Stripped Down for Parts: Shakos two-fer, Part II – Breizh 1341

 

 

Charles S. Roberts Award nominee: Best Medieval Wargame, 2022

 

I completely missed the initial release of Laurent Gary’s Breizh 1341 (Shakos, 2022; which should be said, Breizh mille trois cent quarante-et-un, if my high-school French holds up). The first I heard about it was when the game received a Charles S. Roberts Award nomination for Best Medieval Wargame (the award went to Almoravid: Reconquista and Riposte in Spain1085-1086 (GMT Games, 2022), Intrigued, I tried to find a copy, but to no avail – I don’t know how big the initial print run was (or even if it was originally released in an English language version – I might have struggled with a French copy), but it had seemed to disappear from all shelves by the time I looked.

So, it was a happy day when I learned that the crowdfunded release of Rex Britannorum (Shakos, 2025 - you can get a peek at this one here) included Briezh as an add-on option. (Backers could also add another harder-to-find title, Saladin (Shakos, 2022), but my game budget wouldn’t stretch quite that far at the time.)

Breizh 1641 is a taut, fast and fun game. I have played it once already, which is something I try not to do before I write up an unboxing post, but there it is. I’ll try to write this objectively, leave as much of the play commentary as I can for the after-action report. Also, some of the photos I too didn’t come out well enough to include here, and I wanted to get this up to the blog quickly, so I’m just going with what I have; I’ll include more photos in the AAR.

Breizh 1341 is a small box game. The box is 18cm by 22cm (about 7” by 8 ½”) and 5cm (2”) deep, and of a quite sturdy construction. The cover illustration evokes a castle siege, very much a theme in the game. The cover also features a cocarde tricolore logo sporting a banner reading “Historie de France”. I don’t know if this is an initiative among French game companies to promote learning history through ludic pursuits, but that would correspond with a note in the rulebook to parents and teachers regarding the game’s value in presenting historical events and themes through the game. I hope this is part of a broader initiative.

The box back, with a nice representation of the game components.

The back of the box offers a short description of the historical situation; in April of 1341, Duke John III (Fr. Jean de Montfort) died without an heir. There were two contenders with arguably legitimate claims on the duchy; Jeanne de Penthièvre (translated to Joan in the English edition), the niece of John III and wife of Charles de Blois-Châtillon, and John of Monfort, half-brother to the duke. This resulted in the War of Breton Succession, which in turn became a chapter of the Hundred Years’ War. Also included is a brief explanation of game play.

The game infographic tells us the this is a two-player game (at time of writing, T and I have played just one get to know you game of Breizh, but I could tell from this that the game wouldn’t be nearly as much fun playing two-handed solo), That a game should take about forty-five minutes to play (I’d agree with this, I think – ours took closer to an hour-ten, but we backtracked through a couple of mistakes and were constantly referring back to the rules – but having got our heads around the game, I think our next run at it will be well under an hour), and it’s recommended for ages fourteen and up.

The rulebook. Glossy, but remarkably still readable under down-lights.

The rulebook is roughly A5 in size, printed on a sturdy-weight of high-gloss paper, and runs to 24 pages. Of these, there are only nine pages of actual rules, with the first three pages devoted to a cover illustration and introduction, the following six covering the components, a short glossary of terms used, and a set-up guide. There is also a five page historical background essay, and the back cover offers a Game Sequence Summary and a brief breakdown of Actions.

A sample of the rules. While the font is a tad small, it its still very readable, and
the illustrations are clear and informative, complementing the text.

The rules, of course, were originally rendered in French, and while these read like a translation, it is a good, clear translation with none of the little ambiguities that pop up sometimes; as I mentioned, we’ve played one game thus far, and there was a lot of referring back to the rulebook as we played, but points of order were easy to find and quite comprehensible.

The game board. For such a compact play area (and such large counters) the board is
remarkably comfortable to play on, with no feeling of crowding or clutter.

 
The play area is a map of mid-fourteenth century Brittany, divided up into eight regions, and marked out with various castles and fortifications. It comes mounted on a sturdy board and is both attractive and functional. It incorporates the play area (the map of Brittany), a turn track, and places marked on the top and bottom edges for the cards played in each turn to be placed. The turn track reminds the players of the number of cards to be played in each turn (five each in turns one and six, three each in turns two through five), and this is reflected in the placement presentation (with the final two positions marked in a lighter hue). The Castles are all named for their historical analogues, and given a value of one to three, representing the difficulty posed in laying siege to each, a crucial action in the game.

Inside the box; two decks of cards, two sets of wooden tokens and a nice three-sided
 die. Of course, being a Shakos game, time and thought has gone into
how to best present and store all the components.

The game comes with two cellophane-wrapped decks of cards. It might be my imagination, but these feel like the nicest cards I’ve ever seen, even in a Shakos game. The decks are divided into Event cards and Personality cards, with some extra cards added, which I’ll come back to.

The Event cards are divided into four groups; the First, Second and Third Epoch decks (defined by the presence of one, two or three ermines in the top left corner of the card), and the Special Events deck. Most of the Event cards exhibit either a red or blue background; these cards may only be used for their event by the appropriate faction, red for the English, blue for the French. Some cards show a white background. These hold no game-function event and can only be used and for the performance of an action.

Each player also has their own deck of Personality deck to draw from. One Personality card is drawn each turn, and can be carried over from turn to turn. Each offers some kind of benefit for the player in a given circumstance; they can be used in the appropriate situation to, say, add a point advantage in a Fight, or allow the recruitment of extra Partisans.

None of the photos I took of the cards came out clearly enough for this presentation, so
here's a shot from our first game. On the left is a Special Event card (black background),
which had to be played in the turn it was drawn. On the right, and English Event card
(clearly, from the vermillion background) from the Second Epoch deck that I used for
the event, much to the chagrin of my opponent.

Finally, there is an eight-card Special Events deck. These cards present event happening in the broader European context. In the hand-building phase of turns two through five, each player draws one of these cards into their hands. Each Special Event card must be played in the turn it is drawn.

All of the cards in the game are quite remarkable to look at; each features an extract from a contemporary painting and a reference to an actual individual or event from the conflict or the broader Hundred Years’ War, while the Personality cards feature a stone memorial or funerary statue of the individual in question, The backgrounds to the cards are rendered like draped satin in the colours of the belligerent forces. The whole effect is quite stunning; it comes as no surprise that Nicolas Treil was the headline artist involved in the preparation of Breizh 1341 (the game credits list Treil and Lisa Fix as being responsible for the graphic design, but does not distinguish duties).

This covers the cards used in the historical game. But thew folks at Shakos don’t believe in giving you just a standard setup. A short note at the end of the rules explains the other cards not otherwise represented. These ten cards allow the players to randomly pick a starting location (by selecting one each of eight cards representing the eight regions of Brittany) as an alternative to the historical starting positions, as well as a pair of cards which offer asymmetric – but balanced – starting strengths on the ground in their respective starting locations. It’s a small thing, but it’s a nice touch, and an elegant way to increase the game replayability with very little overhead.

There are two types of wooden tokens will be familiar to anyone who has played Shakos game from their Conquerors series; the pieces come in a red and blue matching the card themes quite well, and there are two types, with twenty of each in each colour. The little cylinders represent Partisans – these are indicative of one or the other side’s supporters within a region – and the cubes represent Troops, the levied soldiers and mercenaries that the sides engage for campaigning. Any Troops on the board at the end of a round leave (presumably to go back to their farms and workshops, or the professional troops’ winter quarters), while the Partisans persist from turn to turn; these, along with controlled Castles, help establish and maintain dominance in a given region through the course of a game.

The counter sheet, showing the French side of the Castle and Region markers.

The game comes with a single punchboard of counters. These are a nice size (about 22mm) and are quite thick, very easy to deal with on the board. The counters are pre-rounded and punch out neatly (no centre-nubs). The majority of the counters are control markers. These are used to indicate control of the Castles on the map as each is taken or exchanged in besieging actions. There are enough counters to cover all of the varying strength Castles on the board. Other counters indicate which side has control of a region at the end of each turn (both the Region and Castle control markers are double sided, indicating French control on one side and English on the other). Other markers include Highwaymen counters, an hourglass turn marker, and a +2 counter used in a single card event function that may only rarely get played, but which struck me as a nice little detail and indicative of the thoughtfulness that has gone into the creation and development of Breizh 1341.

Randomness has its place in this game, but it is restricted in its scope by the choice of a three-side die (actually a d6 with two faces each of 1, 2, and 3). Tempering the hand of fate in the way limits how much the players can rely on their own good fortune. It still provides room for cruel disappointments and happy accidents, but the game rewards careful planning and strategic consideration.

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A post on how Breizh 1341 plays will be forthcoming. Not to give too much away, I can tell you that game play is very smooth and quite logical once you get your head around Breizh’s idiosyncrasies; it’s a CDG, but it doesn’t do things in a way typical to CDGs. It is definitely its own game, and is a better experience for it.

 

 

Stripped Down for Parts: Shakos two-fer, Part I – Rex Britannorum

  

 

French publisher Shakos came onto the wargaming scene eight years ago with Napoléon 1806 (Shakos 2017 – for what it’s worth, I’ve written several AARs and a review here on A Fast Game). The company has a reputation for publishing interesting games with novel mechanics, or with familiar mechanics with a different spin. Every title they produce is at least worth a look I haven’t hunted down every last title the company has produced; I’m still on the fence regarding Border States (Shakos, 2022), but I own all three of the Conquerors series released thus far (word on the street is Napoléon 1870 (FB link) should be going to crowdfunding later this year). Shakos sets a high benchmark for production quality and playability.

I stumbled over Shakos’ Gamefound campaign for Rex Britainnorum (Shakos, 2025) while looking for Carl Paradis’ Battle Commander, Vol. I (Sound of Drums, ~2025), which I anticipate seeing before the year is out. I wasn’t initially sold, but the more I read about it, the more intrigued I was. I’ll confess that a significant selling point for participating in the campaign was the chance to nab a copy of Breizh 1341 (Shakos, 2022), which has been out of print until now.

Rex Britannorum is a one- to three-player game of intrigue and one-upmanship between tribes under Roman rule in Britannia, designed by Stephane Brachet, who was also responsible for Border States, so I may have to have another look at that. I’m not going to get into the “Is it a wargame?” debate here; I’m merely going to present the rather lush components for your edification. Breizh 1341 will get its own unboxing post in a week or so.

The box cover illustration sets he scene; a Roman officer seems to be adjudicating over a land dispute between the tribal leaders of the Iceni, the Reganies, and the Brigantes, the three playable tribes represented in the game. This encapsulates the themes of Rex Britannorum quite well; the key to victory is area control, a theme we’ll come back to when we look at the map.

Personally, I don’t dislike the box art; I just feel like more could have been done with it. But the target audience for Rex Britannorum isn’t just cranky old grognards. It’s bright and striking, and should pop on game-store shelves, and I think it deserves a broad audience (and corresponding sales).

The box back offers a paragraph on the historical context of the game, and two more briefly describing the game play. One of the things that sold me on trying Rex Britannorum was that it can be played with two or three players, or solo. I didn’t want to add another game to my small collection of three player-only games. Another factor was the game running-time of 60-90 minutes, which makes it playable on a school night. 

The rulebook is printed on a nice weight, low-gloss paper and runs to 28 pages. Of those 28 pages, the first five are taken up by the cover, introduction and component roster, and the two-page set-up guide. The three-player rules run to fourteen pages, with the remaining pages covering the two-player and solo variations, historical notes, and a handy rules summary on the back cover. The rulebook is well illustrated throughout, and very easy to read and comprehend.

The game board, showing Britannia (England, South Wales, and Cornwall),
the extent of Roman rule. As always, apologies for the lighting. These photos
don't do the components justice.

Rex Britannorum comes with a with a 50cm x 50cm (roughly 20” square) mounted map-board representing Britannia (modern England, Wales and Cornwall), the overall region subdued by the Romans by around 40 AD. This area is divided into three playable areas; the North (red), Centre (blue), and South (Green), the colours corresponding to the three faction colours of the players. Each area is subsequently divided into regions with their own cities, and one is designated the fief (that player’s seat of rule). The cities (defined by castle shapes) are connected by roads (strings of circles linked by connecting lines) within their areas and across borders. Scoring in the game is measured by control of Regions, Cities, and Roads, control meaning numerical supremacy within an area (cities).

The board is really quite nice. Normally I’d balk at the big blocks of rich colours splashed across the map of England, stark wash-blue and winter-white background, but here it works.

The Scoring boards. The Location Control cubes do double duty keeping track of the
Stakes scoring. The Stakes progress for each player are determined at the end of each
turn, then marked up on the score track on the board. On the reverse side of the
score boards are the Bot instructions for each Non-Player Kingdom (NPK) for the
solo and two-player games. They operate in a similar manner, but
each one's priorities are a little different.

The rich, saturated colours carry over into the other components. There are three scoring boards, one for each player. These are colour-coded to the areas on the map. These are the same for all three players and facilitate the scoring process. On the reverse side of the boards are AI directives for playing solo or two-player against bot faction(s).

The Card Holders. The pockets open to the left to allow Troop cards with special powers
to show their graphic reminders unhindered. Both the Scoring Boards and the Card
Holders are produced from the same heavy board-stock as the Unit Tracking boards
in the Conquerors series games.

The Cards Holders are used for concealment and simultaneous revealing of the forces each player has committed for battle in a particular round. They each have three little pouches on the reverse side, each designed to hold a Force card and an Allocation card.

Faction marker: Oppidum markers (top row) for indicating City control; cubes for Road
location control and tracking success on your score card, and circular tokens for
tracking Players' progress on the three-pronged Score ladder on the board.

The playing pieces are all wooden stock. These are small marker cubes, city markers (shaped like turreted keeps) in red, green and blue – these are used to indicate faction control over individual locations – and plain wooden discs printed with the area colour and location details and the Roman occupiers (a gold Aquila on a black background) on the back.

Sample Location tokens. These are drawn at the beginning of each turn and placed
on their corresponding map locations. These locations will be winnable during that
turn. Any that are not won by any player will be flipped to their other side
(The Roman Eagle, top-left) and remain in possession of the Romans.
The yellow piece (top-right) is the Turn marker - the game plays out
over seven turns. Crown or palisade? I'm not sure.

In a given turn, seven of these are drawn out of the velvet bag (also included in the game), and placed on the board in the positions corresponding to the cities and road positions on the map. These are the locations that can be contested over and won over the course of the turn. If a location isn’t secured by any player, the marker is turned over and it that location falls under the control of the Romans.

The game comes with two decks of cards; one of them is very small (in dimensions and number), and I’ll come back to those. First, we’ll talk about the regular-sized cards.

Sample Troop cards, with the Roman Mercenary cards (bottom row). There are
fourteen cards in each faction deck and six Mercenary cards The latter
are are shuffled and placed face-up in a holding space on
the board at the beginning of the game.

Each faction has a deck of fourteen Troop cards, each deck bordered in the faction’s colour. These are the players’ currency for battling for control of the locations on the board. They run from 1 to 7 in value, but the four lowest-value cards each have their own special abilities, some of which are neutralised by an opponent playing the same card. There is also a six-card deck of black-bordered Mercenary (Roman) cards. I’ll get more into how these all work when I write up an AAR for the game. The cards are beautifully illustrated, and will help to immerse players in the game’s historical theme.

These mini-cards are tucked into the holding pouch along with a Troop card to
indicate the Area in which the Troop card has been allocated (the top half will
be visible and is both initial and colour-coded).

When the targets for the rounds are allocated, each player selects which area they want to fight in and which units they want to use from their hand to battle in that theatre. Each player will select two cards to place in their battle board from their hand of three cards or from their three-card Reserve on display in front of them and allocate each card for a theatre (North Central or South). That’s where the smaller deck comes in.

Sample Objective cards.

There are also three sets of Objective cards, one for each faction. The are comprised of two cards each for Areas, Cities, and Roads. At the beginning of the game, each player selects one of each of type as their supplementary goals for their game, discarding the other without revealing them to their opponents. These are a significant part of the game, contributing more nuance and some unknown factors, but the rules recommend leaving them out for the first game or two, until you’ve got the hang of the basics, or if you’re playing with younger players.

A very thoughtful storage model.

Now you need to understand that, because this is a Shakos game, all the non-flat components and the sets of cards all fit nicely into a moulded plastic insert which is itself a picture of efficiency. The Conquerors series boxes are the same, and this isn’t some thin transport-weight blister plastic to stop the contents from bruising each other during shipping, but a nice  frame that also appears to be recyclable (at least I think this is suggested by to the EU-mandated infographic in the bottom corner, but my high school French is a little rusty).

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So, that’s Rex Britannorum in a nutshell. Sometimes it’s impossible to show the contents without delving a little into how it all fits together. There are instructions for two-player and solitaire play, but I think this is one of those games that will shine brightest with two other participants. And unlike some three-player games, this one feels like there won’t be a lot of incentive for two payers to gang up on the third; it’s not a knock-out game, which is a big plus in our household.