Board Wargame – Strategic Buffoonery

Card Driven Wargames Exploring Washington’s War / Part 5 (Final)

In the last post each side had played their final cards of the strategy phase. We will round out the 1st year of the war with a few administrative phases. As a reminder here is the sequence of play again:

Next up in order is the Winter Attrition Phase which we touched on a few times earlier. Let’s do the British first. The Redcoats, being a professional army without agricultural duties to see to in the fall, are less susceptible to attrition. Any British troop below the attrition line on the map or in a Winter Quarters space are immune to attrition.

Cornwallis is North of the winter attrition line (white and blue snow flake line just south of Virginia) but they are in a Winter Quarters space which protects against attrition. Winter Quarters spaces are identified by the square shape of the space.

Fortified Ports (star shaped) are also considered Winter Quarters space. General How is in Boston which is also a square space so the British suffer no attrition to their armies for the first turn.

The American units will suffer some attrition. They cannot hide in a Winter Quarters space. There is one exception, up to 5 units stacked with General Washington are immune to attrition. The rest of the troops, regardless of location, suffer attrition. This is half the stack rounded down. General Greene starts with 3 units, half is 1.5, rounded down to 1 leaves him with 2 units. General Washington in the North will keep his current 5 unit army.

The Next phase would be moving the French Navy. The French have not yet joined the fight so there is nothing to do in this phase. To get the French on board you must advance the French Alliance marker to 9 points on the French Alliance Track.

Here are the ways to move the French Alliance Marker:

Each time the British lose a battle, the marker is advanced +1 space.
If the British lose the “Regulars” advantage (for any
reason), the marker is advanced +2 spaces.
When the “Hortelez et Cie Clandestine French Aid”
Event Strategy Card is played as an event, the marker
is advanced +2 spaces.
When the “Benjamin Franklin: Minister to France”
Event Strategy Card is played, the marker is advanced
+4 spaces.
If George Washington is captured (and consequently removed from the game), the marker is decreased -3 spaces (away from the “French Alliance” space).

The Political Control Phase is next. Again there is not much here yet. The Continental Congress is still in place in Philadelphia and does not need to be relocated. There are no isolated political control markers for either side to remove. So we move on to the final stage of the turn.

In the End Phase we check for victory. Neither side is close to victory so we reset things for the next turn of the game. After the turn marker is advanced we would then start turn 2. With that I will end my exploration of Washington’s War.

I think we have covered the main game concepts relatively well. Anyone who read my posts on Washington’s War should have a good general idea of how it plays. It is a basic card driven wargame with few systems at work. You goals and objectives are clear for either side of the conflict. The event cards are easy to understand and the combat is straight forward. Washington’s War is easy to recommend and would be a great starting point for anyone with an interest in card driven wargames.

Subsequent card driven games have built on this title to deliver more complicated systems and cards. There are many fascinating permutations of the system to explore. Once you learn one card driven wargame you have dozens of games that use similar mechanics that are easy to pick up quickly. Many of them build gradually in complexity so you can pick and chose how much detail you like in your games. A wide variety of historical periods and subjects have been covered by card driven designs. You have a lot to chose from if you have an interest in this type of game.

I hope the playthrough was useful to you, until the next one, cheers.

Card Driven Wargames Exploring Washington’s War / Part 4

The British enjoy a card advantage as we head towards the end of the first turn. They are holding a couple of 3 OPs cards and 1 event card. The British have been paying attention and know that the American has only 1 card left to play. This will give the British 2 consecutive Operations at the end of the turn; a nice advantage as the turn expires. The Brits begin by playing their event card:

There are 2 options and the British elect to flip New York City back to British political control. Having a port in New York feels pretty critical and being able to flip it without taking a turn to place an army in New York seems pretty good.

The American is up with their last card. Note that you are not allowed to pass and hold a card so the American is compelled to play the remaining card now.

There is an important topic we have yet to discuss that is becoming increasingly relevant in this game. Your political control markers are subject to becoming “isolated.” If a marker is isolated at the end of a turn then they are removed from the map. An American political control marker becomes isolated if it cannot trace a path to:

an uncontrolled space that does not contain a British
CU, or
a space containing the Continental Congress, or
an American controlled space containing an American
or French CU, or
an American controlled space containing an American
or French General.

Note that an American General on a British space is not a valid source for maintaining an isolated marker. The British player has similar rules with the addition of all ports being a valid trace location. Its that naval advantage paying off once again for the Brits.

Since we are approaching the end of the turn it makes sense to evaluate the map to see if we are at risk of losing our hard earned political control markers. Here is the current situation:

After some consideration and head scratching the Yanks settled on Richmond, Lynch’s Ferry and Brattleborow. Richmond was flipped primarily because General Greene is not a trace location if his space is not American. By flipping Richmond, Greene can maintain any marker that can trace a path to him. The Brattleborow marker was placed to link up the Northern markers and to block east west placement of markers from General Howe’s location. The marker in Lynch’s Ferry also connects markers with General Greene preventing other markers from being easily isolated and removed. Here is a zoomed out map with the locations checked.

Brits are up and they play a 3 Ops card for 3 political control markers. At present the Americans control most of the colonies. The Vassal interface keeps track of who controls each state with a “Colony Control Schematic” printed out in the Atlantic Ocean. It shows which side owns each state at a glance. Here is the current status of political control:

The Colony Control Schematic updates as tokens are placed on the main map. Britain has work to do, at present they only control Canada and North Carolina. Spending Ops to control of a few more states seems like a good play for Britain.

Bassett Town, Abingdon and Fort prince George each get a British control marker with the first 3 Ops. America is out of cards so we will do it one more time. The Brits play their second and final 3 Ops Card to place 3 more control tokens. This time it is Pittsburg, Oswego and Ticonderoga giving the British control over Virginia, South Carolina and New York States.

Both sides are out of strategy cards so that ends the Strategy Phase of Turn 1. The basic concepts for Washington’s War have now been covered. Anyone reading this should have a decent idea of how the game plays. I will wrap up turn 1 up in the next post and maybe offer some final thoughts on this interesting game.