Axis & Allies: Battle of the Bulge

Overall score:

Designer: Lawrence H. Harris
Publisher: Avalon Hill

The Battle of the Bulge is an interesting battle to recreate: historically the Allies were more or less helpless in the beginning, yet the Axis had no reasonable chance of winning in the end. In fact, it was never really a matter of winning at all; both sides were really just engaged in a struggle to not lose first. The board game addresses this historical quirk by diverging from the typical Axis & Allies “conquer everything” formula and embracing a carefully balanced time limit instead: the Axis has a huge troop advantage, and must find a way to leverage it across eight turns and gain a bunch of victory points. If the Axis can take the same cities as the historical Axis army, or more, they win; if they can’t, the Allies win. It’s a precarious balance, and the first few times you play you’ll think they got it wrong, but stick with it—the game is calibrated to an astonishingly delicate edge, and two players of equal skill will find it to be a fantastic battle of wits.

In many ways, Battle of the Bulge has no business being an Axis & Allies game at all: it has a hex map instead of a territorial board; it uses a fascinating system of battlefield supply instead of the classic A&A economy; and it uses an innovative combat system that bears no resemblance to anything A&A has ever done before. But these are not just changes for change’s sake—every one of these new ideas, and many others, end up working perfectly with the game’s theme and purpose, and many of the mechanics are downright better than the original A&A stuff.

We’ll begin with set up, which is as easy as it could possibly be: the map spaces include little diagrams to tell you exactly how to establish each army’s starting position, so you just place them and go. Because there are only eight turns, each set of reinforcements is similarly scripted—you get exactly the same units, in the same turns, in each game. The strategy comes from where you place those reinforcements and how you direct them—and, most importantly, how you choose to supply them.

You see, there are two new kinds of unit in the game now, in addition to the infantry, tanks, artillery, and planes of classic A&A. The first new unit is really a resource, though you play it and move it on the board like a unit. This is called Supply, and it’s what lets you do everything: if you want to attack or move from one space to another, you must spend a supply token in the same or an adjacent space. The second new unit is the Truck, which is your primary method of getting your Supply where and when you need it. The Axis doesn’t get nearly enough Supply to do everything they need to do, but they can capture it from the Allies, who get way too much; learning how to supply your army without inadvertently supplying the enemy with an undefended cache is one of the deepest strategies in the game.

Combat is completely different, but very clever and cool; I’d love to see this combat system applied as the engine for another game with a wider scope. The first thing you’ll notice is that there is no return fire: when one space attacks another it is an entirely one-sided affair, which sounds harsh but actually works quite well. Each army takes turns activating one hex to attack an adjacent one, and this back and forth across the battle line simulates return fire fairly well without having to use any awkward “these guys are dead but they can still shoot” rules. The next thing you’ll notice about the combat is that you can no longer pick and choose who dies in each assault—the game uses a set of pull-out tabs and 12-sided dice to determine exactly how many units are hit, which units they are, and whether they die or retreat. It sounds complex, but the actual execution is remarkably simple.

The pieces in the game are the standard pieces you expect from Axis & Allies, so the production values are pretty high overall, but the board is dull and colorless and really could have been more interesting. My only other major complaint are the front line markers—keeping track of the battle line is an interesting idea, and in theory it fits very well with this game, but in practice it means you spend way too much time reaching into tight spaces and moving markers and pieces that insist on getting in each other’s way. After a game or two we eliminated the markers altogether and just kept track of the territory in our heads; it was extra bookkeeping, but the ability to simply slide an army from one space to another without having to lift it over a cardboard battle line was well worth the mental effort.

Overall, Battle of the Bulge earns high marks for fun and innovation, taking it’s place as the best A&A game since the first (and arguably better than that one, for wargame fans who find classic A&A too silly). It’s a new, exciting game with an obvious depth of playtesting, and should be loved by light wargamers and history buffs alike.

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Written by Fellfrosch on June 23rd, 2008