mike@rlvd.UUCP (Mike Woods) (10/03/85)
Well, I promised that I would review this game if there was enough
interest and one follow-up is probably enough.
Warlord used to be available through Games Workshop (though privately
produced) in England back in the days when they only had one shop.
Nowadays you can buy a revised edition called "Apocalypse", which is
produced and marketed by Games Workshop. I have not played
Apocalypse but I believe it is more or less the same.
Warlord is played on a stylised map of Europe and parts of Asia and
North Africa. The map is divided into provinces which are colour
coded according to the terrain (yellow - city; red - industrial;
green - agricultural; brown - mountains; white - wasteland; blue -
sea). Provinces have irregular size and shape (except cities, which
are circles) and, for those who are geographically minded, are named.
The game can be played by two to six players (though there used to be
the option to buy extra counters to allow more to play). When there
are few players (or when you want a shorter game) it is suggested
that play is restricted to half, quarter, or even an eigth of the
board.
Each player represents an empire and the object of the game is to
wipe out all other players (original, huh?). At the start of the
game, the players take turns at occupying a city with an army (armies
are represented by small pieces of coloured card: tacky but
surprisingly durable). When all the cities have been occupied the
game proper begins.
A player's turn is divided into three phases: nuclear strike;
recruit armies; and perform attacks. I will deal with the first
later. Armies are recruited from provinces which the player controls
(i.e ones which he has at least one army in). The number of armies
depends on the type of terrain. He receives one army for every:
city; two industrial provinces; three agricultural provinces; four
mountain provinces. He receives nothing for sea or wasteland.
Recruitment is separate for each of the player's empires (an empire
is a series of connecting controlled provinces. Thus at the start of
the game every city is a separate empire!) and new armies can only
be placed within the empire in which they were recruited. This is
very important as a game can often be won by cutting an opponent's
empire in two and then concentrating on capturing one half!
Attacks are carried out between adjacent provinces. The attacker
declares which province he is attacking and which province he is
attacking from. he then secretly chooses a number from one to six
and records his choice by placing a die (with his number face up)
under a coffee mug (or similar opaque container). The defender then
has to guess the number that the attacker has chosen. If the
defender guesses right, the attacker loses that many armies from the
attacking province. If he guesses wrong, he loses one army from the
defending province.
There are restraints placed on the number that the attacker can
choose. He may not choose a number which is higher than the number
of armies in the attacking province (though he can choose the same
number as he has armies with the danger that if the defender guesses
right he will lose that province, because all his armies will be
eliminated!). If he is attacking a city he may not choose the number
one (so a single army can never attack a city!). If he is attacking
mountains he may not choose a number higher than three. If he
attacks a land province from the sea the defender is allowed two
guesses at the number (which makes attacking mountains from the sea
almost suicidal!).
A player may attack a province as many times as he likes and if he is
successful in eliminating the last defending army he automatically
moves armies equal to the number he chose in the last attack into the
vacated province. Here we reach the nitty-gritty of the combat
system as there is a great deal of tactics and psychology involved in
choosing the number for each attack ("if I choose high I can move
more armies in, but he knows that and will guess high, and if he
guesses right when I choose high I won't have anything left to attack
with!", etc.).
Unlike Risk, it is usual to have empty provinces in Warlord and
armies can advance into these without fighting. Any number of armies
from one province can move into the empty province as long as at
least one army is left behind (this prevents stacks of armies
marching across open expanses without looking after their supply
lines). Also, when attacking a sea province no fighting takes place.
The attacker moves his armies into the province as if it was empty,
eliminating the defenders (making empires linked by sea routes very
prone to being split by an opponent).
A player can move and attack in any combination and can continue
until he decides to stop or runs out of armies to attack with. The
order in which a players does his attacks can be important though as
there is no free move (ala Risk) so any army groups stuck inside an
empire are useless (unless, of course, an opponent breaks through
your outer defence lines!).
And so to nuclear weapons. These are represented in the game by
small Lego bricks (the hydrogen bombs even have "Lego" stamped on the
top!). There are two types: atomic and hydrogen. Atomic are common
but the hydrogen bombs blow big holes in the map!
When a bomb is obtained (I will explain how in a moment) it is placed
in one of the player's provinces. Once placed it cannot be moved and
stays in the province until it is fired or is detonated by another
bomb exploding nearby. Bombs in the same province are stacked into a
missile (there can only be one missile per province). Hydrogen and
atomic bombs cannot be stacked together.
An atomic bomb is awarded to a player each time he destroys a
defending army (with the exception of armies eliminated in sea
provinces). He must place the bomb as soon as he receives it (so it
cannot be placed in the province he just attacked, even if the
eliminated army was the last defender) and it must be placed in a
province within the empire which made the attack. Hydrogen bombs are
obtained instead of recruiting armies in all the player's empires
(i.e a player receives one hydrogen bomb if he recruits NO armies).
This means that hydrogren bombs are a last-fling weapon, built when a
player knows he has lost, to cause as much damage to his conquerers
as possible.
Missiles (a stack of one or more bombs) can be fired at the beginning
of a player's turn. The missile's range is determined by the number
of bombs in the stack (it can fly through one province for each
bomb). If the missile is atomic (made up of atomic bombs) then the
target province becomes radioactive (all armies in it are destroyed
and a large black square is placed in it; it cannot be entered for
the rest of the game) and all neighbouring provinces are devastated
(all armies are lost but the province may be entered again). This
generates a hole in the map surrounded by neutral territory, just the
thing for breaking a strong defensive line and allowing your armies
to pour through the gap to ravage an opponent's heartland. If the
missile is hydrogen then the target and all surrounding provinces are
radiated and all provinces that surround that are devastated. This
is very nasty but due to the method of obtaining hydrogen bombs the
firing player usually goes up with the missile as it will probably
have too short a range to get clear of his empire (but what a way to
go!). If a missile is within the affected area it will explode,
causing the same damage as if it had been fired at its home province.
This can set up very savage chain reactions so choosing missile sites
is quite important.
Nuclear missile are really the heart of the game as they are
guaranteed to break any stalemate lines. They also tend to be used
quickly as they make a very attractive target for missile strikes.
Also, as the player who owns the province owns the missile, a player
who feels threatened by a missile will usually attempt to capture it
by capturing its province. This often leads to a whole series of
attack and counter-attack as players attempt to capture the missiles
and hold on to them long enough to be able to fire them. My
experience is that the best games are those which rapidly develop
into a ferocious war between splintered empires desperately trying to
gain control of several large missiles.
Missile are also quite often used in a strategic role, blowing up
enemy cities or even blocking vulnerable gaps in defence lines. And
of course they are often used to cut opponent's supply lines.
This is where Warlord really surpasses Risk. Because nuclear
missiles are so easy to come by and readily used large, static
defence lines of armies are useless. Similarly, the rules which
restricts the number of armies allowed to advance into a conquered
province prevents the massed attacks in Risk which, having broken
through the defence lines, totally devestate an opponent in one turn.
Generally, this makes the game much more fluid and it is only just
before the end that the winner becomes apparent.
In short (are you kidding?), I would recommend this game to anyone
who has found Risk entertaining but is fed up with its limitations.
Mike.
P.S Sorry about the length of this article, I hope you found it
interesting enough to get ot the end.
--
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