No! This Is Not About Wanda Maximoff
Nor her cousin, Wanda Minimoff - sorry, couldn't resist - and her Marvel comic persona, the 'Hex Witch', an illo of which I can now put up thanks to having mentioned it. Art!
Don't blame me if they depict her in a bathing suit as it's still SFW, although I've never seen the television series and so cannot comment on whether she looks like the sleaziest hen night entrant ever.
ANYWAY the real Intro here is about as far as you can get from magic and costumes, because Your Humble Scribe has been pondering - always a dangerous thing - about World War 1 boardgames. Specifically ones where the Hex is the basic geographical unit, as well as counters. Hex and counters, being a hex which is the board arbiter of choice. Art!
A prime example of the genre, this is 'Tannenberg', one of a five-game set that reproduced the First Unpleasantness on the Eastern Front. As is my wont, I've blu-tacked all the counters to sheets of A4, organised under what kind of unit or effect they have. This is what I'm looking for: a hex map, a long set of rules and scenarios, hundreds of unit and effect counters, various charts and a set of dice.
Shout out to 'The Dice Treasures' on Youtube, whom assembled a list of 20 WW1 boardgames that were the top of the field, in their opinion, and as I've not played any of them, we shall defer to their experience. Art!
Their title illo. Not quite what I'm after, as will be detailed in the list below. So, in the order TDT arranged them, I shall begin with Number 20.
20) "Clash of Giants II: Ypres and Galicia 1914" By GMT Games
Art!
I'll bet only 1 per 1,000 people reading this know of the battles around Ypres in 1914, and 1 per 100,000 about the battles in Galicia in 1914.
There's a reason why 5 of these games concentrate on 1914. The period between August 1914 and December 1914 represented a time when movement was most fluid, before trench warfare got established and when there was still the possibility of making a decisive breakthrough. Even if that remained improbable, thanks to the enormous size of the armies involved.
Ypres covers the desperate defence by the British and French of that city against the marauding hordes of Huns, just barely scraping by as a victory. Galicia sees the Imperial armies of Austria-Hungary and Russia vying for control of what is now part of Poland and Ukraine.
Frankly, this sounds exactly like the kind of game I'm after. So it's probably long out of print and unavailable. Art!
19) "Axis And Allies" By Renegade Games
Art!
Conrad rather snittily dismissed this in my notes as 'Miniatures on a board', definitely not what I'm looking for, and a variant of the Second Unpleasantness 'Axis and Allies'. Mind you, it's probably easy to pick up the rules and play out in an hour or two.
18) "The Grizzled" By Sweet Games
Art!
Card-based. NEXT!
17) "To The Last Man" By Nuts! Publishing
Art!
Central theme is the Great War in the West, and it's unusual to see triangular counters on a board, which displays regions rather than a hex-based map. Probably not what I'm after, although the legend 'Web published' did pique my curiosity. Digging a little further reveals that it is 'card-driven' and focusses more on doctrine and logistics than mere firepower. Interestingly can be played via the on-line VASSAL game engine.
16) "1914 Glory's End" By GMT Games
Ha! Another hex-and-counter model. Art!
What did I tell you about 1914? This one covers the first three months on the Western Front, whilst strategic movement was still possible. Looking a bit closer at the GMT website, it appears to consist of 2 games - "1914 Glory's End" and "When Eagles Fight", which, sounds like the Eastern Front. Especially as the map that TDT shows above displays Austria-Hungary, not France or Belgium. Art!
Conrad vindicated
As I expected, the publisher's website boldly announced 'OUT OF STOCK' so probably only available via e-bay or similar.
15) "Versailles 1919" By GMT Games
Art!
In case you were unaware, the negotiations at Versailles laid down the conditions for the Teutons moving from an Armistice to a Peace Treaty, and one they considered to be a swingeing humiliation imposed at a time of weakness. If the game is realistic it will include the ongoing Royal Navy blockade and the genesis of the Teuton 'Dolchstoss' myth - which alleged that Germany had never been defeated on the battlefield, it was all the fault of the jews and Bolsheviks. TDT mentions four players but not which nations they represent - a little digging later I can reveal these are the South Canadians, GREAT Britain*, Italy and France.
We're only a quarter of the way through the list so I shall call a pause there and return at a later date. One thing Conrad has noticed is that the enormous attritional battles of mid-war onwards are not represented individually in this list, rather being subsumed into the whole 1914 - 1918 subset of games that cover the whole war. I bet you can hardly wait for Part 2!
The Haul
As part of the Semi-Stupid Schedule, Conrad didn't start work until 12:00 yesteryon, which compelled me to get something of worth done in the 4 hours after I unstuck myself from my sweaty mattress. So! I went to Sainsbo's in order to stock up on loose leaf Darjeeling, crossing my fingers that they didn't have empty shelves. Art!
I think there may have been a couple of packets left at the back, which were so deep I couldn't reach them. Still, 9 packets ought to keep me in tea until August at least. Speaking of which, time for the second pot of the day.
Long Time No See
Way back in the Nineties, the Ruffians had a small fleet of A-50 'Mainstay' AWACS aircraft, to the number of 12. Art!
These airframes were horribly complex and costly, being $300 million per unit, and they have lacked the ability to create any new ones for decades. Two were sold to India; two (at least) were shot down and destroyed by the Kozaky; two have been pictured on an apron, missing engines as they'd been cannibalised for parts. That leaves 6, of which two are suspected of being, once again, cannibalised for parts, leaving only 4 at the most. Lack of spare parts and trained crews is keeping these remaining airframes from flying regularly, and the last sortie was over Omsk, to try and detect incoming Ukrainian drones, which they signally failed to do, even when backed up by an Su-57. Ooops. They seem to have given up trying to do anything about the hundreds of mid- and long-range drones that surge across the borders of Mordorvia every night, metal fatigue being what it is.
For The Art Afficionados Amongst You
No! Not our resident troglodyte, art with a small 'a'. Art!
They used poetic licence as there are no queues of static cars and angry orcs.
Radio Silence
A year ago, 'Vatnik Soup' put up a Tweet about the orcs and their summer offensive, such as it was. Art!
Clicking on their Twitter handle resulted in:
So they seem to have deleted their account - O the irony! - and effectively run away from any further contact.
THEREFORE VATNIK SOUP AND CONRAD WIN!
Not that I'm gloating or anything. Much.
* This sends Lavrov into a frothing rage, which is hilarious to see.
"By the pricking of my thumbs, I like to exercise my gums!"
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