Wargame SITREP 25-53 ~ More border wars briefly with Brief Border Wars II (Brian Train, Compass Games, 2025)

Brief BLUF

Retro on the outside with new-age wargame mechanics on the inside. Each game in the series is a unique card-driven conflict that uses the same 54 cards and a simple set of system rules, few optional & special rules, and special action cards with different effects. The end result is a series of games sharing many of the same mechanics but with enough differentiating chrome to make each war play in a similar fashion yet still feel very different each other.

Armchair Dragoons Reviews Brief Border Wars from Compass Games, 2 July 2020

Those were the words I wrote just over five years ago for Brief Border Wars, a collection of “Four modern wargames by Brian Train”, published by Compass Games in 2020 and now out of print. In what in now apparently the making of a true series of wargames, Compass Games released Brief Border Wars II which is subtitled, “Four historical wargames by Brian Train.” That is not to say, however, that Brief Border Wars II is just a retread of the first game with different scenarios. Though each battle in Brief Border Wars II shares the same core game mechanisms, each has its own “flavor” that help make each battle individually unique and not a boring clone of one another.

Brief back

It feels like a bit of a cop-out but if you read my 2020 review of Brief Border Wars then you basically have 85% of my thoughts on Brief Border Wars II.

Similar in packaging to Brief Border Wars, the new Brief Border Wars II comes with four maps, 236 counters (up from the previous 176 thanks to the addition of an extra half sheet), one 8-page System Rules (up from 4-pages thanks to an added Example of Combat, Errata for Brief Border Wars, and a reference counter graphic), four Exclusive Rules (one for each war, each at 4-pages like the first game), one Player Aid Card (why?), a deck of 54 cards, and two 2d6 twelve d6 dice. Like before, the time scale varies in each scenario from between one day to one week.

[It took me some real digging to figure out what that extra half-sheet of counters is for. What tipped me off was a forum response by designer Brian Train on BGG where he mentioned, “includes an extra half counter sheet for Combat Asset markers (where my original design just had players track them on a sheet) and more Hit markers.” Combat Assets are used in Teschen: The Seven-Day War, 1919. Regarding the Player Aid Card, the “Alternative Dice Rolling Method” is fine for those who do not want to roll a bucket-o-dice but how about a basic combat resolution player aid first?]

Same but different, again

Every game of Brief Border Wars uses the same four-page system rules with modifications found in exclusive rules for each individual war. Exclusive rules can change parts of the game. For example, in The Football War, each ‘Hit’ in the rear area forces a player to discard one of their drawn cards. Or it could change movement like allowing units to leave an area even if an undisrupted enemy unit is present (not allowed under the system rules).

The sequence of play in Brief Border Wars is relatively straight-forward. First is the ‘Card Selection Phase’ where those top six cards are drawn. Next is the ‘Card Play and Resolution Phase’ which includes movement and combat. When both players have played or and discarded all cards or special action cards they want to play, or when both players pass successively, play moves to a ‘Final Phase’ where units reset, have the chance to recover from disruption or damage, and move into the rear area from the damage box.

…

What really sets apart each set of exclusive rules in Brief Border Wars is the optional and special rules. The most important of these are the four optional rules related to the cards. Rule 9.11 ‘Organizational Ability’ can reduce the number of special action cards a player starts with. Rule 9.12 ‘Formation Agility’ may make it impossible to execute reaction moves to respond to enemy actions. Rule 9.13 ‘Intelligence Advantage’ can make players play with their cards face up. However, Rule 9.14 ‘Poorly Trained Staff’ may be the most impactful. If your side has a poorly trained staff, cards can only be played for their larger value. So, if you have a MOVEMENT-5 / COMBAT-2 card, it can only be played for movement.

In each of the exclusive rules of Brief Border Wars there are special units that have abilities outside the normal units found in the system rules. These few special units, implemented using a very simple set of rules, add chrome to the game and help make each war different from one another.

Armchair Dragoons Reviews Brief Border Wars from Compass Games, 2 July 2020

Brief knowledge

If there is a drawback to Brief Border Wars, it is the lack of insight into the conflicts that one derives from playing the game. Each set of exclusive rules has some background material, but each is necessarily short due to space constraints. There is enough there to tell you ‘why’ the war happened, but not enough to understand why achieving a certain level of victory points is actually a win – or not.

Armchair Dragoons Reviews Brief Border Wars from Compass Games, 2 July 2020

Brief Border Wars II, like its predecessor, is…uh…brief on historical details. In fact, the back of the box is where most of the historical background appears. Thankfully, designer Brian Train adds another paragraph of Designer’s Notes in the Exclusive Rules for each battle which provides further insight.

Conventional briefing

Because Brief Border Wars is a very simple system to learn, I think it best acts as a sort of ‘filler game’ in many collections. Here you have four choices of a game to play that should take around two hours to teach AND play. The common set of rules makes learning (and teaching) easy, and the few exclusive rules are not so complex they cannot be learned on the fly.

Armchair Dragoons Reviews Brief Border Wars from Compass Games, 2 July 2020

I am going to amend my comments regarding Brief Border Wars from 2020 and add that the first—or second—games of the Brief Border Wars series make for excellent convention wargames, as evidenced by The Armchair Dragoons Fall Assembly in October 2023:

My midday game was the Football War scenario of Brian Train‘s Brief Border Wars (Compass Games, 2020) played against Mike E. Mike was the furthest traveling Dragoon flying in from points far west. The smaller scenarios of Brief Border Wars are great for convention games as they can be setup, taught, and very likely played to completion in even a 2-hour block.

Wargame SITREP 231025 N3 Ops – Armchair Dragoons Fall Assembly AAR, 25 Oct 2023

“War on a Distant Tabletop, uh, Plain”¹

Of the four battles in Brief Border Wars II, the Battle of Nomonhan is the one I am most familiar with. Since the game is supposed to be brief I played this one to reaquaint myself with the Brief Border Wars game system. Some observations are in order:

• Setup is pre-defined so whey do the Japanese set up first?
• The counters in Brief Border Wars II fall out so easily that there is little corner tuft; corner rounding in optional.
• Three Optional rules are recommended for Nomonhan: 9.11 Organizational ability (start with fewer Action cards) to disadvantage the Soviets, 9.12 Formation agility (no Reaction movement) to disadvantage the Japanese, and 9.14 Poorly Trained Staff (no choice must use highest value action on card).
• I think a flowchart for applying hits would help.

I will also say that the card draws in this play of Brief Border Wars II is by far the swingiest I can remember. I mean, the deck was randomly shuffled (I took my time without riffle shuffling it) but in the first three turns the distribution of the card suits was 5:1; as in five of one color against one of the other color. When put together with the Poorly Trained Staff that specifies each card can only be played for the highest value there were some turns that all the cards were Movement with no chance for Combat. In other words, a very challenging situation where planning was essentially reduced to “do it now or else.”

Playing the Nomonhan battle in Brief Border Wars II also reminded me why I play this series of games. As much as I love using wargames to engage with history, the lite historical touch in each battle in Brief Border Wars II is almost too lite and, for myself, a bit dissatisfying as study aid. Yet, I really like Brief Border Wars II because it serves a purpose in my wargame collection beyond learning. Brief Border Wars II is a simple, easy-to-teach, easy-to-understand wargame that I use to play with friends and family. The weight of the game makes it great for socializing first and learning (maybe) second.

[For another take on the Battle of Nomonhan Khalkin Gol see my post “Wargame to History ~ First go at The Battle of Khalkhin Gol” at The Armchair Dragoons where I discuss how the title is a “war game” rather than a more traditional “wargame.”]

Brief (production) values -or- give and take

I must compliment Compass Games on component choices in Brief Border Wars II. Unfortunately, as much as I like the component choices, their production execution is occasionally spotty. On the positive side, the map sheets are made with a heavier, seemingly plastic-coated paper. The cards are also an almost-linen finish (though a bit rougher than I expected) yet the extra thickness of cards also makes them difficult to riffle shuffle. [Yes, I know there are other shuffle styles but the riffle is my default method.] The counters separate from the counter tree easily; in fact, they separate almost too easily which makes shipping them in that plastic sleeve an absolute requirement. Those nice maps fold up awkwardly and are misaligned—likely a byproduct of that heavier, thicker cardstock. The Exclusive Rules, which are a single sheet folded in the center, are all very rough at the folded edge—no impact to play but I wonder how they are handled in production. The box itself feels like it is constructed with a heavier cardboard which is probably a good thing given mine was seemingly bent sometime before reaching me. I was also fortunate that my cards, shipped with just a paper band around them, arrived still wrapped and without serious edge or corner scuffing unlike some complaints I read.

I strongly encourage grognards to invest in Brief Border Wars II not because it is a deeply immersive marriage of theme and design that creates a world you can get lost in for hours. No, invest in Brief Border Wars II because it is a great game to play with family and friends, new and old.

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1. With apologies to Brian Train who used this same title in his Designer’s Notes for BRIEF BORDER WARS II: Nomonhan. ↩︎

Feature image courtesy RMN

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