You would think after the big superboard gaming weekend we had earlier in the month I would have run out of games to talk about, but I’m on summer holiday and the gaming continues.

Root (Digital Board Game Adaptation)

During our big gaming weekend earlier this month, I was exposed to a very curious little game called Root which piqued my interest both as a board game fan and as an amateur board game designer.

This highly asymmetrical war game about cute little woodland creatures fighting in a forest has some incredible dynamics which results in tremendous replayability and diversity. It seems like it’s one of those games where you really need to do many repeated plays to really explore it and fully understand it, not something that typically happens with any board game in my gaming group. We really rarely go back to the same game over and over again, generally being a lot more diverse in particular given the sizeable gaming collections some of us have.

Luckily there is a digital adaptation of Root available on steam and other apps which is perfect for some great solo gaming.

I played the digital version of root about 20 times already, doing so obsessively in succession as I tried to really delve into the games unique nuances and Root did not disappoint. As I suspected the more you play, the more unique elements and strategies you discover in this quirky little game.

The digital version of the game is a direct translation, has AI bots of various skills, and comes with a few expansions allowing you to explore it even deeper with more factions. The developers have done a great job replicating the cartoon art of the board game and the interface is really easy to use, allowing you to really focus on the nitty-gritty details of gameplay.

Highly recommend this adaptation if you are curious about Root but don’t have the group available that wants to repeatedly play this one with you. There is a small online community as well so there are plenty of opportunities to play with other players too.

War Room

Getting an opportunity to play War Room, my all-time favorite game is a real treat. I did a preview and review of War Room if you want more details on this epic, global-scale event game. This week we got it to the table and as always this game blew me away!

In short, what I can say about every game of War Room is that despite having a grotesque playing time, on average exceeding 12 hours, this is a highly interactive, deeply strategic, mechanically easy to learn but impossible to master game that to me is not only an achievement in game design but one of the ultimate board gaming experiences.

It is everything I love about big epic board gaming in a box as it addresses every issue I usually find with long, event-style games. Most of the activities in the game are done simultaneously and or in groups as the game is not only team-based but features hidden order movement. The combat is engaging and very dramatic so even if the nation you are running is not involved you’re drawn to it as it’s no less exciting to watch it unfold. Every move and round in the game, has far reaching and big impact on the results of the game that creates dynamic outcomes and narratives you are unlikely ever going to see repeated.

There are countless possible strategies as well, this is a World War II game that gives you the opportunity to re-imagine the history of the war and approach it with your own revision of this pivotal and tragic moment story without burying you in unnecessarily detailed and overly complex historical realities typically found in historical war games. It certainly will have a lot of familiarity for Axis and Allies players, but this game has an elegance that far surpasses its predecessor. It is simply put, just an amazing gaming experience.

I adore this game but I would caution anyone considering picking it up that you really do have to understand what your getting yourself into and the information on the box is a bit inaccurate in this regard. For one it suggests that the game is for 2 to 6 players and this is true, but while there are 2 and 3 player scenarios, what you are certain to want to do with the game is play the global war scenario which cannot be played by 2 or 3 players reasonably. There is just too much going on in this game for one player to run multiple major nations. Then again while the global scenario can be played by up to 6 players, if you do, one player is going to get stuck playing Italy which while an important nation in the war, plays in a fairly isolated part of the map and is really part of the German strategy.

The game also says that it plays 1 hour for each player which is complete nonsense. If you can finish a game of War Room in under 12 hours with any amount of players you are playing a very fast-moving game of War Room.

The ideal conditions for the game is 5 players (Japan, Germany, US, Britain and Soviets with the US player running China and German player running Italy). You also want to make sure you have a full day, or even better is to have two half days to play the game. You are going to need a ton of space and you want to setup timers where each team can have time alone with the gameboard to play, typically 10-15 minutes per planning phase is enough.

The point here is that this is an expensive game that requires real event planning and a good-sized group of 5, players preferably but no less than 4. That is what it takes to play War Room and I would avoid it if you don’t think you will have the gaming group and conditions to meet those requirements. You don’t want a 250-dollar game collecting dust on your shelf, especially one that will torture you as this one will because this game begs to be played.

My friends and I manage about 1 game a year and while I would love to play it more often, I consider it a big win to be able to pull that off. It was an amazing day!

Paths of Glory

I have an online buddy that comes out of the woods periodically and challenges me to a game of Paths of Glory, which I always graciously accept because I absolutely adore this game. In stark contrast to War Room however, this is an intimate and very historically accurate war game that endeavors to not only teach, but gives you an incredible sense of a global conflict.

Paths of Glory is about the whole of World War I and I did a review on it last year. It’s an incredible but very long and very detailed game that is not particularly easy to learn and certainly impossible to master. It requires tremendous patience and dedication to learn to play it well, but it has made a believer out of me.

This is a card-driven game so it’s a nice fit for me personally as I love all things card-driven, in fact, looking at my top 20 board games of all time no less than 7 games use similar mechanics. Paths of Glory is unique however in a number of ways in terms of historical war games. For one, it’s a point-to-point rather than a hex and counter game, which creates a unique dynamic as you have this really strong sense of supply lines and complications of the terrain. It sort of forces you to deal with the real historical issues of the day without forcing it on you via mechanics, so it has this great “re-write World War I” feel, but you still get a lot of historical outcomes anyway.

More than that this is a game with so much diversity and dynamics that no two games ever turn out the same and it’s amazing to see how wildly different the outcomes can be even the same strategies are deployed.

I have always been a huge fan of this one, but I caution my readers that this is firmly in the historical, chit game category and Paths of Glory does not apologize for that. The rules are complex, full of exceptions and there are a lot of moving parts. It’s for seasoned historical gamers only and I would not recommend this as an entry point if this is your first go at the genre. It’s best to have someone teach you this one if possible but veteran historical war gamers will be on comfortable footing here, Paths of Glory is an established classic that’s based on some of the historical war gaming most foundational mechanics.