Review: Brief Border Wars 2
April 1, 2026 Leave a comment
Over at Armchair Dragoons, Brant reviews Brief Border Wars II quite kindly.
Armchair Dragoons Reviews Brief Border Wars II
China’s War: review en francais
February 26, 2026 2 Comments
China’s War has been out for a couple of months now and while I haven’t run across anyone who really hated it (at least, not as many people who before it was released said that they would hate it) there have not been many reviews online… one on BGG soon after it came out (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3594321/a-solid-coin-entry-with-its-own-story-that-shouldn) , and this recent one in French by “Krev” on the blog Dystopeek:
He is quite kind to the game, and very understanding that while this is a COIN game that does not do much that is different or new mechanically when compared to the other volumes, it is different in its topic and actual play. This point seems to have evaded a few folks.
Merci pour les mots gentils Maxime!
He also wrote a good piece about the different factions in the game and their options and prospects, on his own blog Carnet d’un Stratege: https://carnetdunstratege.fr/chinas-war-les-factions-test/
Obligatory end-of-year post, 2025
December 17, 2025 8 Comments
Another year creaks to a close.
Not a bad year for publishing, in the end, and I seem to have made a few speeches.
Here is the roundup but I have learned my lesson: I will not post any links here, since 2 years ago I put in too many and my blog got suspended for a couple of weeks when an algorithm noticed and thought I was a ‘bot or something, I guess… one part of the dead Internet talking to another.
*****
Game publishing and publicity
January: Got a copy of the Bonsai Games reissue of Winter Thunder! Unfortunately the SS counters were the usual white on black, not the frou-frou hot pink I wanted. But no one asked me.
June: Got an advance copy of China’s War to look over! No complaints except that I wanted a darker reddish orange for the Warlords than the yellow-orange they went with, about like the ARVN In Fire in the Lake. But they still show up OK and are distinguishable from the khaki Japanese. Also, I learned that a Computing Science student in Finland had used Guerrilla Checkers for his degree thesis in machine learning.
July: After its being featured in the Australian Defence Force’s “Army Battle Lab Professional Gaming List 2025”, I thought it was time to make 91 DSSB Staff Game available for free print-and-play. No idea how many people may have actually looked at it.
August: Compass Games launched a last-minute Kickstarter to squeeze the Brief Border Wars Volume II re-order lemon one last time… 114 people got wrung out, just as Volume I sold out too.
November: At last! Copies of first Brief Border Wars Volume II and then China’s War started thudding onto tables across the planet. All pretty positive reports so far. Also, I decided to finally pull the trigger on O Canada and assembled 50 physical copies: sold them all within 48 hours, but a PnP version is now up on Wargamevault and Vassal and Tabletop Simulator modules are there for anyone who does not want to do the crafting project first. And finally, I got copies of the FOURTH printing of A Distant Plain!
December: pulled the pin on Gravel, abstract game played on a square square grid of any size. It may or may not be a competitor to Guerrilla Checkers in brain-burny. Relies on attrition, territory and open flanks; how’s that for vague direction. Also published new version of the QUICK game (Manila module) that uses a new approach to map graphics to show the complexity of urban terrain, also designed a module for the Klang Valley near Kuala Lumpur but will not put that out just yet.
Game design work and future publication
Work and/ or testing began or continued on the following.
Houses of Cards/Il Treno di Carte and District Commander Briganti: Two games on the Grande Brigantaggio period immediately following the Risorgimento, set in southern Italy. The first is a simple and fast card-based game that will be sold through the National Museum of the Risorgimento gift shop, after final graphic production (images are stupendous, the Museum made its archives available to the publisher) and a history-background pamphlet is written by an historian specializing in the period. The second is an adaptation of the District Commander series with a few period-appropriate twists.
My first attempt at a Brigantaggio game, a four-player asymmetric game called Briganti! that I did in 2024 was not set up quite right but I think the framework of it is good for another game set in another time and place. The hobby needs some games that are not strictly about war but also about enforcing reform and a difficult peace. I am still waiting for a good game on the Reconstruction period in the US and how it went off the rails.
Scaleable Urban Simulation: Got back to work on this and have made some changes to it. Two modules of it are now complete: a brigade-level one set in Daugavpils and a division-level one set in Hsinchu in northern Taiwan. However, given this year’s forced meld of Army Futures Command and TRADOC-G2 and other bits and pieces, the time may have passed where this could have been adopted.
Strongman: Title now changed to The Chair is Empty (thanks, Roger Leroux). A good test and lots of suggestions by knowledgeable parties at Spring Bottoscon and Class Wargames, this one is also a candidate for publication in the next year or two, now that I have found a good card printer in Canada. I’d like that.
Game Conventions
February: At the end of January I posted that I would not go to ConsimWorld Expo for reasons that are now all too obvious less than a year later. I don’t think any Canadians went this year, and maybe this will continue. Anyway, do online cons count? I was on two panels at SDHistcon Winter Quarters Online. One on portrayals of terrorism and counterterrorism in modern board wargames (no audio or video) and another where I joined the authors of the Eurowargames anthology, which was just then appearing.
June: Went to Spring BottosCon in New West, Rob Bottos thought this one up for the benefit of the Canadians who would not be going to CSWExpo this year and others. Good fun! Though the Curling Club where it was held was a bit dark.
November: Went to (fall) BottosCon in New West. No COVID this time, not even the usual con crud. Got in some games of O Canada and discussed its physical production, test games of Gravel which is I think one tweak away from being good but I am not sure where to tweak it.
Conferences and professional wargaming stuff
February: The Connections-North conference, a one-day event was held at CFB Kingston. I was on a panel about urban warfare, along with friend Major Jayson Geroux of the RCR who is still busy rewriting the Canadian Army’s urban doctrine. From Kingston I went back to Toronto, to participate in the “Simulation Summit”, another short event held at the Royal Canadian Military Institute and sponsored by Zeroes and Ones Inc.. My main contribution was helping to facilitate a rapid game design workshop, after which I was interviewed in the aptly named Sword Room for some of my thoughts on games and game design. Amazing how short my talks can be once the umms and ahhhs are edited out.
April: At Connections-Online I made a presentation on “Gaming-Neglected Aspects of the Operational Environment”, an adaptation of the presentation I made at the Mad Scientist event at Georgetown University the year before but of which there are no audio records.
June: I made an online presentation on “Urban Warfare and Crisis Management” to a wargaming workshop at the Centro Alti Studi Difesa in Rome: trends in urbanization, the city as a system of systems, urban warfare as a slow- or fast-motion disaster with progressive damage to those systems, a few illustrative games, and eight points for attention and design in making a really good game about this subject that relate to principles of disaster management.
September: Another extended trip abroad: just two weeks this time. First Connections-UK at Brunel University where I made no presentations but ran games of QUICK Junior (Scaleable Urban Simulation and 91 DSSB also on display but no takers), Gravel and The Chair is Empty; then to Turin to do some work on the Italian Risorgimento and Resistance games, and give a lecture on irregular warfare game design at the University there; then to Lausanne for Connections Suisse, which had mostly urban warfare themed presentations – I talked about my recent urban warfare work and ran some more games of QUICK Junior. Then I went home with a nasty cold to a dead computer and a union on strike.
Writing and ‘casting
February: Got my paper copy of the Eurowargames anthology, containing my chapter on analog newsgames. Maybe now I can shut up about it.
October: On an episode of Mentioned in Dispatches with Brant Guillory, where I talked about the three games coming out in October/November and Quadrigames generally.
November: Interviewed by Grant Linneberger for his Pushing Cardboard podcast. Should be out early next year.
December: Presented “Idiosyncrasy in Motion” online to the Georgetown University Wargaming Society, about my general body of work – family-based designs and one-offs, how I design, why I do it. Not my best presentation but it made me think about how much paper I’ve defiled over the last 35 years.
Near-meaningless digest of site statistics:
Overall traffic seemed to be about the same as 2024. I seem to be cruising still at around 1,700 views per month, for a total of about 21,200 views. About 8,500 visitors in all. The five most curious countries were: US (by a very wide margin), Canada, UK, and Spain. One visit each from 22 different smaller countries, with Albania bringing up the rear (no visits from Afghanistan this year, but that may be the Taliban shutting down the Internet there).
Besides the then-current post, popular pages included Free Games, BTR Games, the QUICK Page and Scenarios and Variants pages like always.
The most downloaded documents were items for free PnP games: mostly items related to QUICK, Ukrainian Crisis and 91 DSSB. By the unequal numbers of downloads for the different game components I cannot help but think that a lot of these downloads are just grabs by ‘bots… whatever for, I don’t know.
Nights of Fire: review in Ludo Storie 05 2025
November 11, 2025 Leave a comment
A very nice review of Nights of Fire in the free Italian-language online gaming magazine Ludo Storie!
Click to access Ludo%20Storie%2005%202025%2011%2012.pdf
Rough machine translation:
Nights of Fire: Battle for Budapest
by Giorgio Urbani“Nights of Fire: Battle for Budapest” by David Turczi (former game designer of Voidfall and Nucleum) and Brian Train (for COIN fans, he’s the game designer of games like A Distant Plain and Colonial Twilight) immerses players in the dramatic and desperate second week of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, specifically between November 4th and 7th. The game is presented as the second chapter of
Days of Ire: Budapest 1956 (also by Turczi), focusing on the Red Army’s return to the Hungarian capital with the intent of brutally suppressing the uprising. For the Hungarian defenders, this is not a fight for conventional military victory, but a stubborn battle for survival and to inflict a moral and political cost on the Soviet oppressor. \It is obviously a deeply asymmetric conflict where players (1 to 2) controlling the Hungarian revolutionaries fight against overwhelming forces with very clear but very difficult objectives: resist as long as possible, delay the Soviet advance, disable enemy units, and, above all, help as many civilians as possible escape the city.Their victory is not measured on the battlefield, but in their ability to erode Soviet prestige through civilian flight and prolonged resistance, transforming a military defeat into a moral victory in the eyes of the world. On the other side, the Soviet faction (controlled by a player in “Conflict” mode or by an automated system in solo play) aims to break the insurgents’ morale by eliminating them, arresting civilians before they flee, and establishing garrisons at key points in the city to quell resistance.
The rules offer two distinct game modes. The “Konev” mode (one of the greatest generals of WWII, who actually called upon to crush the Hungarian rebellion in its infancy with Operation Whirlwind) allows a solo or cooperative experience for 1-2 players, where participants work together to resist an assault managed by a dedicated deck of cards that simulates their decisions. This mode is the one I played.The “Conflict” mode, on the other hand, introduces direct competition (for 2-3 players), with one player taking on the role of the Soviet commander, actively planning the repression, while the others manage the Hungarian defense. Both modes can be played in Basic (the one I played) or Advanced mode, the latter introducing greater strategic depth and replayability with additional rules, such as special abilities for certain insurgents (medic, demonstrator) and Objective cards for the Soviet player.
The game mechanics revolve around card management and territorial control on the Budapest map, divided into districts. Revolutionary players use a system based on Operation Points (called Ops) derived from played cards (1 to 3 per turn) to perform actions. These include: Combatant movement, the complex attempt to displace civilians (whose Ops cost decreases with the presence of insurgents in the district), the construction of barricades to hinder the Soviets, and offensive actions such as Ambush or Direct Attack, which will earn Momentum needed to reduce Soviet prestige at the end of the round. In the case of a Direct Attack, there is a risk of a Soviet counterattack, determined by the roll of a die and influenced by the Readiness level, which can lead to the wounding or elimination of the attacking insurgent.
The management of Soviet units differs significantly between the two modes. I played the “Konev Mode” version, where the Soviet AI operates using a dedicated deck and a dice roll, following specific priorities to hit the districts considered “highest threat” (based on a ranking based on the number of
Civilians, number of insurgents, etc.). A small personal note: perhaps it’s because “three-dimensional” games like Thrills, Risk, Heroquest, Starquest, and others like them have had a fundamental impact on my development as a gamer, but I have a real passion for “Dudes on a Map” games and their “cousins,” block wargames (like Nights of Fire).I believe this type of game is an effective and engaging way to represent the fog of war, the uncertainty, and the tension that characterize conflict situations. Furthermore, I find it aesthetically pleasing to see the game maps populated with miniatures or blocks, representing military units deployed on the battlefield just like in a Headquarters (Figure 3). In fact, a key element of the game is the management of hidden information: the specific skills of the Hungarian insurgents (both local and combatant) and the value of civilians are not always known to the Soviet faction (especially in Conflict mode), adding a layer of uncertainty. The flow of the game is divided into rounds, each consisting of well-defined phases: card drawing, tactical preparation, arrival of reinforcements (from the second round), operations (the heart of the action with alternating turns), adjustments (where prestige, morale, and game-ending conditions are verified), and maintenance (unit resets and timer advances). The game continues for a maximum of 10 rounds or until the game-ending conditions are met, such as Hungarian morale reaching zero, Soviet prestige reaching zero, or the voluntary (the choice I made during the game) or automatic surrender of the Hungarians.
The rulebook is enriched with numerous historical notes (I was particularly struck by the fact
that very few photos of that event exist, because the Soviets used them to persecute many people) and author’s notes, which provide a deep context for the events depicted and the design choices, underscoring the difficulties in translating such an unbalanced situation into a compelling gaming experience. “Nights of Fire” is an intense and challenging thematic wargame that captures the tragedy and desperation of the Hungarian resistance. Turczi and Train have succeeded in creating a deep gaming experience full of difficult decisions, suitable for both those seeking a tense competitive challenge and those who prefer a cooperative or solo experience against a well-structured AI (and relentless, just like the Soviets and Konev himself were).
Review: We Are Coming, Nineveh
February 18, 2024 3 Comments
Over at No Dice, No Glory, Mitch Reed (now doing paid, day-job type work on wargaming for the Marine Corps) posts a very kind review of We Are Coming Nineveh.
Review: Nights of Fire
February 16, 2024 Leave a comment
Over at his blog Meeple Mountain, Andrew Lynch has published a short and measured review of Nights of Fire.
Reviews, Italian style!
January 25, 2024 4 Comments
Brian Train: sistemi di giochi diversi per un War Game designer
Over on the website Giochi sul Nostro Tavolo (Games on our Table), Davide Clari gives his (positive) impressions of Operation Canuck, Mastering Resistance: Orange Gobi, and A Distant Plain.
It’s in Italian but the browser translator works fine.
I met Davide when I was in Turin and we did the public talk-and-play of A Distant Plain event. Davide also interviewed me about my history and thoughts concerning game design; it will run on a separate website later, and I will post notification of that.
Grazie mille per il tuo lavoro, Davide!
The Player’s Aid: Best Bulge games!
December 13, 2023 Leave a comment
Well, it’s mid-December and as Time-off Time approaches for many of us, our gamer thoughts turn to Battle of the Bulge games. Over at The Player’s Aid blog, Grant Kleinheinz picks out his favourite three Bulge games and Winter Thunder is one of them!
There aren’t many division-level games on the campaign and I’m pleased he picked this one.
Come to think of it, I don’t own that many myself… just SPI titles: the small and clever game Bulge and the Battles for the Ardennes Quad, which I admire but haven’t played except for the 1940 Sedan game in it, and smaller ones like the old 1969 Bastogne.
Video review: Winter Thunder
November 30, 2023 1 Comment
A 15-minute video review of Winter Thunder by “Zilla Blitz”, he quite likes it, especially the Mission Matrix combat system!
Merch: Wargame Swag
November 25, 2023 4 Comments
I don’t often shill things, but I did want to draw your attention to two items I got in the mail this week.
I never thought I’d actually make it onto a T-shirt!
These nifty items and many others are available from Lance Manion of “Wargame Swag”, as either a T-shirt ($20 unless you are enormous) or a poster ($18 flat, ha get it?). No website but here is a link to his catalogue of over 150 images.
It seems he can only do images of games that are out of print, or have very helpful publishers… hence you will find loads of loads of images of SPI games (Minuteman is one of my favourites, therefore I got one), among others: loads of Avalon Hill, Victory Games, West End Games, and some surprises. Quality of shirt is quite nice, printing is good too.
Contact him at [email protected].
brtrain 
Recent Comments