This past weekend was my birthday weekend, and while I slaved away in the mold making shop I still didn’t get everything done that I had on my planned list of projects. I made progress, but just not as much as I should have. It shouldn’t be too bad, as I think I can make up most of the time this week…
It being my birthday, the timing of a new game release from Victory Point Games couldn’t have been better. A friend of mine remembered that I am intrigued by all things related to the Arab-Israeli Wars, as such he gave me a copy of the new game Israeli Independence. In a nutshell this is an introductory level solitaire wargame that tells the saga of the First Arab-Israeli War; Israel’s War for Independence. The game comes with 2 pages of rules, an 8 1/2″ x 11″ map sheet, 8 x 5/8″ counters and a deck of 24 cards (player supplies a single d6).
Game play is pretty straight forward: Draw a card (cards show which Arab armies move as well as how many offensives (and any die roll modifiers) the Israeli player may make.. Move the Arab armies (if any Arab armies have reached West Jerusalem the game is over), The player (you play the part of the Israelis) launches any offensives (pushing back Arab armies if successful). These steps are repeated until the card deck has been exhausted or until an Arab army reaches West Jerusalem.
It is hard to win this game – not impossible, but hard. My first game was an Israeli (marginal) victory, then next 3 were Arab victories. I’ve lost count of how many games I’ve played, but there are for sure more Arab victories. I’ve hard one or two crushing victories as well as a few crushing defeats. Most games have been marginal victories fr the Arabs – overall I’m thinking this is actually quit balanced.
I really like this game – it is simple, yet I do not think anyone will ever master the game. There is just enough randomness in the die rolling and cards to keep you on your toes. Sure at some point you will know what all of the cards are, but you will have no way of knowing when each will be turned up – so, while you may know what types of things to expect, you will never know when to expect them, and then we mix in the die rolls and I believe that there will be no perfect strategy for this one. I know that I’ll be playing this one for quite some time, I even have a few ideas for additional variant rules (just in case I need to shake things up a bit). For more information on this and other Victory Point Games offerings be sure to visit the Victory Point Games website.