a lot to like in this game; nicely illustrated pre-rounded counters, simple
systems for… well… everything, lots of historical flavour, and Nadir Elfarra’s
rather photogenic gameboard. Two focussed players should be able to get
through the game inside of two hours.

A difference between Dawn’s Early Light and many other CDGs I’ve played it that when you play a card with the opposing side’s event for the Ops points, the event isn’t automatically triggered to the opponent’s benefit. Some cards are discarded after the play of particular events, but most go back into the

There are 86 cards in the game, with twelve of these being dealt out in the Prelude round.  The first four turns are played with the larger part of the deck the, 1812 deck (46 cards) then at turn five, the 1814 deck (28 cards) are shuffled in with the discards and the remaining deck to create a new, augmented deck. I haven’t spent enough time with the game to say for certain whether things get easier or tougher in the second half of the game, as we’ll soon see.

The game is scored at the end of each turn on a pendulum score-track, based on territorial holdings and a couple of other factors. Scoring begins from turn 1, and for the first three turns the needle (well, the cardboard score marker) didn’t quiver too much from the centre.

So, to the game. I mentioned this was our second swing at Dawn’ Early light. I took the British both times (the side’s slightly more complex to play, with naval blockades, the chance of amphibious actions, and a good relationship with the native peoples. In our initial practice game, T was strong out of the gate, building up his privateering operations and having some deft luck with his card draws. We got to turn three before deciding to call it, but T was gaining around seven points on me each turn – I was pretty sure the game would be over in America’s favour in the next turn or two if we’d played it out.

We started the game late again but when we got rolling, we managed a good rhythm to the game, punctuated by incoming and outgoing texts on the other side of the table. One of the strengths of Dawn’s Early Light is it’s an easy game to play, which isn’t to say it’s a simple game by any means. Being a CDG, your options are limited to what your hand will accommodate. There is a suite of options for your spending your Ops points, some excusive to one or the other side, and if you’re lucky, you may have some useful Events to play. So long as your opponent isn’t given to fits of analysis paralysis, the game should tick along at a good clip.

For this game, the Prelude turn was more administrative than combative, with both of us trying to bolster our ground forces and prepare for martial action. No fighting, except for some abstracted tussles over navigation control over the Great Lakes waterways. Dawn’s Early Light reflects the history of the War of 1812 very well, both through the card events and the use of simple mechanical functions to cover what might threaten to become complex mini-games within another game. Waterway control is important; it can decide who gets to cross from one area to another and offer a bonus dice for the controlling player in combat for battles adjacent to the waterway. To take control of a waterway is a matter of simple resource allocation. Spend a point to remove the opponent’s marker, and another to place your own. Lakes Erie and Ontario each have two marker-spaces, so you need a majority of markers to control the lake.

At the beginning pf the first Turn, and every odd-turn thereafter, each player may move one of their tokens along the Public Policy tracks. This is another elegantly simple way to reflect the political situation of this very politically-charged conflict. Shunting a marker along one of the tracks will bring some benefit to your side, but at the expense of not choosing another benefit. Your choice may even telegraph to your opponent your strategic intentions. Some card events may also allow one or another marker to go up a notch, but keeping the granted movements to odd turns only prevents serious escalation on multiple political fronts.

The Public Policy matrix at game's end. Each odd-numbered turn, the players can
move one of their markers one space right, gaining the indicated benefit. Some
card events will allow the further progress on the tracks,
or a negative shift on an opposing marker.

Play in the first proper turn reflected the Prelude round; neither of us wanted to engage with the other until we had an edge in numbers on a front. T secured his territories (those marked in green) with troops and forts, and I reinforced the British (Canadian) provinces (in red). The mapboard, prepared by Nadir Elfara, is one of my favourite game maps. It’s not only a gorgeous representation of the theatre, but so many elements crucial to the play of the game are already on the board, while not making it at all feel cluttered. Area-control games can sometimes feel cramped, but the open areas give enough space to the usually smaller forces, so there’s no need for stacking.

The play of a card for Ops points allows the payer to conduct one action. Ops points run from 1 to 4 points to a card, and the rules are quite generous with what you can do with them. As I mentioned, you can add or remove a Waterway control marker for a point. To Recruit troops, you must spend a point (Militia) or two (Regulars), plus a Recruit marker, at a recruitment point (mostly coastal cities), or to upgrade a Militia to a Regular unit at the cost of a point. The recruitment markers are replenished in the housekeeping phase of each turn, but the forces are limited to what comes in the box, which is never enough for either side to cover all the territory required. Similarly, you can conduct an Operations action using a single point to mobilise any or all of the troop in a single area, moving them into an adjacent area or areas. Want to mobilise troops from two areas? That will cost an extra Ops point.  If any troops have been moved into an area already holding enemy units, a battle ensues; no extra point expenditure, but also no avoiding the fight.

A player can use their points to Build a fort in wilderness areas under their control; in Combat, a fort will essentially take the first hit for the controlling side. The British player can also use the build action to raise more ships at one point per squadron. He may even mix-and -match, using his points to build forts and bring in ships in the same action.

In turn 1, I was lucky to be able to play the Spanish Florida card. As I’d already secured the Southern Coast naval blockade, I was able to place two British Regulars in Florida (securing two VPs, so long as I could hold onto it).  In the early turns, T showed his usual aggressive tendencies, attempting to dislodge me from the Florida peninsula (which I managed to fend off), seizing control of Lake Erie and wresting Lake Ontario from British control, and securing hereto neutral Niagara, then turning his attention to the Indians occupying the Creek and Shawnee regions. I expected a follow-up into Upper Canada, but

The British can also send Indian forces on raids of American-held settlements. Raiding is a separate action, and costs a point per region activated, rather than per unit. The Indians cannot hold a settlement and have to withdraw to the area from which they came at the end of a successful raid, but it is worth a VP to the British for each unit they take out. Through the course of the game, I raided Detroit, Nashville (twice), and New Orleans, with mixed results, but it worked to keep T on his toes and distract him a little from my main game.

The Southern Blockade, freshly closed, and the Naval Theater tracks (not yet adjusted
 for the British). Both sides can engage in naval actions; the British can blockade ports
and conduct amphibious actions on coastal cities (provided the player has troops
available in the British Navy Box - another card event function), while the Americans
can engage in Privateering actions. Blockades and successful privateering
operations each earn VPs for the respective sides.

The stars aligned for the British in Turn 5. I’d managed to gain about a four-point lead and to hold it at the end of turn four, after the Americans had held a slight edge for the first three rounds. A good hand came my way in the fifth and saw an opportunity. In Dawn’s Early Light, the Americans always begin card play each turn. This also played to my advantage. Throughout the game I had managed to maintain a complete blockade of the Eastern coast, from Boston to New Orleans. Early in the turn Loyalist militia marched into Detroit after an Indian raid had left it defenceless in the previous turn, while the two regular units in Florida finally made their move on Savannah on the same Operations play, meeeting little resistance. Detroit was quickly lost again to American forces marching from T feared the worst and began building up his defences in New York and Boston, fearing a push on his hub ports.

After T had played his last card, I closed the trap. With an Ops 3, British units swept down from the Maritimes to occupy Penobscot, others left Kingston to challenge the Hudson, while the occupying force in the hard-won Carolinas marched north to secure the Shenandoah. There were heavy losses on both sides, but the British prevailed in each assault. After the victory points were tallied, I had just enough of a margin to carry me to the 20 points needed for a win. It was by no means guaranteed, and that made victory all the sweeter. I’m not normally one to crow about a win, but this one was kind of special. I refrained from doing a victory lap around the table. T was a good sport about the loss, and probably grateful we didn’t have to play through to the final round, as it was getting late.

Game state at the end of turn 5. The British have explained a few things
to their trans-Atlantic cousins.

From my limited experience with Dawn’s Early Light, I suspect the British need to aggressively prosecute the war right out of the gate if they want a chance of winning. There are things they can do relatively passively in the first few turns, such as controlling the Great Lakes waterways and building up their naval blockades – a wall solid blockade wall will earn a lazy five points if you can maintain it through the end of the turn – but that won’t be enough to make any headway of the Americans secure their towns and farmlands. Without an insistent push into American territories, a slow victory creep will set in for the American side. That’s not to say it’s a cakewalk for the Americans. They have to use every tool in their box to keep the British (and the local tribes) at bay,

T's impression of the game was very positive, even though he wasn’t victorious this time. He is keen for a rematch, and  I can see it becoming a staple of play when I’m not foisting on him some new game on my Ten Game Challenge list. I’d like to tackle Walter Vejdovsky’s Waterloo, 1815: Fallen Eagles II (Hexasim, 2022) next, though, as we’ve seen, plans don’t always play out as we’d like.