1941 - the Barbarossa Campaign

Coming straight off the back of the 1940 game (France) that I played last week, another game from the WWII Campaigns box goes onto the table for a face-to-face game. This time we are on the Russian front.

To remind the reader, Compass Games have just re-printed three of the old Games Designer Workshop titles that were part of their 120 Series. These were stand alone designs, related by the fact that they never had more than 120 counters and didn't take longer than 120 minutes to play.

The three re-prints have been combined into a single package. The previous post gave a close look at the France 1940 game and discussed such things as production and presentation values etc (link below).

Today, we are just going to look at the Barbarossa game for its own sake, which seems on a first reading, a bit slicker than the France game and I think this may be the title that may be useful to break into the package as a first game. EDIT we ended up playing twice due to the way the first game played out - observations of both playings are covered here.

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WWII Campaigns - 1940 (France)

In the late 70’s, Game Designers’ Workshop (GDW) released a number of games under the umbrella of the 120 series. The idea was that they were individual designs (i.e. not sharing a common rulebook), but commonly, would each have less than 120 counters and play in under 120 minutes.

Compass Games have just brought three of those titles back into print and combined them into a single boxed game called WWII Campaigns 1940, 1941, 1942.

1940 deals with the battle of France and was originally designed by Frank Chadwick. 1941 covers the Barbarossa campaign and was originally designed by John M. Astell. 1942 looks at the Japanese campaign against Malaya, Java and the Philippines and was originally designed by Marc. W. Miller.

As is happens, the Barbarossa and France games have some similarities, which I hope will make it a little easier to move between those two games when the time comes.

They are pretty much straight reprints of the originals, with even the maps being done in the original style, which used the old 4 colour process of the time.

For the rest of this post, I will be taking 1940 - The battle of France, out for a spin and using that to example the package. Please use the ‘read more’ tab for the rest of this post. 

Brothers at War - Regimental ACW

Brothers at War covers smaller battles from the American Civil War. It is designed by Christopher Moeller and published by Compass Games.

ACW game systems typically pitch themselves at one of two levels, either divisional with units representing regiments or at corps / army, with units representing brigades.

In this game, the units are regiments, but what makes this title a little unusual is that the language and sub-systems used, give this game something of a more tactical nature.

This volume (1862) covers four battles, Antietam (Miller’s Cornfield), South Mountain (Fox’s Gap), Mill Springs (Thunder in Kentucky) and Valverde (Guns on the Rio Grande).

Between them, they offer 13 Scenarios.

I am just starting out with the game and have three playings completed. I will be using the Fox’s Gap scenario to discuss the system and package in general. 

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Battle of the Bulge by Compass Games

A Bulge game by John Butterfield, published by Compass games, covers the German 1944 Ardennes offensive, including the Allied recovery and counter-attack over the period from 16th December through to 28th.

The map uses areas (rather than hexes) and so our ground scale is roughly 15 miles per area, each turn of 1 day is further broken down into interactive impulses representing about 1½  hours of action and units that are mostly divisional.

It is a two player game, but is very solo friendly, something that in these Covid times has become more of a relevance in general. The box say that playing time is in the region of 1 - 3 hours.

There may be familiarity with this game to some readers, as the system and subject was first released a few years ago for a digital platform, available on the iPad and later followed up by an east front game.

Anyway, here we are, in boardgame format and with much to enjoy. The rest of this post will give way to to some observational notes, interwoven into an AAR, which will have an exploded view of the first turn, so that we can discuss some of the system in practice, such as combat.

If you are not a boardgamer, but fancy a dabble, this may be a game that will get you interested.

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Battle of the Bulge 1944

Starting today, 15th December, this blog is following on a day-by-day basis, the last German major offensive in the west, surprising the Allies in the heavily wooded Ardennes region.

We will be using the Bitter Woods boardgame, designed by Randy Heller and currently published by Compass Games (previously published by Avalon Hill, Multi-Man Publishing and L2 Designs.

Two game turns represent a full day, so each day, two turns will be played and the action will be posted here until the campaign concludes on 26th December. Each new daily content will be added to the bottom of this post to preserve the chronology of events and allowing readers to come back at anytime and just pick up where they left off.

In preparation of this game, I have enjoyed Anthony Beevor’s book ‘Ardennes’, highly readable, with a level of details that is immersive.

Today is the eve of battle and three German armies with offensive capability have managed to position themselves under the Allied collective noses, in the Ardennes sector, without the Allied intelligence or high command collectively appreciating the situation.

The Ardennes region, considered a quiet sector, was being used by the Americans as a place to rotate units that had recently been in combat and that needed rest and replacements. Additionally, the troops that were there, were spread thinly - too thinly for effective defence.

The Allied drive on Germany was running out of steam after intensive and continuous campaigning since the summer. The supply chain was stretched and readily available manpower reserves were starting to look inadequate. The Allied focus was on crossing the Rhine and winning the war by Christmas, so much so, that their minds were closed to other possibilities - such as the Germans having the capability to launch a major offensive in the west.

Internal rivalry between the Allied commanders saw Montgomery (British) wanting a large slice of the limited supply to go to his drive north of the Ardennes, while Patton and Hodges (American) wanted that same supply to support their thrust into Germany, from below the Ardennes. They saw and interpreted any reported German activity as being at most, preparations for a spoiling attack against those ambitions. They totally missed that German intention (itself unrealistic) was a large scale offensive with much greater goals of dividing the Allies, seizing their supply hub (Antwerp) and forcing a peace settlement.

The Allied mindset can be summed up with a few choice observations noted by Beevor;

Early September, G-2 intelligence at SHAEF “The August battles have done it and the enemy in the west has had it” (Beevor page 5).

15th December, Montgomery asks for leave the following week to visit the U.K. for Christmas (Beevor page 108).

Though Colonel Dickinson, G-2 1st Army, interpreted his available intelligence to suggest that a German attack would be made in the Ardennes, this report was ignored (Beevor page 104).

Tomorrow will bring a rude awakening to this peaceful Ardennes landscape.

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