Infantry combat is done by an algorithm, and if a fresh defending unit is in the zone after the artillery your attack will be hard-pressed to succeed. Each hit takes a fresh unit to spent or a spent unit to eliminated and if you have a fort or a trench in that zone, they can absorb hits with the remainder falling on your units. Just like the real war, the bombardment fails to neutralize your enemy, the follow-on attack is almost doomed.įor bombardments each card as a value that gives you the amount of d6’s you can roll. This is done in a simple and invisible way that does not bog down the game at all.Īttacking in the game is based on using those bombardment cards to pulverize a zone and then follow it up with an infantry attack. This slick mechanic really puts you into the shoes of the operational commanders at Verdun and forces you to give orders based of directives from Joffre and von Falkenhayn.
In the first few turns, the German player can lay down massive bombardments and has the initiative to execute a massive attack while the French player has to wait until the later stages of the campaign to launch their counter-offensive. Events like US involvement, the Somme, Jutland and the overall momentum of the war affect gameplay. As the game progresses the cards that you can play change in order to represent what is going on in the wider war.
Verdun 1916 full#
The full game is six turns with each turn lasting two months (except for turn 1) and each month has 7 rounds. While some Grognards stuck in the 1970’s shy away from games that use cards, in V1916SI they are the heart and soul of the game and they seamlessly inject the overall strategic situation you find yourself in. The game uses an action card mechanic that represents game events, barrages, and your ability to move and refresh your units. They have done something that I really thought was impossible to make Verdun a playable and fun game. While I was initially struck by the beautiful map (which comes in both cardboard and neoprene)and the amazing artwork of Tardi I was very impressed by the game’s mechanics. I have not seen many games that capture this type of battle very well and V1916SI breaks that paradigm. Verdun was a slow grinding 10-month battle that was really a battle of annihilation with very little territory changing hands. Some games have done a great job in capturing the campaign level however they are usually focused on the major offensives that had some type of breakthrough. When it comes to board games about the war, they tend to represent the strategic level or the tactical level very well but never the operational level of warfare.
When it comes to the Great War many gamers shy away because of the impression that the war was nothing but trench warfare. I was impressed as most gamers are with the sheer beauty of the game and I made sure I was the first backer when the project hit Kickstarter on 21 February, the 104th anniversary of the start of the battle.
Back in January I caught a glimpse of a game called Verdun 1916 Steel Inferno (V1916SI) by the French gamers at the Fellowship of Simulations. This passion has led me to help develop a bunch of games that cover the Great War.
Many of our readers know that I am fascinated by the Great War, it was an event that changed the world unlike any other and when the guns fell silent in 1918 society, maps, and military thought were almost unrecognizable from how they looked in 1914.
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