There is an embarrassment of riches here at Faith and Steel, with not just one but three packages landing within a week! I picked up some partizans from one of the many sales at Black Tree Designs that I think will be perfect for delivering lots of theme in smaller Bolt Action games. I also took advantage of Warlord Games buy a rule book, get a box offer. More on that later.
The biggest parcel, coming at 3.5kg, was the arrival of the joint Richard Berg-Plastic Soldier Company Kickstarer, The Great War.
I suspect that this game will be a worthy addition to the Command and Colours family. It improves on the high production values of the Memoir ’44 series by including a nice range of 15mm hard plastic miniatures from Plastic Soldier Company to accompany the nice looking, full-colour cards, map and tokens.
Inside the box: oo! shiny
Straight from the box
The cuts are clean and the pieces come out easily
The hex board is double-sided and the terrain will make for flexibility and easy expansion, just like Memoir ’44
The funky dice are used to resolve combat. This is very abstract but makes for fast, tense games.
There are 8 dice; this shows the proportion of the symbols
The highlight for me are the new miniatures from Plastic Soldier Company.
One of the three German sprues
The British have the same mix but different poses
For board gamers the naked plastic will serve quite adequately. However, I think taking the time to paint these will make quite a spectacle. My friend Andy converted me to this point of view when I first saw his Memoir set with painted 20mm plastics. It makes for a visually stunning game. So this means washing before getting some paint on (it’s too windy to head out to the backyard to prime, so things will have to stop here for a wee while)
Here is my first niggle. I love it that the Brits have fixed their bayonets ready to get stuck in, but you need to be very careful removing them from the sprues or you will break bayonets and even barrels. The Germans did not seem subject to this, so I don’t know if the different colour has different properties or it is the pose itself. Whatever the cause, clippers and patience are required. Apart from that there is no real clean-up required, the models are pretty much ready to go.
Being Kickstarter there were some bonus material:
Some bonus scenarios (always useful), sets of German and British artillery (that don’t appear directly in the base game but do look very nice) and a set of metal generals:
Perhaps indicative of future releases, even if not useful on the board. I’m personally looking forward to the Turks:
I haven’t played yet, but the rules look like they will capture the challenges of trench warfare pretty well. Machine-guns are going to be very dangerous and I cannot see how to cross no-mans land without enormous casualties. So, the title of this post is ironical, just like the musical I pinched the title from. But it does look like it will be a lovely game.
D.
