In the final episode of season one of We Intend to Move on Your Works, Pierre and I finish our journey through Shiloh’s woods by discussing Shiloh: April Glory from Columbia Games. This is another classic Columbia Block game, similar to their game Shenandoah that we covered on episode two of the podcast. How did we like it compared to Shenandoah and the other Shiloh games we played? Listen on to find out!
2023 in Review and My Top 8 Games of the Year*
I’ve now been running this blog for two whole years, but somehow it feels a lot longer. I’ve been very pleased with how it has grown over the past year and I’m hoping to continue that growth going into 2024. I received several review copies of games this year which was really gratifying and allowed me to cover games that would otherwise have probably been beyond my budget - wargame blogging is not particularly lucrative. To mark the end of the year I want to reflect a bit on how I feel the last two years have gone and then, of course, provide my top ten games of the year. As per last year’s list, these will be games that I played for the first time in 2023 not necessarily games that were released in 2023 (although unlike last year this year’s list does is that were released during the year).
First Impressions: Shenandoah: Jackson's Valley Campaign by Tom Dalgliesh and Gary Selkirk
I love block games. Someday I will maybe be able to fully articulate why the simple fog of war and tactile satisfaction of blocks make my brain so happy, but today isn’t that day. Let’s just start from a position that I love them. However, I do not love them all equally and there are even some block games that I don’t like very much. I have previously written about card driven Columbia block games, most of which I really enjoyed and continue to enjoy, but I had never played a game from Columbia that used any other activation system. I must confess that I didn’t even know how such a thing might work. When I set out to make a study of American Civil War games I knew I had to include a block game and I also wanted to play something on Jackson’s Valley Campaign, so Shenandoah seemed like a perfect fit for the project. It also served as an ideal palette cleanser for myself and Pierre after our lengthy game of Manassas - we loved that game, but playing something that could be finished in a couple of hours had a great attraction after that marathon of a game. I didn’t expect a whole lot from Shenandoah, I was just looking for something light and easy to play, but I was really impressed with the experience it offered. I think people have been sleeping on this one, this is a great little block game!
My Top 8 Games of 2022!*
It’s the time of year for Top X lists and as a sucker for the format I couldn’t help but doing one myself. Now look, let’s get this over with straight away: I obviously haven’t played every game that came out in 2022. In fact, I’ve played barely any. I only just got really into historical wargaming this year, so I’ve had a big back log of games to experience. I’m not going to even pretend to list the best games that came out this year. Instead, this list will be my top eight games that I played for the first time in 2022. I chose eight because I’m one of those people who likes to arbitrarily pick a number between five and ten for my top X lists, no other reason. Ranking them has been painful, and if you asked me again in January I’d probably change the order, but at time of publication these are my top eight games that I played this year!
First Impressions: This War Without an Enemy by Scott Moore
Apparently I’m closing out this year by playing block games from French publishers. I’m okay with that honestly. I first became aware of This War Without an Enemy via a Teach and Play video on the Homo Ludens YouTube channel. In a rare turn of events for me, I almost immediately bought the game even though I had no idea when I would get it to the table. That was some months ago but thanks to a new acquaintance from the next county over, I was able to finally play it! Where Napoleon 1806 was interesting because it offered a distinct departure from the block games I was used to, This War Without an Enemy is interesting because it is something of a development of the Columbia block games system that I already like. This War Without an Enemy actually began its life as a game intended for Columbia but when it moved to Nuts! Publishing it expanded in complexity and I was very interested to see what that complexity brought to a classic block formula that I’ve spent many hours enjoying already.
First Impressions: Napoleon 1806 by Denis Sauvage
I’m low-key obsessed with block games - there’s something that’s just so appealing to me about pushing blocks around. Maybe it’s somehow related to all those years I spent playing miniatures wargames. Block games also tend to be operational scale and card driven which are two things I really like, plus they’re usually relatively simple and easy to play. All of those are positives, but I think there’s something about the tactile nature of the blocks and the simple fog of war that just really works for me. While I have very much enjoyed my time with the Columbia block games I have played, I am also always on the lookout for new and interesting takes on things I enjoy. This meant I was immediately intrigued when I first saw the Conqueror’s Series from Shakos Games. These games, all about Napoleon so far, promised a familiar yet distinct variation on the block games I was used to. However, I held off on buying one for the simple reason that I have had to impose a limit on myself on the number of unplayed block games that I own. The issue is that while I love block games, they are not very solitaire friendly and they also lose a lot of their appeal when you play online. Since I have very limited face to face gaming time this means that I don’t play as many block games as I would like. I got lucky, though, and Napoleon 1806, the first game in the Conqueror’s series, was picked to be the game of the month for November by the Homo Ludens discord and so I made sure to carve out some time to play it.
First Impressions: Sekigahara by Matt Calkins
I’ve wanted to play Sekigahara for years. The first time I saw the stacks of blocks and the glorious art of the board I knew I had to play it. Sadly, it was far beyond my meagre budget, and I wasn’t sure if anyone would play it with me even if I managed to buy it, so for many years I gazed forlornly at it from a distance. That is until last month, when I finally got a chance to play it thanks to my newfound competence playing games online using Vassal (and a helpful nudge from the Homo Ludens’ Discord Club de Jeu). That made it much easier to find someone who would play it with me, and since they also owned a physical copy of the game, I didn’t have to feel bad about not buying my own! I am not the same person I was back when I first saw Sekigahara, though. I have aged several years and played many games since. Will I still be as entranced by it as I was when I first saw it?
Columbia Games’ Card-Driven Block Wargames – An Almost Comprehensive Review
Columbia has been famous for their block wargames since the 1970s, but in recent memory none of have loomed quite as large as the series of four games card driven games starting with Hammer of the Scots in 2002, and including Crusader Rex, Julius Caesar, and Richard III. I played my first game from this line a little while ago, and you can read my first impressions here (https://www.stuartellisgorman.com/blog/first-impressions-richard-iii-by-columbia-games). In the intervening period, and with many thanks to the amazing digital implementations of these games on the website Rally the troops (https://rally-the-troops.com/), I have been able to play all four of these games and I have put my thoughts down on each of them below. Hopefully this will be interesting or enlightening, but at the very least you can tell me why I’m wrong and how your favourite is really the best one.
Before we get on to the games themselves, an overview of the features shared across these games is in order. They are all block wargames – meaning that the player’s pieces are wooden blocks with unit information only on the side which faces their controller. This creates a simple but effective fog of war where my opponent can tell how many units I have and where they are on the map but doesn’t know which specific units those are – and crucially doesn’t know their strength. Play is determined by playing action cards – there are generally two kinds of cards, those with action points and those with special events. Action points allow the movement of armies across the board while events usually allow for a limited action that breaks the game rules, such as moving units further than normally allowed or allowing units to recover strength.
First Impressions: Richard III by Columbia Games
I don’t remember when I first became obsessed with playing a Columbia Games block wargame, but I would guess it was some time between ten and fifteen years ago. That game was Hammer of the Scots, and I still haven’t played it. Something about it captured my imagination, but it cost at least seventy euro, I was a broke student, and I already had several underplayed two player games so I couldn’t really justify the expense. Still, the idea of playing Hammer of the Scots lingered on and every time it got a reprint or showed up in stock somewhere I would think “maybe this time”.
Starting this blog finally gave me the impetus to buy a block wargame and see if it lived up to the expectations of my imagination. Astute readers will notice that this is not a report on my experience playing Hammer of the Scots – and that’s because Richard III was significantly cheaper. I may have really wanted to crush the Scots as Edward I, but I wanted to keep that €40 more. I almost bought Hammer of the Scots anyway, since I never much cared about Richard III, but the title of the game is a little misleading. This game is not about Richard III – in fact in our game he didn’t even show up. This is a full retelling of the War of the Roses in block game form – and as such I’m much more interested in it. While I’ve never much cared for Richard III, his brother Edward IV is another matter.