Battle of the Bulge: Game Review

After entering some Bulge related search term I came across this game review for Shenandoah Studio's Battle of the Bulge.

Armchair General's verdict is that the game is a fun, fast playing, simulation that is easy to lean but challenging to master but suffers from unrealistic combat results and "at times", simplistic game play.

Overall they state the game is great value for the price and I have to agree.  I have went through the tutorial, played against the computer in the Race to the Meuse scenario and the Battle of the Bulge full game.

My positive ratings:

• Great user interface and menus. 
• Quick to learn.
• Basic game but many strategic truths hold true.
• Nice map.

Negative:

• Sometimes seems like the game is more puzzle solving than a historical simulation. 
• Activation method for units is all or none for all units in one sector. 
• Nice map but one needs to zoom in and study to see the vital bridges.
• AI can be fooled but only have experience against the "Montgomery" AI. 

Game play consists of activating units in a sector. In the screen shot below I have activated the units in the Losheim Gap and they are about to overwhelm the 14th Armored Group. The 106th Infantry Division is located just east and starts almost surrounded by the German player, sharing the Schonberg sector with the 18th and 62nd Volks-Grenadier Divisions. .

An aspect of the game I like is they do give due consideration to terrain effects.  The 106th may be caught by surprise but they are more than a match in defense against the two VG Divisions. I do think that Shenandoah doesn't give the 18th VG Division the respect it deserves but I think they have this right in that an attack against an infantry division defending in the woods will be a costly affair.  Best for the German player to surround the 106th and wait for lack of supply to take effect. I did in the long game and on the 19th, they were easily captured; a historical result.

The game does bring home the fact that this was a lost battle from the beginning.  I actually reached and crossed the Meuse River and won the long game but could only cross with one Panzer Division and the enemy was threatening my flanks. Patton had a point when he said he wished the Germans would go all the way to Paris...

Combat resolution is simple and almost bring the same level of excitement as rolling dice. Here I have three Panzer Divisions attacking American armor in the Bastogne sector.  Note the small tree and house icons just to the left of the American armor icons.  They are hard to spot as they have a grey "bullet" mark.

Each "pip" or the little white boxes in the unit icons gets one "die" to roll during combat.  In this case the Germans are in the process of "rolling" 17 virtual dice. They already scored two hits but those hits were absorbed by the tree (defenders in forest) and the house (defending in the town) but now the Allied armor is starting to take damage with one hit (removal of one of the pips).

The game is just under $10 and is available on Steam.  I'd class it as a great introductory war game, especially for iPad gamers. I heard that it sold very well with that set.

Here is the Shenandoah Studio FB link. They have a web page but I didn't have luck connecting.

This is one post in a series covering military history and gaming aspects of the Battle of the Bulge.
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