Martí Cabré
Terrassa
Catalonia
-
It is curious how the Wars for South American Independence are a little known subject in Spain. The last two hundred years of Spanish history have been in general so shameful that there are not many cultural products (movies, easy books) that try to explain to the average consumer facts about Spanish recent history.
And yet this period is really fascinating. One example is how Spain managed to lose its imperial status during the XIX century, mainly because it is the story of the creation of a bunch of new nations. When Napoleon invaded Spain in 1808 many people in South America felt it was the moment to start a revolution, like their neighbors in North America had done 30 years before. But the southern revolution was not easy nor fast. It evolved in a long struggle between states, social classes and races and its effects are still felt today.
*** THE CONCEPT
Guerra a Muerte is a light wargame for two players designed by Javier Romero and published by the magazine Against The Odds (ATO). It recreates the struggle for independence of the various nations in South and Central America. It uses a zonal system with simple counters.
*** THE HARDWARE
ATO has a well-deserved reputation of good physical material. In the case of Guerra a Muerte the reputation stands. The map is quite beautiful, it is a huge map with America from Mexico to Chile, represented as an epoch map, with zones that represent entire small countries or regions of bigger ones. Orography is very abstract, with only some reminder of the presence of the Andes.
Zones can contain cities and fortresses, but there is not enough space for this assets to hold the counters AND see the city/fortress representation altogether, and this is annoying.
The graphical indications for slave revolts, attrition, reinforcements and patriotic allegiance are drawn in the middle of the regions, so when you put your counters there you cannot see the information.
There is space to allocate reinforcements but there is also a lot of empty space that could have been used for the combat tables.
The counters are simple, representing infantry, cavalry, artillery and leaders, in Napoleonic style. Counter color indicates nationality and they only have one combat value.
As in all of Romero's designs, there is a table in the rulebook indicating the meaning of each counter identification, which shows the effort that the designers puts in the historicity of the game.
*** THE SOFTWARE
This is the worst part of the game. The rules, as I got them from ATO, have a lot of holes, incoherences and there are a lot of aspects of the game that are quite difficult to comprehend. There are also many things that seem clear but when you start playing you don't know how to handle.
The combat is somehow chrome-enhanced by "tactics" which can boost the power of either infantry, cavalry or artillery in many combinations. The problem is that these tactics are entirely random, just a roll of the die, so the player cannot adjust tactics according to his or her force, but he or she is forced to always move with stacks with the three branches together in order to maximize the randomness of the tactics.
Battles are victory or death: usually one side totally wipes out the other side, so you must go to battle with A LOT of troops to ensure victory. This creates the effect of just hoarding troops to launch them against the opponent and hope the Dice Gods are benevolent, killing much of the tactical movements that improve the wargaming experience.
There are some rules regarding guerrilla forces, but it also round down to maximize its use only in certain spaces, acting just like some kind of garrisons.
Overall, most of the rules seem untried or not developed enough.
*** THE EXPERIENCE
I had expectations for this game but they were not fulfilled. For me it is like a game of Risk set only in Central and South America. 
The battle system is tedious, with initative going back and forth without control and giving battle modifiers that can destroy all your best laid plans. The battles are really too random for me.
And there is not enough chrome: we have a lot of information about troops and leaders but this information is not used anywhere. It could be Risk chits and the game would be the same.
Finally, there is no strategic playing (or I could not find it). Just grab tons of troops and launch them against the neighboring provinces.
A disappointing experience that makes me wonder if wargaming magazines should avoid fixed delivery schedules in order to give more time for developers to playtest their products. A design can be good but if game development is not enough, the product sold to the consumer has not the desired quality, and the final effect is to force the consumer to stop buying the magazine. I'd rather prefer buy a magazine with less frequency of numbers but with well developed games.
-
Mikolaj Lenczewski
Spain
Sevilla
Andalucia
-
I cannot agree that the random battle system is a flaw of the game. Player is some overall commander of his side. In case of royalist, he is a king, who sends troops to America and give some orders. It is logical that he has no control over the battles. Same goes to American side. The player represents some united revolutionary council (that in fact never exist) and he sends his forces to the battle and hope for the best. We can adjust our chance of winning by sending bigger army with better leaders, but that's all influence, which such person (king) or council, had over battles. We are just waiting for the courier with the news of the victory (we roll die).
The game could of course have more chrome in the way of turn events, but I find it interesting and fun game as for a magazine game. I am looking forward for someone who will make a card driven game about this topic.
-
Martí Cabré
Terrassa
Catalonia
-
Well, I agree that someonce could make a card driven game about this topic, as it is a very exciting one.
About the battle system, I feel that it is so random that as a player you will just hoard as many troops as you can and then throw them into battle, instead of trying to outmanouver your opponent, which is something that I prefer.
Of course, being a light wargame forces some rules to be easy, but even games with easy rules can be intellectually demanding. I like them that way.
-
|
|
