Stripped Down for Parts: Monty’s Gamble: Market Garden

 

 

 

I have a couple of Mike Rinella’s area impulse games (Last Battle: Ia Shima, 1945 (Take Aim Designs/Revolution Games, 2015) and Return to the Rock: Corregidor, 1945 (Take Aim Designs/Revolution Games, 2020); unboxing posts here and here respectively), both of which are fun to play, but quite brief; not unsatisfyingly so, but I’ve been curious as to how a larger game would play out. So, when a second-hand, unpunched copy of Monty’s Gamble: Market Garden (Multi-Man Publishing. 2019) came up one of the usual channels, I jumped on it.

Since then, it’s languished on my TBP stack for a few months while I’ve been distracted with other things. Since then, I’ve received and played WWII Commander: Vol. 2 - Market Garden (Compass Games, 2025 – here’s an unboxing and short AAR), and I thought it’s about time I showed Monty’s Gamble some joy.

The thing you don’t notice straight away is this is actually the Second Edition of Monty’s Gamble. The First Edition was also published by MMP, back in 2003. The thing is, there’s nothing on the box-cover to indicate the Second Edition IS a second edition.

The cover illustration, a montage of images from the period, all in line with the Market Garden theme, differentiates the second edition from the first, which features a peculiar portrait of a British paratrooper that looks like a lifeless mannequin. The box cover of the first edition was described by one BGG user as Paras in the uncanny valley.* The second edition cover is a vast improvement.

Box back.

The top of the box-back offers a teaser of the map (the region around Arnhem) and the counters, all at roughly true size. The blurb leads with the game being “a reprint of MMP’s highly acclaimed game of Operation Market Garden […],” and a short historical backgrounder for the uninitiated. We eventually learn (In the third paragraph) that this is an updated version of the original printed game, and now includes Fortress Holland, 1940, which was originally featured (counters and a rulebook) in Operations Special Issue #2. That’s right, with Second ed. Monty’s Gamble, you’re actually getting two games.

The game’s Complexity is rated Medium in MMP’s truncated three-tier rating scheme, and the Solitaire suitability is marked as High. This feels right from what I’ve seen so far. No indication on how long a game should take to play out; I guess I’m just going to have to find that out for myself. Also, no indication of age suitability, but I suppose the usual catch-all of “14+” would probably apply here as well.

Rulebook. 

Coming from Mr Rinella’s zip-loc bag games with their short but thorough rules, parred down to the very specific subject at hand, the 44-page book that comes with the second edition was a little daunting at first blush, but you shouldn’t be deterred by this. The rules for Monty’s Gamble only take up twenty-five well-spaced and illustrated pages.. Another six are devoted to some very well illustrated examples of play, while the last nine pages offer alternative rules for a second game, Fortress Holland, 1940.

Rulebook sample page: Example of Play and the Fortress Holland
bonus game rules. The rulebook is colour throughout.

The remaining pages are given over to the cover and a detailed Contents page. The rules are set out well, in dual columns, set in a nice readable Garamond-style font. A cursory read-through hasn’t raised any flags for difficulty understanding the concepts at play, but the proof will, of course, be in the play. Attention is given over to supply issues for both the Allies and Germans, which is how the situation should be approached. I’ve liked Mr Rinella’s rules in the past; they tend toward clarity and concision in the couple of other games of his I have played, and I don’t anticipate any departure from the standard here.

The map.

The map is a single, sightly oversized sheet (38 ½” by 24 ¼”, even though the back-of-the-box inventory states a standard 34” by 22”) covering the theatre of battle from Hoeze in the south the Heeve in the north. As previously mentioned the game is an area movement/control model, with a scale of roughly 1½ miles to a map inch, and is the work of noted wargame artist and designer, Nicolas Eskubi. The map art looks almost like a satellite representation of the terrain, overlaid with road and rail paths, bridges, and towns, along with white chalk-line markings separating the landscape into controllable areas for the regulation of movement and measuring of success. Each area of the map is bound by the white markings or by watercourses where the white boundaries meet rivers or canals.

Map detail: Nijmegen and environs.

Historically, the action of Operations Market and Garden took place in a long salient corridor along a highway dubbed the Club Route by the planners, with American, British, and Polish paratroopers dropping in to secure a series of key bridges, and the British XXX Armoured Corps rushing to secure a line of supply and relieve the beleaguered paras. The map reflects this, with the playable area running diagonally across the map-sheet, flanked at diagonally opposite corners by crucial charts and record tracks.

Map detail: the Allied Tracking corner.

I like a game that manages to fit the tracking needs for play actually on the board; this saves a lot of time otherwise spent rifling through PACs or (the horror) the rulebook, thereby breaking the cadence of play. Here the Axis player tracks the Game Turn and Impulse quotas, as well as their own Air Interdiction and Construction capabilities, while the Allied player tracks Supply and Victory Points, and their Bombardment and Drop Supply capabilities and availability of Assault Boats for river crossing. Each side can also access some crucial tables (Bridge Seizure/Bridge Demolition, Bombardment resolution and Attrition Points), and a mnemonic key for Isolation rolls, another key characteristic of the action around the operation.

My only gripe with the map is the folding; it’s folded into four sections length-wise (three folds) and three width-wise (two folds). I understand the necessity for this – with the extra couple of inches width and length a standard eight-section fold wouldn’t allow the map to fit into the box. The extra fold peaks will necessitate the use of a plexi-glass sheet, which I do have, but at 36” by 24” (poster size), it isn’t going to completely cover the map, which will annoy me more than it reasonably should. I’ll try to not take it out on the game when I come to review it.

Counter sheets 1&3.

Counter sheets 2&4.

Monty’s Gamble comes with four counter sheets of 5/8” counters on white-core cardstock; two full sheets, one half sheet and one quarter-ish sheet. The counters aren’t chunky, but they’re thick enough to not be awkward to play with on the map. The counters needed for the Market Garden are to be found on the two full-sized sprues, and nearly all the counters for the Fortress Holland game are provided on the two cut-down counter-sheets. Nearly half of the counters across the two games are administrative or mnemonic markers for recording area control and unit status, along with the expected Turn and VP markers and such.

The unit counters are clearly readable, in keeping with MPP’s good work in this regard. They are comprise of the somewhat standard mix of NATO symbols for leg units with armour represented by a silhouette of most prevalent vehicle type in the unit. These are predominantly battalion- and regiment-sized units, though some brigades and even divisions are represented. Personally, I don’t mind all NATO symbols, but I don’t begrudge others their tanks if it helps create a more immersive play experience. 

German Set-up and Reinforcement sheets.

Each side gets two light cardstock sheets. The German player has a Set-Up card and a Reinforcement card. By dint of having fewer units on the board at the outset, the German Set-up card also features a Sequence of Play, as well as a list of optional unit directives for the Airborne Landing Phase, and priorities for retreat of units (these apply to both sides).

Allied Set-up and Reinforcement sheets.

The Allied player receives an Allied Set-Up and D-Day Sequence of Play card and an Allied Reinforcements card. The D-Day Sequence of Play is a simple three-phase process with another couple of lines outlining some limitations to the Allied actions in this part of the turn. A little of the play is scripted in the initial turn; paratrooper units can choose to attempt to seize their target bridge, but they are then Spent for the turn, which will have ramifications in any ensuing combat, while the Allied player must conduct an Assault action with at least one armoured Guards unit from among their initial XXX Corps land units in the opening turn.

Box and dice, with a friendly packing note from the folks at MMP.

The box is roughly standard size and 1½" deep. The construction card is on the lighter side, but perfectly adequate for the contents, which don’t add up to too much weight. The game come with four six-sided dice – two red and two white. The rules advise the white dice are for German use, and the red for the Allies. Combat rolls are simultaneous, and the rules recommend both players make their rolls into the same receptacle, and stipulate that if a die lands outside the tray, only that die is re-rolled (something that some folks apparently take issue – or liberties – with). The dice will be familiar to anyone who has purchased or played MMP games in the past. They are a little smaller than I prefer, but are perfectly suitable for the task.

 

 

* Replying to the comment on BGG, Mr Rinella was quick to mention he did not sign off on the original cover design.

 

 

Stripped Down for Parts: Panzer Battles: 11th Panzer on the Chir River

  

  

I've recently been on a second-hand game binge, and as I’ve raised elsewhere on this blog, it never ceases to amaze me how many of these have reentered the wargame /commerce ecosystem unpunched. Occasionally, they've still been shrouded in their original shrink (like the copy of Waterloo, 1815: Fallen Eagles II (Hexasim, 2022) that came with the one I’m looking at today), but a lot of the time somebody has received the game, taken everything out an examined it, maybe read though the rules, then boxed it up again, never to play it.

Panzer Battles: 11^th Panzer on the Chir River (Multi-Man Publishing/The Gamers, 2016) was another one like this. On the outside it looks a little more second-hand than some (the box lid looks pretty good, just a little dishing, but there’s a significant compression wrinkle running from the bottom corner for about four inches on the bucket-half; as I’ve said before, that doesn’t concern me too much, so long as the stuff inside is fine, which you’ll soon see, is the case).

This has been a month of firsts. Panzer Battles came in the same bundle as Somalia: Interventions (Schutze Games, 1998), which I unpacked here. That was my first Schutze game, and it was my first ever Blue Panther-produced game. This isn’t my first Multi-Man Publishing game (that appellation goes to Lincoln’s War (MMP, 2013)), but Panzer Battles is my first Standard Combat Series (SCS) game. This is a series with some longevity (Panzer Battles is the 19^th instalment). According to Boardgamegeek, there are 27 volumes in total, although several games making up this count are second editions covering the same situation, like Ardennes II (MMP/The Gamers, 2023). I don’t know if this was the best place to start, but this one was available, and the price was right.

Panzer Battles is also my first wargame designed by Dean Essig. Mr Essig passed away in 2024, and his loss was felt throughout the greater wargaming community. He laid the groundwork for not only the SCS series, but seven other series rules-sets as well. An extraordinarily prolific designer and artist 95 citations on BGG), Mr Essig was a CSR/Clauswitz Hall of Famer and earned a clutch of awards for both his design and artistic contributions to the hobby. I never corresponded with Mr Essig, but many people I respect in the hobby held a lot of respect for the designer and warmth for the man. He will be remembered fondly.

Panzer Battles cover art. The guy in front of the Panzer III looks
too short to be a Stormtrooper.

The cover leaves no doubt as to what you can expect here. German infantry on the move through a snowy plain, in support of a Panzer III in the middle ground, all heading toward the smoke. Some folks complained about what they thought was the use of AI art on the cover of Ardennes II. I don’t know for a fact, but to me this looks more like some Photoshop work from an original black and white photograph, circa ’41 or ’42. The image is clear and evocative. The cove also features the 11^th Panzer’s crest. I get the gratuitous use of some symbology of national socialism is anathema (and it is often gratuitous, used on the premise that any publicity is good publicity), but I really don’t have a problem with this kind of graphic use any more than I would the Desert Rat insignia, the LRDG's Scorpion stencil, or the Big Red One patch in a similar situation.

Box back.

I’m by no means an expert on the Eastern Front, so please forgive me if I overlook or ignore any crucial details here, but here’s a thumbnail of the situation. The 11^th Panzer was fresh to the Eastern Front and at full compliment when it was assigned to be part of the attempt to relive the encircled elements of Army Group South near Stalingrad. Running into a major Soviet advance, the division conducted “a text-book example of a mobile defense and counter attack which is studied to this day,” managing to “defeat the Soviet mechanized drive,” but at the cost of relieving the pressure on the trapped divisions, who succumbed to the overwhelming weight of the Russian impress.

The game description on the back of the box is written for someone with more of a background in this chapter of military history than I possess, but a Dean Essig game isn’t for the faint of heart.

The Series rules - A head-start on learning other SCS games.

I’m really impressed with the quality of the paper used for the rulebooks, it’s a stiff (I’m guessing about 100-120gsm), matte paper with a nice texture that will take pencil notations really well (not something I’d ever insist on in a game but appreciated nonetheless).

I need to spend some more time on this, but the series rules (version 1.8) seem to be quite straight forward and coherent (which, by the nineteenth game in a series, you’d kind of expect them to be), and tight; at a mere eight pages (with graphical examples). Even though the publisher rates the solitaire play at moderate, I can’t see any reason why Panzer battles shouldn’t run quite smoothly with two-handed play.

Let's get down to specifics: the Panzer Battles Exclusive rules.

The twelve-page Exclusive Rulebook for Panzer Battle breaks down into roughly four pages of exclusive rules and designer’s notes, Six pages covering the game’s four scenarios, and a page of notes on the two sides’ Orders of Battle (for chit-draw activation). The back cover fills the role of a Player Aid Card, providing the game’s Combat Results Table, Terrain Effects Chart, Kill Roll instructions and a reminder note covering the Artillery DG Roll rule. I’ll probably photocopy and sleeve this for ease of use at the table.

There’s a big distance between the two shorter one-map scenarios (“State Farm 79” and “I’ll Be Balck” both played on Map-B), at just two turns each, and the full Panzer Battles campaign (which is still only six turns. I may have missed it, but I’m not quite sure what the turn duration scale is. The six-turn campaign game covers fourteen calendar days of action. The Containment Battles scenario, reflecting six calendar days of action, also runs for six turns. So, I think the duration for a turn is a little abstract. I’ll be interested to investigate other SCS games to see how this is handled.

The breakdown of forces on each side is authoritative. MMP/The Gamers have a reputation for solid research on Orders of Battle, and it’s borne out here in the unit breakdown. As mentioned, the rules use a chit draw activation system which activates a large set of units (for the Germans, either the motivated and well-led 11^th Panzer division or all the other units not attached to the 11^th Panzer; for the soviets, either the 1^st Tank/5^th Mechanised division, All Infantry/Cavalry, “All Units”, or Air Support. The unit scale is primarily company-sized (some battalions among the Soviet units). I starting to see how a two-turn game could take more time to play out than I first anticipated.

A lot of ground to cover: the two adjoining maps. I always appreciate when the terrain
legend and turn track are both incorporated into the map-sheet.

Panzer Battles comes with two 22” by34” maps which meet on a long edge to make a 34” by 43” (you lose about three-quarters of an inch with the overlap) area for the two larger scenarios, the Campaign scenario of seven turns, and Containment Battles, which runs to six turns. The game also comes with two smaller, shorter scenarios which only require Map B, and run over two turns each.

The maps are nicely drafted and fit for purpose. The background colour is a creamed butter, or a couple of shades lighter (if you doubt me, compare one to the stark white verso of the other). I don’t know snow, having never lived anywhere snowy, but the action takes place in December, so this is an appropriate colour choice without going blindingly white. The roads, trails and rail tracks are clearly marked, and the few elevated points marked with red triangles noting the peak altitude points.

Flawless registration, not cleanliness, is next to Godliness.

The game come with a single full sheet of 1/2” (a touch above 12.5mm) counters, not my preferred size, but they are well laid out and mostly quite readable, although I’ll need reading glasses for the formation details (perpendicular to the unit symbol on the right, in about 3-pica).The colour variance is good between the formations; the German greys are easily differentiated, while the 11^th Panzer – the workhorses of the German activity, have an identifying horizontal stripe. The Soviet forces are equally clearly identified, with the traditional tan variations for regular army and red for Guards units. Both sides have high quotients (around a quarter of their overall unit counts each) with mechanised movement ratings (12 MPs to leg units’ 6), making for a more dynamic battlefield situation.

The counters are printed on a reasonable thickness white-core card-stock. The sheet is warping a little, but that could be from the environment the game had been stored in before it moved to Adelaide (decidedly less humid than, say, Brisbane). The registration of the counters is spot-on. I cannot trace any bleed either side where the counters’ background colour changes mid-row. This is rarely an issue these days with a lot of games I see being pre-rounded easy-punch boards with a clear delimitation between counters, but it’s tougher to get perfect with traditional die-cut sheets. Hats-off to the production team.

Dice and a kind note.

Finally, Panzer Battles comes with two six-sided dice, one white, one green, and a small, printed message exclusive to the game, but presumably common to all MMP products. The note explains that the company is committed to producing quality games, and should the purchaser have any issues with the product in their hands, they should contact MMP directly via the various means of communication listed on the note, along with a list of the components that should be present in the box.

I've received excellent service from a couple of game publishers when problems have arisen, but this is a proactive cut above the others, and the publisher should be applauded for their foresight and commitment to service.

-----

From the little time I’ve spent with Panzer Battles, it looks like it will make a good introduction to the SCS system, and as I've already mentioned, should be comfortably solo-able. It’s the very beginning of the year, and I haven’t made any plans for what to get to first (except for the Commands and Colors: Medieval - Crusades Expansion (GMT, 2024) that I want to review before the end of the month. If I can clear an afternoon, and the wife doesn’t need her sewing table, I’ll try to get one of the short scenarios done and write up an AAR. Better get clipping.

 

 

By the Numbers: Wargame Collection by Publisher

 

 

I’ve been delving into the stats of my game collection. I keep a spreadsheet of what games we have, which has come in useful lately; I’ve been selling off a bunch of family games that we’ve either never played or are unlikely to go back to. My wife comes from a gaming family, and she has her old favourites (like Win, Place & Show (Avalon Hill, 1977, but originally part of the 3M Sports Game series), seriously, the best horse-racing game ever made, and Rail Baron (Avalon Hill, 1977)), as well as a few we’ve discovered since we’ve been married (like Dominion (Rio Grande Games, 2008) and Alhambra: the Card Game (Queen Games, 1992), so there’s no point hanging on to stuff that isn’t going to get played. I suppose this is another aspect of my wanting to get more games generally – and wargames in particular – to the table.

I’ve been using the information in my game spreadsheet to keep track of may progress in working through my collection. I wrote about this in a previous post. Here I thought it would be interesting to look at the publisher breakdown of my current collection. Here’s an annoying pie-chart with a hard-to-make-out colour legend.

 

Again, this just covers the base games in the collection. It comes as no surprise to me that the largest chunk of games in my collection comes from GMT Games (44% of core titles). I’ll point out again that these are just the base games; adding the expansions for Commands and Colors: Ancients (2006), C&C: Napoleonics (2010), Combat Commander (2006), Tank Duel (2019), and Wing Leader (2015) would add another 28 titles to that count (I do have a completist tendency that sometimes gets the better of me; it’s one of the reasons I’ve never got into Warfighter (Dan Verssen Games. 2014). I tend to show brand loyalty when it comes to publishers. I was a huge fan of SPI back in the day – their games made up nearly all of my adolescent collection – and I was heartbroken when the company was absorbed (FitA) by TSR. When I started playing and buying wargames again, GMT seemed to be everywhere, and everyone I talked to recommended one or another of their games.

When I was less committed to wargames (spending more time and resources on RPGs), I bought a not inconsiderable number of GMT one-off games quite cheaply as package fillers when buying things from US sellers (damn, but I miss the days of dollar-dollar parity. I’ve got GMT games that I bought from game stores to make up the difference to get free shipping, like Halls of Montezuma (GMT, 2009) and Mike Nagel’s Sun of York (GMT, 2005) but never actually got to the table (though I expect to get to them eventually). This has artificially bloated GMT’s share of my collection.

That brand loyalty has extended to Worthington Publishing (previously Worthington Games) whose games make up over a quarter of the collection. I think I can confidently say I’ve never been disappointed by a Worthington game. A lot of them seem to be on the simpler end of the wargame complexity continuum, and I get why that might put some folks off, but if it's just snobbery, it's misplaced. In my experience, every Worthington game I’ve played, starting with Boots on the Ground (2010), has presented a rich narrative experience with a lot of decision points throughout the play. I’ve played a higher proportion of Worthington titles owned than any other publisher, 18 out of 26 games - nearly 70% - probably because they tend to be easy games to teach and learn. Of the eleven reviews I’ve posted on the blog thus far, five of them have been for Worthington games.

The title of fastest-growing publisher representation in my collection goes to Compass Games. Roughly two thirds of the fifteen games on my core list (plus the French expansion for Commands and Colors: Tricorne) I’ve bought in the last two years, and I've got a bead on a couple more. Compass’s production quality is, in my experience, excellent (and they’re very responsive when they screw something up, like sending out free errata counters out to every customer that bought a game directly from them, free of (extra) charge. I’ve liked all the games; my only complaint would be that sometimes the choices around the rulebook layout (mostly background colour or colour graduation, like in No Peace Without Spain (Compass Games, 2011) make the rules a little difficult to read (Barbarians at the Gate (Compass, 2023) falls into this category as well). Well, I find them harder to read. But I’m old and should remember to use my reading glasses more often. Compass is one of the most prolific publishers in the wargaming space, and they make a lot of winners. Expect to see some Compass game reviews over the coming months.

Something worth pointing out is a full 17% of my collection is made up of games from European publishers (okay, I’m including Osprey and PSC in this number, but everything else in my collection is from North American publishers). For a long time. Wargaming publishing was the domain of a handful of prolific publishers (Avalon Hill, SPI) and a couple of smaller operations, like The Chaosium (and Warhammer, across the pond). In the last twelve or fifteen years we’ve been seeing a lot more really good games coming out of Continental Europe. That is to say, there have been European designers creating fun, thoughtful and innovative wargames and European publishers printing them for a lot longer than that, but they’re now making their way outside of Europe, and with rules translated into English. It might be an artefact of the rise in popularity of Eurogames like Settlers of Catan (KOSMOS, 2008) in the English-speaking world. Frankly, I could care less. If it means I easier for me to access games like Verdun, 1916: Steel Inferno (Fellowship of Simulation), Great War Commander (Hexasim, 2018), and Chase of the Bismarck (Vuca Simulations, 2023), then let a thousand Euros bloom, let the children play Power Grid (2F-Spiele, 2004).

The rest of my collection is a scattered mix, though Legion Wargames is nearly into double digits. Some games I’ve bought because the subject interested me, or I wanted to see how the designer approached a particular situation. Some were recommended by people whose judgement I respect.

And some acquisitions were the result of a confluence of factors. I read recently an interview with John Poniske (if I ever do a post of designers represented in my collection, he’ll be up near the top), and he mentioned his favourite of his own designs was Lincoln’s War (Multi-Man Publishing, 2013), because he felt it achieved what he set out to do with it. About the same time, I was ordering some games from Noble Knight Games for shipping to a friend visiting the states. I needed to make up another $10.00 to qualify for free shipping (the shipping would have cost a tenner, but it’s the principle), and NKG had a second-hand copy of Lincoln’s War for $10.45. Like it was meant to be. When it arrived, not only was it unpunched, but it included a complete set of pieces crafted at about 160% larger size on craft board. I suspect the previous owner was a play-tester for the game, for John had written a really nice thank-you message inside the box cover.

A couple of the titles represented here are miniatures or miniature-adjacent games. While I really enjoy playing miniatures games, I’m not a big minis guy, I possess no real talent for painting, nor do I have the time, patience or space to acquire that particular hobby. B, our Wednesday-night host, lives in a house with a whole second floor dedicated to gaming, and much of that space is taken up with immaculately painted lead and resin figures; I live in an inner-city apartment, and I’m looking at having to introduce a one-in/one-out policy for boxed games. I’ll save talking about those games for another post.

 

 

State of Play: Freeman’s Farm 1777

 

 

I recently acquired a couple of second-hand games, including John Poniskie’s Lincoln’s War (Multi-Man Pubishing, 2013), an old Strategy and Tactics issue 120 with an unpunched copy of Joseph Miranda’s first published game, Nicaragua! (3W, 1988), and the subject of this piece, Freeman’s Farm 1777 (Worthington Publishing, 2019). I’d been on the look-out for Freeman’s Farm ever since I started playing designer Maurice Suckling’s second release, Chancellorsville, 1863 (Worthington Publishing, 2020).

So, I got it, and I’ve played it. And it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that I like it. I’ll post a proper review when I’ve spent some more time with the game – this is based on my first solo outing, but I felt a fire in the belly to share some first impressions. So, here are some initial thoughts on Freeman’s Farm 1777.

Elegant solo mechanics

Chancellorsville 1862 was a development of the same system used in Freeman’s Farm 1777, but included a hidden movement system to create a fog of war effect. This involved screened-off mini-maps for the plyers to manoeuvre their own units until they will come into contact with units already on the main board, at which point they are transferred to the shared map and bloodshed is sure to follow. In the solitaire version of the game the hidden movement is approximate by a hidden movement track that the out-of-contact units move down when activated by the prompts on the opponent side’s bot order cards. The whole thing is quite elegant, perhaps the apotheosis of this design thinking.

Freeman’s Farm captures a different kind of situation; it was much more of a set-piece battle stretching over a few miles, not the contest of manoeuvre and hold spread along an entire valley. The bot opposition isn’t a deck in Freeman’s Farm. Instead, the bot responds to the turn of an activation card with each game turn. Where a human opponent will draw three activation cards at the beginning of the game, and maintain that hand-size throughout, the nonplayer side activates each unit as its activation card appears.

Each unit has a unit record card that lists what orders can be given to a unit when it is activated. In a solitaire game, the cards are flipped to their reverse side, which shows the hierarchy or orders for that unit’s activation. Upon activation, Fraser’s redcoats will always do (a), unless (a) is for whatever reason is impossible to perform, or has already been accomplished, in which case Fraser will do (b), and so on. The units each have a list of around four orders, to perform. This might sound clunky and proscriptive, but it it’s a logical progression of that each unit would be attempting to do as their part in successfully executing the battle, and it fits the design of the game very well, and after the first couple of turns, begins to feel quite natural. After one game I can’t say it feels like the game is responding to your actions in the same way that Chancellorsville does, but that might be a familiarity thing; I’ve played Chancellorsville quite a bit, but only solo.

Limited choices

The thing that struck me about Chancellorsville was just how structured the play was in the game. Units can only be ordered if you happen to have an activation card for that unit. An activated unit can move a space or two, can move an engage with an enemy or it can stand their ground and develop defensive fieldworks (at no cost to their ever- is diminishing cohesion). The board movement is severely prescriptive. Each position has two or more links to other positions only, though it would be possible – should you ever want to – to march a unit from one end of the map to the other, barring interception.

Initial board setup. Colonial skirmishers hold Coulter's Farm and the Mill (blue cubes).

The board in Freeman’s Farm is even more prescriptive. There are coloured markings dictating where each unit’s pieces start the game, and arrows to show their objectives.

Hamilton (on the British side) has one job: clear the Mill of colonial skirmishers, then take and hold Freeman’s Farm, which will then act as the fulcrum for Burgoyne’s overall plan. Fraser’s job is to attack and roll up the American left flank. The options are to fight, or to move and fight. Some units have the option of using their own troops to plug holes in other frontline units, but each one has a role and are expected to fulfill that expectation.

This makes the game sound like its lacking in dynamism. Those who don’t think a wargame is a wargame if it doesn’t have a hex-grip overlaid on the map are going to balk at this as soon as they look at the back of the box. But to my mind, Freeman’s Farm is even more dynamic than the games in Worthington’s Great Sieges series. The combination of activating units only when they are available to activate and limited options of what to do with them when they opportunity arises makes every decision a crucial one. You know what the enemy intends, and you must use every opportunity to thwart their intentions. I can’t go into tactics, having only played a single game, but I’m reminded of the Johnson quote; “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

Both a fast and a good game

I read the rules in a couple of hours over two nights a couple of days before I played the game. I took so long over them because I like to give rules a bit of time to filter through my head before re-reading them and making sure I’ve got it right (in itself, not guarantee). So, when I actually came to the game, I had a pretty good idea of what was happening. I’m sure my familiarity with Chancellorsville helped.

A bloody battle.

When I set up to play I got through two rounds before I realised I hadn’t set up the British cards on their solo side. That added a couple of minutes to reset the board and reshuffle the decks. In spite of this, I managed to set-up Freeman’s Farm, play through a whole game (finished three activations short due to the lack of forces left on the board after some particularly bloody fighting, and pack the whole thing up again in the under an hour-fifteen. And this wasn’t some simple distraction to pass the time, like filling a sudoku; the whole hour or so of play was an immersive – and extremely tense- experience.

I came away from Freeman’s Farm with the sense of needing to talk about it. I usually make it a rule to not talk about a game in any depth without playing it at least three or four times first. I’ve also tried not to say a lot about it. I want to keep most of it for the review, which you can probably expect in a couple of weeks. I can also report that, while Chancellorsville 1863 has indeed sold out, Worthington Publishing still has stock of Freeman’s Farm available.