I have been playing a lot of card based wargames lately. These games get called “CDGs” (Card Driven Games) by board gamers. The games use cards to determine what actions you can take. Typically the cards have both points and text. In most cases you can spend the points to take game actions or take the beneficial event described on the card. Rounds are typically based on a hand of cards. Several of these rounds represent time passing; after a set number of rounds the game ends.
I thought it would be fun to take a look at what is generally considered to be the first Card Driven Wargame. I should note there is debate in wargaming circles about which CDG was the first and more generally what constitutes a CDG. Debating these things does not sound interesting to me so I will leave that to others.
Washington’s War by Mark Herman is widely considered to be the first CDG. It is my understand that previous versions of this game were titled We the People. I am not sure why the name was changed but thought it might be useful to know the other name if you go looking for it. Washington’s War is currently in print and available for purchase.
Washington’s War does not have scenarios. Your only option is to play the campaign game. I think a full campaign playthrough would drag a bit in blog format so we will play at least one hand, perhaps more if it seems necessary to get the basics of the game. I will try to explain how the game plays as we go along. My primary goal with these posts is to present a feel for how the game is played and whether it is something that might be interesting to anyone reading the posts.
A quick primer on the cards is probably in order before we get started. Here is a typical OPS card; this example card is from the rule book.
The text on these OPS cards tells you exactly what you can spend the OPS points on. The OPS cards come in flavors of 1, 2 or 3. You will have a bunch of these OPS cards in your hand each turn.
Activating a general is how you move your armies about the map. A PC (political control) action is the process of changing political control of a space to your favor. Bringing reinforcements into the game is pretty self explanatory. I will discuss each of these action in more detail as they come up during the course of play.
The map is point to point:
Movement is through consecutive adjacent spaces that are connected by the grey lines on the map. General Howe and his 5 unit army in Boston is adjacent to both Greene in Newport and Washington in Lexington Concord. An activated general may move his army up to 4 spaces. British units may also move from port to port; ports are all considered adjacent for the British.
The player who controls the most states when the game expires is the winner. Control of a state is the player with the most PC markers in that state. There is an instant win victory condition for each side that ends the game instantly when one side is running away with it.
Before card play begins the Americans get to take the one-time Committee of Correspondence action. This allows the American to place 1 PC marker in each of the Thirteen States in the game. Then the British player gets For The King action which allows the placement of 3 British PC markers. These must be placed in a port or adjacent to an existing British PC marker. Normal play then begins. Here is the game map after the PC markers are placed. It is zoomed way out to fit the whole thing. Its going to be hard to read some details but the PC markers should be visible. The blue markers are American and the Red markers are British.
Let’s get started by looking at Each sides first hand of cards starting with the American Hand:
The American’s have 14 OPs points and 1 British event card. With 4 3OPs cards the American should be happy with this hand. Next the British hand:
The British have 11 OPs points in total, 1 combat card and 1 “end of turn” event card. The Americans will have more OPs for the first turn but the combat card once used allows a card draw. This may further balance the total points. We will discuss the event cards in more detail when they are played. That should set things up nicely for the first game few cards in the next post.
Strategic Buffoonery 