First off, this series is being done as a bit of a lark as wargaming has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas so if anyone is offended, please just stop reading now.

On the 2nd day of Christmas War Gaming, my true love gave to me…

2 Aircraft Bombing

General Orders: World War II is a neat little fast playing game that is a bit abstract but is a nice little strategic game that can be played in 30 minutes. David Thompson and Trevor Benjamin designed a simple game that is a worker placement wargame to simulate the struggles a commander has in attacking and defending against an opponent with limited access to various actions. The game is an area control game fought on the battlefields of World War II, with a board that has an alpine setting in the mountains of northern Italy in the European Theater of Operations on one side the islands of the Pacific in the Pacific Theater of Operations on the other. Players will have to work to control crucial strategic assets in the form of small tiles located in the middle of the board that unlock special abilities and deny your opponents from claiming their game changing abilities. This game is pretty fun and is beautifully produced as well. I played this many times with my wife this summer and she very much enjoyed it as well.

The game has a bit of asymmetry in the abilities that are allowed between the 2 sides of the board. In the Pacific board, the player has access to Aircraft that can be used to take Bomb actions that will eliminate enemy pieces in a single Zone. These Aircraft will be stationed in an Air Zone on the board that is linked to specific areas of the board. These are identified with hatched colored Air Zones placed around the board that can be controlled and fought over and these specifically link to at least 2 different Zones that share the same color.

Each player has access to 10 total Aircraft and some of these will be placed on the board according to the setup instructions. If a player wants to add additional Aircraft, they will have to take the Take-Off Action to add them to specific Air Zones. When the players wish to use a Bomb Action, they choose a targeted Zone on the board that matches their Air Zone and then will choose their payload or the number of their Aircraft that will be used in the Bomb Action. These chosen Aircraft will be removed from the aircraft section of the linked zone and returned to the player’s reserve. The last remaining Aircraft in an Air Zone cannot be removed as it must remain under the control of the player taking the action. For each of the Aircraft removed to Bomb the target Zone, the player will roll one die. The dice used are 6-sided dice and have 3 one hit sides, 1 two hit sides and 1 blank side. The dice rolled will be totaled as a number of hits and then the player will remove that many troops from the target Zone and place them into the opponent’s Reserve. 1 hit will remove one enemy Troop disc and any extra hits will simply be ignored.

I very much enjoyed playing with the Aircraft on the Pacific side of the board as it added an extra layer of options to take over Zones and gain their rewards and their scores. The other interesting part of the Aircraft is that you can fight over control of the Air Zones by placing your Aircraft into an enemy controlled Air Zone. This leads to air conflict (or dogfighting) and can result in control being lost or gained.

Here is a video review of General Orders: World War II that I shot with my wife after playing the game several times:

If you are interested in General Orders: World War II, you can purchase a copy for $24.50 from the Osprey Games website at the following link: https://www.ospreypublishing.com/us/general-orders-world-war-ii-9781472859860/

You can catch up on the posts in this series to date at the following links:

A Lone Sherman Tank Caught in a Crossfire – Lone Sherman: The Pacific – A Solitaire Wargame from Mike Lambo

-Grant