This is one of the classic Avalon Hill wargames that help build a hobby.This is the original Avalon Hill game recreating the Battle of the Bulge of December 1944. Battle of the Bulge was the desperate German winter offensive in the Ardennes forest during WWII. This is a two player game between the Americans and Germans.
This is a board game with printed cardboard square pieces played on a hard mapboard. The mapboard is hard paper stock that is the same as what one would find with a Risk playboard. Printed on the mapboard is a map on a hexagonal grid (hex spaces, or simply "hexes"), and terrain for clear, dense forest, cities, rivers, roads, and rough (rocky ground). There are a few charts, such as the one for the combat results table, and a die for random outcomes.
The cardboard pieces represent combat military units. There are divisions, brigades, and regiments. The different types of military units represented are infantry (and grenadier), armor (and panzer), panzer grenadiers (armored infantry), airborne (but for this game acts just like infantry), fortification (which act like entrenchments) and fortresses.
There are three levels of the game, the basic game (simplest), advanced (all the complicated rules), and tournament (fast play with advance rules). There are optional rules for the advanced game. The basic game only includes the land game, no air power, and is the best starter tool for new gamers. The basic game has a more simplified combat results table. The advanced game adds abstract air power, traffic restrictions, fortifications and fortresses. Tournament play was intended for play at game conventions.
The nice thing about Battle of the Bulge is that it uses a system that is similar to most other hexgames. So once one learns one game, the learning curve of a similar game was not as steep. Such is the case with the old Avalon Hill Classics, once you learned one game all of the other played the same way with some minor variation, only the campaign is different.
The basic play used unit types and combat ratings. As expected, infantry would have different abilities from armor or artillery. Each unit had rating printed in large print on the piece, (or "chits," as they are called). For example, take a 4-3 infantry (grenadier) division . The "3" is the movement factor per turn, so the unit can move three hexes in clear terrain per turn. Movement along a road is 1/5, so a 4-3 infantry can move 15 hexes if moved solely along a road. Each side is permitted to move all of their units up to their full movement allowance. The first rating, the "4" in this case, is the combat factor. Combat is worked out in odds, so that if one moves his 4-3 infantry next to the enemies 4-4 infantry, the combat odds are 1-1 (not very good in combat). There is nothing preventing one from ganging up on an enemy unit, and in fact this is the general tactic even in real life. So if one brought up another division into the attack there would be two 4-3 infantry divisions against the enemy's single division for 2-1 odds. For example, if the enemy had a 4-4 infantry division and their turn one brings up three 4-3 infantry divisions to have combat, this would be 12-4 odds, which reduce to 3-1. Then one would consult the combat results table under the 3-1 column and roll the die. The results would resolve the combat and tell what losses there were, and who had to retreat. Obviously, the high the odds will favor that side.
Also in combat, terrain would impact combat. A defender in a city or mountain would have their defense rating doubled. For example, a 4-4 infantry in the mountains would defend as a combat rating of 8. Odds are rounded in favor of the defender. From the example above if that 4-4 infantry was defending in a city against those three 4-3 infantry, the odds would now be 12-8, only 1-1 odds (better bring up more troops).
When Battle of the Bulge came out this type of map wargame was relatively new, so this game was very novel in its time. It is still a good, simple two player game.At the time Avalon Hill was then a Maryland based company and was able to tap into the historical advisement from a fellow Maryland resident and veteran of the battle, General Anthony C. McAuliffe!General McAuliffe was the American commander who replied "Nuts" to the German surrender ultimatum.
Battle of the Bulge is a good boardgame for beginners and good father and son game.
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