What a great game! Holland ’44: Operation Market-Garden from GMT Games is a hex and counter wargame that focuses on the September 1944 invasion of German occupied Holland in an attempt by the Allies to secure a bridge head over the Rhine River leading into Germany itself. The game uses a system that has been used in 2 others games designed by Mark Simonitch, Normandy ’44 and Ardennes ’44, which is pretty simple to understand and provides realism in the various aspects that are being modeled. In this game, Airlandings, bridge demolition and traffic congestion are all expertly modeled to create a fun, interactive and most importantly tense experience for either side.
If you are interested, last week I posted my written review of Holland ’44 on the blog and you can read that here:
You can also check out our unboxing video as well as our attempt at an end of round, turn by turn AAR, that was cut short due to disaster for the Allies.
I also wrote some more in-depth looks at the rules elements of the game in Action Point 1 (covering the Airborne operations) and Action Point 2 (covering XXX Corps and combat).
Finally, you can check out our designer interview posted in October 2016 with Mark Simonitch to get a look at his design decisions.
-Grant
Have you guys chosen to replay this game, especially the first turn. Also how do you choose which games to play. I would almost be overwhelmed with the choices that are available now.
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We have not gotten around to playing the game again. It is in line but may be a while. Chooses games to play is really hard. We first start with games we are interested in obviously. We both like specific operations and theaters. I like anything West Front and Pacific Theater of World War II and Alexander is also partial to West Front, Battle of Britain or any game that deals with the World War II airwar. Our sweet spot is tactical games though like Combat Commander and will always move up on the list tactical games. We have a few new ones from Lock ‘n Load that we are itching to play like Bloody Mohawk and Tank on Tank: Western Front. Hope that helps. Just choose games you are interested in. I have found that it is easier to learn a complex and difficult game that you are vested in learning because of your interest. Thanks for reading our blog.
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