Battlelines® A Review: Part I By Jay Wissmann
Battlelines® is an "operational" level card game simulation by an exciting new
company, Lost Battalion. The game is set in the "Great Patriotic War" to use
the Russian name for the East Front of World War II. The first installment
deals with the German summer ’42 drive to the gates of Stalingrad.
A complete "Ready-to-Play" (RTP) set contains the "Drive on Stalingrad" Operation Deck along with two Unit Decks. Each of the Unit Decks of fifty-five cards represents a division-sized unit; in this case, the German 9th Division and the Soviet 18th Tank Corps. These decks contain all the militarily significant units at the battalion level along with cards that control the action of the game or modify the units and the battlefield itself. The Operation Deck contains cards that represent the terrain over which the battles are fought. Also included are non-Divisional units used for reinforcements and cards used to setup each "day’s" mission. The cards themselves are of high quality paper stock with a protective coating to ensure years of repeated playings. Almost all of the print, both text and symbols, are of sufficient size and contrast that even an old, decrepit, bifocal-dependent son of a sea-biscuit like me has no trouble with it. The one exception is the SKU, deck tag, and card number on the Attachment cards, the black type on the purple background of the card required me to use a magnifying glass to pick it out. Fortunately this information is not required during play, and can be gleaned from the website. The cards in the Unit Decks are laid out based upon a common presentation that minimizes hunting for a particular data element.
This presentation takes the form, starting in the upper left and working right and down, of:
- A Group Symbol (Formation and Attachment cards only�some Battlefield cards have a Control cost in this location),
- The card’s name,
- A section of Text that is executed when the card is activated,
- Color-coded combat checks values,
- The type of card is displayed in the middle of the card,
- The combat values (on Formations and aircraft cards only),
- A victory point value of the card if the opponent "secures" it, and
- Across the bottom are the Chance Check (die roll), the combat results, and the Orders Check.
One downside of this common layout, however is that it is difficult to stack the cards efficiently thus requiring a bit more elbowroom—a standard card table is fine for a two-player setup. For another, if both a leader and a company (the two types of Attachment cards) are attached to a given Formation card, the Attachment cards are stacked under the Formation in such a way that the modifiers and text are visible from underneath. This works fine except you have to remember to execute the Leader’s text first, then the Formation’s and finally the Company’s—requiring you to read down the Leader card first, then skip the Company card and read down the Formation card and finally track back up to the Company card. It would have been better to have the Company card information printed at the bottom, but that would have required two different formats for the Attachment cards, say la guerre.
As for the types of cards found in the decks and the actual layout, I’ve talked some about the Formation and Attachment cards. The other types in the Unit Decks are Battlefield, Action and Fortune cards. The Battlefield cards modify the cover and/or defense values of the defensive location of the terrain card on which they are placed. The card is removed either by engineering action as specified in the text on various Formation cards or when an opponent "secures" the location. The Action cards have text the player executes when the card is activated with a few having a cover modifier pertaining while the text is active. The Fortune cards allow the player to increase his own situation or hinder his opponent’s depending on the text. Also included are cards that describe the history of the unit and the card layouts.
The Operation Deck has reinforcement cards are similar to the
Formation cards (and aircraft cards) except they have no Chance values or
combat results since they do not exist in the unit deck for drawing purposes.
There are also Mission cards that "setup" one iteration of the game to be
played. Then there are the Location cards that supply the battlefield. These
cards contain cover and defense values for the four possible positions within a
location: Defend, Attack, Flank and Infiltrate. Other information, such as the
existence of a railroad at that location, comes into play via various actions.
There are also cards describing the history of the campaign, describing the
card layouts, and some "freebee" cards from future products.
Setting up the game takes only a few minutes so it’s quick to get into the action. The organization of the table area shows the experience of numerous playtests and has everything within easy reach of the players. One suggestion to enhance the ease of playability is to show the connections between the Location cards. One way to do this would be strips of felt such as those used by the miniature gaming community to represent roads and/or waterways. Pipe cleaners would also work, but probably the best idea was inspired by one of the fine eating establishments in my area. The local Rocky Run restaurant uses a plain, brown paper for "tablecloths"—classy, uh? You could easily lay out a game and draw in the connecting lines—heck, you could even label the various area on the table; draw pile, discard pile, etc.
The guys at Lost Battalion Games have put together a great
example of play that gives a flavor of Battlelines® is all about. That
is definitely something to check out if you have not already. Even after weeks
of playtesting I know I still have not learned all the nuances of this game;
not even close. Here is some of what I have learned. Choosing your initial
forces involves very delicately balanced choices. Do you take all of a single
command or do you select elements from different commands? Do you want all
combat troops or do you select a balanced force of headquarters, troops and
artillery? A big part of the answers to those questions of course depends on
the local situation and the 'mission objective', be it attack or defense. One
overriding concern derives from the process wherein your opponent randomly
picks one or more of your choices for discard. If the selected card is not
a constituent part of one of the maneuver regiments or brigades, it is lost to
you for that particular mission. On the other hand, if a maneuver battalion is
discarded, its regimental/brigade headquarters can, when activated, retrieve it
from the discard pile when the "Commit" text is executed. But,… if you select
all combat troops, you will be strapped for Orders (no Initiative texts on the
combat troop cards), your hand will likely remain near your minimum hand size
thus limiting your options (neither do they have Draw texts), and you will not
know what the next card has to offers (yep, no Plan text, either). In short you
have no 'combat multipliers' as the military likes to call them. As for actual
play strategies, I want to leave that for another time except to say—plan. Plan
your approach to achieving the "day's" mission, that is which location you need
to take in order to get to the objective (or which need to be defended to the
last card!). Plan what you expect to accomplish each time your turn comes
around. Plan the sequence in which you are going to expend the number of orders
that you get; activate that Action card to get more orders, then activate this
Headquarters to get more cards in your hand, etc. Plan—it is also one of the
most powerful texts that you can execute. It allows you to "set up' the next
few cards in the draw deck for the next activation, thus allowing you to know
that next text with the chance check before it WILL get executed or that you
cannot setup the deck in order to pass that check and then you can skip it and
not "waste" the card.
Okay, it sounds like a decent game, but is it history? In this reviewer’s opinion, driven by thirty-plus years of gaming, it is. Many have tried to accurately simulate this level of combat through the years. Some have come very close. Just how close this attempt will come needs a little more seasoning. The interaction between units "feels" real. Something sorely lacking in numerous other games. Historical tactics that worked in the war, work here. I will not even get into that one; it could take years and develop into a doctoral thesis, except to say—PanzerBush. You need to get a balanced force of combat and support troops to have the best chance for success in Battlelines® and in the real situation.
This review is not done; in fact it is just the beginning. In future installments, I will speak to the intricacies of strategy and tactics, an examination of the probabilities, and how to use them. That means not only trying to put the probabilities to your advantage, but also to avoid some probability pitfalls that were designed into the game.
