WAR ROOM - New Larry Harris Game


  • The War Room 2nd Time Played!

    Hi All,

    Play-Tested the War Room Game a 2nd time and again had a blast plying it! Played the Pacific Scenario and played Japan. I to my distress over strategic reached with a strong Japanese Naval Stack South of New Guinea and was trapped by a strong allied counter moved based on the main striking power of American land based Fighter and Bomber Token Stacks with American Naval Tokens  plus a fair kike in of Air Tokens by the Aussie area of the British Empire. I lost my Naval Stack task force which included a Battleship Token plus a Air Craft Carrier Token. There was also Air Token losses on both sides plus a couple Naval Token losses to the American Naval Stack. But this now put Japan in a bad strategic position and now had to fight a next round of play blocking the American drive in the sea area just northeast of New Guinea which Japan had to commit another Naval Stack of Cruisers and Submarines and all the land based Aircraft Tokens that could reach. At the end of this combat Japan’s Naval Stack was eliminated but also the American Naval stack was eliminated. Japan still had other Naval forces in 3 Naval Stacks left with 1 Battle Ship, 2 Aircraft Carriers and 2 Cruisers plus new Naval stack of 3 Submarines. The US had only 1 Naval stack of 3 Submarines, but had marked superiority of Land Based Aircraft which now left Japan having to back off and needing to build up its land based air power Tokens to now confront America in the Pacific. But in the mean time Southeast Asia and China Fronts had been very active with both sides bled white with Japan taking the worst of it and lost the Industry land territory of China which Japan just barley having enough land forces to make a attempt to take back the Industries territory of China. Japan was in a tough strategic position now having the need to heavily supply the Pacific China and Southeast Asia with Tokens all at the same time, which really could not be done. But ran out of time playing the game and all agreed including myself that Japan would have most likely lost the game scenario. My hat off to my 2 adversaries which are 2 long old friends also Todd and Mike. Game Well Played! Just would like to say using the game system mechanics and rules again very impressed with the easy to use rules that cover so much representing strategic history again without all those charts of other more complicated strategic games. The writing down of the movement commands and then following the rules to move your Army, Naval and Airforce stacks add a great fog of war component to this game which I love, leaving you with now having to react to and develop plans to compensate. Sort off like the old saying all the laid out plans go out the widow when combat is engaged and now the victory goes to the side that reacts the best with add-hoc plans during combat. This is the feeling I have when playing this great game of the “War Room”!

    Joe


  • HI
        I know Joe and have played Axis and Allies with him several times. He is a very knowledgeable person on all the AA games and their history pretty much combining the points of view of an Axis and Allies Historian, Player and war game designer so I am sure his comments are good. They were helpful feedback as I am considering getting this game and now will almost definitely do so. Joe thanks and hope to see you Sat. at the Battle for Long Island.
                                                    Joe


  • See you there as well Joe! Gen. Nehring.  A.K.A. Todd

  • Sponsor

    Larry Harris and Thomas Gale loaned me one of their prototype games of WAR ROOM… I will be shooting video all about it on my YouTube channel The Cliffside Bunker… stay tuned.


  • Having play tested this with Larry Harris and Tom Gale and the guys at Y.G.'s Global '40 invitational tournament, I now have a better feel for the mechanics and game-play than just from my reading of the rules on-line and looking a production pictures and stills.
    In terms of the artwork/graphics, just remember guys that it is still in a prototype stage of development. Being a prototype, I must say that the quality of the majority of pieces is better than some other wargame’s finished product quality.
    Larry added a new feature to the command stack counter/tokens for our playtest. A rapid set-up feature that uses a colored pip system to represent what types of units are included in each command stack at start. Instead of placing each unit in a stack, you simply place the command token in the territory specified on the token{ex: a square token has a German Flag and large number. In the upper corner of the token, it shows a G8, along the bottom it show 3 yellow pips, 2 blue, 2 green. You place this one token on the territory G8(Germany) and wait to place the units themselves until you need them. Yellow=infantry, Blue=artillery, Green=armor}
    This cuts out a lot of set-up time and makes the game a quicker playing game, you have no need to populate the stacks until you actually need them in combat, or for breaking them up in movement.
    The units themselves are communal in that any country can utilize the infantry, artillery, armor, etc.(except China: they are limited to infantry and artillery)
    One more thought on the command tokens: Remember guys, this is a grand strategic level game, and the command tokens represent complete combined arms equipped army groups, and not individual infantry divisions, or panzer groups, or artillery brigades/regiments.
    Think large scale Army Groups. To have country specific differentiation of units with logos for each type of unit will add a large number of tokens and clutter the map. The tokens we played with were a mix of plastic, metal and wooden tokens that had the countries flags and unit number. Air, naval, and land command tokens all had their own range of numbers that helped quickly identify what type of unit a command issued was for.

    I have complete faith that the final artwork will be beautiful and of high quality material. The kickstarter process will also offer plenty of opportunities for continued development and exchange of ideas.

    I will be posting more content and thoughts on War Room in the future on this forum, as well as my YouTube channel(The Big ‘E’ A&A) and will also be working closely with Y.G. as he puts out great content on Larry’s new game.

    Thanks for taking a moment to read this,
    Yours Truly,
    The Big ‘E’


  • Shut up and take my money!!  :-D

    VERY excited about this.  Can’t wait for the Kickstarter.

  • '14

    Just 10 days away! I’m going to get mine!



  • I was backer number 4 with a signature edition!


  • Kickstarter is active now.

    Hurry up US and Canada, early bird offer for three days: No additional shipping costs for standard game.

    Not for UK and Europe, unfortunately (shipping is USD 55 + additional fees)  :-(

  • '19 '18 '17

    Excited - Backer #7 here, in for the Signature Edition.

  • '19 '18 '17

    $10K in 10 minutes …. keep it up, gents.  :-o :-D


  • Yeah, it’s kind of weird that it’s not EU-friendly. I don’t know when the last time was I came across a project that was not, let alone having backed one.
    Well, I backed a signature edition to help getting it funded and hope they’ll figure eu-friendliness out till the end of the campain.
    Otherwise waiting for retail looks like the better option, especially since I’d really only need the core game actually.


  • Can’t support this alternative History game because Germany never controlled or got any resources from French West Africa or Madagascar and after making this point relentlessly on Facebook, they choose to do nothing to correct this situation. It makes not sense to me that they choose to make up these facts and i can only conclude a total lack on understanding of this periods History.

    If this was changed by making those two areas neutral, it would be different.


  • Germany starts with resources that come from these cards which is totally false. Look at her inventory of cards and the map they made.

    Why doesn’t anybody else care about this? Its like awarding Germany Switzerland. Why?

  • Founder TripleA Admin

    I imagine it’s a game balance issue. Would it be better if there were an asterisk next to those territories with a note in the rule book?

    “Germany never controlled or got any resources from French West Africa or Madagascar but this scenario is included in this game in order to balance the game and utilize the entire map.”


  • I suspect Madagascar is similar to Algeria and Morocco which, even if never controlled by the Axis, the Allies invaded anyway. French West Africa is somewhat more questionable on that front though.

    Also, maybe it somehow represents Germany “trading” with its Vichy puppet (aka, looting them for occupation costs).


  • I suspect Madagascar is similar to Algeria and Morocco which, even if never controlled by the Axis, the Allies invaded anyway. French West Africa is somewhat more questionable on that front though.

    Also, maybe it somehow represents Germany “trading” with its Vichy puppet (aka, looting them for occupation costs).

    Its not. Algeria and Morocco were also Vichy, but those were not directly occupied by Axis forces. Germany did have a few police ( gestapo) elements for the purpose of rounding up some people. These areas and other Vichy areas did not “trade” with the Reich, however, indemnity payments for the war in 1940 were ordered and as a whole, the Vichy government was responsible to meet this obligation. So the truth is the entire group of areas under Vichy control had to make payments to Germany, but that was not really “trade” . Also, most of these areas outside of France proper, never made any contributions to satisfy that requirement, because frankly the terms were ridiculous.

    It is also true that the Allies invaded Madagascar, The Levant States, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia…all of which were under Vichy control, but in most cases the resistance was of a very short duration and the opposition quickly came to be part of the Allies.

    But to make them “German” is totally ridiculous.


  • I imagine it’s a game balance issue. Would it be better if there were an asterisk next to those territories with a note in the rule book?

    “Germany never controlled or got any resources from French West Africa or Madagascar but this scenario is included in this game in order to balance the game and utilize the entire map.”

    It could be. But why not just attribute whatever resources they have and add it to German controlled areas that are in Europe and leave whatever these areas could have as neutral.

    And actually when the Allies did land in Morocco, Hitler was so upset about how easily the Vichy Forces gave up, he reneged on the treaty with Vichy and directly occupied Southern ( Vichy) France as retribution. He obviously could not occupy those other areas like FWA and Madagascar.


  • **Moderator’s action:

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