Sink or Swim
Designer: Jeremy White
During the early years of the Second
World War, German and British fleets tempted fate in the icy waters of the
North Atlantic. Convoys and war ships belonging to both the Royal Navy and the
Kriegsmarine performed a deadly dance in which information was as vital as
ammunition. No one knew exactly where the enemy’s vessels were to be found.
Come to think of it, where were
yours??
After two Enemy Coast Ahead titles and Skies Above the Reich, designer Jeremy White and GMT Games bring us Atlantic Chase, a “ship battle” game that rewrites the whole book—and then some. White’s designs are already known for their innovative game mechanics, and Atlantic Chase is no exception, as it unfurls concepts that are so new as to give seasoned wargamers pause. Just to marvel at the whole thing.
The game takes place at the
operational level, with ships assembled into task forces represented by elegant
wooden sticks on various hexagonized bodies of water. Since each session is
driven by a different scenario, player objectives abound: sink British convoys,
mine the Norwegian coast, destroy a German battleship, deliver troops to your
allies, prevent German raiders from reaching the Atlantic, and above all else,
avoid sparking an international incident.
Possible actions are just as
varied, with names that express directly what they entail, from Naval Search,
Engage, Air Strike, Stealth Recon & Attack (get those U-boats in on the
action), all the way to the more perplexing Trajectory, Signals and Completion
actions.
And this is where things get very
interesting.
The basic conceit of Atlantic Chase is that, before the age
of instantaneous GPS connections, military endeavors—and naval warfare to an
even greater extent—were plagued with a curse of ignorance. Admirals knew a few
unassailable facts about each task force they were throwing into battle: its
composition, its departure date and time, its intended trajectory, and its
ultimate objective. But as soon as convoys and cruisers and battleships left
the coast and sailed into the horizon, the rest was in God’s hands. Now if
commanders knew precious little about their own forces, speculation about enemy forces was at an all time high.
Some naval games choose to display
individual ships, others assign an entire task force to one piece, but Atlantic Chase goes the extra (nautical)
mile and uses the aforementioned wooden sticks to represent the trajectory of each task force—friendly
and enemy alike. That system has several chains of wooden sticks crisscrossing the
board, each chain a representation of where the corresponding collection of
vessels could be. You know where they departed from and their intended
destination, but their actual location along the trajectory remains a mystery.
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| A few entangled trajectories |
From there, the game unspools as a series of actions designed, in many cases, to reduce the uncertainty of the trajectories and get a fix on an opponent’s actual location. First of all, there’s the Trajectory action itself, where you draw a line of wooden sticks between two points on the map to get your vessels going; then Naval Search removes segments from an enemy trajectory (eventually reducing it to a single point—that’s where the ships are!); Engage launches an attack against a task force that’s been successfully located; Stealth brings you submarines to bear; Air Strike launches an air attack; and so on.
When friendly forces coordinate for an operation, the concept of trajectories remains in play and makes it more difficult to achieve success if the participating ships are along an extended chain of little sticks: you’re just hoping that friendly battleship is indeed within striking distance. But you might be wrong: roll the dice and let’s find out.
The active player keeps executing
actions until they either decide to pass, or they lose the initiative. Some
actions automatically trigger an initiative switch, whereas others will require
a die roll. Many actions end with a “time lapse,” a mechanism by which active
trajectories get shortened. For instance, the task force that just Engaged gave
some clues as to its actual location, or it’s getting closer to the shore—all
represented by the removal of some sticks from the active trajectory.
Passing also does the trick: it’s
basically how you move! The passing player resolves a time lapse and shortens a
task force’s trajectory, which essentially gets the ships closer to where
they’re trying to go. That said, time lapses are more effective in good
weather; when the storm hits, you’re even more in the dark about your little
boats.
Combat is a simple affair, but it
need not be.
The standard game employs a separate battle board, with quick maneuvering and gunnery to get the job done.
However, an advanced combat system is also provided for the more adventurous
among us who crave relative directions of movement, visibility issues,
mechanical distress and age-old favorites such as flooding and burning decks.
It extends playtime a little, but it also creates a more detailed and exciting
narrative when two task forces do manage to meet.
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| Convoys taking the coward's way out — classic... |
Ready to sail? The selected
scenario will tell you what you need to accomplish. Beyond that, you better
hope Neptune is on your side.
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
Atlantic Chase ships with five rulebooks in a big, armored box. You read that right: five. Now DO NOT PANIC. It’s not as bad as it sounds; it’s actually a really cool thing.
RULEBOOK
The first book contains the actual
rules of the game. It clocks in at 63 pages, but every other page features a
fully illustrated example to help the reader along. Moreover, each page of rule
forgoes the typical wargame three-column, hope-you-got-a-magnifier structure
and opts for a single column in large type with plenty of illustrations.
TUTORIAL BOOK
Here we go—55 pages that take you
by the hand, ask you (gently) to cherry-pick the aforementioned rulebook and
learn the game as you play, one step at a time.
I’ve said before that you could
learn a Jerry White game straight from the player aids, and I’ve done it myself
more than once. In this case though it’s not quite true: the player aid
material will get you halfway there, but you will be required to crack open the
rulebook at various points. Rest easy: it’s done with such finesse that you
won’t feel a thing. Every “lesson” is a very short scenario you play alone
against a table of possible enemy reactions, and which teaches you one more of
the game’s systems until you’ve mastered the whole thing. It’s brilliantly
done, and fun to get through. And of course, White being White, each tutorial
scenario also doubles as a quick history lesson. Why would you not want to jump right into that?
SOLITAIRE SCENARIOS
Next up is a 71-page book that
holds no fewer than 15 solitaire scenarios. Those function the same way
tutorial scenarios did, with one or more tables used to determine what the
enemy will decide to do. Worth noting, the player will alternatively play the
German and the British, so both sides of the coin get to shine here.
Except for the fact that combat
gets a tad predictable with no one else at the table, the solo scenarios are
lots of fun to play, as well as a great way to get your sea legs once you’re
out of your tutorial berth.
TWO-PLAYER SCENARIOS
When it comes to two-handed action,
Atlantic Chase has you covered with
21 further engagements. That’s 63 pages chock-full of daring adventures on the
high seas, ranging from skirmishes involving a handful of ships, all the way to
massive assaults that’ll have the neighbors complaining about the salt water.
Ever dreamed of sinking the Bismarck? Now’s your chance.
ADVANCED BATTLE RULES
Last but not least, we get to 15
pages of advanced combat instructions. It bears repeating that the game can
absolutely be played without this appendix, but it does give the proceedings a
fiery flair that’s difficult to ignore. Some will relish the added nautical
fun, others will stare at the clock mounted in the captain’s cabin; I suggest
you play a few games without the advanced combat rules, and then try them on for
size. You can always go back to regular combat if this proves too cumbersome or
too long for your taste.
All told, that’s 267 pages of rules
and instructions. Scary at first, than strangely inviting. As the French like
to say, ce
n’est pas la mer à boire (“it’s not the sea to drink”—not so daunting a task).
In and of themselves, the rules are not complicated, as the only real hurdle
lies in the originality of it all. But fear not: the layout and the numerous
illustrated examples make navigating the many books both agreeable and
efficient.
FUN FACTOR
True, Atlantic Chase is a ton of fun to play. Who knew being clueless about the position of your own ships would be so exhilarating? There’s a special thrill to be found in figuring out that your task force really is on the path of that rival fleet, then outmaneuvering those bastards and torpedoing their tanker… Or, for the more dignified among us, dealing with the political repercussions of a neutral country reacting angrily to mines being laid in their waters. However, in a weird kind of magic twist, the game is also fun to learn. Several times during the tutorial process, I caught myself with a wide grin on my face, just having a blast reading about how I could send my submarines against one of those confounding trajectories. Or cajole an allied task force into taking an active role in an operation. Who cares whether their position is blown? The Admiralty demands results.
I should warn prospective sea dogs
to pay attention to the first four tutorial scenarios (T1-T4). Those are so
short as to normally reach a conclusion after a single turn, which makes
setting them up in the first place a bit irrelevant. So unless you’re very
confused about the new rule you just learned, I suggest you simply read the
provided examples of play and move on. T5 is where you want to start breaking
out the ships.
WAR PRODUCTION
The big Atlantic Chase box comes with so much stuff that by the time you
punch everything out, it will barely take it all back in. It also weighs enough
to keep an aircraft carrier anchored through a biblical storm.
In addition to the five rulebooks,
you get a bunch of player aid materials, a pair of task force display sheets
(where the ships that compose each task force actually reside), two inset maps
(one for the North Sea, the other for the Norwegian Sea), a beautiful
eight-panel mounted map, a wide array of ship and control counters (including
that damn initiative that never seems to go my way), plus enough wooden sticks
to recreate the Eiffel Tower at full scale.
Those wooden components are the trajectory segments, and they’re gorgeous. I’ve seen showstoppers in my day, and this is certainly one of them—I can’t imagine a gamer walking by and not missing a step at the sight of this baby in full swing. Plenty of spare wooden parts are also provided, something I think no game should come without.
The inset maps are useful for a few scenarios that constrain the action to a small area. Each of the two maps expands what would be just a handful of hexes on the main map, and provides a zoomed-in view of the relevant section. Very cool.
Some errors did swim their way in, and GMT ships a one-sheet errata compendium with the game itself. Most items listed there are of the minor variety, although my eyes hurt a little each time I read “Inturruption” on the player aids. The one mistake that keeps me up at night involves the three French light cruisers, whose markers were printed with the French flag in a horizontal configuration—like pre-war Yugoslavia decided to join the fray and send a few vessels.
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| Doesn't it break your little French heart? |
It doesn’t alter the game in any way, but it bothers me enough to keep an eye out for replacement ships in something like a future issue of C3i.
PARTING SHOTS
After you’ve burned through all 36 of the provided scenarios (all eminently replayable, by the way, even the solo ones), you might be tempted to tackle the “best of five” campaign game. It presents itself as five scenarios, with crucial setup decisions before each one, and eventual reinforcements once the smoke has cleared. Whoever wins three of those comes out on top.
Which brings me to one of my favorite aspects of the game: the definition of “winning.” While the two-player scenarios make it clear what victory means (half of them through an actual score, the other half using a table of victory conditions), each of the solitaire scenarios comes with a debriefing table where victory points are tallied and an outcome presented. Not just one word, but an actual paragraph that explains how that outcome might translate to a real-world situation. Extreme outcomes are clear-cut cases (Steady On! or Another Defeat leave no wiggle room for doubt), but everything else welcomes interpretation. I love outcomes titled Bitter Success or Grim Battles, evocative enough to keep the narrative going long after the bits have gone back into the box.
In the designer notes, White mentions that the trajectory system was first envisioned for a Civil War game before drifting into WWII naval confrontations. As an ACW nut, can I preorder that game right now? I can’t wait to lose track of my troops in the woods at Shiloh.
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