State of Play: Waterloo Solitaire Boardgame

  

 

 

I had a free hour-and-a-half on Tuesday, so I took Waterloo Solitaire Boardgame Edition (Worthington Publishing. 2023 – an unboxing can be found here) out for a turn. I haven’t played the Waterloo Solitaire Book Game (Worthington Publishing, 2021) on which this was base, but I understand it’s a pretty faithful interpretation of the original.

The Veteran Allied Actions card, mounted on its easel. I thought during the Kickstarter
campaign that it was a bit of a gimmick, but now I'm absolutely sold on the easel.

Let’s be clear from the start; this is not a faithful recreation of the nuances of the pivotal battle that conclusively drew a line Napoleon’s martial ambitions. Waterloo Solitaire is definitely positioned close to the “Game” end of the Simulation/Game continuum, and it makes no apologies for that. The original book games were conceived in the time of lockdowns and enforced isolation and brought a brief reprieve from ennui to thousands of people.

This was my first time out, so there were plastic bags to tear open and pieces to locate. I’d already split the single card-deck into its constituent sets of Allied and French cards. I’d settled on playing as the French because looking at the victory conditions, it seemed Napoleon would have a slightly tougher time of it. This wasn’t my first rodeo with a Worthington solitaire game, so I knew not to expect to win on the first time out (or the second, or the eighteenth, maybe). Even being the first time out, set-up still took less than ten minutes (probably closer to five; I didn’t check my watch).

The initial set-up and my opening hand; a good spread of options to start with.

The game has two adjustment points for difficulty, hand size (and what I think of as opponent-difficulty (each side has three levels of resolve; Challenging, Veteran and Tough). I intended to play the middle-path, but inadvertently make things a little tougher on myself, something I’ll come back to later.

Each turn, the player selects an Order Card to play from his hand, placing it face-up in a conspicuous place. He then rolls for the Bot action; on a 2-5, the Bot chooses an action eerily prescient of the player’s chosen order, seemingly calculated to mitigate or nullify the effect of the order before it can be played at least a third of the time. I know how this sounds; I don’t have the mathematical chops to model how this is possible. I don’t think Worthington solitaire games are somehow cursed. But a slither of doubt lingers. We'll have to see how a second game plays out.

Case in point. Three times in the course of the game I played a Fire Artillery order.
In response, the Bot "rollled" Reverse Slope Tactics for two of those orders,
nullifying those potential hits. It's like the game and the die are in cahoots. 

An inauspicious beginning

In my first turn, I decided to lead with the First Corps. Before the First and Second Corps can attack their corresponding Allied infantry Wings, they first have to deal with the garrisons at La Haye Saint and Hougoumont respectively, much like the British facing the Mill in Freeman’s Farm 1777 (Worthington Publishing, 2019). In that first turn I lost two blocks from the First Corps, one from a roll of five on the Allied Actions matrix – Allied Artillery Fire – and one from the stout defence put up by the 2nd Light Infantry Battalion of the King’s German Legion. This opening set the tone for what was to come. It would take assaults over four turns to clear the eastern chateau, and another two against Hougoumont, at a terrible cost in troops.

Combat is brutal in Waterloo Solitaire, and the odds are weighted against the player, or at least that’s how it seems when you’re the player. As a rule, the French score hits on low rolls, the Allies on high rolls. Add to this the nearly ubiquitous +2 modifier on many of the Allied orders, and in many cases the best the French player can hope for is a one-for-one hit exchange. This sounds like a complaint; it’s not meant to be – it’s just an observation. The game should be challenging (the lowest rated Bot matrix is called “Challenging”); if the game was easily won, you’d lose interest very quickly.

End of turn five. Already, things aren't looking good for the French.

The first Prussians arrived in turn four. The next turn, I sent the Reserves to check their progress, only to lose two blocks to the Allied cavalry (on a roll of the Cavalry Charge order, the Allied cavalry pre-emptively attacks whichever French formation has been ordered for that turn), then a third in an exchange.

Around the middle of the game – turn eight or nine, I sent the Old Guard out against La Haye Sainte, then again two turns later. The first time they were beaten back with heavy losses. The second – two turns later – they sacrificed themselves to clear the chateau in an exchange of hits. In between, Blucher had begun to arrive in force. If there are seven or more Prussian blocks on the board at the end of a turn, that’s an automatic win for the Allies. In the course of the game, I rolled a favourable one once. Every other one on a die roll came up on the Allied roll, and they seemed to come in pairs, inviting more and more Prussians to the party.

 

The end of the battle

Going into turn sixteen, having cleared Hougoumont and La Haye Saint, I was ready to make my final assault on the Allied lines. My Reserve and Imperial Guard had both lost all cohesion and withdrawn from the field of battle, both having sustained terrible losses at the hands of la belle Alliance. My First Corps was down to two blocks and my Second Corps had been reduced to a single block, but my two cavalry wings were both more or less intact; in the face of adversity, I thought a Je vous salue, Marie may just see the French carry the day. With three turns left victory was a tantalising mirage for a dying man.

I played a Cavalry Charge order. Intending to try to sweep up the Allied Right Wing and clear the way in the next turn to vanquish the Left Wing. Rolling for the Allies resulted in a result of one, followed by another one rolled on the Tactical Events table – Blucher Leads the Way. Two more Prussian units arrived in the woods, triggering an attack on the First Corps (the Prussians convincingly outnumbering the French). A To-Hit roll of five (with +2 modifier, of course) put an end to Napoleon’s Imperial dreams once and or all.

Final state. The Allies lose the game in a turn when two formations - Left Wing,
Right Wing or Reserves - are destroyed, but the French lose if either Corps is
vanquished, which is what happened, thanks to Blucher's (un)timely arrival. 

Mistakes were made

The hand-size difficulty adjustment is meant to limit player options in a given turn. The difficulty levels here are as follows; seven-card hand for Rookie, six for Experienced, and five for the Grognard. I didn’t check this when I set up for play, and misremembered the Experienced level being five cards, so I ended up playing a tougher game than intended, though I don’t think the extra card would have made much difference in light of my die-rolling and the lack of use of my Combined Arms option. This was another mistake. I declined from using the Combined Arms in the early turns, then I kind of slipped into a routine of card plays and ignored the option (this is the kind of mistake you make early and just once). Honestly, I don’t think they would have helped me keep both Corps in good order with the 5s and 6s the Wellington Bot kept scoring against my formations.

One game isn't enough to begin exploring strategies or testing tactical advantages, and it's easier to see mistakes after you've made them. The more time spent with Waterloo Solitaire, the better the odds of not losing so catastrophically. But that's what keeps bringing me back to games like this, the prospect or hope of not losing the same way twice. 

*****

So, the game was indeed an inauspicious introduction to Waterloo Solitaire. I expected to lose, but I’d hoped to lose in the last round, not two rounds early. The game is tough, even at a fairly moderate setting. Next time out I will stick to the Grognard (five-card) hand-size, but try the Challenging Allied order matrix rather than the Veteran. I’ll also make judicious use of the Combined Arms option, to cancel out the near ubiquitous +2 modifiers applied to so many of the French To-Hit rolls.

I only had enough time for a single game this time out; with every other Worthington solo game I’ve played, I’ve immediately reset it for a second inevitable loss straight after my first. I’ll be getting Waterloo Solitaire back to the table sooner rather than later, though There are other games also vying for my attention at the moment. But it’s a comparatively short experience, definitely playable inside of an hour, so I‘m sure I’ll be able to squeeze it in somewhere.

 

 

 

Stripped Down for Parts: Waterloo Solitaire: Board Game Edition

 

 

During the lockdowns of the early 2020s, Worthington released their first book-games, Waterloo Solitaire (Worthington Publishing, 2021) and Bismarck Solitaire (Worthington Games, 2021). While not a new concept, Worthington was the first mainstream wargame publisher to bring the concept to market, brilliantly avoiding the shipping woes facing publishers, by making the books available as volumes print-on-demand directly from Amazon. These reportedly saved the sanity of hundreds of wargamers, and the line has gone from strength to strength, with the publisher now boasting thirteen titles in their book-game series. Their early success has also offered proof of concept for other designers producing games exclusively for this production model.

Two years after the book-game publication, Worthington announced a Kickstarter campaign for a Waterloo Solitaire: Board Game Edition (Worthington Publishing, 2023). I missed the Kickstarter for the boardgame version, but with the happy confluence of a windfall coming at the same time as Worthington offering a very good sale price on the game, I couldn’t go past it. I have a handful of solitaire wargames, and I’ve enjoyed every one of them immensely.

The box cover illustration captures the character of much of the Battle of Waterloo, It’s an extract from a watercolour painting by Denis Dighton, The Defence of the Chateau de Hougoumont by the flank Company,Coldstream Guards, 1815. Dighton painted the scene in the same year as the happenings; this is one of several paintings he executed portraying scenes from the battle after visiting the site mere days after the decisive battle, making extensive sketches of the buildings and terrain in order to accurately portray the scenes. The original painting is on display at the National Army Museum in London.

Box-back.

The back of the box offers a hint of what’s inside, with sample cards and pieces superimposed over the play-map image. It also offers a paragraph broadly speaking to the historical and social significance of the battle rather than the game-play, headed with the famous quote by Wellington about the battle being the “nearest run thing”. The other information is more forthcoming; a manifest briefly lists the components included, and the graphic indicators put the games difficulty at 2 out of 5 and the solitaire suitability (being a solitaire-only game) at 5 out of 5. The game is recommended for ages 14 and up, and the duration should be inside of an hour.

The rule booklet.

The rulebook for Waterloo Solitaire comes to just eight clearly readable and well-illustrated pages. Worthington prides itself on short, clear and understandable rulebooks, and this is a solid example. It helps that the play of the game is so straight-forward, sharing its genetics with the Great Sieges series (reviews here, here and here) and Tarawa 1943 (Worthington Publishing, 2020)

Sample page.

The rulebook is printed on a nice low-sheen gloss paper, presented in a very readable serif font (from the Garamond family). The illustrations are clear and useful, but all in all, Waterloo Solitaire should be easy enough game to learn through diving into a game and following the Sequence of Play.  

The board. As usual, my inferior photography doesn't do it justice.

The game board is 17” by 22’ and mounted. The art is reminiscent of the kinds of after-action maps of military engagements that inspired this kind of wargaming in the first place. Starting locations for the unit blocks are marked with a solid rectangle of the matching colour, while rectangles outlined in these colours denote the positions Reserve units (and when available, the Prussian forces) may move to via game functions. The whole effect is wholly engaging, and the map is really quite nice to look at. The board also incorporated a Turn Track and a separate Combined Arms track (I’ll talk more about this in the AAR when I get to it).

The board is probably most reminiscent of another Worthington game, Freeman’s Farm, 1777 (Worthington Publishing, 2019), in that there is very little movement of available forces. The lack of manoeuvre will, I’m sure, put some gamers off from the outset, but as I’ve written elsewhere, this kind of play can still feel dynamic and challenging.

Two of the three Order Cards. These all present clear instructions
for your inevitable defeat.

The Bot function is handled by a set of Action Cards. These consist of three double-sided boards, representing the responses by the opposing Bot to the player’s choice of orders. The responses are decided by a die roll. The three boards represent three levels of difficulty, Challenging, Veteren, and Tough. Normally. I try not to get too deep into discussing game processes in an unboxing post, but I think it would be useful to mention the sequence of play here.

In the course of play the player will have a hand of cards drawn from their Command Deck (I’ll come back to these shortly), and Order Card representing the opposing side set up for play. Each turn, the player will select a command card from their had and place it face up in front of themselves. Then a die is rolled and the corresponding opposing order in the lower section on the Order card is enacted before the command card is played; if a one is rolled, the die is re-rolled, and the player refers to the more challenging upper row – the Tactical Action table – which is then resolved. After the enemy action has been resolved, the Command Card is played (if still possible). In this way, play is similar to games like 1759: Siege of Quebec (Worthington Publishing, 2022).

The easel, as yet unsullied.

Waterloo Solitaire also comes with an easel, a jointed heavy-weight cardboard Action Card holder so you can position it next to the board and refer to it at a glance, without having to stop what you’re doing and pick the matrix up to check your die results.

This might be considered a novelty – I think it may have been initially added as a Kickstarter stretch goal – but in the past I haven’t been above using my wife’s recipe book holder for the very same purpose. I’ll keep it in the box for now, but it may end up too useful to confine it to just this game.

Tray and contents. The extra compartment lets you separate the Allied
and French decks (no fraternisation among the troops).

Worthington has been incorporating trays into their games for some years now. I’ve read that some folks rather they didn’t, but I think these six-pot trays make perfect sense for games with cards and/or wooden pieces. I still put light-tension bands around the cards to stop them from coming adrift, but these are super helpful for keeping sets of components together.

Sample cards. Many of there orders offer two or more alternative functions.
This won't necessarily make winning any easier.

Waterloo Solitaire comes with two twenty-six card decks, one each for the two sides of the conflict. Along with the three levels of Bot difficulty, the player can increase the game’s challenge by adjusting the hand size he has to choose from. The rules recommend a seven-card hand for a Rookie, six for the Experienced player, and five for the Grognard. Among the cards are a selection of orders, each specific in their function, with the exception of the Wellington/Napoleon cards which facilitate any single card order, and each limited in number.

The cards are printed on a good weight of card and each order boasts its own artwork. These are drawn from contemporary paintings of the battle, and lend another level of verisimilitude to the play.

Infantry blocks, uncomplicated and uniform.

Action in the game is abstracted to nameless Infantry (plain) and Cavalry (screen-printed with the traditional sash marking on one face) formations, represented by elongated wooden blocks, blue for the French, red for the Anglo-Alliance and green for the Prussians. The blocks are, in essence, casualty markers. They are chunky and tactile, identical to those used in the Great Sieges games. In those games, when your forces take a loss there’s a visceral sense of diminishing strength; the weight of the blocks lend a tangible presence, lending a metaphysical weight to their removal from the board. Several yellow cubes for use on the Turn and Combined Arms tracks also included, along with the single die required for rolls.

You can't see them all here, but the Cavalry blocks are all stencilled in like manner.
I'll get some better photos for the AAR. 

I'm certain the lack of detail in formation attribution will be enough to put some folks off the game. I can't speak to that; everyone has their own criteria for what they look for in a wargame, and I can understand the preference for granular detail. This game won't be for everyone, but I've had a lot of fun with similar games, and I expect to here as well. (And there I go practically reviewing the game before I've played it.)

I’ve been hoping to get my hands on a copy of Waterloo Solitaire for some time now. Worthington has produced a good number of my favourite fast-play solitaire games over recent years, and I expect this one to live up to my expectations. I anticipate posting an initial game report soonish.

 

 

The Endorsement: Worthington's Holiday Sale

 

This is my third Endorsement on A Fast Game, and my second involving Worthington Publishing. I don't intend to make this kind of promotion a regular feature, but this is time-sensitive given the particular subject.

Worthington is holding their annual Holiday Sale right now. early everything is marked down. but I would draw your attention to a couple of things in particular; 414BC: Siege of Syracuse (Worthington Publishing, 2022 - review here) and 1569: Siege of Malta (Worthington Publishing, 2022 - review here) - at time of writing - are down to twelve copies each at the Worthington warehouse, and they are each available for US$20.00. That's a ridiculous price for such tight, replayable, and fun games. And while shipping is never cheap to Australia (or elsewhere) from anywhere in the US is never cheap, Worthington manages to keep it reasonable; another $40.00 for one box, or $65.00 for both.

Designer: Dan Fournie. Solo game.

Designer: Maurice Suckling. Solo, but with a two-player option.

Worthington's online store is linked above. Lots of other publishers currently have sales at the moment as well, but I'm singling these guys out because I've dealt with Grant and Mike a lot over the years and they've always been really helpful and If solitaire siege games aren't your thing, there are discounts on nearly everything in the store. Do yourself a favour and check out the sale.

Note (November 21): 1565: Siege of Malta is now sold out. There are still some copies of 414BC: Siege of Syracuse, and there are a bunch of other games still available, with deep discounts on several Civil War Brigade series games and Band of Brothers sets (note that you need to have Screaming Eagles to use Texas Arrows; the others are all stand-alone). 

The Endorsement: Worthington’s Pacific Theatre

  

 

The Old School Wargames arm of Worthington Publishing currently has a Kickstarter campaign running for three games in the company’s Travel Games line. I’ve made no apologies for being a fan of Worthington’s output generally in the past; they generally produce really nicely put together games on the rules-lighter side, and that play in between one and three hours, which suits my personal gaming circumstances. Their travel games stick to Worthington’s lane, except they are smaller (about the size of a big pencil case), and tend to play out in a shorter time frame.

Full disclosure: I don’t own any of Worthington’s travel games, and I haven’t had the opportunity to try any out, either (I’ll come back to this). I haven’t promoted their Kickstarter campaigns in the past, but this is a special case. 

Task Force templates for Midway Solitaire. Photos are taken from the KS campaign page.

The current campaign offers three titles covering different aspects of the war in the Pacific; Midway Solitaire (a new title, not to be confused with the solitaire Battle of Midway game released in World at War magazine (Decision Games) in 2017 and repackaged as Midway Solitaire Deluxe in 2021),  a reprint of one of their first travel games, Pacific War 1942 (Worthington Publishing, 2024),and a refashioned Tarawa 1943 (Worthington Publishing, 2021). 

Anyone who has been reading A Fast Game from the start will know that Tarawa 1943 is one of my all-time favourite fast-playing solo games. It’s been out of print for a while, the Worthington folks are innovators, reimagining this classic block game as a small, travel-friendly game with a smaller footprint with cardstock components replacing the blocks, but maintaining the depth and intensity of the original game. 

The refashioned Tarawa 1943 map. Neoprene maps are available for all three games
as add-ons, if that's your thing.

Tarawa is the only one I can speak to personally. There is a wealth of content available on YouTube regarding Pacific War 1942 – a quick search brought up play-throughs by Zilla Blitz and the Player’s Aid, as well as a short review by Grant from TPA. But I can wholeheartedly endorse Tarawa 1943. 

You don’t have to buy all three games – there are options for backing just one or two if you prefer, though shipping overseas favours multiple purchases. At time of posting there is about sixteen days remaining on the campaign, so check it out.

State of Play: Drop Zone: Southern France (The War Room Ten Wargame Challenge #3)

 

 

 

A rather scattered initial drop. 

My brother-in-law couldn’t make it for a game last night.* I’d set up a new arrival, Drop Zone: Southern France (Worthington Publishing, 2025 – you can find an unboxing here) for our first playthrough. Since it was already laid out and ready to go (and looking so inviting), I thought, why not? I’d got it to the table a couple of days ago, but just to punch out the counters and push a few around, seeing how the different elements worked. I’ve been looking forward to a proper game, so I took the opportunity to get a game in.

I decided to double-hand it. The game comes with solitaire rules – two pages of seven -point font on a PAC – which I’ve read through and look workable, but for a first time out I’d rather play both sides as fairly as I can to get a feel for the whole game, all the moving parts.

Set-up for play; German garrisons and mobile units, along with British
and American para-drops. Ready to go.

 
 Set-up

The initial set-up places the Axis forces in predetermined locations on the board. Most of these are garrisons defending Objective locations – towns, hills, and road junctions, and some mobile units. The garrisons – nineteen in all – can only defend and don’t have any movement value (they’re there to stay put and fight to the last man). The other German units at start are mostly infantry with one mechanised reconnaissance company. These are placed, one unit at a time, with a simple dice-roll mechanism; the intended drop-points are marked on the map, each numbered to correspond with a paratrooper battalion. But nobody ever lands where they’re supposed to. To place each unit, you roll two six-sided dice. The white dice dictates the direction (the six hexes around the drop-point, while the red result indicates how far in that direction the unit ends up (result halved, rounded up). This can make for some significant scattering of a battalion. It will also go to making each game a different challenge from the last.

The on-board drop guide. the white die indicates the drift direction, while the red die
dictates the distance form the landing target (d3, or half the result, rounding up).

After the preparation stages are complete, turn one starts with a preordained order of play; from the second turn on, faction order is decided by chit draw. I laid out the activation chits on the board in their proper order, and we were good to go.

Pre-drop set-up card.

It’s worth noting that set up takes a little while; I knew it would, and I did some preparation ahead. Like other Worthington games, Drop Zone comes with a counter tray with troughs for the counters and open bays for the dice. When I punched and stowed the markers, I grouped them into sets; all of the garrison counters in one channel, the initial para-drop counters in another, then the two side’s reinforcements, grouped by their arrival brackets. While not perfect, this probably saved at least a half hour of set-up time, maybe forty minutes, that wasn’t spent sorting and grouping the counter from a cold start.

Turn 1

Both sides begin the game with whatever is already on the board. Turn 1 starts with the German factions’ activations. There are only five mobile units in play at this time, so this didn’t take long. First to be activated were the KGr Schwerin (dark grey). Pfannkuche’s “Alarm” contingent, based in Draguignan, dashed south and brought battle to DeBray’s Free French company outside of Trans en Provence. When the paratroop units are initially placed, they are set face down, with just a parachute symbol showing. You never know what you’re going to get. They are revealed when contact is made, or on being ordered by the owning player.

Trouble in Trans en Provence.

If DeBray’s FFI company had been an American company, the American side would have been able to reconstitute the unit at one step in the next turn by spending a Reinforcement Point. As it was, these troops were lost (or at least disordered, and some probably joined their local compatriots in securing the Trans en Provence when the garrison was defeated.

In Les Arcs, about seven kilometres to the south of Trans en Provence, the 204-S “Alarm” contingent under Jahnke’s command headed to the neighbouring town of Roche Rousse, only to engage with McKinley’s F Company, (6 Serial), and not survive the altercation. The two “Alarm” companies were what the name suggests; these were scratch contingents pulled together from the non-combatant troops located at divisional HQs anyone from clerical staff to cooks who could carry a rifle were dragooned into defensive, sometimes offensive, service.

Jahnke's folly.

The second faction to activate was the 128 Reserve Division forces. The 242 Recce and 2 Company, 8 Pioneer Battalion were reluctant to leave the crucial hubs of Le Muy and RJ 7/43 respectively. Retaining Le Muy and the 128 Headquarters at Draguignan was the best hope the Germans had of prolonging the battle and slowing the Allied advance, and crucial for keeping channels open for reinforcements. The closest enemy units (thus far unidentified), were in heavily wooded areas, which would reduce the German units’ effectiveness. Better to wait for the Tommys to attack their defensive positions for the defensive bonuses.

Attack they did. The American units of the 509^th PRCT (Parachute Battalion Combat Team) were next to activate. In their turn the PRCT made relatively short work of a handful of garrisons, efficiently taking Les Arcs, Trans en Provence, and Roche Rousse in their first turn.

A brave and foolish effort by combined British and Free French forces,
probably trying to out-do each other.

The British 2 Independent Parachute Brigade Group (2 IPBG) acquitted themselves honourably, managing to seize St Michel and Le Motte, and positioning themselves well for assaults on Le Mitan, Clastron and Road Junction 562/264. Their big failure was an ill-advised assault on the reinforced RJ 7/43, which cost two understrength units against the garrison force and Lober’s Pathfinders (they were able to reconstruct one back to one-step with a reinforcement point in the next turn, but it really was a stupid move, and something of a high water mark for the Germans).

Reinforcements and assets. I find the rounded bottom ramekins reduce wear and tear
on any chits or markers that require a random drawer.

Turn 2

The way reinforcements work in Drop Zone is pretty neat. Both sides receive reinforcements each turn after the first. The Allies get three British and three American companies in their reserve mix; at the start of turn 2, the sets are each placed in their own draw cups (I used concave ramekins, one is drawn from each, then placed at their respective entry-points (marker by a letter in the top left hand corner, which will correspond to a road entry hex on the map edge) at the start of turn 2, another each at the start of turn 3 and the remaining units on turn 4. There’s a similar mechanic for the German reinforcements. The chit draw thing is also done for the two sides’ assets. These are one-off bonuses that can help a side in a given combat situation, such as off-board artillery or an air-strike in support of the attacking or defending force. Neither side gets all of these, and most can only be used by one or the other faction in a side.

Activation order for Turn 2. I used the red poker chips to mark the units that had been
taken out of the game but were eligible for reconstitution using Reinforcement Points.

From the second turn on, four circular Faction chits are placed in an opaque container (there is a lot of chit drawing from here on in), and drawn one at a time, a new draw after each current faction has completed their activity. As it was just me, I ignored this and drew them all, placing them in order on the track, probably saving me a few minutes overall. The order was to be PBCT, 128 Res-Div, 2 IPBG, and KGr Schwerin.

From the second turn on, each faction gets a couple of Reinforcement Points, as dictated by the chart on the Turn Track. These can be used to resurrect fallen single-step units or bolstering single-step units to their second step (I imagined that for the paratroopers, at least, this represented latecomers regrouping with their units – this was an issue on the first D-Day, with some soldiers not rejoining their home units for a week or more after their drop). Having taken Trans en Provence, the Ninth Battalion reorganised and split up, with Fraisier’s A company setting a road-block to the north of the town against German reinforcements, DuBray doing the same thing on the road heading west, and La Chaussee’s C Company pulling off an unlikely coup, taking the town of Valbourges to the east single-handedly. In the south-east, and against the odds, Seigel and Tofany’s companies managed to take Hill 212 with minimal losses. This was to be indicative of my rolls for the Germans almost across the board. The Allies suffered losses, but the Germans could not seem to hang on to a single challenged objective, or to retake a captured one.

It is probably a bit gamey, but it makes sense to bolster the units that are most likely to see combat on that turn or the next, especially in crucial placements. With more German replacements on their way Americans were reinforced around Les Arcs and Le Muy, while the British, who had met stiff resistance in the Eastern sector, reinforced around Le Mitan and the crucial forest Road Junctions 47/43 and 7/43.  

Despite the danger the British reinforcements - in the shape of Blackwood’s D Company, 5 Scots set to come in from the east, later that turn – the loss of Le Nuy as a check to Allied advances was the greater danger. 128 Command shifted the Pioneers south of Le Muy to shore up the town’s defence and apply pressure to the FFI ad hoc garrison on Hill 212, while the 242 Recce Battalion had a lossless exchange with Seigel’s paratroopers.

Reinforcements come onto the board at full strength regardless of faction. So, on their activation the 2 IPBG raised Fitzroy-Smith’s A Company, 10 Serial, back to a single step and withdrew north to reinforce the attack on RJ 47/43. Neither target would be crucial to the final result, but the northern junction may be crucial in delaying German reinforcements in later turns. Blackwood in turn entered from the east along N7 highway and in an exchange of factors, took RJ 7/43.

The 128 Res-DIv attempts to retake Hill 212.

In their turn, the 128 Reserve took the fight to the Fourth Battalion, which had managed to take Hill 212 just hours earlier with what forces they had at their disposal. With the threat to RJ Lober’s Pioneers and the 282 Armored Reconisance battalion drove hard on a reinforced A company under Siegel, and came off the worse for wear, the 282 losing a step.

By the end of the second turn, the Allies had steamrolled the German defenders, taking nearly all of their D-Day objectives, as well as a disproportionate number of D-Day+1 targets. I checked the German dice to make sure they all had the right number of scoring faces. This was unusual for me; normally I roll badly regardless of which side I’m playing. But the Allies hadn’t won yet. There were still a couple of hold-outs, including the tough nut of Le Muy to contend with

Turn 3

There are two Victory Checks in Drop Zone; these take place at the end of turn 3 and the lasty turn. If the game plays through to turn 6, scoring comes down to a point-tally. At the end of turn three, the Allied player checks the taken objectives. If he has secured all of the D-Day objectives (numbered in a red box) plus at least two D-Day+1 (numbered yellow box) objectives. If the Allies don’t gain a sudden death victory by meeting these conditions, the game plays out to the full six rounds (to the evening of D-Day+1), and a winner is declared by comparing the point-value total of objectives captured, minus the value of the objectives still held by the Germans.

McKinley's boys overpower Matte's 11 Company.

The turn order for this round was KGr Schwerin, 2 IPBG,  PBCT, and128 Res-Div. The KGr simply didn’t have much on the board to work with. Their one full strength unit available was Schaub’s “Assault” company of the 189 Division – actually an ad hoc “Alarm” company, but maybe given the name to boost morale – against the battle-tested F Company under McKinley, checking the road to Les Arcs. This didn’t go so well for the Germans, F Company remaining unmoved.

The exchange between McKinley's ant Matte's companies. Open terrain, and no
applicable assets for either, so straight strength rolls. McKinley rolls two Infantry
symbols - clear hits. Matte rolls two FFI symbols, which, had McKinley instead
been an FFI paratrooper unit or a garrison, would have been enough to take
them out twice over, but have no effect against the hardened infantry.

KGr’s last gasp was a Hail Mary in the form of Tornow’s 2 Company, 1/239, which attacked Le Motte from the woods for a slight advantage. If successful, the attack on Le Muy would bave some of the sting taken out, having deprived the Allies of a sudden death victory, but ultimately Tornow’s brave men could not dislodge the FFI garrison in the town.

By the end of the second round, the allies held all the first-day objectives (marked with a red box) except for Le Muy. I really didn’t anticipate a sudden death victory for the Allies over the first two turns, especially given the spread of the initial para-drop for some of the battalions; the sticking point was always likely to be Le Muy, with its reinforced garrison and hosted recce unit. It was only at the beginning of turn three that I realised it could be possible. But the seizure of Le Mitan (barely) and Le Serres in the previous turn allowed British units to swarm down the 25 motorway and encircle Le Muy. When they were successful, there was no point finishing the round. There was no way for the German forces to retake any of the red objectives and turn the tide. Operation Dragoon was a brilliant success, with relatively low casualties.

 

The final board state. All D-Day (Red) objectives captured/controlled, as well as a couple
of D-Day+1 (Yellow) objectives, qualifying for an Allied sudden death victory.
Note the Le Muy garrison marker next to the road half-way between Trans
en Provence and Les Arcs; that was left there by accident.
What can I say? It was getting late.

Verisimilitude

Drop Zone captures a small but crucial episode in the Allied invasion of Europe. The scale of the game is intimate, and it manages to convey a sense of urgency on the side of the Allies and desperation for the Axis. Due to the low reinforcement numbers, most fights in the game are between reduced companies, so it’s not outside the realm of realism when an altercation results in neither combatant remaining in a functional state at the end (rather than both sides being wiped out to a man). This happened at least twice in this game.

Little details in the game enrich the experience of play. In the cases where it was possible to ascertain, the units – mostly companies – are named on the top of the counter for the captain who lead it. This kind of detail elevates the game from a diversion to a rich experience.

Mistakes were made

Looking back on it, the Even running just to the three turns, it was starting to get late. I did a lot of rules back-and-forth in, to make sure I was doing everything correctly, but neglected some fundamental things. While I was aware of the Asset draw in the second and third turn, I didn’t take full advantage of them for either side. Use of an asset token in the defence of Le Muy may have proven to be a deciding factor, or conversely, may have given Tornow’s company the edge it needed to retake La Motte, denying the Allies a clean victory and forcing the game into the second day.

I was getting tired by the third turn – I didn’t start the actual play until after 9:00pm, and on reflection, this would be why I slipped up and neglected to draw the Germans’ second round of assets. I don’t think the remaining asset chits would have turned the tide, but it might have given the Axis side more options to prolong the game, bringing more German reinforcements to bear, possibly armour. I with my limited experience with the game and analysis of the situation, it's in the German player’s interest to ensure the game runs to all six turns. As the German player, I spread myself too thinly, rather than trying to defend of retake a couple of key locations (just one would deny an allied sudden death victory; two or three might make the difference in the final point calculation).

The other mistake I made was putting the two Allied faction reinforcement pools into a single container drawing unevenly – two American reinforcements in turn two, and one each in turn 3, rather than one nationality each in each turn (the last two would have come out in the fourth turn). This almost certainly contributed to the Allies’ success in securing a secondary objective at Junction 562/254. A small thing in the greater scheme, but I’ll be more careful next time around.

 One last thing to note. Some eagle-eyed readers may have notices this before I managed to, but in my haste setting up I managed to transpose most of serials (battalions) 4 and 9 during the drop sequence and only now noticed my error. There’s only one thing for it; I’ll need to play another game of Drop Zone, and soon.

-----

Like 1944: Battle of the Bulge (Worthington Publishing, 2020), Drop Zone promises to be a game to puzzle over. And like the earlier game, it encourages the judicious use of tactics and concentration of firepower. But, just as it plays out for the Germans in BotB, if the Allied forces spend all their time in manoeuvre, setting up the perfect 3-1 ratio offence, they’ll run out of opportunities to seize all the objectives they need to carry the game. Sometimes they will just have work with unfavourable odds and pray for a miracle.

As I’ve said elsewhere in the blog, Drop Zone: Southern France has been one of my most anticipated games for a couple of years now. I can say unreservedly that it does not disappoint.

* I began writing this the next day, but in truth it’s taken me nearly a week to write up, partly due to the detail I’ve put into describing the play. I wanted to convey the richness of the narrative that this game produces, along with a sense of the frenetic action of play. I hope folks enjoy this, and maybe think about grabbing a copy.