Andy Ravenscroft - 10:46am Nov 8, 2000 PST (#4125 of 4165)
Wilderness War

Played what I understand to be the close-to-production copy of
Wilderness War against Mark Novara who was playtesting it at RockCon
last Saturday. I got to play the evil British, which was casting to
type, and also turned out to have the devil's luck.

We played 3 years (6 game turns) 1757 to 1759. Early moves included
attempts by the French to burn settlements on the western frontier, and
a British drive up the Hudson valley which was only stopped by the
appearance of Montcalm.

The main strategic mistake for the French was playing at the beginning
of the game the event card that enables the British to play the Quiberon
Bay card (can't remember which French card that is). 1758 then opened
with the British playing the Quiberon Bay card (which is a huge card in
terms of impact), limiting the French players hand thereafter, and
taking the initiative with first moves.

The British had good luck in the Hudson valley, as Montcalm dropped back
to Quebec in face of an invasion threat to Louisburg, and the French had
despicable luck on the western front. Things were starting to flow the
British way during 1758, with the capture of a fort, and some good wins
in stand-up battles.

The final turn of the tide occurred when Wolfe came out of the leader
pool in the second half of 1758, and quickly joined the siege of
Louisburg. By the beginning of 1759, Montcalm was desperately trying to
hang on to Montreal, to no avail, and the British were in Quebec by the
end of the year. Boston was under siege from a light French force, and
some farms were burned in the east, but the sideshow made no difference
to the final outcome.

The British took the game with a victory (13 VP's) at the end of 1759.

We played without the advanced rules, including infiltration, which
would probably have had a significant effect on the game. The French and
their Indian allies had a lot of bad luck on the western front (rolling
very low when they needed high numbers and failing to burn very much),
and never really posed much of a threat, so there was no diversion of
British resources from the main campaign up the Hudson Valley and at
Louisburg.

The game wasn't hard to pick up, and the card mix and mechanics provide
plenty of options for each player. You have to keep an eye on the
overall picture, as the wearing down of forces can leave you vulnerable
to raids (in the British case) or defeat in stand up battles (in the
French case), and the choice of which cards to play where is always
important.

Winter is very nasty in terms of attrition, so you have to make sure you
have everyone in a warm place as the end of the year approaches. This
means you have to think ahead as to what options you pursue and keep
enough cards in your hand to get armies to shelter.

I enjoyed it immensely, but then everything went my way - cards popped
up at the right moments, and the die rolls were on my side. Wolfe came
into the war early and made up for those slow-to-react British leaders.
I'd like to have a shot at the dastardly French to see how they compare
to the evil British, so I'm going to have to check the finances and see
about that P500.

As an aside, following on from the earlier discussion about GMT and
Eurogames, I'm an ex-wargamer who went for Euros and has been brought
back into the wargaming fold by the GMT Euro/wargaming mix.