Wargame SITREP 231014 N3 Ops – Battle Card Series 1 (Postmark Games, 2023)

Battle Card: Series 1 is four one-page, solo print-n-play dice wargames designed by David Thompson and Nils Johansson and delivered through a quick-to-fulfill Kickstarter campaign from Postmark Games. The first game in the series, “Market Garden,” is labelled Game 0 and was self-published earlier in 2023 to some acclaim before being republished in the Kickstarter campaign with three new battles. Battle Card: Series 1 is four wargames: “Game 0 Market Garden,” “Game 1 The Malayan Campaign,” “Game 2 Moro River,” and “Game 3 Mortain.” Each game can be played on a single sheet of paper with about a dozen or more six-sided dice. Each battle is six turns in length and uses point-to-point movement and a very simple combat results table. In each conflict one player must advance across the map reaching the objective before they are militarily defeated or time runs out.

The Battle Card: Series 1 wargames are very easy to learn and quick to play; on the order of 10 minutes or less for a game. The ease of learning and play is simultaneously a game’s greatest strength…and weakness.

Aggressive but lucky

The rules for each Battle Card game are short and easy to understand meaning play can start right away. That strength—quick-to-learn easy rules—in turn means players are just as quickly making key decisions. Players will very likely discover that they need to be decisive and aggressive in play and must assume risk if the objective is to met in the time allotted. That call for aggression opposed by risk is expressed in each game through the luck of the dice. This is simultaneously the greatest weakness of Battle Card; though a player may employ a reasonable balance of aggression and timing they may still be totally derailed and lose for no other reason than the luck of the dice.

It’s only 10 minutes

Even if you are that player in Battle Card who loses due to a series of unlucky die rolls, the game is so short that another one can quickly be set up and resolved. While each game doesn’t have a canned series of player actions to ensure a win, in playing each a general strategy eventually emerges that seems to have a better chance of success given average die rolls. Even so a win is not a guaranteed thing thought perhaps slightly more likely.

Not complaining

At the end of the day my $5 investment in Battle Card was well worth the money. The games are great, low-stress fillers that enable a diversion of attention for a few precious minutes. I printed and placed all four games in page protectors and pull them out when a short wargame is needed. In a way playing Battle Card is akin to gambling; both give great satisfaction of rolling dice while pushing your luck and in both a single die roll can spell the difference between victory or defeat.

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Feature image by RMN

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