Category: Washington’s War

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Board Wargame Washington's War

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.

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Board Wargame Tabletop Board Game Washington's War

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.

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Washington's War

Card Driven Wargames Exploring Washington’s War / Part 3

The American’s are next to play a card. The American is starting to become concerned about Cornwallis in Virginia. The spreading British influence is starting to become a problem. Let’s take a quick look at the map to get our bearings:

General Green with a full army of 5 units has accomplished the mission of bolstering the American political cause in and around New York. With just 4 cards left in hand the American needs to be aware of the Winter phase. In the winter phase all American Armies, except for Washington’s Army, will suffer 50% winter attrition. The militia will head home for the harvest season. This means General Greene’s army is going to evaporate very soon. It is probably best to lose them now in combat (maybe take out a few Redcoats) rather than let them just walk away for the winter.

The American plays a 1 OPs card to activate General Greene. Greene moves South with the goal of bringing Cornwallis to battle. Greene will take advantage of the “special American mobility advantage” feature in the game. An American general can move 5 spaces instead of the normal 4 spaces as long as he is not engaging an enemy. Greene makes it all the way to Alexandria.

General Greene is now just 2 spaces away from General Cornwallis. This ends the American’s card and play switches back to the British for the next card. The American play has put Britain in a strategic quandary. Should Cornwallis flee South? Doing so is probably just delaying the inevitable battle and giving up favorable ground. He would run out of map room after just one turn and become cornered. General Green can eventually bring him to battle.

Does Howe attack Washington up North? The British are holding a nice combat card to help out:

The +2 dice roll modifier would help to even the odds for Cornwallis or provide Howe a nice boost to defeat Washington.

Losing Cornwallis in the South would, I think, be the bigger problem. Without troops in the South, political control would quickly start to shift America’s way. The British decide to stay and fight with Cornwallis. Cornwallis will therefore not waste a card moving and instead continue shifting hearts and minds in the South.

With 2 OPs the British flip 2 empty spaces to their way of thinking. Yorktown and Georgetown each get a British PC marker.

The American is next. A 3 OPs card is played to activate General Green and 5 combat units. They move from Alexandria to Norfolk where our first battle of the game will take place.

It always feels like a bit of a waste to play a 3 OPs card to activate a General with a 1 Strategy rating. In this case, it can’t be helped with only two 3 Ops cards and an event left in the American hand. Here is the movement:

Greene and Cornwallis are pretty evenly matched in battle. Each have a “potential Battle rating” of 4 and an “agility rating” of 2. This should be a close fight. As stated earlier, General Greene is going to lose 2 units to attrition at the end of the Strategy Phase and would like to get some redcoats before his militia departs. Like most wargames there is a battle procedure pointing towards a few tables to roll on: Here is the procedure:

In step 1, both sides commit cards to the battle. General Greene does not have a battle card but does have an unused event card that can be played. The Brits fortunately have a battle event card to play. These cards give the American +1 and the British +2:

The American card is actually a British event which is unpleasant to the Americans. Playing it as a battle card gets it out of the American hand and prevents it from being “bought out” of the discard pile by the British. Unlike a battle event card, however, it does not provide a card draw to the American. The British on the other hand get to play their battle card and replace it afterwards with a fresh card draw.

Next both side roll to determine their General’s Battle rating using this very simple table table:

Each General has a potential battle rating of 4. Lets roll and see what the actual rating ends up being. Both Generals roll 6s so each will get to use their full battle rating of 4. The cumulative modifiers are now +5 American and +6 British.

Now we look at the general DRMs from this chart to add any that we have not already accounted for above:

Greene has +5 for combat units to add to his modifiers already calculated for a total of +10. Cornwallis will get +3 for his units and also +1 for having British Regulars, +1 for Militia (most PC markers in Virginia) and since the battle is taking place in a port they get +1 from Royal Navy Support for a total of +12 to his roll.

Having political control of the region and remaining in a port location has swung the balance in Cornwallis’ favor. General Greene will need to roll well to win. Dice are now rolled.

Greene rolled a 4 and Cornwallis rolled a 5 making him the victor with a total of 17 to Greene’s 14. We now must determine losses by rolling on the Combat Losses table:

Greene rolls another 4 and will take a loss of 2 combat units. Cornwallis rolls a 3 with his agility rating of 2 so he will take 1 combat unit loss. General Green must retreat and does so by going back to Richmond.

The British draw 1 card to replace the played battle card. We will leave things here until the next post. It was cool to get to have a battle. Cornwallis took advantage of the Port location and stayed in a region where the British have established local control and that made the difference in the outcome. I am looking forward to see what happens in the next post.


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Tabletop Board Game Washington's War

Card Driven Wargames Exploring Washington’s War / Part 2

In the last post, the British player used his one reinforcement for the turn to place General Cornwallis and 3 combat units in Norfolk Virginia. This created an open path to Philadelphia PA and the current home of the Continental Congress. Should a British combat unit enter Philly unmolested then it would disperse the Continental Congress. The Congress marker, if this occurred, would be placed on the turn track. While the Continental Congress maker is on the turn track, the American player is severely limited in the political actions they are allowed to take. This should be avoided by the American but is a worthy objective for the British.

Lets look at the map to get oriented:

An army can move though 4 adjacent spaces when activated. This means that Cornwallis is 2 moves away from Philadelphia should he pick this as an objective.

The American wants to provide Philadelphia a little protection against a possible Northern move by Cornwallis. In addition, getting control of New York is a priority for the Americans. The Yanks play a 1 OPs card to move Greene. Green moves three spaces from Newport to New York City.

I have circled Philly so you can see that Green is now within easy reach to protect the Continental Congress should Cornwallis advance North. Landing on New York puts Greene in position to establish American political control in a subsequent turn. We will discuss political control actions very shortly.

I have also circled General Greene’s strategy rating of 1 on his unit card. The strategy rating is the minimum OPs number that must be played to activate this general to move and fight. Greene can be activated on OPs 1-3. Since all Ops cards fall in the range of 1-3 General Greene can be activated on any OPs card in the deck. Howe by comparison needs a 3 OPs to activate. Since only a third of the OPs cards are 3OPs, Howe is much more difficult to get moving.

That ends the second card for the American and play goes back to Britain:

The British decide to play a 2OPs card to begin establishing bureaucratic control of their misbehaving colonies. The 2 OPs allows the British player to place political markers on the map. For each OPs point the British may place a control marker. Marker placement will depend on what is currently in the space. Lets break it down to make it easy to understand.

If the space is empty (no control markers or units) then the British can use 1OP to place a British control marker in a space adjacent to an existing British marker. That marker must have been present at the start of the turn. You may not daisy chain markers with a single card.

If the space contains an American control marker, then a British Army (General and at least 1 combat unit) must be present in the space to flip the existing marker from American to British.

Cornwallis uses 2 OPs to place British Control Markers in New Bern and Petersburg which were previously empty. This action represents the pacification of a region using arrests, offers of amnesty, seizure of armament stores, bribes and placing loyalists in control of government. Britain begins to solidify their control of the Southern Colonies.

Play returns to the Americans for another card. They are currently holding 5 Cards in their hand. They play:

The American player decides that two can play at politics and choses to play 3 OPs in New York and New Jersey for political control. Note that since General Greene is parked on the New York City space he can flip the existing British control marker. He also places new markers in New Brunswick and Long Island which were previously empty of markers. This puts the Americans on very solid footing in New York.

We return to the British player who is holding 5 cards. One of these cards is a special mandatory event card. It will need to be played before the end of the round and it is not particularly useful to the British player.

This card determines when the war ends. It gets played on the map in the “War Ends Box” to remind players of the current last year of the game. It can be replaced with other similar cards that may end up in either player’s hand. These cards make sure the players never really know when the game will end. This mechanic is useful to the designer t to prevent players from engaging in “gamey” actions. Knowing when the game will end allows a player to become unrealistically aggressive, for example, because they know there will be no consequences. The card is not useful, however, for the player who finds it in their hand. It’s a dead card that offers no immediate advantage.

Taking a “might as well get this over with” approach the British player plays the 1782 card to get it out of his hand.

We will resume play with the American’s 4th card in the next post.

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Tabletop Board Game Washington's War

Card Driven Wargames Exploring Washington’s War / Part 1

The game begins with the Reinforcement Stage. Both player may at this time take any generals they might have in the “Captured Generals Box” and place them in the “Reinforcement Box.”

At the start of the game I have not yet succeeded at getting a general captured, so we can safely skip this step for now. Next, British players get to fill up their reinforcement box with combat units equal to the number found at the bottom of the turn record track.

The Vassal module has the British reinforcements already queued up in the numbered turn spaces on the turn record track. Note that British reinforcements are scheduled and limited. This has implications worth considering when playing the British. The American’s spend OPs to get reinforcements and are less limited in total number available. I will cover how American reinforcements work in more detail as opportunities to reinforce occur in the game. The British reinforcements are all set:

Like most war games we will be following the all-holy sequence of play. I find it useful when learning a game to look up each step on the Sequence of play as it occurs. It is easy to skip important steps in your first few playthroughs of a game. If you are not at least a little regimented on how you proceed through the turns, you are liable botch things.

Now that we have handled the reinforcement phase we can move on to playing strategy cards. Normally you deal cards in the “Strategy Card” Phase and then play them in the “Strategy Phase” which follows. I got excited and dealt out the cards early so we can skip to the Strategy phase and begin playing cards.

If the British have a campaign card, they can play that card to go first. If they do not have a campaign card or choose not to play one, then the Americans get the first play. The British did not get a campaign card in their draw for the first turn so the American’s get to play the first card.

The Yanks decide to reinforce General Nathanial Greene. He currently has only 2 Combat units and is located adjacent to British General Howe who is fully loaded with 5 British Regulars.

General Greene and his small army is a tempting target for a quick attack by Howe. I think bolstering this army makes sense. The 3OPs card is placed in the first Reinforcement card box on the map.

The American gets a combat unit for each OPs point on the card played for reinforcements. In this case it is a 3 Ops card so 3 combat units are placed with Greene. Note that all reinforcements for a given card must be placed in a single space. That space cannot contain a British combat unit or political control marker. Nathanial Green gets 3 combat units bringing him up to the maximum army size of 5 combat units.

The British are up next for their first card.

The American Armies are both just outside of Boston. This leaves the rest of the country without American armies. The Brits decide to start up a second army and deploy it in South in hopes of exploiting this lopsided deployment. The Brits spend 1OPs and place it in the British reinforcement box. Since any card will do, this is a good way for the British to make use of a lowly 1OPs card.

The British have used up their 1 reinforcement for the round but will get to place a general and 3 combat units. Cornwallis and 3 combat units land in Norfolk on the Virginia coast.

Deploying in any port without an American is an example of the British mobility advantage in this game. They can show up just about anywhere very quickly. The American player will have to consider carefully their next move. We will see what happens next in tomorrow’s blog post.

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Tabletop Board Game Washington's War

Card Driven Wargames Exploring Washington’s War / Intro

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.