Description

Description from the publisher:

The year 1914 passed. France survived the Schlieffen Plan with the Miracle on the Marne and the Race to the Sea ended in a stalemate. Unable to outflank its opponent, each side entrenched. A new type of warfare began that would claim the lives of many millions: trench warfare!

Designed by Renaud Verlaque, winner of the 2003 Charles S. Roberts award for best Pre WW2 game with Age of Napoleon (Phalanx Games, 2003, and Mayfair Games) and designer of The Price of Freedom: the American Civil War 1861-65 (Compass Games, 2008), The Big Push is a card wargame on Trench Warfare on the Western Front in World War One. One player commands the armies of the Entente and the other the armies of the German Reich (a.k.a., Germany).

The game plays in a maximum of five annual turns, from 1915 through 1919. In each turn, the players are given an opportunity to innovate weapons and tactics, secretly deploy armies to the six sectors of the front line (from Flanders in the north to Verdun in the south), try to gain air superiority in order to reconnoiter the enemy before deciding whether to attack or defend, and then fight to gain the upper hand sector by sector and satisfy political pressure at home to attack and win. Meanwhile the Entente player hopes to reduce the German war effort through the naval blockade while the German player hopes to do the same through U-Boote Warfare, but at the risk of bringing the United States into the war on the side of the Entente. The German player must also contend with the demands of the Eastern Front on his war effort, at least until Russia sues for peace. Victory points are awarded for successful attacks, with each additional successful attack in the same turn resulting in a larger number of victory points than its predecessor as it increases the likelihood of immediate and decisive victory in the war. If neither player has gained enough victory points by the end of the 1919 turn to achieve victory, attritional victory is awarded to the player who accumulated the most victory points throughout the game (but a tie means a draw).