Game #1: Advanced Guard 1914 by Pelle Nilsson
The competition over at BGG has now passed the design phase and onto the play phase, with voting beginning in a couple of weeks. With 47 entries and not much time, there is no way I can get to play all of these, but the ones I do play I will be featuring here on my blog, with my thoughts on the game.
Being a wargamer at heart it felt only right that I open up with a 'wargame' as my first play. So I bring you, 'Advanced Guard 1914' by Pelle Nilsson, a game big on the 'randomness of war'.
First thoughts – Printing and initial look
The game prints off on
3 sheets, 1 with a map, 2 with counters. The look of the game is a
traditional war based boardgame. The Infantry tokens are marked with
X, and Cavalry with a /. Having played games like this before, and
read many articles where such markings are used, I already felt at
home with this game.
The fact it printed
with ease, is nice, but as I found out its a little deceptive. There
is actually more to this game than meets the eye. It isn’t simply a
'My turn, I move all my units' Enemy turn, the enemy moves all their
units' style game, its a lot more tactical and flexible than the
handful of counters leads you to believe.
Reading the rules and learning the game
The rules are presented
in an easy to read format, nicely paragraphed and numbered. Although
in a few places the terminology (friendly/enemy) had me a little
confused. Paragraphs like Section 8.4 covering 'Enemy Assaults'
reads, 'Enemy Infantry and cavalry will always assault when adjacent
to one or more pinned friendly units.' this had me thinking 'Do they
only attack when their ally is pinned?', or does this mean friendly
as in the players units?
Aside from a few areas
of initial confusion, most of the mechanics for the game are straight
forward, with the game map having the core information you need
printed at the bottom
Gameplay
I was expecting a you
go, enemy go style of game, but was pleased when I found it was
random movement. I always prefer an element of random to a turn. The
game has this, but it feels frustrating at times. Units activate when
they are drawn, so early game, when there aren’t that many units,
feels like a lot of dead draws.
The random draw also
kicks up random events, but not as many as when you reveal possible
enemy. There is a good chance an event will happen here as well, and
sometimes these events feel very unconnected to what is going on. In
the example below, on Scouting an area I got an event, but the event
happened at the top of the map and had no relevance to the Scouting.
Enemy movement also
seems to be a little hap hazard at times. There are directions for
enemy units to move, and while some of these seem to make sense with
the enemy favouring moving along objectives the player needs to take.
There are sections of the map where the enemy will never move to at
all.
There may be a pattern
here that I just didn’t see on my first game. Maybe once you
correlate the starting units types in an area, their movement
options, and the victory conditions of the player, it may all work. I
confess I haven’t had the time to look through this yet.
Combat is also a little
annoying, and at times even winning a fight doesn’t work out well
for a player. The problem here is with the 'Pinning' mechanic, and
more importantly the way a unit becomes unpinned. Its all done by the
random draw, so if you hit a unit, pin it and it hasn’t activated
yet, it will become unpinned. Or, if it draws before you in the
following turn, it becomes unpinned before you can capitalize. This
when added to the player being against the clock, proves very
frustrating at times.
Summary
A good game. Some nice
features. The different values of the hexes spawn different enemy
unit types. Outlying areas tend to have more Cavalry on patrol and
scouting, while built up areas are held by Infantry. This gives a
good feel to the game, and makes the map feel like a map, not just
hexes on a grid. As the game progressed I found myself thinking
'well, its likely the enemy will have Artillery stationed on that
hill' and 'that section of woods will give me cover up till x point
on the map'.
The addition of random
events also adds a nice element to the game play, but that is where
(aside from enemy spawns and movement routes) I feel the randomness
should begin to be toned down.
I like the fog of war
in games where I cant be certain my units will move/activate/do what
I want 100% of the time, but 1914 takes it a step to far I feel. It
makes it a little to hard to coordinate actions.
The combat v's the time
restrictions on the player, also feels a little unfair. Combat is
often indecisive despite the players efforts, and there are no rules
for coordinating actions (no 2+ units activating and attacking
simultaneous) which only adds to the frustration of a 'no effect' or
'pinned'.
That being said I will
keep 1914 in my collection. I really enjoyed the map feel and the
whole 'Contact?' based on the type of hex, but I feel the combat,
activation, and events could do with a little rewrite. The Victory
time frame is also harsh on the player.
If you are a fan of
random you will like this game, if you prefer a little more control
over your games you probably wont.
Thanks for reading.
For more info on the
Competition, please check out this link -http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/798184/2012-solitaire-print-and-play-contest
For info on the game 'Advanced Guard 1914', and details on how to download, print and play the game yourself use this link -
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/806508/2012-pnp-solitaire-contest-advance-guard-1914-cont
And a shameless plug for my own entry into the competition, please follow this link -http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/829534/wip-2013-an-apocalyptic-survival-game-for-the-20
Chris
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