Hundred Years War, History
Stuart Gorman
What’s in a Name – Defining the Hundred Years ...

Nobody caught up in the chaos and bloodshed in France between the years 1337 and 1453 ever referred to what was happening around them as The Hundred Years War. Neither did future generations, until the early nineteenth century, when the name was coined by French historians (technically as La guerre de Cent Ans), from where it spread across Europe and the world. Since the concept of The Hundred Years War is entirely a historiographical construct, it was only a matter of time before people began to question whether it made sense. After all, the kings of England and France had fought numerous wars before the Hundred Years War and would continue to do so after, so what made the Hundred Years War a coherent conflict? Buckle up kids, because this might take a while.

What’s in a Name – Defining the Hundred Years War

GMT Games

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Further Idle Thoughts on Arquebus (Men of Iron vol. 4) by Richard Berg

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Further Idle Thoughts on Arquebus (Men of Iron vol. 4) by Richard Berg

I really enjoy playing new games and writing about them for this blog, but sometimes the pressure (mostly from myself) to play the latest game on my shelf means I don’t make enough time to revisit old favorites. I don’t want to sound like an ungrateful whiner, I really appreciate that thanks to review copies I can try so many new and exciting games and I feel privileged to play as many new titles as I do, but at the same time I find myself gazing longingly at old friends, wondering when will I play them again.

Earlier this month I decided to abandon my sense of obligation and pull one such old friend off the shelf. Men of Iron (MoI) is where I started my wargaming journey, and is easily the series I have written the most about. Of the games in the series, Arquebus remains a favorite, but also one I haven’t given enough attention to either. So, I decided to set up and play through the next two battles in the scenario booklet. I had no thought that I might actually write anything about it, this was purely for fun, but having revisited this system after a long time away from it I have some idle thoughts I’d like to scribble down. I make no promises for this to be top quality analysis, this is instead back of the envelope musings from spending time with an old friend again.

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Labyrinth: The War on Terror by Volko Ruhnke

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Labyrinth: The War on Terror by Volko Ruhnke

I was twelve when the War on Terror began, not quite fourteen when American invaded Iraq. The political and global climate created in the aftermath of 9/11 defined some of my most formative years – the time in my life when I first became aware of politics and tried to become politically active for the first time. By the time Labyrinth was released in 2010 I was in my twenties and living in Ireland. Labyrinth isn’t unique in being about a still ongoing war whose conclusion was far from determined when it was designed and published, but it is still a rarity within the hobby. That it was on such a major conflict, and one whose casualties extended well beyond a traditional notion of battlefields, certainly drew a lot of attention to it, as did the fact that its designer Volko Ruhnke was an analyst with the CIA at the time. Playing it fifteen years after its initial release, after America’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 marked what is often considered the end of the War on Terror, is an interesting experience. This is not exactly a historical game, it was not made with enough distance from the events it covers for any real historical hindsight, but it captures a certain perspective on events of the time that we can look back on now and try our best to evaluate. It’s also an incredibly well-designed card-drive wargame (CDG).

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Most Anticipated Games: 2025 Edition

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Most Anticipated Games: 2025 Edition

It’s almost Lunar New Year (shout out to fellow Year of the Snake people), so what better time to take a moment and look to the year ahead? Last year I did a most anticipated games list, and since it was pretty good fun, I decided to do it again! First, though, I want to reflect for a moment on last year’s list and see how I did both in terms of predicting what came out and what I managed to play.

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Wargames According to Mark by Mark Herman

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Wargames According to Mark by Mark Herman

It looks like we are entering something of a golden age when it comes to serious discussions of tabletop games – at least in book form. I’ve had the pleasure of reading a respectable pile of new books on the subject over the past year, including several on historical wargaming. Last year saw the publication of Maurice Suckling’s textbook Paper Time Machines and Riccardo Masini’s philosophical treatise Historical Simulation and Wargames, and, last but not least, renowned designer Mark Herman’s personal memoir/philosophy/reflections on his own design process for historical games.

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WItMoYW ep. 12 - Rebel Fury by Mark Herman

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For episode 12 of the We Intend to Move on Your Works Podcast Pierre and I played the latest hotness - Rebel Fury by Mark Herman. We are big fans of Gettysburg, the C3i game that originated the system used in Rebel Fury, but we emerged from our time with this game a little skeptical of some of its changes. But will our skepticism override Alexandre’s desire for a good bargain on an interesting looking game? Listen to find out!

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WItMoYW ep. 11 - Glory III by Richard Berg

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We’re Back to Berg baby! After a mixed experience crossing the mountains, the boys are trying one of Berg’s takes on Antietam, arguably the most influential battle of the American Civil War. Originally published in 1995, the same year as the first GMT edition of Three Days of Gettysburg which would spawn the modern era of GBACW, and substantially revised in 2002, Glory is a light hex and counter from one of our favorite designers. Will we like it more than GBACW? You can probably already guess!

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Plantagenet by Francisco Gradaille

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Plantagenet by Francisco Gradaille

Any long running game series faces the risk of stagnation. While Levy and Campaign is only on its fourth volume, there are near countless future volumes in the works and it could easily expand to equal it’s predecessor COIN in terms of size, and so naturally we begin to wonder do we really need all these games? Can each new addition sufficiently differentiate itself from what came before? Plantagenet answers this question by being far more than a simple rejigging of the core system, this is practically a ground up rebuild. It takes mechanisms designed for the thirteenth-century Baltic and reshapes them to suit fifteenth-century England, casting off several core systems in the process and adding whole new ones. The final product is, surprisingly, probably the most approachable Levy and Campaign game yet and a stunning marriage of mechanism and theme. While Plantagenet fails to top the post in terms of my own personal preference for Levy and Campaign games, it is a phenomenal design and has reinvigorated my enthusiasm for Levy and Campaign as a whole.

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Rebel Fury by Mark Herman

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Rebel Fury by Mark Herman

I’m not going to bury the lede, I don’t like Rebel Fury. Nobody is more surprised about it than me. I really like Mark Herman’s Gettysburg, the originator of this system. It’s not my favorite game ever, but a hex and counter game that emphasizes movement and doesn’t overstay its welcome will always find a space on my shelf. While I shamefully haven’t played the follow-up on Waterloo, even though it’s on Rally the Troops so I have no excuse, I was excited to see what Rebel Fury brought to the table. My initial impressions were positive – it kept that core movement system that I liked but expanded the play space to encompass a set of large (and gorgeous) Charlie Kibler maps. The added chrome seemed fine and offered the tantalizing prospect of a little extra depth to the game, so from my initial pre-release preview I was feeling positive. Unfortunately, once I got my hands on it and started playing more my experience began to sour. The changes to the original system started to grate and certain scenarios exposed some of the core’s weaknesses in less flattering ways. If it wasn’t for a certain game that shall go unnamed, I would say this was my most disappointing experience this year.

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Banish All Their Fears by David Fox and Ben Hull

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Banish All Their Fears by David Fox and Ben Hull

There was very little material available on Banish All Their Fears before its publication, and so it largely flew under my radar. However, when some images came out right before the game was printed and shipped it triggered something in whatever the wargamer equivalent of my lizard brain is and I got weirdly excited about it. I reached out to GMT Games about a review copy, and they kindly provided me with one. Then it sat on my shelf (as these things do) while other games took up my time. In those intervening weeks I started to develop some concerns about the game. For one thing, I finally tried Ben Hull’s Musket and Pike series and struggled to really get invested in it (despite how beautiful the latest version is). Worse still was the buzz around rules and printing issues on BoardGameGeek (BGG). I hadn’t found Musket and Pike’s rules that easy to follow, and if these were worse, I despaired that I would never actually play it. Nevertheless, when I managed to clear some other games off my schedule, I determinedly set about reading the rulebook and setting up the game. Over the past few days, I have been slowly playing through the Blenheim scenario (chosen because it seemed to have fewer errata issues) solitaire, and I have been pleasantly surprised by what I found. I think this could be a real gem of a game, and certainly one I prefer to Musket and Pike, but I do also have some reservations. I think it makes the most sense to start with some of my reservations first, as they inform much of my experience playing Banish All Their Fears.

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SPQR: Deluxe Edition by Mark Herman and Richard Berg

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SPQR: Deluxe Edition by Mark Herman and Richard Berg

I am a massive fan of Richard Berg’s Men of Iron system, but I bounced off Great Battles of the American Civil War (GBACW) pretty hard. This meant that I approached SPQR, the second volume in the Great Battles of History series, with both excitement and trepidation. Men of Iron and GBACW were originated by Berg, while in contrast Great Battles of History started as a Mark Herman design before it became a collaboration in subsequent volumes. I want to recognize that up front, because in this review I will probably be talking a lot about Richard Berg because it is his hex and counter designs that I am more familiar with – I know Herman’s card driven games better than his traditional hex and counter designs.

There is no denying the legacy of GBoH, I can see its legacy in many of the games I have played, including Men of Iron and Ben Hull’s Musket and Pike, and tracing that lineage as I was playing it was really interesting. This is a system with an impressive legacy to go with its significant heft in terms of scope and rules weight, I can see why it has more than a dozen volumes and a significant fanbase. In my case, I had an interesting time playing SPQR and I’m glad I’ve tried it, both for its influence on later designs and for aspects where I think it is still superior to those games, but at the end of the day I don’t think SPQR is a game for me. In this post I hope to explain what clicked with me and why ultimately I decided to pack it back into the box and pass it on to someone else.

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Norman Conquests (Men of Iron V) by Ralph Shelton (and Richard Berg)

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Norman Conquests (Men of Iron V) by Ralph Shelton (and Richard Berg)

I am a certified, card-carrying Men of Iron obsessive so of course I was excited when I heard a new volume in the series was coming out. That excitement was dampened slightly by the knowledge that since original designer Richard Berg had passed away, he would not be continuing the series himself. Still, carrying on that legacy was an all around positive even if I had slight trepidations about what that would mean for this new entry. I am pleased to report that while it is not a perfect game, Norman Conquests is an admirable addition to the Men of Iron series. At time of writing, I have played all but two scenarios in Norman Conquests and I have thoroughly enjoyed myself. I am saving the remaining scenarios because I like to savor my Men of Iron experience. It’s not like we get a new entry every year, you know.

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Tanto Monta: A Story of Disappointment

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Tanto Monta: A Story of Disappointment

I think it is safe to say that Tanto Monta: The Rise of Ferdinand and Isabella by designer Carlos Diaz Narvaez was my most anticipated game of the year. I adore Here I Stand, and Tanto Monta took that core system and applied it to the years right before Here I Stand begins, which includes the Italian Wars, a topic I am fascinated by. It also decreased the player count from six to four. Getting six people together who are all willing to spend a day playing through the Protestant Reformation is probably the single greatest barrier to playing Here I Stand, so this was really promising. The back of the box promised the same complexity as Here I Stand and a play time of 3-7 hours, which we should always take with a grain of salt but still it looked good for this being an excellent way to get a dose of more Here I Stand more often. It also came out at the perfect time – my copy arrived just in time for a gathering of myself and my fellow We Intend to Move on Your Works partners in crime. The four of us convened in Pierre’s house for me to teach them all Tanto Monta, expecting a day of epic gaming with great friends. To quote a somewhat infamous review of Virgin Queen: it was a fucking disaster.

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Learning Musket and Pike by Ben Hull

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Learning Musket and Pike by Ben Hull

I was lucky enough to receive a copy of the Musket and Pike Dual Pack by designer Ben Hull as part of the BoardGameGeek wargame Secret Santa this past Christmas and I am very excited to have it. I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for this era of warfare and the GMT multipacks are a great way to get a big helping of a system for not too much investment in money or space (the former obviously wasn’t really a concern since this was a gift, but the latter always is). On top of that, the Dual Pack is a stunning production. The maps all have this lovely linen finish, and the counters have new art in a woodcut style that I adore. Also, there are double size counters and I love double size counters. It’s just a very nice object to hold and manipulate, always something I look for in a game.

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Most Anticipated Games: 2024 Edition

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Most Anticipated Games: 2024 Edition

I have been hesitant in the past to write about my excitement for upcoming games, partly out of a fear of getting absorbed into the Cult of the New but more so because it can be very hard to know when a given game might come out. The publication pipeline is at best vague and there is always the risk of delays or unexpected interruptions to production. I find it easier to not get too excited about games until I can grab them with my spindly hands. Still, I am not immune to hype and this year I thought I’d indulge myself a little and write about the ten games I’m most looking forward to that should be coming out in 2024. As an addendum, to show that I’m not all about that new cardboard smell, I’ve also added a list of the five games I already own that I am the most excited to hopefully get to the table this year.

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2023 in Review and My Top 8 Games of the Year*

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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).

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Podcast: Into the Woods and GBACW

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For Episode 5 of We Intend to Move on Your Works Pierre and I discussed the latest entry into the venerable Great Battles of the American Civil War: Into the Woods from GMT Games. This was our first experience with the series, although we have both played other games by Richard Berg who originally created it. To spoil things a little, we did not particularly enjoy our time with Into the Woods but despite that I think we managed to have an interesting discussion about the game and how it represents history. Please be aware that we discuss some pretty heavy stuff in places, including slavery and racism.

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Review - Men of Iron by Richard Berg

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Review - Men of Iron by Richard Berg

I have written and thought more about Richard Berg’s Men of Iron than I have any other wargame I’ve ever played. The Men of Iron tri-pack was the game that brought me fully into wargaming. It was my first hex and counter game. While not my most played game if individual plays are measured, in terms of hours invested it almost certainly is. I have a relationship with this game series is what I’m saying. When I first bought that tri-pack I didn’t have any plans to write a review of the games therein. I’ve documented many of my individual plays of certain battles and that was my plan to continue going forward – not writing up literally every play but certainly every scenario that I thought I had something to say about. However, as I play more Men of Iron, I keep thinking about what I love about the system and what frustrates me about it, and I’m increasingly tempted towards making my own version of Men of Iron. That has nudged my thoughts more in the direction of what I think is the appeal of the system and what its failings are, and at a certain point that’s basically just a review so I thought I’d put that down on a page, and once I’ve done that I might as well share them with the world.

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Arquebus: Fornovo 1495 by Richard Berg

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Arquebus: Fornovo 1495 by Richard Berg

It’s been a while since I played Men of Iron and I’d been been hankering to try some more Arquebus so I took a break from playing a small mountain of American Civil War hex and counter games for a brief holiday in sixteenth-century Italy. I decided to try the Fornovo scenario for the very boring reason that it was the first battle in the play book and I’m glad I did because this is probably one of the most interesting Men of Iron scenarios I have ever played. It reminded me of everything I really like about Men of Iron, as well as some of the elements of the system that I don’t think work so well. Those wrinkles weren’t enough to stop me from enjoying Fornovo a lot and putting it high on my list of scenarios I want to try again.

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Review - Andean Abyss by Volko Runke

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Review - Andean Abyss by Volko Runke

It happened! COIN came to the internet’s best online wargame platform, Rally the Troops, in the form of the series originator Andean Abyss. In many ways this is the obvious choice for Rally the Troops, it’s both a great place for those interested in learning the system and out of print with little promise of a reprint soon, so not in direct competition with sales. It also offered me the first time to try and dive deep into a COIN game and see how I feel about the system after repeated plays. The requirement to get four players and dedicate most of a day has made consistent plays of COIN games a challenge. I have dabbled with solitaire play, and enjoyed that, but I’m terrible at flow-charts and multi-hand solitaire is a very different kind of experience. So, I’ve been logging many, but not an insane number, of Andean Abyss plays over the past month or so, what have I learned?

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Review - Here I Stand by Ed Beach

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Review - Here I Stand by Ed Beach

I first played Here I Stand five years ago at a time when I was far less familiar with wargames. In fact I had recently purged my small game collection of every wargame I owned but Here I Stand because I had given up on finding time and people to play them with. Despite this, in 2018 I made the effort of gathering six of my friends and spending the entire day playing Here I Stand. It was amazing. It took us over eight hours. In the end I emerged victorious as the French, securing an instant victory moments before the Ottomans won on VPs earned mostly through piracy. I spent the next 24 hours buzzing with excitement and exhaustion after that phenomenal day of gaming. I had to get it back to the table, I needed that experience again. Finally, a child, a pandemic, and five years later I managed to play it again and let me tell you, it was just as good the second time!