With the health warning that I haven't played a game with these yet - it was only bought yesterday - this does look to be very interesting.
The name obviously references *Up Front* but it's a more traditional game than that was (is!) and here the cards are used for the command and control elements of the game, rather than nearly everything. So each turn you have a hand of cards to play. The number depends on how good your troops were at the start (better / less exhausted units get more) and how much they've suffered in this game - lose too many men and you can do nothing apart from reform with another unit... which then has more stands to control but no extra cards to order them to do anything.
Most of them have a dual purpose and you can only use one: are you going to have your men fire with that card, or take cover against enemy fire? Move or take cover? Observe (gets you bonuses for moving and both sides of fire combat) or rally pinned troops?
Some assumptions are made, primarily that the attacker's artillery managed to suppress the defender's artillery. (If that wasn't the case, the attacker should just give up now...) There are also no tanks, but what you do have is a series of tough choices and you can feel the problems of infantry command in the Great War, including planning an artillery barrage and hoping it will work because it will stick to that timetable no matter what happens on the ground.
If it does, it will cut much of the enemy's barbed wire, then suppressing his trenches just long enough for your men to arrive to capture the trench with minimal losses, before moving off to interdict arriving defensive support. If it doesn't, your poor bloody infantry will be stuck in no-man's land for too long and you better have plenty of high cover cards...
Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Creator Reply:
Thanks Ian, I appreciate the review, and you are dead right about the bad things that occur if the wire is not cut as we have found in many games...!
Thanks again and hope you enjoy the rules and the games.
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