#Wargame Wedges – Early Thoughts on French and Indian War 1757-1759 (@worth2004, 2020)

This past week saw yet another wargame arrival with the delivery of the Kickstarter campaign for French and Indian War 1757-1759 from Worthington Publishing. I am a bit of a late-comer fanboy to Worthington Publishing owning only five of their titles (six if you count the Soviet Moon Expansion to Tranquility Base). Which is sad because several of these games, Enemies of Rome and Hold the Line: The American Civil War are favorite games of RockyMountainNavy Jr. and RockyMountainNavy T respectively. As I read the rules and get ready to play the game the first time here are some of my early thoughts:

• Weeknight Filler: French and Indian War 1757-1759 is a relatively simple to learn area movement block game. The rulebook is 12 pages with the last page being a player aid. The game is supposed to be playable within an hour making this an ideal candidate for a weeknight filler game. In the RockyMountainNavy house, we often need a weeknight filler game, especially these days with RockyMountainNavy Jr. back to school (sorta) and RockyMountainNavy T underemployed (thanks COVID). Having a game that we can pull out and play after dinner without going too deep into the evening is very valuable.
• Simultaneous Hidden Movement: Many block games by their very nature introduce a Fog of War element in that you can often see the blocks but don’t always know what it is until you engage with it. French and Indian War 1757-1759 introduces a simultaneous hidden movement system that looks interesting. Maybe we will try it someday. We might even adopt it, as long as it doesn’t extend game time too much and ruin the ‘filler game’ aspect we are looking for.
• Gateway Wargame: RockyMountainNavy Jr. is also interested in this game as a possible ‘gateway wargame’ that he could use with his friends. The table presence of Worthington Publishing games is always noteworthy; the use of blocks and areas instead of traditional wargame hex & counter make their games more approachable (presentable?) to non-wargamers who nonetheless are interested in a good boardgame.

It is very likely that RockyMountainNavy T and myself will get a chance to play this game in the next few weeks. We just need the right weeknight opening.