Paul Chernoff looks at an SPI classic
Review by Paul Chernoff
Soldiers is my favorite tactical game. This might reflect that I don’t play many tactical games—my newest one is Ambush!—but Soldiers’ rules are relatively simple and fun. David Isby’s first game, but simpler than his later To the Green Fields Beyond. Soldiers combines the lethality of 20th century warfare with a low density environment. There is room for maneuver but you can see how trench warfare evolved on the western front. The game covers the easter, western, and Asian fronts. The differences between armies are reflected in the units and in a few special rules.
The game does not force the players to adopt 1914 tactics. Hopefully the average modern player doesn't duplicate the blunders the officers of the day. We know how vulnerable soldiers are to modern rifles, machine guns, and artillery on open ground. Perhaps not as easy as it seems since you are still trying to meet your victory conditions which often involve moving units from A to B or taking control over a hex. Taking the offensive is hard, especially if you have little coverage near enemy forces.
Soldiers makes it easy to envision how an increase in unit density and an increase in percentage of machine guns and artillery could result in the static western front that most of us picture when we think of WWI. You even have trenches which are hard to crack.
Why am I reviewing Solders, a game dating back to 1972 when SPI still printed maps in just black and blue? Because it is fun, it shows the deadliness of modern warfare but before the western front devolved to trench warfare, and is relatively simple. Even the opportunity fire is done in a way that works well with solitaire play.
PHYSICAL COMPONENTS
My teenager copy was in a plastic SPI flat box. My current copy is in the original SPI white box and doesn’t even have a plastic flat box insert. The previous owner put the counters in small envelopes which works well. It doesn’t take long to sort a nation’s units.
The map is a typical Redmond A. Simonsen design, which is very good. While restricted to just black and blue — I’d rather have blue trees than a green river — it is good looking and works well. Tables and charts are on the board, which was a new thing at the time. This being an older SPI game there are no hex numbers on the board. Each hex represents 100 meters.
I’ve always liked the counters. The colors are shades of green and black. The British units of green background with white type looks particularly good. The text and symbols is crisp, attractive, and readable. More nations are covered than it appears from the counter sheet. The Japanese army uses the French counters.
The rules, which are limited to black ink, are easy to read. They are from a time when the industry was still figuring out how to write war game rules. Each page is a little larger than a letter sized paper. While printed on a single piece of paper double-sided they are much easier to handle than SPI’s later accordion road-map rules. And only 8 pages of rules, almost 1/2 are for scenarios. The rules predate SPI’s numbering system. I had a few issues in hunting down a specific rule or dealing with some vagueness. But overall the rules are easy to read. The use of capitalization for certain words seems odd. Overall the rules are good but I strongly suggest downloading the August 1973 consolidated errata from BoardGameGeek.com, there are important clarifications to some of the rules.
Functional markers are very helpful in keep track which hexes are interdicted, had eliminated units, or are disrupted. These types of markers make games easier to play.
A very nice touch is the rule's Unit Identification table which identifies every unit by country. If you often mix up the NATO symbols for a field guns and howitzers this is very helpful.
UNITS
Counters are primarily of 2 types of units, non-artillery and artillery. Units have an attack strength, range allowance, unit size, symbol, stacking value, and movement allowance. Defense strength is inherited from terrain so no defense on the counters.
Unit types include infantry, cavalry (mounted and unmounted), field guns, howitzer, horse-drawn machine guns, and machine guns. Each type of unit has special rules associated with them. For example, machine gun units have double the firepower in direct fire at 3 hexes or less while infantry fire is doubled only against adjacent enemy units. Howitzers can fire over blocking terrain. Artillery and British machine guns can fire over military units. Cavalry can make disastrous charges.
SEQUENCE OF PLAY
Solders has a simple but deadly sequence of play. The deadliness comes from having 2 mutual fire phases with simultaneous fire. It is easy to get mowed down if you insist on marching across open ground to an enemy entrenched in the woods. Each turn represents 10 minutes of real time.
- First Player Movement Phase
- Mutual Fire Phase
- Second Player Movement Phase
- Mutual Fire Phase
MOVEMENT
Movement is simple. One side moves its units up to their movement allowance. You may not enter an enemy occupied space. You may not violate stacking limitations during movement. Move one unit at a time.
Each hex may have up to 8 stacking points. Stacking applies at all times during movement phase. Stacking points are printed on the counters so you don’t need to remember how many stacking points for each unit size. But for reference Battalions ha 8 stacking points (Russian artillery only), Company/Battery/Squadron are 4 stacking points, platoons 2 stacking points and a section—which is restricted to Machine Guns— is a single stacking point.
Movement affects the ability to fire in the following fire phase. Infantry and dismounted calvary may fire only if they have 2 unused movement points. Artillery and machine-gun units may not fire if they have moved. The exception are French artillery units may fire if they have 4 unused movement points.
German, British, Belgian and Austro-Hungarian artillery batteries and German machine gun companies may be broken down into 3 platoon-sized units. Russian artillery battalions may break down into 2 battery-sized units. Units may be broken down or recombined any time during the movement phase.
COMBAT
Each combat phase features simultaneous fire by both sides. No writing of commands as in a SPI SiMove game, you resolve fire by the active player then by the other player and then apply results after both sides have fired. Fire is calculated against the hex, not against the unit. Charging units on plain terrain is not healthy.
There are 2 modes of fire, Direct Fire and Observed Fire. Direct Fire is when you can see the target and you fire at full strength. Observed Fire is when (a) the firing unit can trace a Line of Site to a target hex but not into that hex and another friendly unit can observe the defending unit, (b) the defending unit is in woods or city hex and has previously exposed itself by firing, or (c) when howitzers depend solely on a friendly observing unit that it can see.
Units conducting Observed Fire apply only 1/2 of their printed attack strength, fractions rounded down. Units that can apply Direct Fire also act as observers for units that much use Observed Fire. This can get a little tricky and a full page of the rules explained direct and observed fire.
Hidden away in rule Combat (R) infantry attack strength is doubled when firing on adjacent hexes. Machine gun units using Direct Fire at 3 hexes or less have their attack strength doubled.
Line of Sight
Trace the Line of Sight (LoS) from the center of the firing hex to the center of the target hex. Woods and town hexes block LoS. A Crest hex—which is the hex adjacent to the upper part of a slope hex—also blocks line of sight. Firing uphill you can fire into the Crest hex but not beyond it. The LoS is not blocked by a single hex edge but will be blocked by any additional hex edges. Tracing a LoS is necessary for Direct Fire and for most forms of Observed Fire.
The Canal hexes have special, but obvious, rules. You can fire over a canal hex. A unit in a canal hex has LoS to other canal hexes along a straight line. Units in a canal hex have a LoS to non-canal hexes. Units outside of a canal hex might not have a LoS to units in a canal hex.
Units in town and woods hexes are hidden and may only be fired on directly from adjacent hexes. A nonadjacent unit that has LoS up to the target hex can conduct Observed Fire into the hex if there is a friendly unit adjacent to the town or wood hex that is in the firing units LoS. Any unit that can have direct fire to a hex can act as an observer to a friendly unit firing on the hex.
A woods/town hex makes a unit invisible to enemy units as long as no enemy unit is adjacent to it and it has not fired from the hex. Once a unit has fired out of a woods/town hex non-adacent enemy units may fire into that hex without an observer for the remainder of the game. Observed markers are placed in that hex. There is no mention about the case if a hex with an observed marker on it has the marker removed if the hex is later empty. Taking the rules at face value once a unit fires from a town hex, enemy units can fire on that hex without the need of an observer for the rest of the game. I suggest reviewing this rule with your opponent before starting a game of Soldiers so you agree on how to implement this rule or if you need to create house rules.
Infantry and non-British machine gun units cannot fire through other units. Artillery and British machine gun units may conduct direct fire through units. I understand artillery firing over units, I’m not sure what magic the British machine guns use to not hurt units they are firing through. Perhaps superior training.
Units on crest hexes have special rules on how blocking hexes affects the LoS. Nothing special or unexpected compared to other tactical games.
Fire Strength
I wish Redmond Simonsen found some room for a fire strength table. Since the rules are pre-SPI numbering system and index it can be hard to look up these rules during play.
Combat Result
The Combat Results Table (CRT) has 3 possible result, o, d, and e.
o = no effect
d = disrupted
e = eliminated
Disrupted units cannot take any action for the following movement and fire phases. It may still fire in the current fire phase since firing is considered to be simultaneous. A unit that receives a disrupted result from interdicting fire cannot fire in the current fire phase in addition to the next fire phase since it is considered to have been disrupted while moving. Units that move into a disrupted unit’s hex also become disrupted.
Eliminated units are, well, eliminated. In addition no units may enter the eliminated unit’s hex in the next movement phase.
This CRT is deadly for units out in the open. Open terrain has a defense of 2, so a German infantry’s direct fire is 7, good for a 3–1 odds attack has a 33% of killing all units in the hex or will otherwise disrupt the target. Artillery batteries usually have decent odds of disrupting enemy units, which then provides a chance for its infantry to move forward its next movement phase. Still, attackers need to be prepared to lose forces when attacking the enemy.
Interdicting Fire
Many tactical games are less suitable for solitaire due to how Interdicting Fire is handled. In other games I played a moving unit is unaware of the enemies interdict fire until a moving unit enters an enemy’s LoS. Soldiers’ Interdicting Fire is handled in a simple and solitaire friendly manner. At the end of a user’s movement the phasing player a unit can lay down Interdicting Fire on 1 or more clear hexes. If the opposing play moves a unit into one of these hexes the interdicting unit conducts direct fire against that unit. If that unit is harmed it cannot fire back in the following fire phase.
In order to lay down interdicting fire a unit must be eligible to fire during the coming mutual fire phase but must not fire. The phasing player marks the interdicted hexes with counters. Artillery units can interdict 2 adjacent hexes, matching gun units 3 hexes. All other units can interdict only 1 hex.
I suggest using transparent colored bingo chips to designate the units putting down interdicting fire.
Artillery
Howitzers can conduct Observed Fire over blocking terrain. If they have LoS to a friendly unit that has its own LoS to the target hex they may fire on the target hex. In this case they do not require their own LoS to the target hex. Howitzers may conduct direct fire under normal conditions to target hexes that are 24 or less hexes away. For targets from 25 to 40 hexes away they can only conduct observed fire and take the 1/2 penalty.
Allied artillery units used shrapnel shells. When firing on German units in the woods deduct 1 from the die roll number.
All but French artillery may not fire after moving. French artillery units may fire if they end the movement phase with 4 or more unused Movement Points.
Artillery may attempt to destroy bridges over the canal. The bridge has a defense of 10 and is eliminated on the result of e. In that case all units on the bridge are eliminated.
Cavalry
What WWI game is complete without having cavalry mowed down by machine guns? Mounted calvary can charge all 8 movement points and attack with a maximum range of 1. As an exception to the simultaneous results rule all moved cavalry fire last, and if they receive a d or e results they cannot fire. Mounted cavalry may not attack a hex that is also attacked by other units. The horses do not like all of those extra bullets flying around.
Mounted cavalry are very vulnerable. All units, except for other mounted cavalry, are doubled when fired on mounted cavalry. This is in addition to other multiples of firing power. So a machine gun unit attacking a mounted cavalry at 3 hexes or less has its attack strength quadrupled.
Cavalry are still useful because they can dismount. Dismounted cavalry are just like infantry. Mounting and dismounting takes an entire turn. Once dismounted add the corresponding dismounted unit on the map, the mounted unit cannot take any action. The dismounted unit may mount again only by returning to the hex with the mounted cavalry unit and taking the next turn to mount. Cavalry are automatically dismounted if disrupted.
Mounted cavalry make excellent canon fodder. They can be used as fast infantry, though it takes a turn to mount or dismount. They can also be useful as observers thought hey might not survive the turn. Though a bit gamey they have one other possible function. Running to the exit hexes if the scenario’s victory conditions is based on the number of units that exit from specific hexes.
Improved Positions
All units except for mounted cavalry may enter Improved Positions (IP). This doubles the defense strength of a hex. A town has a defense of 8, doubled to 16 by an IP, and non-adjacent attackers have their attack strength halved, making a well defended town difficult to crack.
The attempt to go into IPs uses all MPs. Roll a die and check the Improved Positions tables for success or failure. The die roll required varies based on unit type and nationality. French units shouldn’t even bother unless they have nothing else to do.
Leaving an IP also requires a die roll. Succeed and the unit may move as normal. Fail and it is still in an IP but it may fire in the following combat phase.
If a unit ends its movement in a hex with an IP it is considered to not be in the IP. It is attacked separately from the units in the IP. It may try to enter the IP in its next movement phase.
British infantry and machine gun units may always move into Improved Positions without rolling a die if they did not move in their movement phase.
Special Rules
For a bit of flavor there are 3 special rules. Some scenarios call for trenches, which enhance defense. Reserve units suffer various penalties. Russian units and some AH units suffer various disabilities that reflect ill-trained and unenthusiastic troops.
Scenarios
Soldiers provides 13 scenarios plus a solitaire game. I find the scenarios to become larger and more complex as you advance through them. Some scenarios always have a winner while with others it is possible for both side to fail to reach their victory conditions.
I suggest starting with the solitaire scenario. There is a little less to learn since there are only infantry and machine gun units and you can experience how charging across an open field without the embarrassment of someone else seeing you lose your troops, though the German player will wish they had some artillery to disrupt units town hexes before the German infantry advances.
Action
Scenario 1: Franco-German Meeting Engagement Brunstatt (8/18/1949)
The Germans aim to exist at least 5 units off the western (bottom) edge of the map sheet north of the canal, The French at least 5 units off the eastern (top) edge of the map sheet south of woods M. Both sides have the opportunity to play offense and defense. Controlling either town will prevent the other side from taking advantage of the roads. 18 game turns.
The sides are asymmetrical. The Germans have fewer but strong infantry than the French.
In the photo the French and Germans basically want to exchange places. Each side needs to advance at least 5 units off the board while preventing the others. The road is only 1/2 MP. Move everyone forward while just leaving a couple of units to block roads. Where to best position artillery to pick off units in clear terrain? Between the 2 sides only the Germans have a single Howitzer battery, so most artillery needs a direct LoS to attack.
At the end of turn 1 both the Germans and French are racing to town B while the Germans are sending 2 calvary and 1 infantry companies to town C. The French are positioning an artillery unit in the woods while the one on a hill can fire over the woods as long as the Germans do not get too close.
The French occupy town B first, the joys of moving first. Some French units are moving east to occupy the hill closest to town B and another wave are moving south. The Germans are moving in to attack town B before the French can fortify it and have occupied town C.
The Germans and French are ready for their first exchange of fire. The German infantry and MG units that have moved too far to fire have purple bingo chips on them, though irrelevant since they cannot fire through their own units. To the west the Germans have—perhaps foolishly—move the units out of town to defend father to the north.
The French and German artillery that have fired from the woods so they can be fired on in the future without an enemy observer. There Germans and French have each lost an infantry company in the attack on town B, and the German artillery picked off a French infantry just outside of town.
The Germans retreat from the western hill and the calvary need to retreat to the town or unmount to fight.The French have retreated from part of town B and we see more casualties. A German unit out in the open was picked off by French artillery. And the Germans are holding off the French on the hill by town B and occupy the top of that hill, which has a defensive advantage.
Both sides have been mindful to not stack within range of the enemy. The Germans could stack to have overwhelming firepower but also present a juicy target to the French. A fair exchange to the French due to their greater numbers.
Conclusions
Soldiers is a fun game that captures early 20th century warfare. Players need to balance the firepower of dense formations against their greater vulnerability. Defensive forces need to balance holding off firing from blocking terrain to stay hidden verses firing on tempting targets. The scenarios can all be played in the afternoon. And even if you lose you can consider yourselves smarter than the officers who blundered into enemy fire. French and German
Reference: Moves Magazine, Number 4, August/September 1972
Credits
Designers: Lenny Glynn, David C. Isby
Artist: Redmond A. Simonsen
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