Stripped Down for Parts: WWII Commander, Volume 2: Market Garden

  

 

The original photo from which the cover illustration for this game was drawn. 

John Butterfield’s WWII Commander Volume 1: Battle of the Bulge (Compass Games, 2020), was a physical iteration of a computer game by Shenandoah Studios (an arm of Slitherine UL Ltd), which itself was a digital implementation of an earlier unpublished boardgame design. I’m a fan of the game (I’ve written up some AARs, and you can find a review here), and for some time I despaired that the “Volume 1“ in the title was a hollow promise. Well, Mr Butterfield and the good folks at Compass Games have come through with WWII Commander, Volume 2: Market Garden (Compass Games, 2025). 

While not a perfect match, WWIIC: Market Garden’s box front is reminiscent of the Battle of the Bulge trade dress. Compass is always good at defining their series games, and a presentation in general. The cover features the famous photograph of British paras armed with Sten guns (the officer at the back carries a Browning pistol at the ready), picking their way through the ruined buildings of a Dutch town. Like its predecessor, the cover also announces that the game was indeed designed by John H. Butterfield (what game wouldn’t want to boldly declare this), that it is intended for two players and will require between one and three hours of your time.

The box-back. These days every Compass box is a sturdy construction. 

The top of the box-back features a quote I hadn’t come across before; Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, saying, “My country can never again afford the luxury of another Montgomery success.” It’s a fitting epigram for the situation covered in the game.

The back of the box offers a teaser of the game map and some sample images of the “Premium oversize counters,” shown at pretty close to actual size (I’ll get to both of these in due course) and gives a brief explanation of the situation and the priorities for the two sides. The game-infographic tells us that the scale of the game-map areas (roughly) five kilometres (a tad over three miles) across and the turns are half a day in duration, and that the units are regiment to brigade level. It reiterates the two-player intention of the game, declares the solitaire suitability to be Medium, and advises, in contradiction to the other half of the box, that a game will likely run to 3-4 hours duration. After playing WWIIC: BotB quite a number of times now, I think this is the more trustworthy metric.

Besides the designer, the game credits single out Bob Heinzmann as the game’s developer (an important role in the creation of any game, and one that, to my mind, deserves more recognition), and the artwork was all provided by Bruce Yearian (who never disappoints). The Project Manager at the Compass-end of the endeavour was John Kranz. Mr Kranz, the founder of ConSimWorld.com and the ConSimWorld Expo, left Compass Games some time ago at time of writing, but I anticipate seeing his name name at least a few more games coming out this year or next. Hope things are going well, John.  

Both halves of the box enclosure are solid and, I’m pleased to say, cat-proof. What can I tell you? It’s a box, and we own a cat.

The rulebook. It's well laid out and very readable.

Market Garden's Rulebook is printed on the familiar, heavier-weight gloss paper we often see from Compass and runs to 28 pages. This might have been reduced to 24 with some cramming, but the rules are laid out in a nice, readable sans-serif font (the same as used in the previous volume), with plenty of illustrations and examples. Take out the Cover, Table of Contents/Introduction, components overview, two-page game set-up spread, Designer’s Notes and back-cover Terrain Effects Chart, and the actual rules come to a very easy to navigate 18 pages, which include a list of the differences between the earlier volume and this one.

Sample spread.

The differences between the two games are minor in and of themselves: a maximum two units from each side can be in a single area instead of three; activation is by individual units, not all units in a single area, but if you’re already familiar with WWIIC: BotB, most of the basics will be familiar.  

The game board. Once again, my crappy lighting doesn't do justice to the
stunning and beautifully utilitarian board.

Like its predecessor, Market Garden comes with a mounted map. Like a lot (though not all) mounted maps from Compass, this map-board sits out nearly perfectly flat right out of the box. I don’t know how the manufacturer gets this to work, but I’m hoping they can keep it up.

The Map-board is a full-sized 34” by 22”, a panel-width longer than the 25” by 22” Bulge map-board. The map itself takes up about two-thirds of the board space, with the rest accommodating the necessary Game-Turn and Time tracks and the pendulum Victory Point Track, as well as the Weather Result Table and a copy of the Terrain Effects Chart.

The play area represents the region along the Club Route from Luyksgestel in the south to Arnhem in the north (North is roughly the right-hand map edge). The game begins with paratroop units in place on the board at their historical landing places, catching the local German formations flat-footed. The region covered by the map is divided into areas. In a given activation foot units can move one area, while motorised and armor units can move two, assuming certain conditions are met. This isn’t going to sit well with everyone; I understand some gamers just don’t like area-movement games. Nothing I say here, or anywhere else on A Fast Game, is likely to change their minds on this. But if you’ve read this far, you’re probably not one of them.

The game counters come in two easy-punch counter sheets, and are very nice to use.
They are cut from a good weight board and, at an inch square, are very easy to read.
The Germans come in three greys (identifying their respective formations; the
II SS Panzer, 15th Army, and 1 Parachute Army), While the Allies wear
two shades of green (101st and 82nd), purple and rose (British
1st Airborne and 1st Polish), and khaki (British 30 Corps)

The counters are simple and effective, presenting the Unit name and type, starting space or arrival turn for reinforcements, the unit’s Strength (how many dice it rolls in attack/defence) and it chance of being hit (with a second to-hit for Elite Armor on armored units). And the unit counters are big – a full inch square – and pre-rounded. Some units are represented by multiple counters to allow a granular step loss.

Also included are admin for marking units Out of Supply / Low Supply (for the Airborne units), as well as Turn and Time markers and Weather reminder tokens. The game also features some wooden components that are technically markers but which I will get to shortly.

The German and Allied Orders of Battle. 

Each player has an Order of Battle card, with spaces for each unit and units with multiple counters are indicated by the counter templates showing counter stacks two or three deep. They are laid out with the starting counters in the top section, then grouped below by the turn entry, for ease of tracking. These sheets are a boon and I rejoice any time they appear in a game. I get that some people may find it tedious or double handling, and they do add to the footprint of the game, but I find it easier to stay in the flow of the game when I don’t have to rifle through the reinforcements looking for who is entering each turn – they’re already there and ready to be thrown into battle. Not literally thrown, of course; we're not barbarians - this isn’t Memoir ’44 (Days of Wonder, 2004).

Two identical PACs are provided: no excuse for squabbling.

Market Garden comes with two duplicate Player Aid Cards. The front presents a detailed Sequence of Play and a distillation of the Movement rules. The verso outlines the rules for Combat, Supply, and establishing Victory. At the bottom of the card is a helpful key to reading the counters, and a breakdown of the formation colour-coding and unit types represented.

This is what greets you when you remove the box top.

The game comes with seven dice which, based on my experience with WWIIC:BotB, will be enough for most incidents of battle; actually, given the reduction of units available in a given space from three to two, I doubt you will need to reroll any dice at all in Market Garden.

Two bags of wooden markers also come with the game. The green discs are Area Control markers. In the WWII Commander series, the aggressor marks areas captured and held with these discs. In WWIIC:BotB these were grey and screen-printed with a balkenkreuz; here, with the Allies attacking, a white star adorns the green discs.

Clockwise from top: black "Activated " markers and green Allied Control markers
(both of these are wooden components); seven d10s; and a bag of baggies,
sufficient in number for the needs of the game.

The second set is a bag of wooden cubes. These are used to mark units that have been activated in the turn. Each unit only gets one activation, so a black cube placed is on top after each has acted, then these are cleared from the board in the housekeeping phase at the end of the turn. Both components are very effective in appearance and function and add a measure of gravity to the situation. The purpose could have just as easily been accomplished with extra sheet of counters, but I’m heartened that Compass has persisted with the wooden components.

-----

That about covers it for WWII Commander, Volume 2: Market Garden. As I mentioned at the start, I really like Volume 1, and I’m very please the promise of a series has come to fruition. Apart from some minor amendments to the rules, Market Garden should keep the best characteristics of its sibling game, fast, engaging play and difficult choices with every turn. But this won’t simply be more of the same; looking at the map I can see different challenges to try to nut out over successive plays. T, my regular opponent, is also keen to give this a try, so look out for an AAR soon.

 

   

Review: WWII Commander, Volume I: Battle of the Bulge

 

 

 

The best thing about having a blog that nearly nobody reads is you can be as self-indulgent as all get-out. Yes, there will be a review of WWII Commander, Vol. 1: Battle of the Bulge (Compass Games, 2020) coming shortly, but you’ll have to wade through a sappy trip down memory lane first. Or, alternatively, you could just skip down to the Appearance heading in bold for the meat and potatoes.

John Butterfield was probably the first game designer to achieve name recognition for me (actually, maybe third, after Redmond Simonsen and Marc Miller). When I was about fourteen, I discovered all the possibilities of boardgames, when friend introduced me to a cavernous store tucked away behind a cinema complex, down an alleyway, up a rickety wooden staircase, and at the end of an unmarked passageway, called Simulations. This was my entry into a greater world.

Simulations sold all kinds of games. Here began my life-long appreciation of Traveller (GDW, 1977), back in the days of the little black books, and other RPGs like Boot Hill (TSR, 1979) and DragonQuest (SPI, 1980). They had a couple of tables set up for games in-store, and gondola stands full of D&D material and display cases with chess sets and jigsaws, but the back walls were lined with shelves, and the shelves were lined with wargames. Lots of SPI, Avalon Hill, Yaquinto, GDW titles and others, all beckoning. But I was a kid and broke; I couldn’t afford fancy boxed games.

What I could afford was the magazines, and some of the magazines came with games. To be honest, while I was interested in the historical wargames, I was also an avid science fiction reader, and it was SPI’s Ares magazine that drew me into the hobby first. And the second issue I bought – after issue 3, Barbarian Kings (SPI, 1980) – was issue 2, The Wreck of the B.S.M. Pandora (SPI, 1980). This was a Jim Dunnigan design which I enjoyed a lot, but the following year, Ares issue 6 came with a prequel game, Voyage of the B.S.M. Pandora (SPI 1981), designed by none other than John Butterfield. Really loved that game! Played it to death; I had to tape the two halves of the map back together after the fold-hinge finally gave out. Not that long ago, in a fit of nostalgia, I nearly forked out an irresponsible amount of money for a second-hand copy mere weeks before GMT announced the inclusion of Away Team on their P500 list (click on this link to see the order page). But that’s a story for another time.

Which is all to say, Mr Butterfield designs fine, memorable games. The kind of games that stay with you after they’ve been reboxed and put back on the shelf. I don’t think I’m an obsessive an obsessive – I only own four or five – but like good bourbon, I’ve never met a John Butterfield game I didn’t like.

Set up for a two-handed solo game. Note the Orders of Battle and the slightly smaller
than average board (three-panels wide, or 22" by 25½").

Appearance

As I understand it, WWII Commander: Battle of the Bulge (hereafter referred to as WWIIC:BtoB) started its life as a computer game. I can’t speak to that; From what I’ve read elsewhere, while it had its critics, lots of people enjoyed it, and it was quite popular for a computer wargame.

Everything about WWIIC:BotB is rendered in a very limited colour palette (something it shares with other Bulge games). It’s an area movement game, and so the board is divided up into chunks of forest green, snowy white and sleety grey. The Allied and German units are similarly coloured in the familiar greens and greys (khaki for the British, but they only come on late in the game). But in spite of this, the board is a work of functional art. There is no waste here; the map represents the battle space well, creating a puzzle of roads and rivers, forests and clearings. Some of the chrome-y aspects of the game-play add to this puzzle-iness, but the game is never reduced to a puzzle. This is definitely a war-game, high level and streamlined to allow a faster play, but full of torturously difficult decision points at every impulse. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I tried a preservation defence here against the Germans, retreating in the first
 two days when I could, but still took a pounding early on. The black cubes
 are used to mark those units which have already activated
that day/turn. These are removed in housekeeping.

Aside from the Orders of Battle and the charts on the Player’s Aid Cards, everything is available on the board. There is a turn-track (turns are marked daily from December 16^th to 28^th plus a space for the German free activations prior to turn one), an impulse track for each side’s area activations, a casualty track at each end of the map, and three space pre-start German impulse mini-track. I’ll circle back to this soon.

I can appreciate the reasons why some people don’t like area movement in wargames (especially in World War Two situations). To be honest, I didn’t jump at WWIIC:BotB when it first hit the shelves for that very reason. It took a while, but I came around to trying the game, and I’m glad I did. I think the area movement makes perfect sense of the scale of the game (mostly divisions, some armies and a scattering of reduced formations). The battle space was constrained to the Ardennes region, and the fighting was close and brutal. This is something else I’ll come back to.

Big, readable counters! The number on the left is the starting dice for attack/
defence, the one on the right are the result-or-lower number for a hit. The plus
sign on the 116th Panzer means these guys are particularly aggressive and
get an extra die when attacking (defence is rolled on the straight number)..

The counters are large (2cm, or ⅘ inch), pre-rounded and nicely illustrated. The leg units are a simple soldier silhouette, while the motorised units are represented by their chief vehicle; Shermans and some Greyhounds for the Allies, Panzers and half-tracks for the Germans. Each unit is also identified by its designation and its divisional decal (tiny, but clearly visible on one corner of the counter). I really appreciate this kind of detail given to the game components.

The game also comes with two sets of wooden components; larger grey disc emblazoned with a white cross are used to mark German control of areas (unmarked areas are under Allied control), while the little black cubes are placed on top of unit markers after they have been activated for the day by movement or participation in combat. This can be handy in the confusion of battle.

A unit is out of supply when it can't trace a clear road through friendly-controlled areas
to a supply point (the the Germans, five points on the eastern map-edge, for the Allies,
just about any other road leading off the map). If these guys can hold out until the 23rd,
supplies can be air-dropped to them and they won't suffer step-attrition.

Play

The Rules for WWIIC:BotB are simple and very easy to pick up. So simple to learn that it’s become one of my go-to games for introducing new people to board wargaming. Movement values don’t appear on the counters. They don’t have to; there are a handful of movement conventions that carry across both sides with just a couple of exceptions. The turns are broken down into a series of impulses, which go back and forth, starting with the Germans. In an impulse, an area is selected for activation, and all the friendly units in that area may be activated. Foot (infantry) units may move from the area they are currently in into an adjoining area; motor units move like this, but if their movement follows the road network they can move two areas. Also, German motorised units and all allied unit may participate in “strategic movement,” moving up to three areas along roads so long as they don’t start, finish, or pass through a non-friendly controlled area.

All units have to stop in an area already occupied by an enemy unit, and once there neither side’s units can leave the area except by retreating after combat. If one side’s units are destroyed or retreat out of the contested area, the remaining side gains or regains control of the area. Area control is important for supply tracing, which we’ll come back to.

Sample page from the rulebook, showing illustrated examples of movement.
The rules a simple, clear, and don't get in the way of the game, once you
get to know all the exceptions.

Combat is performed with a handful of dice, aiming for target numbers of lower. Combat occurs after all movement in an impulse, when a unit moves into an enemy-occupied area, or when a unit or units already in a contested area are activated to fight.

Two numbers, in some cases three, are printed on the counters, the large number on the bottom-left represents the combat strength of the unit. This is the number of dice that unit will get to roll in combat. This number also represents the unit’s steps, the number of hits it can sustain before it is destroyed. The smaller number (or numbers) are the highest number required to score a hit (you want to roll low on your hit dice). This is the number in the black diamond, usually a 3 for leg units or a 4 for armour. Some units have a second number in a red diamond; these are elite armoured units, and they have a higher chance to hit against other mechanised units. The dice used are d10s, with the 0-face treated as a zero (no hit).

The overall number of dice can be adjusted by different factors; terrain advantages the defender and may shave as many as three dice off the attacker’s roll, while, for the German player, attacking an allied formation that happens to be within artillery range (noted on the board by a howitzer silhouette) adds another die to the mix. A hit can be shaken off by one or all of the defenders retreating to a friendly controlled space (the attacker doesn’t get the option to retreat), but just the one. Combat can be brutal, and while reinforcements start to trickle in at around the fifth turn, they are restricted to one or two steps per turn.

WWIIC:BotB is a game of constraints. Area movement means somewhat restricted movement, especially factoring in the three friendly-unit limit per area. There are lots of junctions to move from area to area, but roads are quicker, except only one unit can cross a bridge in an activation. Then there is the need to secure supply lines. The Germans need to make inroads quickly in the first two or three days (turns) of the game. From December 19 (turn 4) the German units have to check supply. The Allies have to do this from turn 1, but they have many more options for supply sources than the Germans, who need to trace a supply route – a clear road running entirely through German-controlled areas – back to the Eastern edge of the map. From here on, things only get harder for the aggressors.

That's not to say everything is going smoothly for the Allies. Before the action, the Ardennes region was seen by the allies as a backwater of the Western Front. Nobody in command through the Germans would try anything there, so it was treated as a quiet place where units that had taken severe punishment in the previous months could be parked to recover and rebuild their strength. These units, some down to 40% strength or less were the first to be engaged by the advancing Wehrmacht forces. At the beginning of the game, the German side gets three free impulses. Only leg units can be activated, but the German player gets a bonus die on each attack (during both the surprise round and the first turn) along with their Artillery bonus. With good planning and some lucky rolls, this can put the German player in the catbird seat for the coming offensive. 

German Surprise Turn track. I really love the graphic details incorporated into the game,
like the calendar and clock-face on the Day (turn) and Time (impulse) markers. 

On December 21, the German fuel shortages begin. This is one of the things I love about this game. Fuel shortages hampered everything the German army did at this stage o the war, but it was a particular issue for the Ardennes offensive, combined with the issues of supply-line integrity, traffic jams on the narrow forest roadways, and a handful of other logistical issues. At this scale, how do you effectively reflect these issues without adding another four or five pages of rules? Mr Butterfield’s solution is elegant in its simplicity. The game includes three yellow “Fuel Shortage” counters. At the beginning of the sixth turn, and every turn thereafter, the Allied player places these fuel shortage markers three motorised German units, at which time, the German player may remove two of them. The unit with the remaining fuel shortage marker doesn’t get to activate for that entire turn. Bad for the Germans, you say? It gets worse; in the last three turns, from December 26, the allied player places the three markers, but the German player only gets to remove one of them. This one simple rule captures a crucial element of the battle, imposing a significant constraint on play, while maintaining a level of player agency. Simply put, it’s brilliant.

The numbers marked in areas are modifiers for the number of dice an attack can bring
 to bear. In the instance of two numbers, the one in a square applies to the force which
has control of the area (the assumption being that the town is being held as a strongpoint),
while the terrain modifier is used for counter attacked against the invader (triangles for
rough ground, diamonds for dense forest).

Every second day from December 20, a sudden-death victory is possible by either side if the German Victory Point level is either higher than the German threshold indicated on the turn track, or lower than the Allied threshold. Neither is likely; most games will play out to the full thirteen turns, but it can get tantalisingly close to one or the other threshold sometimes.

I would call WWIIC:BotB an operational game that plays like a tactical game. Control of the road-junctions (like the five-way intersection at Bastogne) is crucial for both sides. Tactical advantages – the German player's initial advantages in pre-start attacks and artillery barrages, the opportunities for improved defences provided by terrain and river crossings for the Allies – must be subordinate to the side's operational goals. To win on the game's historical metrics, the German player has to not only punch a hole through steadily improving Allied defences, but also maintain an uninterrupted supply corridor to their spearhead. I've never attempted to get an early win on the Victory Point thresholds playing either side, but there might be something to a German strategy of reaping Victory Point-valued locations and targeting VP-yielding units like the 82^nd and 101^st Airborne, or conversely, having the Allies try to sneak in behind the German lines to liberate towns like St Vith and Bastogne to whittle away the German's points advantage. 

WWIIC:BotB is designed very much as a two-player game. Having said that, I played it two handed solitaire the first couple of times to get my head around the rules before I introduced anyone else to the game, but I’ve since played it more than a few times on my own because it’s such a challenging and rewarding experience.

Maintaining control of key intersections is crucial for maintenance of supply, while rivers
 can act as a defensive balk against massed attacking forces.

Appraisal

For a relatively simple game with a single objective for each side – for the Germans, achieve the victory conditions; for the Allies, thwart those efforts to whatever extent they can manage – the game proves to be eminently replayable. In all the times I’ve played WWIIC: BotB, two handed and against another player, I not yet seen a German victory. But in at least two-thirds of those games the Germans could still snatch a win from the jaws of defeat right up to the last handful of impulses.

It would be diminishing to insist WWIIC:BotB is a puzzle game. To a degree, every Bulge game is a puzzle game – how do we get an armoured division or two across the Meuse, intact and in supply, without the other guy noticing until it’s too late for him to do anything about it. Better to think of Bulge games – including this one – first as wargames, but with a more strenuously puzzle-y aspect to them than most. Brute force isn’t going to cut it alone, but it may be the single most important factor on the table. The hammer is the puzzle; where to apply it how much of it to save for the dash to the finish line. WWIIC: BotB brings this to the for in ways other Bulge games might obscure in the back and forth of combat. Its approach to the situation it models is reductive, dealing with division-sized elements on an area movement map and with limits on the numbers of friendly units allowed in a single area, but in that distillation comes a deeper appreciation of the situation, and of the difficulties stacked against both SHAEF and the OKW, and the leaders of both sides on the ground.

I don’t know if I can say this is my absolute favourite Bulge game. There are a lot of them out there, and I haven’t played all that many of them. Just last year. the late Dean Essig revisited the battle with Ardennes II (Multi-Man Publishing, 2023). Another Joh Butterfield design, Enemy Action: Ardennes (Compass Games, 2015), a solitaire game that can also be played two-player, and Danny Parker’s The Last Gamble (Compass Games, ~2024), due for release this year, and Mark Simonitch’s Ardennes ’44 (GMT Games, 2003) is on GMT’s preorder list for its fourth printing. For a fast-playing, single map Bulge game, I think it’s probably neck-and-neck with Dan Fournie’s 1944: Battle of the Bulge (Worthington Publishing, 2020), and might just pip it at the post for the smaller footprint and comparative ease of set-up. I can say without reservation that I’m certain this is a game that will be making it to the table for years to come, and in the mean time, I’m really looking forward to seeing the series continued with Volume II: Market Garden, and any further volumes Mr Butterfield cares to design.

 

   

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.

 

State of Play: WWII Commander: Battle of the Bulge (solo, second run)

  

I took another stab at WWII Commander: Battle of the Bulge (Compass Games, 2020) the other day, sticking with the three-turn scenario, as I only had a little less than two yours available. I’m pleased to report that I believe the only mistakes I made this time around were all tactical.

I’m playing both sides, obviously, but I’ve been putting the most effort into trying to attain success as the Germans. This casts the Allies (Americans all in this scenario) in a defensive posture, which is about right historically, and is very simple to play – just look at what the Germans are trying to do and do what you can to thwart that. So far, the Allies have been successful taking this stance.

I was determined to try to make the run to the Meuse, at least to get a unit in an adjacent area, if not actually gaining full control by the end of the third day (December 18). I’s still convinced it should be possible, but that goal eluded me this time out as well. To be fair, I’ve been playing the American forces pretty aggressively, as soon as they actually can act; the Germans get three uncontested activations before the December 16 turn starts. The thing is, I now believe I haven’t been making the best use of those early activations.

Morning, December 17 (Beginning of turn 2).

The key for the Germans is mobility, and the key to mobility is controlling the road network, or at least enough of it to be able to funnel their armour forward (west), toward the Meuse. Things are going to get more difficult with the arrival of reinforcements in the second turn, so it’s crucial to move up as many units as you can in the initial push, but there lies the rub.

Armour units can move two spaces (three during strategic movement, but only on roads and within controlled spaces, and for the Germans, only from turn 2 (17^th December). I need to find a way to push my infantry units west to secure (Control) farther regions to expedite armour movement.

Thus far, I’ve been thinking like an old-school wargamer (analogous to a role-player treating an investigative scenario like a dungeon crawl). Playing a wargame, you’d think that this would be the right approach, but now I’m wondering. I was catching up on The War Room on YouTube. Thomas Van Hare (from Historic Wings) was talking about the reaction of some reviewers to his game SOE: Lysander (Historic Wings, 2023). Many reviewers have complained that the missions are too tough, but Van Hare suggested that they are approaching the missions like a wargamer, when they should be thinking like a pilot. He said, if a mission was shaping up to be too difficult, instead of ploughing on regardless and hoping for a miracle, a pilot would turn around and head home, and try again the next night.

Not every enemy unit has to be destroyed to take it out of the game. It was one of those times when you read the rules, and you comprehend the rules, but it’s not until you engage with the game that you understand the rules. I read the rules about out of supply units (can’t move, can’t initiate combat, and when they defend, it’s at the value shown on the Out of Supply marker placed on top of the unit. In the south I managed to get German troops forward far enough to envelope the American 4^th Infantry, cutting off their supply lines, and essentially enfeebling them. In the north, though, the weaker infantry and recon (Greyhound) units have been goading me to attack, and I’ve bitten each time. This has cost me dearly, tying up valuable resources, because as weak as they may seem, I haven’t been able to dislodge them in a single action, no matter what I throw as them. Better to envelope these pesky units like I did with the 4^th, then move on (if at all possible).

End of the third (final) turn. Closer, but no Meuse.

The Germans were more successful at removing American units from the board than the first time I played, but that doesn’t amount to victory. Well, some “elite” units on both sides have a one-victory-point value, but neither have enough of them to make wholesale massacre a winning strategy. If the Germans don’t meet their goals, and in a timely manner, before the fuel starts to run out, then it’s the Allies game. Mark Herman quipped that the Germans lose every Bulge game, but the fun part is watching how they lose.

Allied casualties (not not a VP among them).

All in all, I think I feel confident enough with WWII Commander to introduce someone else to the game now, but I want to take one more run at the short scenario, and maybe double-handed solo a full game if I can carve out a big enough chunk of time to do it justice. Unfortunately, there are other things vying for my attention at the moment; Pacific Tide (Compass Games, 2019) arrived last week, and I’ve been reading through the rules. It’s a very high-level take on the entire Pacific theatre from 1941-45 and, being a Greg Smith design, it has a dedicated solitaire mode. I’m preparing an unboxing treatment and will probably try to get it to the table very soon.

I also have a couple of GMT unboxing posts in the wings courtesy of their recent Thank You Sale, but I’ll keep them as a surprise. But I’ll offer a clue; one of the games involves livestock, another visits sunnier climes.

 

 

State of Play: WWII Commander: Battle of the Bulge (solo introductory scenario)

 

Okay, so on Monday we were supposed to play Napoléon 1806 (Shakos, 2019).I’d set the game up 9except for the units, which I’d left for free set-up), and made a pot of coffee, when I got a text from T to say they were still at their daughter’s house, ogling over their new grandson, and he wouldn’t be able to make it. I’ll admit, I was disappointed, but it’s hard to resent a three-week old’s hold over pretty much anyone in his proximity, so I decide to make lemonade out of lemons, stashed Napoléon, and broke out WWII Commander: Battle of the Bulge (Compass Games, 2020).

I recently posted an unboxing of WWII Commander: BotB, and I punched it out and looked though the support materials a little more closely. The back of the box says that the game has a high solitaire suitability, but the rules don’t include any guidance in this regard. Nonetheless, folks have been playing two player games double-handedly since the earliest days of board wargames. As I mentioned in the Stripped Down for Parts post, I wanted to test how well WWII C: BotB played solo before I showed it to anyone else. I just didn’t think I’d get the chance so soon.

WWII Commander: Battle of the Bulge is a thirteen-turn game, but it comes with a really simple three-turn scenario called Race for the Meuse. This is literally just the first quarter of the full game; the scenario has the same set-up and reinforcements, and no add-on rules, you just stop at the end of December 18 instead of December 28, and check if the Germans managed to make the victory conditions. Three turns would be short enough, I thought, to play in an (already late) evening, but long enough to get a solid feel for how the game plays out.

I’d read through the rules about a week before posting the unboxing, but I quickly went through the rudiments of how units were activated, how they moved and how they fought. Setting up took longer than it might have; I had the chits in bags, with the units in separate bags for initial board set-up and reinforcements. Initial set up ran smoothly but finding the 17^th and 18^th reinforcements among all the other reinforcements for the two sides took longer. Along with repacking the set-up Napoléon, I think the whole set up took maybe an hour, but I was collecting the units on the Order of battle cards, then transferring the top counters to the map. The units that begin on the board are each printed with the area they begin in (only on the full-strength counters for multiple-step units), while the reinforcements are all printed with a reference for the border they come in on.

Opening positions.

Once I got into the game, things ran very smoothly. The see-sawing activations keep things moving along. Each turn is one day, starting on December 16^th. Once you get into the turns proper (cryptic, but I’ll come back to this), the day is divided into nine segments, running through the day at about one-and-a-half-hour intervals. The Germans start, and at the end of their activation, the German player moves the time marker along. The Allied player always starts the turns thereon, with the German player nudging the Time counter forward each time after his activation, until the last turn when only the Allied player has a n activation, then reset (Turn marker moves to the next day, and the Time marker goes back to 5:30am), and housekeeping. The Germans also have an extra advantage; they get three free activations before the turn-marker moves onto turn one. In these moves only the leg infantry units get to move – mechanised units are stuck until the first proper turn, but it can give the German player a positioning advantage that may prove crucial (I suspect I wasted these activations on non-crucial sectors; I’ll know better next time).

In an activation, the active player can order all the units in one area. If that area is contested, each unit may move (retreat) to another Controlled (friendly) area, or they can stay and fight the enemy in that space. If the units are in a Controlled space, they can move one (if leg infantry) or two spaces (if motorised or Armour, and three spaces dependent upon certain conditions). Moving into a space with an enemy unit or units will immediately initiate combat with the enemy, and any friendly units already in the area will get pulled in for the fight as well (even if they’ve already been activated in a previous activation). When a unit is activated and the action is over, a black wooden block gets placed on the activated units. These are removed during the housekeeping phase at the end of the turn.

I’m pleased to report that the game does support two-handed solo play exceptionally well. It’s the WWII Commander’s turn structure makes it so perfect for solo play. The constant back-and-forth between the Germans and the Allies sets the necessity for both sides to react to what has just happened and to manoeuvre their own resources into place for best effect. A lot of the time the two requirements will be mutually exclusive and tough choices must be made. A first game is never a good indicator of how quickly a game will play our when the people involve are familiar with the course of action, but I think I added at least another half-hour trying to strategise on the fly for both sides.

I don’t want to go too deeply into how the game plays; this isn’t meant to be a review (if it was it would have “Review” in the title). Suffice it to say that mistakes were made (by me) on both sides, mostly minor things, and the dice rolled treacherously high for everyone nearly every time. Even when the elite Armour units were rolling eight dice (six strength, one for artillery support, and one for the first day bonus), looking for 5’s or less, they were rolling 7s and 8s consistently, without fail. Ut was so hard to land a punch on either side. Defenders get to soak some hits for terrain (rough, woods or built environments), so the hits that did land for the Germans were often ineffectual. Defending units have the opportunity to retreat to a friendly area, so the Americans did just that a couple of times, and the Germans took out the (reduced) 99th Infantry a one-step Greyhound unit. The Americans returned the favour with a pair of two-step leg infantry units taken out of action.

Allied casualties.

I made one significant mistake in my first play-through that may have had a detrimental effect on the chances for a German victory; I forgot about the three-sector movement through Controlled areas, which, for the Germans, kicks in at the 17^th (Turn 2). As the game played out, I could see a couple of mistakes I made with concentration of German efforts on the wrong sectors, dissipating resources what may have been more effective sent elsewhere. Adjacency to the Meuse and a contiguous supply line unchallenged back to the eastern map border is a big ask. I think it can be done, but I also think I need to spend some more time looking at the roads. Like in any Bulge game, the road network is crucial to victory for both sides. The kind of movement needed by the Germans to achieve victory in the Meuse scenario relies on control achieving and maintaining control of a road-based supply line.

A quick victory is what the Germans sought in the Ardennes. In fact, it was what they counted on: their fuel reserves would not allow a prolonged manoeuvre battle. In the full game, German fuel supply checks begin on December 21^st (the sixth turn). When this happens, the wheels will start to fall off. I’m looking forward to soloing the complete game, but I think I wand to try the Race to the Meuse scenario a time or two more. I keep wondering if the available German armour could make it to the Meuse and keep control of the area to take the pennant. Put me in, Coach.