Post by Gentleman Ranker on Jul 11, 2021 3:43:28 GMT -9
A while ago I purchased a solo game from Wargames Vault, Chindit by Terry Catton.
It didn’t cost a lot, a pound or two as I recall.
Today I thought I’d give it a go.
The first page after the cover is the rules. It gives a brief Introduction, an overview of the basic setup and the rules to follow for combat and supplies.
Basically you turn over a card each turn. When both Jokers have been “found” and discarded, your forces have made it to their destination. Every card other than a Joker has an effect based on suit and value, delineated in the remaining three pages of the game.
Supplies 5-4.
Turn 1 Drew a Card, 1 man disappeared into the jungle. -1 Strength
Turn 2 Dangerous Short Cut. Chose to take the short cut. This enabled me to draw and discard 4 random cards, thus shortening the journey. Two of the random cards were the Jokers. Meaning I was back! The write up says draw the next card and depending on suit, something is required. I had to pay 1 Supplies.
Supplies 5-4-5-6
Turn 1 Remove 2 Random Cards
Turn 2 Travel without incident
Turn 3 Bad Weather. Use up 1 Supplies waiting it out.
Turn 4 Things going well. Next turn draw two cards and use the best.
Turn 5 Enemy closing in. For the rest of the game all Spades should be shuffled back in to the pack.
Turn 6 Ace of Spades. Attacked by an enemy patrol. Need to draw a card and add it to my existing Strength score to beat a set total. I win.
Turn 7 Enemy Patrol. Have to draw a card and get red to avoid them. I do so,
Turn 8 Ambushed by the enemy. The target number is high and because it’s an ambush, if I don’t make it I could lose a lot of my Strength. I draw well and make it. Phew!
Turn 19 Joker!
Turn 20 Find good food supply. +1 Supplies. If next card drawn is red, an additional +1 Supplies.
Turn 21 (Red Card) Travel without incident
Turn 22 Joker! Made it.
Overall view.
The game was quite fun. I may play it again some time. This seems a reasonable mechanism for this sort of narrative situation. i.e. trying to get closer to some goal.
On the minus side, the game play is not particularly tied to the narrative. The enemy patrols could be any enemy. The detours and delays are not particularly tied to the jungle environment. Given there is no tabletop, no figures or terrain and no graphics, this could be considered a negative, leaving the game feeling quite generic.
It didn’t cost a lot, a pound or two as I recall.
Today I thought I’d give it a go.
It’s got a jungle picture on the cover but the only colour other than that in the four pages of text is the link to the website.
The game represents a small group of Chindits travelling back to their camp through the jungle, trying to avoid Japanese patrols and the general dangers of the jungle.
It is a fairly abstract game, played with paper and pencil and a deck of cards.The first page after the cover is the rules. It gives a brief Introduction, an overview of the basic setup and the rules to follow for combat and supplies.
Basically you turn over a card each turn. When both Jokers have been “found” and discarded, your forces have made it to their destination. Every card other than a Joker has an effect based on suit and value, delineated in the remaining three pages of the game.
Playthrough #1
Strength 10-9.Supplies 5-4.
Turn 1 Drew a Card, 1 man disappeared into the jungle. -1 Strength
Turn 2 Dangerous Short Cut. Chose to take the short cut. This enabled me to draw and discard 4 random cards, thus shortening the journey. Two of the random cards were the Jokers. Meaning I was back! The write up says draw the next card and depending on suit, something is required. I had to pay 1 Supplies.
So that was quick!
Let’s try again.Playthrough #2
Strength 10-9-8-7Supplies 5-4-5-6
Turn 1 Remove 2 Random Cards
Turn 2 Travel without incident
Turn 3 Bad Weather. Use up 1 Supplies waiting it out.
Turn 4 Things going well. Next turn draw two cards and use the best.
Turn 5 Enemy closing in. For the rest of the game all Spades should be shuffled back in to the pack.
Turn 6 Ace of Spades. Attacked by an enemy patrol. Need to draw a card and add it to my existing Strength score to beat a set total. I win.
Turn 7 Enemy Patrol. Have to draw a card and get red to avoid them. I do so,
Turn 8 Ambushed by the enemy. The target number is high and because it’s an ambush, if I don’t make it I could lose a lot of my Strength. I draw well and make it. Phew!
I’m going to skip ahead here.
Just to note that the central concept seems to work. Discarding extra cards as a positive measure does get you “nearer” your goal in a reasonably elegant way. Even the combat uses up a card, which is at least some reward for slugging it out. One entire suit of cards is a small positive step forward which keeps you going but I didn’t seem to draw them very often. There appear to be a reasonable amount of different results.
I was concerned about shuffling all the Spade cards drawn back into the pack. It seems like the sort of mechanism which would get more and more punitive, the closer you got to the end.
Turn 17 Lose bearings Shuffle three black cards back into the deck.
Turn 18 Discard two cards (but only one for me as 1 was a spade so had to go back into the deck!)Turn 19 Joker!
Turn 20 Find good food supply. +1 Supplies. If next card drawn is red, an additional +1 Supplies.
Turn 21 (Red Card) Travel without incident
Turn 22 Joker! Made it.
Overall view.
The game was quite fun. I may play it again some time. This seems a reasonable mechanism for this sort of narrative situation. i.e. trying to get closer to some goal.
On the minus side, the game play is not particularly tied to the narrative. The enemy patrols could be any enemy. The detours and delays are not particularly tied to the jungle environment. Given there is no tabletop, no figures or terrain and no graphics, this could be considered a negative, leaving the game feeling quite generic.
However the generic nature of the mechanism does mean it would be easy to use the same mechanism for any force trying to reach a destination.
With a little tweaking, it might even be possible to re-purpose the mechanism and the charts as a solo campaign system for a table top solo game. Though you'd need something additional to design the individual scenarios.GR