The Jewish War (Khyber Pass Games)

This is a very good one. Really. A small game with a single sheet A4 map and a few dozens counters on the Judean revolt of 66-73 AD. Graphics are really good, both for the map and the splendid iconic counters (yes, is computer graphics, but who cares: it’s really good).

Rules are simple, really simple: a veteran wargamer may read them in a few minutes and start playing soon thereafter. The game uses yearly turns. The counters are rated only for movement and combat. This is one of the old kind of wargaming system, a member of the IGO-YUGO school of designing, that seems to work well in this case.

The Zealot player is the first to move and have combat (if he chooses so) with his units, then is the Roman turn to make the same. The objective of the game is for the Roman to totally wipe out of the map the Jewish forces, while the Zealot player must try to do is best to resist. And the task is harder on the Roman, who has to stand the weight of the offensive on a hostile ground, full of benefits (in the form of combat differential) for the defender.

The map is costellated by a plethora of towns, a few of them fortified and the benefit of this terrain added to the roughness of most of the territory makes any attack very risky (thanks to a bloody CRT).

There is a lot of chrome in this game, especially with the special and optional rules (with the Treasure of the temple, Jerusalem garrison, Titus and Vespasian). The game is very good even solitaire, a real effort for the Roman player, while the Zealot player may move very offensively at the start of the game to gain positions that could be decisive in the result of the war later in the game. The strongest point of the game is definitely the fact that is really fast to play: you may able to finish a solo game in half an hour and a competitive one probably in less than one hour. So you may play it several times in an evening. 

The people at Khyber Pass are to be commended for this first release, one of the best DTP games I have played, both fast than pleasant to the eye, and, most of all, fun to play.

I rate the game 8 out of 10

Roberto Chiavini