The Wargamer

Introduction

The First World War is a board wargame made by the Dutch game company Phalanx Games and distributed in the United State by Mayfair Games. It is a strategic-level game of the three primary theaters of the war in Europe, covering the western theater of France and Belgium, the southern theater in Italy, and the eastern theater from the Baltic Sea to Greece. Notably absent are Ottoman Turkey and the Middle East; these are not geographically as far removed from the scope of the game as, say, the western African battles of Count Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. Also absent are any naval forces. That does not, however limit the dramatic scope of the game, or in any way diminish the magnitude on which the battles rage.

The game is designed by Ted Raicer, one of the game world’s foremost boardgame experts on World War I. Of the seventeen games credited to him on BoardGameGeek.com, well over half cover some aspect of WWI, and another deals with the Russian Revolution, which directly affected the pullout of the Russians from The Great War.

Plot & Presentation

World War I has no definitive point that can be singled out as “THE” cause of the war. Although the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand on a visit to Sarajevo is often credited as being the spark that ignited the powder keg, Europe wasn’t in need of much prodding to move toward war. A short but comprehensive account of the European tap-dance through the run-up to the war can be found on The Wargamer's Diplomacy microsite.

The First World War starts with the historical assumption that all the great powers would still enter the war as they actually did. The British, for example, do not have the option to bow out of the conflict. The armies are mobilized, and war has been declared. It is up to the players to fight the war, not negotiate it.

The First World War can be played by two, three, or four players. With only two players, the sides are understandably easy to divvy up: Central Powers and Allies. However, the addition of a third player does not split the Allies into Eastern and Western; instead, the Central Powers are split into German and Austrian players, with the Austrian player also controlling the Bulgarians when they join the fray. It is with the addition of a fourth player that the Allies are split. For the sake of readability, the Austro-Hungarian Empire will simply be referred to as the “Austrians” in this review. Is it historically perfect? No. Is it easier to read? Yes. In this case, “easy to read” wins.

The multiplayer options have interesting dynamics that are not present in the two-player game. Fronts are color coded to distinguish which players control the units in them. However, units may operate in some fronts which belong to a different player. Thus, the German player may choose to place some of his units under the Austrian’s command in Hungary or Romania. When the German player wants his armies back, the Austrian player must agree to release them. Given that any German army in an Austrian front is likely to be the most powerful force on the battlefield, it is easy to understand why the Austrians may be reluctant to return their best soldaten.

Similarly, there are green colored units (indicating their assignment to the eastern theater, see below) which actually belong to some of the Western Allies, such as the Italian Balkan Brigade. Although the Eastern Allied (read: Russian) player may control them, he does so only with the permission of the Western Allied player. These dynamics get even more involved if the Treaty of Brest-Litvosk is ever signed and put into play.

Overall, the game is presented as a light wargame at the strategic level on the European continent. There is some interplay between allies if the multi-player options are used. So far, so good.

Set-Up, Graphics, and Documentation

The game comes in a large, attractive box, with a duotone cover illustration that composites several graphic elements associated with World War I: The Kaiser, a trapezoidal tank, a trench, etc. The box is sturdy and mine has shown virtually no signs of wear and tear, despite being schlepped around to several game sessions, and a few weeks in the back seat of my truck.

Inside the box, there is a mounted, folding, four-panel map that feels sturdy enough to be bulletproof. There are three sheets of square counters, and another smaller one of round counters. Two wooden six-sided dice are also included; these dice are specific to this game, as they are numbered 1-4, with an “S” on the other two sides. There is a glossy, full-color rulebook, and a reference card, which, quite honestly, isn’t used very often.

The map is illustrated with large-scale map graphics showing army groups and major towns, cities, and railroads, in muted bronze and black. The map illustrations are exclusively for flavor, since the actual map movement happens along a series of “fronts” – essentially linear paths between key cities in each theater of operations (Western, Eastern, and Italian). There are some non-linear fronts, but only a few, and all of them in the Balkans, where so many other things are non-linear, too.

The map is bounded by turn tracks, victory point tracks, surrender tracks – all those numerical tracking mechanisms used to determine victory or defeat. These tracks could have been moved from the map to a separate card, in the interest of uncluttering the mapboard some. However, tracking the numbers on the map really reduces the table space to smaller footprint than a game with a smaller map, but more ancillary tracking devices, such as Age of Mythology.