Designer: Larry Harris, Jr.

Doing a review on a game like War Room is an intimidating proposition for a number of reasons not the least of which is knowing full well that a game of this size, scale and subject matter would require a tremendous effort just to fully grasp before you could speak intelligently about it. In fact, getting sufficient plays of a game that takes 8-10 hours to play, that has as many intricate gameplay elements as War Room has, could potentially take years to assess fully. While It would seem almost mandatory to do so to do a review justice, I can’t wait that long to do a review of a game. Despite feeling that doing this review has a kind of a prematurity to it, at some point, I had to put something to digital paper. This game has been in my collection for over a year already, it’s time!

War Room is a massive world war II event game the likes of which I can safely say is rarely ever seen in this hobby. It’s a game designed with little regard to cost, your available table space, or playtime, not to mention the lack of adherence to design principles that might be considered “standard” in the industry for the genre. It’s a game that lives in the world of excess, with few expected barriers and presumptions about what a game should be, no matter how you measure it. Really the only other game I can think of that might actually be able to give this one a run for its money in sheer size, scope and length of play and out-of-the-box thinking is Mega Civilization (originally Advanced Civilization). In a way, I think War Room is a kind of lifestyle game, a hobby in a box if you will to be played, studied, debated and explored over the course of years.

War Room puts you into a role of a commander of one of seven nations involved in world war II in what I can only describe as a deeply strategic and very intricate war game that comes with all of the sensory inputs money and good, albeit often unconventional game design can buy. This is not just a game that wants to be played, it’s an event that wants to be experienced and explored. War Room demands and takes far more from you than any reasonable person will typically expect from a board game night and whether or not it yields rewards in equal measure is going to really depend on how open-minded you are about the concept of what “gaming” is. In many ways, War Room really stretches the definition of “board game” considerably, partially living in what I like to call “an activity” rather than a game.

At the same time, the game’s rules are in line with a typical mid-weight board game in terms of complexity, Euro or otherwise, which gives the impression that it is not just for an audience made up of existing fans of Larry Harris classics like Axis & Allies or wargamers in general but rather it wants to welcome the less initiated. This is in line with the magic trick Larry Harris is actually pretty famous for given how broadly accepted his Axis and Allies is for example. Whether or not Larry Harris succeeds with War Room to make this game simple and accessible enough for the average gamer is disputable. I have played plenty of games that have been adopted by the general gaming public that fall into far higher levels of rules complexity than this one, but War Room has many very unique gameplay elements and strategic concepts that are extremely heavy. Hence while players may be able to learn the rules of the game easy enough to move pieces around, learning to play War Room well and understanding its very intricate design is likely well outside of the reach of the casual gamer and definitely reaches into the realm of serious historical wargaming.

The other equally difficult part of doing a review for a game like War Room is that it’s nearly impossible not to have a love affair with it the moment it arrives and you get your first look at that beautiful black coffin box and its elaborate goodies inside. How do you stay objective holding such a visual treasure in your hand? How can you possibly comment on its shortcomings when you can feel the love, blood, sweat and tears that must have gone into creating what will undoubtedly be a piece of board gaming history?

It’s going to be hard, but I’m going to try to be as objective as I can be!

Overview

Final Score: (4.9 out 5) Near Perfect Game!

War Room is an evolution of Axis and Allies, a game that ups the ante in terms of scope, detail and components considerably while at the same time attempts to bring that same beloved A&A experience we have enjoyed for decades to the table in a kind of modern re-imagining of the game.

Played on a huge round map of the world, War Room allows up to 7 players grouped into two teams, The Axis and The Allies, representing the different nations of World War II to fight out the entirety of the war in all its glory and detail.

While this game is clearly inspired by Axis and Allies in countless ways to such a degree that even some of the old A&A strategies actually apply here, War Room’s evolution as a game design strays into new realms some drawn from modern game design, while others reach back to classics that pre-date even Axis & Allies. It’s also a game that hinges on a lot of psychology, much of the games intricate gameplay has to do with the ability to predict and anticipate your opponent’s actions, but this isn’t always going to be based on table strategy, but rather reading what sort of people your playing against and with. Strategies can vary wildly for each nation and player personalities are often going to dictate this far more than sound strategy.

It’s a mutation of Axis and Allies for sure, one that remains true to its original core concept of being a game that is reasonably easy to learn and a more approachable war game hoping to capture more than just the seasoned historical wargaming veteran. It tries to be a game the novice enthusiasts can play, while simultaneously building a clear bridge for veterans to cross. I think Larry Harris is a master of building such bridges and with War Room, I believe he makes a gallant effort to reach beyond the hex and counter crowd as he did with the original Milton Bradly classic, Axis and Allies. Unlike Axis and Allies, however, the depth of the game here is definitely influenced far more by historical simulationist wargaming and as such, it’s far more of a stretch to presume a more casual crowd will play this game. I’m not sure historical wargamers will agree, but to me, this is a very heavy historical war game even though it has a fairly high level of abstraction and lacks a lot of the typical adherence to historical accuracy.

War Room is the Rolls Royce of board games of that there is no doubt, it demands the highest of prices to get it to your table which means it is going to have to measure up to the absolute highest of standards and expectations as a game. Simply put, at a shocking price of 240 us dollars, this is the single most expensive game you will ever buy and as such you have every right to have very high expectations. There are no excuses allowed for taking shortcuts here, nothing but perfection is acceptable. The only question is, does War Room deliver on such high expectations?

Components

Score: 
Tilt: 

Pros: No expense was spared, every component is visually impressive, of the highest quality and serves a practical purpose

Cons: It would have been nice with an extra set of dice.

At 240 dollars I don’t think it’s unfair to expect to have your mind blown when you open this massive box and I assure you that whatever your standards for board game components are, this game will exceed them. It really sets a new standard in particular for the historical war game genre that few will ever be able to measure up to. War Room is an expensive toy that is certain but, it’s for gamers like me with disposable incomes who love gaming and are ready to dish out any price for the best of the best and this is exactly what you get with War Room. Simply put, it is eye-popping beautiful, comprised of the highest quality of components money can buy. The publisher has spared no expense in making you feel like you got your money’s worth.

Now is any game actually worth 240 dollars? It’s impossible to say, I mean it’s a board game, an evening’s entertainment and I think it comes down to what I like to call the connoisseur effect. For example, I like wine, it’s delicious, but there is no wine ever made nor will there ever be that is worth more than 20 bucks to me. I’m not a wine connoisseur, I give zero fucks that it’s a 1939 Brunello, I’m not going to pay 500 bucks to drink it. If you are a connoisseur, however, the experience and perceptions you have take on an entirely different meaning. I think War Room is like that for gamers. If you are like me, a connoisseur of board games, paying 240 dollars to experience a game like War Room is a steal, for everyone else, the quality of the game and its components isn’t really ever going to justify paying 240 bucks for a board game. There are far cheaper alternatives for an evening of board gaming entertainment and that is a perfectly understandable conclusion to come to.

War Room is a love letter to Axis and Allies fans, in particular the approach that was taken with the components. The goal here isn’t just to give you pretty toys to play with, every component in this game was meticulously designed and selected to assist in streamlining gameplay. It’s a visual treat there is no doubt, but it’s a practical one as well and I think Axis and Allies fans, in particular, are going to really appreciate the efforts here (or anyone else for that matter) . Whether or not that makes this game worth 240 bucks is something every gamer is going to have to decide for themselves, but for me, as a connoisseur of board games, I’m smiling from ear to ear and I have already forgotten how much this game cost.

Now when you do open this box, the first thing that will jump out at you is the size of the mounted map which while absolutely gorgeous, made of very sturdy, scratch-resistant material, is massive, far bigger than most of us have table space for. This is going to be a problem for your average Joe as you are going to need some serious real-estate to play this game. Just the map will take up the largest of tables and because it’s round, even large rectangle tables will have trouble fielding this one. You really need a very large round table, one of those very expensive big board game tables, or a couple of tables stacked together to make this work.

Fortunately not only is the map beautifully illustrated with clear iconography and a very practical approach to colors to ensure everything can be cataloged at a glance but there is a tremendous amount of design thought that went into making sure that this map is perfectly streamlined for gameplay. While huge enough to really capture that visual experience of an actual war room, the map is barely big enough to ensure there is sufficient space for all the stuff that will be placed on it. In fact even at this size, sometimes the map is too small if you can believe that. You are going to use every inch of the space of this four-piece puzzle map that clicks together into a seamless circle and despite its size, it’s going to get crowded in many places. I guess what I’m saying is that while the map is excessively large, it’s the size it needed to be.

The game also comes with stackable plastic “chits” that are color-coded and shape-coded to represent the various units in the game (Ground, Air and Sea). Now initially I was quite skeptical about this because when I first set up the game it looked completely crazy and seemed to have far too much relation to hex and counter games that are notoriously difficult to assess at a glance. Square, round and diamond shape plastic units were stacked together each with different colors, it just looked like a rainbow-colored mess. It was really difficult to tell units apart and while learning to play I constantly had to check the reference sheet to know what is what, it all just felt very unintuitive.

Thankfully your brain is a tool that adapts and Larry Harris is smarter than all of us. I found that within a round of play, I had everything committed to memory and I could do an assessment of the units in any space on the map in seconds without even having to focus on it. You just make an almost instinctive association between shapes and colors that becomes second nature (thank you right hemisphere of my brain). What seemed like a very unintuitive mess, quickly turned into one of the most brilliant design choices of the game as it solves the big problem all war games have of trying to organize in a sensible way massive amounts of varied troops on a huge map. No stacking checking, no disorganized mess of miniatures with not enough space or ugly chits or cubes. These pieces do a lot of heavy lifting to keep the game organized and because they are plastic with indents that connect like Legos it’s easy to grab and move units around the board. Frankly, it’s just brilliant, it takes what is typically a very fiddly part of wargaming and makes it reasonably effortless.

Next, we come to the cards. Now, this is not a card game, the cards are really just there as a way to streamline the process of accounting and administration of resources at different points in the game. This feels excessive because it is, but again, it’s just one of those things that help speed up gameplay and excessive is kind of part of War Room in general. The card quality is as you would expect, excellent, made to last, the art on the cards is representative of photography from world war II picture archives which helps give it that sort of World War II black and white feel and they are well organized into cardholders that will put a smile on even the pickiest of OCD patients. There is no need to sleeve these, they will hold up without them in particular since there is no card shuffling involved.

Each player also gets a large matchbox-like holder for all the various tokens and components for their nation. This again is cleverly organized and compact with a top piece that fits snug that serves a practical administrative purpose. This top piece uses plastic pegs for tracking resources, which is something that you must reference often. This again just helps keep the game streamlined and easily accessible which is key as throughout the game you are constantly accessing your opponent’s status and resources are a big part of that when working through decisions.

Each nation also gets a “nations order book”, this double-sided notepad is used for tracking your orders and purchases in the course of a round. Again the design here is just very well thought out and helps to facilitate play. Everything you need to know when making orders or doing your production phase is on it so no need to reference rules or charts.

Now I know people will sometimes complain that “eventually” these notebooks will run out and you will have to replace them but these notebooks have hundreds of pages and on average you will use 3 to 4 sheets per game so you would literally have to play a hundred times before you ran out. I assure you that by the time you have played this game as many times as you would need to run out of sheets you will have died from natural causes, it’s effectively a lifetime supply. The notebooks are colored and made of high-quality paper, again, nothing but the best from War Room.

There are many other auxiliary components that I would call luxury components to be more accurate including several mounted boards. 2 tactical battle boards, a morale board and a couple of quick reference boards. The quality is extremely good in every regard and all of these boards are very practical and useful in streamlining gameplay. I particularly like the size of these boards, yes, it requires even more space, but the print is large and important information is highlighted to facilitate both gameplay and especially learning to play. Cleverly there are mini maps of the main map on the opposite side of the reference boards which really facilitates gameplay during the planning phases.

You also get 10, 12 sided dice, these are proprietary dice designed specifically for the game and again the logic and purpose behind the dice are very practical. Each face on the die is a color corresponding to a unit type, so it’s very easy to know what and when you successfully hit something without having to reference a table as is the case in almost every war game I have ever played. I don’t know why games don’t do this more often, the use of symbology or color as is the case here is so much easier to work with.

There was even care taken for the color blind by adding symbols on the dice to make these readable which I think is a very thoughtful practice you don’t see in board games very often.

I do wish there was an extra set of dice that came with the game as there are times when you could expedite the game considerably by fighting multiple battles at the same time (since you have 2 battle boards). It’s really a worthwhile investment to get a second set for this reason alone.

When it comes to the manual, while it does not follow along with the classic “war game” indexing design which actually might have been useful here, it is nonetheless still very clear and referenceable. The manual is sectioned out by phases of play and there was a lot of attention paid here to ensure everything you need to know about a phase is included. This is a color-printed manual with plenty of pictures/examples and though I found myself reaching for online resources to learn how to play as I find that much easier to do, generally this is a relatively simple game to learn and teach in particular for seasoned wargamers. I definitely think it’s much easier than Axis and Allies was to learn because the rules have a sort of natural intuitive design, I found that they sink in a lot better. I’m not entirely sure everyone would agree, it’s really just a question of how your brain is wired I think.

There are a few quirky rules that require some double-takes like the whole Japan-Soviets non-aggression pact that is defined with a wall of text that probably could have been simplified but for the most part, no trouble getting this one to the table.

At 240 bucks I expected to be impressed and I was, the components are top-notch, no expense was spared both from an aesthetic point of view and a practical one.

Theme

Score: 
Tilt: 

Pros:  Near perfect execution of the theme, capturing everything that makes WWII such an interesting historical topic with just the right amount of abstraction.

Cons: Historical accuracy is not adhered to at the same intensity as most historical war games and I think historical war gamers will find room to complain.

When it comes to War Room’s theme, I think there are a number of successes that are immediately apparent, a couple of things that are really well done but in a very subtle way you might not really catch on to right away and one thing I think the game intends but doesn’t explicitly define as a rule that actually makes this one of the most thematic WW II games in existence.

The first and most immediately apparent thing about War Room that instantly sells the theme is the giant round map littered with military units. It’s just so obvious where the inspiration for this type of presentation comes from with the obvious hint in the name. This feels like a game about a bunch of generals hunched over a table making high-level strategic decisions in a “War Room”. The game captures this perfectly and delivers on that promise in a big way, really the only thing missing are those push sticks so that you can reach over the table and move units into position (notably you can buy this as part of the Jumbo Pack expansion for War Room).

The second thing that really works to sell the theme is the hidden movement mechanic in which players plan all of their troop movements in secret simultaneously and then reveal them and execute them in turn order. This is not only an amazing and notably very classic mechanic which I will talk a great deal about in the gameplay section but is pure magic when it comes to selling the theme here. Not knowing what your enemy’s plans are, having that “fog of war” is an amazing sensation that really just nails that feeling that anything can happen. You build a plan together with your friends, you put your orders in and hope for the best.

More than just that however one thing that really comes across is that when players are preparing to write their orders their is an immediate realization that this is a team game and you can’t just decide what your nation will do on your own. No nation in the game is so strong that it can just do its own thing and secure victory, nor can one player on either the Axis or Allies side win the game alone. The effect during a game session this creates is that players will huddle together and plan in a collective, which immediately creates an amazing atmosphere. There is wonderful collaborative thinking that is just natural in the game and it really changes the game from one of many players to a game of two teams.

This is great because you are going to care about the results of every battle, of every move, of every well-executed plan even if your nation is not involved in it. Everyone makes contributions to the team, not just on the board but in the course of this collaborative strategy building. You are looking at the game from a global perspective, trying to anticipate your enemy as a group and your allies are going to point things out, you might otherwise have missed. You will come up with ways where your moves and your ally’s moves produce outcomes you could never hope to achieve alone. The Axis and Allies powers really become the core entities of the game and the comradery between players is instantaneously created. It’s a wonderful thing that not only creates a great environment for gaming, but gives you great insight into the classic Shakespearian quote “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows” as the diversity that comes from success and failures may spark some intense conversations among team mates.

The more subtle element of War Room that inspires the theme which I really didn’t catch on to at first is how the battles are not necessarily resolved in a single turn. During each turn, every battle is fought only once and if this results in units remaining in a region from both the Axis and Allies sides, the area remains disputed. I love this for game mechanic reasons, but thematically this has a fantastic side effect.

This creates this atmosphere where certain regions on the board become battlegrounds that need to be re-enforced and plans you made the last turn will suddenly be put to the test, as you may need to pull reserves from other regions that were meant for other things to support an ongoing front line. There is this war development feeling where the unpredictable results constantly have you scrambling to adjust your plans. This not only presents players with interesting strategic and tactical decisions as part of War Room’s gameplay but has this way of creating memorable stories you’ll talk about when the game is over in almost a quasi-historical context. You really get this great sense of alternative history from this mechanic. Larry has a great eye for this sort of gameplay because what it really does is make the game feel like a live-action role-playing game, where players will become obsessed with holding territory, or pushing through even though what started out as a strategic decision becomes a point of pride. We must win Poland, we can’t let the Russians take it, I don’t care about the cost! This in turn builds the story of the game and makes it that much more memorable.

Another really sneaky way the theme slips in is through the morale system. The morale of your country is really just a marker that will inevitably decline in the course of the war, even if you are winning the war, you are going to lose more units than you will build and it really taxes the infrastructure of every nation to the point where eventually everyone’s morale starts falling. The effects of morale result in you slowly having fewer resources and more drawbacks as time goes on and there is this general feeling of war exhaustion in the game and a global decline of effectiveness.

You go from making these deeply thought-out plans, massive assaults and invasions to eventually a couple of units scraping over regions you never thought would end up being important to the game thanks to the way stress is gained in the game and how that affects morale. You can’t help having this imagery of the early war of a nice clean city feeding units to the front lines, to the eventual total chaos of Europe at the end of the war where everything is in ruin and whatever soldiers you can muster are fighting over street corners. The morale mechanic is just a really simple and streamlined way to represent the abstract concept of a nation’s war weariness with a big impact on the feel of the game. It creates this really noticeable difference between an early game, mid-game and late game.

Finally, I love the way the production works in the game and the difficulties of building units, safeguarding them and deploying them where they need to be. It creates a great supply chain issue for every player and forces considerations like potential air raids and risks of building units too close to the fighting. It just feels wonderfully thematic and reminiscent of the fact that fighting the war was a lot more involved then having battles, its really about all of these micro-decisions that together are your strategy for the conflict.

All of this combined gets you War Room, a game that I would not label either historically accurate or a simulation, but one that just feels great as a game, as a presentation and as a gaming atmosphere for the players. I suspected that War Room would click for me thematically, but I did not guess that ultimately it would be the most important aspect of the game and in the end the biggest contributor to the review score. It was just something that needed to be just right and War Room just nails it without overcomplicating things in the name of historical accuracy. It’s just the right balance.

Gameplay

Score: 
Tilt:  

Pros:  Countless amazing nuances that together create a top notch strategic war game that will have you debating tactics and strategy endlessly.

Cons: This game is an odd fit that will be hard to get to the table, its long, really begs to have at least 4-6 players and to have a good game you really want players who are going to deep dive into the game at the highest level to truly get the most out of the experience.

While gameplay and design are always going to be important to any board game, I gave the 4 point tilt to Theme and a 3 point tilt to Gameplay because I feel so strongly that this is an event game, an experience that is driven far more by the game’s presentation, its historical significance and the story it tells then by the mechanics of the game. If War Room didn’t succeed at presenting the theme successfully, it’s hard to imagine that gameplay would save it given its enormous demand on the players. This is a game that needed to have a far better reason for people to be excited to play it than just the mechanics of the game. Fortunately, War Room does not only succeed at really bringing the theme of the game to life and gives you that big epic event war game feel, it’s actually a fantastic game design too!

There is so much to cover here it’s hard to know where to begin, but I think it’s important to be thorough because there are so many well-thought-out mechanics here that it would be a shame to skip the discussion on any of them. Wall of text incoming!

The Strategic Planning Phase is perhaps one of the few departures in typical wargaming design in War Room, though it’s not a new design. Quite to the contrary this particular hidden movement mechanic is born from one of the all-time classics, Diplomacy and is seen partially replicated in games like Game of Thrones the board game for example. Suffices to say there are far too few war games in my opinion that make use of hidden movement and hidden action mechanics in general. Fog of war done right is the best thing you can do for a good war game.

Writing movement orders in secret and executing them in turn order is a great mechanic on its own, but making part of the order writing, bidding in secret on turn order, is about as clever as it gets in creating tension during this phase of play. In particular given how absolutely critical turn order in War Room is to any good plan, in fact, the later in turn order you act the more likely the positions of units will have changed causing your orders to be less effective. Bidding on turn order however requires you to spend (win or lose) one of the most precious resources in the game, oil. The tension this brings to the game is quite electric as it not only defines who will ultimately be on the offensive but often, who stands the best chance of being in a strong position on the following turn should their plan and execution work out.

Overbidding however can result in you lacking a key resource (oil) during the later equally critical production stage and as such, it’s not only absolutely vital to get this balance just right, but it’s a crucially important decision that can be wasted if you execute your plans poorly or planned poorly to begin with. Much of the game’s strategy revolves around this subtle order/movement phase. It’s tense, exciting, surprising and makes the game feel like your skills at predicting your enemy gives you a clear advantage which makes it feel that much more authentic and thematic. I can’t say enough about how much I love this mechanic and how it really defines why War Room is such a fantastic game.

I think another very subtle aspect of this mechanic that makes it so great is that its team based, which means that your nation’s involvement or lack of in any particular series of events, offensives, defensives or strategies does not exclude you from the game. Hell even if you are eliminated from the game entirely as the case may be at the tail end of the game, you are still going to have very strong opinions about what your allies should and shouldn’t do. You plan together and you win or lose together. This collective planning just creates a great table atmosphere and comradery, making the game’s ultimate length far more tolerable than most games as you are always involved no matter who’s turn it is, or what level of importance your nation has in any given situation or even the outcome of the game.

There is a lot of subtlety in the rules of unit movement, with elements such as pinning, embattled hot spots, the special way air units and transports move and little tricks with carriers and other naval units. All of this is important to know, but I will just say here and now that all of it is fairly logical, structured in a way that represents the units well and gives them the appropriate feel and purpose in the game. Suffices to say that every unit is precious, so how you use them is vital to your operations and this understanding doesn’t require more than a couple of rounds of play to get the basics.

The game is not terribly forgiving however, making a blunder can cost you dearly and a game of War Room can be decided at key battles. Understanding the combat system, the benefits of each unit, having a good mixture to gain that all-important force advantage and many other subtle elements create a pretty high level of complexity in terms of strategy. This of course could be seen as a drawback, as more attentive players, those that analyze the game and really get to the root of understanding the flow of the game are going to do considerably better than the casual player with a basic understanding will. It’s why I think that while the game is not so complicated rules-wise that casual gamers would struggle with understanding the rules, they are likely to get horrifically crushed by players who spend time diving into the game’s many intricate strategic possibilities.

The combat operations phase while sometimes it might feel a bit overcooked, is designed very specifically to create more situational results rather than random results. What I mean is that, unlike Axis and Allies where each unit has a set series of stats, in War Room, how you approach combat can have a dramatic impact on the results of a battle. Most units have more than one way they can be deployed in combat (called a stance) and this often makes a difference in who they attack (air, ground or naval), how many hits they can take before they are eliminated and how many dice you get to roll on the offensive. I can’t stress enough how much these micro-decisions can impact battle results. This may actually be one of the most involved combat resolution mechanics I have seen in a war game and is well outside of the normally expected designs if for no other reason than how involved it actually is. Typically war games focus on giving you lots of options and flexibility in the strategy leading up to a battle, but the battle resolutions are always simple. Here Larry Harris pushes the actual combat system so far it’s almost an entire game on its own.

Just a quick example is the tank unit. Now if you play this unit more aggressively you get 4 dice against ground targets for a tank to roll, but in this stance, they can only take 2 hits before they are eliminated. Alternatively, you can be more defensive and get only 2 attack dice for ground targets and 1 die for air targets, but it takes 3 hits to eliminate the unit. The impact on combat results this will have is quite dramatic, especially when you are doing this sort of thing with a wide range of different types of units.

Additionally, there is something called Force Advantage, where having a greater variety of units gets you the considerable benefit of black and white die results (black being wild result and white being a result that allows you to hit any already damaged unit). This can make a huge difference in particular in larger battles. There is an additional mechanic for naval warfare called Port Advantage where fighting with a home-field advantage gives you extra dice to throw during naval combat.

There are other subtle things in the combat operations phase such as submarine’s ability to dive (escape being destroyed), bombing raids that allow you to destroy factories and units in production and convoy raids that allow your naval units to attack your opponent’s resource production.

The entire combat operations phase is probably the most complex element of the game in terms of rules, but not to such a degree that it will confuse you in how it works. There is no doubt however that managing well is going to have a huge impact on the results of battles and it’s here where more casual gamers might struggle to get it right. It is however important to understand it, as it is during this phase where you can squeeze out advantages one battle at a time which will ultimately service your ability to win the war. This is because, in War Room, every resource and every unit is precious, there are no disposable units and very often 1 unit, 1 additional hit can mean the difference between victory and defeat.

I suppose the only real complaint here, as already mentioned, is that this mechanic has a lot of nuance and as such it can take time to resolve battles. I say overcooked, but this may not be entirely fair as I find these nuances interesting, fun, strategic and kind of necessary, but it does slow the game down considerably since you execute the battles one at a time. It’s helpful to have an extra set of dice as this would allow you to execute multiple battles at once, but then again, the excitement of watching a battle is not diminished if you are not involved. It’s a team game after all so you are always vested in the results of every battle and their are no rules against allies providing advice during these battles hence the team effort does not end when the battle starts. Its worth pointing out that in each battle a commander is assigned for the battle and he has the final say in all decisions. When we played War Room, everyone was huddled around the combat board when there was a fight, there was no lack of interest, every battle in War Room matters to everyone.

I think this complaint must have been quite common during the first printing of the game as, during the 2nd printing (2nd edition) simpler, alternative battle resolutions have been provided known as “quick play” rules. This however is more of an indicator that the complaint was about the length of the game, less so about the quality of the combat mechanic and if this is the case I agree with it. I actually think the combat mechanic is excellent but I understand that many gamers are not going to have the 8-10 hours this game takes to play, so this optional quick play mechanic I’m sure is quite welcome by many as it would surely speed up the game.

Personally, I rather wait until I have the time to play this game as designed and use the full mechanic. It’s an event game, I see no reason to play the alternative quick play rules personally. If we are playing War Room, let’s bloody play War Room not some “Quick Room” version.

The morale phase is really a very simple phase where you determine if any nation’s capacity to fight is reduced as a result of stress caused by losing battles and taking casualties. Simple to execute but vitally important.

The thing about the morale system in place here is that it acts both as a kind of game clock and a measure of success. All nations will take far more casualties than they will build units so there is but only one-way morale will go and that is down. This, however, can be stalled through success and while players will focus on winning the war through achieving the game-winning objectives, there is a great deal of activity built around causing and reducing stress. Sometimes you just need to win a few battles in insignificant places just to earn some medals (medals are used to reduce stress and gained when winning battles), while other times you will attack an opponent in a weak spot just to cause them more stress. The goal isn’t always just the war objectives, though stress works toward that direction regardless, often you will act based on the stress and morale situations on the board of your opposing nations and your own.

The morale system is almost a kind of political influence and pressure coming from your nation. You need to maintain your nations will to fight and so you must often do things you don’t want to like back off from a front line to prevent casualties or make risky attacks knowing it will hurt your opponent more to gain stress than it will you, even if the tactic is not sound long term. I guess what I’m saying here is that like the generals of World War II, you are often pressured by your nation to take actions you know to be poor tactical or strategic decisions just to appease them.

It’s a fantastic system that does a great job of selling the themes and subtle nuanced problems World War II commanders faced and though of course it’s very abstract to such a degree that I think simulationist historical wargamers will balk at such a thing, personally I think it’s amazing both as a mechanic and as a thematic element of the game.

The production phase, more specifically the many elements that can influence the production phase is what really brings a lot of life to the game and a sense of realism.

The production itself is pretty cut and dry. You spend your available resources to build units each with their own cost and you build those units in factories designated by “chimney stacks” in regions you control. Those units are considered “in production” and become available for deployment on the following round, but they are put on the map with a production token on them. This in itself is a pretty simple way of doing it, but what it does is present the game with an opportunity to implement one of the fundamental and often overlooked aspects of World War II, the raiding of strategic resources, factories and the capture of enemy units. Thankfully War Room includes mechanics that cover these subjects in an elegant way and in turn makes the air war that was so crucial during World War II, equally crucial in the game.

While units are in production they can be attacked by air units and because air units can enter enemy territories without being pinned and they have a movement of two, it creates a circumstance where airpower can be projected behind enemy lines. This forces players to think past just the obvious front-line battle zones and consider what your opponents may target with their air power. The advantage of destroying someone’s units in production cannot be overstated and these vulnerable targets make for easy pickings if left unguarded for enemy air units. Additionally, your factories (smokestacks) can also be attacked and when done successfully this permanently reduces how many units can be produced in that region, this adds to the importance of this air war as well. On top of that, your railways can also be attacked and destroyed. Railways are used to move troops through friendly territory quickly and when destroyed can really screw up your ability to get units where they need to be.

For all of these reasons the air war is a vital component of the game and it turns what might otherwise be a straight-up area control game into something far more strategic and thematic. The strategies involved here in defending your air space and vital production and transport regions vary wildly and I’m sure we will still be discovering the many ways this mechanic can impact a game for years to come, but what I find to be true is that it’s very subtle. I have heard players complain that this mechanic has too little impact on the game and that it’s a waste to do anything more than trying to go straight for the region control but I think this is a lack of experience talking. It may not seem all that important that you lose a couple of factories and/or units here and there, but the cumulative effect of such losses has massive implications towards the end game where every unit, every production point and every railway passage become absolutely critical. I suspect the experience will eventually reveal to new players just how important and impactful air raids on opponent’s production can be.

A game of War Room is won by controlling certain regions depending on the scenario. I personally have only ever played the Global Scenario which dictates that the allies win the game if they control the Greater Germany and Japan regions while the Axis powers must control two regions picked from Britain, Moscow or the Eastern United States.

What I can say here from a balanced perspective is that the Axis powers have their work cut out for them. Controlling the Eastern United States is truly difficult and highly unlikely so I would imagine the war is typically won by controlling Britain and Moscow by the Axis powers which are both much closer and rely far more on land and air power which Germany and Japan have ample of. Trying to take the Eastern United States requires you to have some major naval victories and that is quite difficult and almost entirely up to Japan to do. Not impossible, but certainly requires some top-shelf strategy and a considerable amount of luck I would imagine.

Taking Greater Germany by the allies however is also a very difficult task in particular in the early game when the allies are largely on the defensive and if Japan executes a good control strategy of the Pacific, they can be a force to be reckoned with, notably, one the US must take on almost entirely on their own.

It seems vital that before you even attempt an invasion regardless of whether you are allies or axis of any capital city, you must significantly reduce the nation’s will to fight by reducing their morale. This means the war, in many ways will be fought primarily in other regions in that attempt by both sides.

I would say the game favors an allied victory but it’s difficult after my limited experience with the game by how much. I think if you are playing a game with a mix of new and veteran players it’s wise to make the veterans play the axis powers and the new players play the allies.

Lady luck certainly plays its part in War Room, at its core, battles are resolved by chucking handfuls of dice and while players have plenty of strategic options and tactical decisions to make to ensure conditions are in their favor, dice be dice and they can certainly turn the game in unexpected ways. I would not, however, say this game can be won by gambling on dice results, there are certain statistical factors that are quite reliable and in all but the most extreme cases, the larger and more varied force will usually beat the smaller force.

I would say from a gameplay perspective, the team that will win is the one that can consistently execute the three core aspects of play the best. Unit movement (hidden) and position, morale management and the air war with the naval war taking its fair share of the pie as well though not quite equal to the other three vital core aspects.

The game is quite sensitive to opening move mistakes and as such there is a real fragility in the early game which is going to be tough on newer and less attentive players. If managed poorly, it can sink either side quite significantly but I would say that the axis powers are far less likely to recover from early mistakes than the ally powers, while far less likely to make them if for no other reason than that the US is this sort of mid-game force that appears and can bring some heavy firepower that can easily overwhelm the axis powers if they aren’t crushing it in the early game.

Surprisingly, the Italians and Chinese while seemingly irrelevant on the power scale compared to the other nations play a considerable role in the war. The Italian campaign in Africa can cause irreparable damage to Britain and topple the empire with the help of Germany on other fronts very early in the war if they execute well. The Chinese on the other hand can be quite a nuisance to Japan if ignored and for The Empire of the Sun, invading China yields very few rewards and does little to hurt the allies as a whole. In a way, they have to deal with them and the only benefit of doing so is that they remove them as a threat, but failing to do so can cause serious problems in later stages of the game.

The final note I’m going to make in terms of gameplay is the absolutely excellent attention that was paid to the creation of the world map. There are so many interesting nooks and crannies to explore and leverage on this map, it’s really this sort of massive puzzle that reveals countless opportunities for players to explore alternative strategies. It’s such a great feat of engineering to me from a design perspective and does so much to keep the game interesting despite static starting conditions.

There is so much more that could be said about the subtle ways War Room creates amazing gameplay opportunities, the countless strategies and tactics that can be deployed and the general atmosphere the game creates. War Room is a deep well that will encourage you to explore the game’s many strategies over and over again, it’s a testament to amazing game design.

That said there is one problem the game cannot escape. It takes 8 to 10 hours to play, it really begs for at least 4-5 players and truth be told to really get the most out of it you need dedicated players ready to dive into this one with their heart and soul. That will make this one tough to get to the table unless you are lucky enough to be surrounded by such players. Certainly, you can bring in casual gamers and teach them to play, but if you mix experienced players who really dive into this game with casual players that just want to chuck some dice, you will discover that games of War Room can be effectively won as quickly as 2 rounds of play. To get a really good, competitive game of War Room going, you need everyone at the table to be analyzing it with a full understanding of how the game works beyond the understanding of the rules.

Replayability and Longevity

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Pros: Infinite replayability, immortal longevity!

Cons: Its a very long game, your not going to get to play it often enough

I will keep this section short and sweet as their really is only one word I would use to describe the replayability and longevity of this game.  Infinite.

This is not a game you are going to play often of that I’m certain unless you are lucky enough to have friends that have 8-10 spare hours on a regular basis.  It’s an event game and I would encourage you to treat it as such.  Certainly, this is not a “board game night” type of game, you can’t just whip it out on a group of unsuspecting players and say “hey let’s play War Room”. 

You need to prepare, the game is long enough that your players will need a mid-game break to regain their strength and I would say it’s not a game for people who are looking for a casual gameplay experience.  This is a game that draws on and is enhanced by excited players who want to step into the role of a World War II general leading a nation into one of the greatest conflicts humanity has ever seen.  It’s an amazing experience, but its certainly not a casual one.

That said, in my opinion, it’s a game you will not tire of playing, it’s not going to wear out its welcome nor will you run out of new ways to approach trying to win the war in different ways.  Each nation offers a very different experience and every player is going to see the game through a unique perspective, likely surprising even the most experienced veterans.  There is just a lot to explore here and the static start really doesn’t injure the game’s replayability.

I will say that it would have been nice to have alternative setups, either through the use of alternative dates (periods) in the war, or alternative history starts altogether.  If Axis and Allies is any indication of the future of War Room, I would venture a guess we might see something like that in an expansion in the future.

I hold this game up to other eternal epic event games worthy of your shelf space and time like Twilight Imperium, Advanced Civilization, Game of Thrones the board game and of course the Milton Bradley classics like Axis and Allies and Shogun (also known as Samurai Swords and Ikusa).  It’s an experience, one with an endless shelf life.

Conclusion

It’s really difficult to come up with something to say as a conclusion to the review that would surprise you, this is an amazing game, plain and simple and while I can understand between the price tag and the length of play this is certainly not going to be in everyone’s wheelhouse I can say without reservation that if you are an Axis and Allies fan and you are looking for something that can stand up to such a classic, War Room is an auto-buy, price be damned!

On a personal note, War Room is the Mona Lisa of my collection, I display it proudly on my shelf not only because it’s a visual treasure, but because it is hands down one of the finest pieces of game design I have seen grace my shelf in years. It is a masterpiece, a triumph that deserves all the accolades a board game can earn. In fact, I will go even further and say that this is the single best board game I have ever owned or played in my life, period. If my house was burning down and I could save only one game from my collection, it would be this one without question. You can expect this to be in my number 1 spot on the next top 10 best games of all time and I suspect its reign will be long and distinguished.

Is it a perfect game? Not really, not because of a design flaw, but simply by the fact that it takes 5-6 players 10 hours to play it, which just means it has limits to how often you will play it. A perfect game would be good to go for all occasions and this, like an oddly shaped puzzle piece fits in only in very specific situations. That doesn’t change my mind about how I feel about it, but it does change the game’s ultimate rating, for perfect, it is not.

At the end of the day however for me, it comes down to War Room as an experience, it’s here that War Room shines above all other games. It’s unique and creates magic at the table, as a fan of all things gaming, War Room is without a doubt one of the most exciting things that have come along in gaming for a very long time. I cannot recommend it enough.