A few years ago, we played the game Lincoln designed by Martin Wallace and published by Worthington Games. That game used a very interesting and unique deck building/destruction mechanic where cards drove the action of moving forces, recruiting units and being played for events but then some cards would be removed from the deck after use and new cards would be introduced in a phased approach. The system creates some really interesting choices and dilemmas with how to use those cards and we enjoyed the system very much.

Now that same system is being used to simulate the European Theater of World War II in a game called Struggle for Europe 1939-1945. Similar to Lincoln the game is a fast playing and light two-player card-driven strategy wargame that allows players to re-fight the entire struggle for Europe at a strategic level in under two hours. As the decks are cycled throughout the game, the Allied player adds some better quality cards, with the Russians and Americans entering play during the 1st and 2nd reshuffle. The Axis player will burn through their early game quality cards, becoming weaker as resources dwindle. The underlying game mechanism is one of “deck destruction” rather than the more normal deck-building.

I have written several Action Point posts on this game over the past few months and if you’ve missed them here they are so you can get a good look at the mechanics of the game and how it all works:

Action Point 1 – Game Board and the Locations and various Boxes and Tracks that are used to play the game as well as examined the various pinch points on the Point to Point Movement system that create a very interesting tactical puzzle

Action Point 2 – makeup of the Axis and Allied decks and discussed the very interesting deck destruction mechanic, including a comparison of the differences in the two decks and what that means for each of the players

Action Point 3 – units involved in the game, including the Infantry and Tank units as well as static defenses in the Fortresses and how the Location Boxes work on defense and attack

Action Point 4 – look at how Battle works and look at a few examples

-Grant