I had planned to run an Easter game of Dystopian Wars between my gaming buddy and my son today, but the real world intervened (for them) so I ended up playing a solo game of FAB:Bulge instead. The reasons were twofold – I really like FAB: Bulge a lot, but I have not played it since I had a game with Nick last May, and I needed a refresher on the rules to play the newly acquired FAB: Sicily.
St Vith holds out
The Germans got off to a really good start, punching a hole in the Allied line all the way through to Bastogne, Marche and Malmedy by the end of turn 3, though St Vith refused to fall (see left) thanks to the 106th Infantry division.
Things went from bad to worse when the 101st Airborne were duped by a Grief team’s dirty tricks and didn’t make it to the front line on the turn they entered. They were meant to plug the gap in the line at Ciney and block the road to Namur to Panzer Lehr, but their failure left this road open, so on turn 4 the Germans managed to cross the Meuse and get to Namur (worth 3 VP) and destroy another large unit (worth 1 VP) while protecting their supply lines from the Allied counter attacks – this gave them the auto-victory.
The road to Namur is open (turn 3)
I find it hard to remember where the mutual victory point areas are on the map, so I need mark them with some grey and blue wooden cones I have in future. I also need to remind myself that contested areas still counted as VP for the last owning side (usually the Allies) – this is important in the case of Kesternach in the north which gives 1VP to the Allies (and takes 1 from the Germans) while they contest the area.
Next up will Sicily, but also coming up in the the future is FAB: Golan – a definite pre-order when it goes on the P500 based on the play test map posted on ConSimWorld – http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX?233@@.1dd03706/3620!enclosure=.1dd6d551 – simply brilliant.
This War without an Enemy 
Missed this entry earlier and this looks like a good Bulge game.
Hi Gary,
I really like the system, though some find it a bit fiddly. It’s not “fast” in the sense of Memoir 44, but compared to Bitter Woods, Ardennes 44 or Wacht am Rhein (my other Bulge games) it is!
I haven’t got around to playing FAB: Sicily yet, but I’ll post a report on the blog when I do. It may be difficult (or expensive) to get hold of a copy of FAB: Bulge at the moment as I think it’s out of print, but if you can pick one up cheap, I’d go for it.
Will keep an eye out for Bulge edition.