Description

Description from the designer:

War: the Board Game is an abstract wargame which captures the most difficult strategic and tactical decisions faced by generals in a war with a minimum set of rules that can be explained in less than 5 minutes. The design is effectively a deconstruction of the concept of a wargame, removing all ornament and unnecessary layers of complexity in order to retain only its essence. Despite its parsimonious nature, in War: The Board Game players face situations that can be considered direct representations of the reality in warfare. They need to protect the supply lines and headquarters, capture prisoners, flank and surround enemies, take advantage of geographical features etc.

The strategic depth of the game and the absence of in-game randomness, aims at rewarding experienced players. However, the learning curve is not steep and the millions of possible situations in the game make almost impossible to master it completely. Each games plays very differently depending on the type of strategy players attempt. Games can be very short if both opponents play very offensively or longer if they adopt a more conservative defensive strategy. As in reality, War: the Board Game can be won sometimes by a blitz attack or by attrition warfare.

Although War: the Board Game is a game with open information, the randomized initial setup and the addition of special rules for each scenario (e.g. antiquity wars, WWI, WWII, etc.) make the game replayable ad infinitum and avoid the problem of players memorizing and replicating standard initial moves and tactics. Moreover, the special scenario rules not only add thematic flavor to the game, but also introduce an different spatial element and make much more difficult to predict enemy's actions.

War: the Board Game is language independent and can be played 1 vs 1, 2 vs 2 (Allies) or 4 players (free for all). The Allies (2 vs 2) version of the game adds an extra twist and new strategic and tactical options. Allies version can be also playable by 2 or 3 players (1 vs 2) if players want to control two armies and headquarters.