Issue Overview
Source: War Diary No. 33 (War Diary Publications, © 2026), 64 pages. Editor: Roy Matheson. Associate editors: John D. Burtt, Hans Korting, David Wilkinson.
But it here:
Editorial: “Prelude” (p. 2)
Traces of History — Allyn Vannoy (pp. 4–15)
This is the history piece behind Vannoy’s VUCA game Traces of Victory. It covers the November 1944 offensives in Lorraine and the Vosges.
Third Army against German First Army. The background is the September fuel shortage and Eisenhower giving supply priority to Montgomery. Balck replaced Blaskowitz at Army Group G. He chose an “elastic defense,” with a thin front line and mobile reserves behind it. The Third Army attack opened on 8 November in continuous rain:
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Third Army cleared Lorraine in 25 days but never broke through to the West Wall. It took 22,773 battle and 15,737 non-battle casualties. Vannoy sums it up as “for the most part an infantry slugfest.”
Seventh Army against German Nineteenth Army. Patch’s XV Corps (the 79th and 44th Divisions, with the French 2nd Armored) broke through toward the Saverne Pass from 13 November.
Selected sources: Bonn, When the Odds Were Even; Citino, The Wehrmacht’s Last Stand; Cole, The Lorraine Campaign (US Army green book).
Traces of Victory — review by John D. Burtt (pp. 17–20)
This reviews VUCA’s Traces of Victory, designed by Vannoy. It uses the chit-pull system from VUCA’s Traces of War. Burtt says he liked that game’s system but found its victory conditions “both impossible and wholly non-historical.”
Components. A 23” x 22” mounted map runs from Nancy to Strasbourg. Three small boards hold reserves and the turn track. Burtt likes that roads in Difficult terrain cost more. Units are regiments and stack two per hex plus an HQ. Allied units mostly rate 4–5 and German units 2–3.
Command. Corps HQs have a six-hex command radius that ignores enemy zones of control (“think radio”). An HQ can command other corps of the same army, which Burtt calls an easily missed point.
Chit cup. Chits per turn rise from one to four. There are corps chits, a mutual supply chit, and reserve/reinforcement chits. SHAEF and OB West chits are only available on some turns. Burtt flags a gap in rule 4.2: it says an HQ can activate “twice,” but nothing stops a third activation. He guesses this is left over from a cut restriction.
Weather. Burtt calls weather the “elephant in the room.” The game starts in Mud, and Rain carries over into later turns. A whole 12-turn game can be played in mud, with no US air support in Rain or Overcast. He calls this historically right but says “by the fifth turn, we were ready to yell ‘do-over!’”
Combat and supply.
Scenarios. There are two single-army scenarios, both quick and “generally fun, sans mud,” and both good to learn solitaire. The combined campaign is “the whole enchilada,” because choosing chits matters most there. In one of his plays, three SHAEF-boosted activations of VI Corps broke through at Colmar.
Verdict. “A fine effort from VUCA.” It plays very differently from the East Front game, with “much more maneuvering.” The review ends on a positive note.
TCS: ConZ House Rules — Clair Conzelman (pp. 23–24)
These are house rules for MMP’s Tactical Combat Series. Conzelman calls them “a better simulation of the close-in fight.” . Just to keep it real, I love Clair, he is wargamers wargamer and a smart dude. But often the tweaks he makes are significantly different enough for the game to no long ‘be the same game’. He is cool with that, my mileage varies.
The Men of 1919, Part One: Ausharren! — Paul Comben (pp. 26–36)
-Note I believe Paul did the art here!
Comben looks at a 1919 continuation of the Great War through Hollandspiele’s Plan 1919 (John Gorkowski). Part Two will cover the 1919 scenario of GMT’s Storm in the West. The setup is that Germany holds on into 1919 and the Entente attacks with J.F.C. Fuller’s tank doctrine.
System. Comben compares the turn pattern to SPI’s early-1970s France 1940, Kursk and Destruction of Army Group Centre. Armour gets a second movement and combat phase. There are no zones of control. Air units are committed in a “raise/call” bidding process, three units at a time.
Armies.
Play advice.
Criticisms. The game has over 300 units on the map, and a “different, less meticulous scale” might have suited it better. Part One has 17 endnotes, mostly asides.
Early Threatens Washington: A Variant — Rob Bottos (pp. 37–40)
This is a counterfactual variant for Revolution Games’ Early Threatens Washington, designed by Mike Wimple. The game covers Monocacy, 9 July 1864, in the Blind Swords system. Bottos lists two earlier games on the battle: SPI’s Drive on Washington (1980) and MMP’s To Take Washington (2019).
The premise. Historically, Early committed only 5 of his 14 infantry brigades because he believed he faced militia. Echols’ division sat out the fight. Bottos argues that with better cavalry intelligence, Early would have sent all of Breckinridge’s Corps into the flanking move behind Gordon.
Order of battle. Bottos rebuilds Echols’ division at 2,950 men: Patton’s, Smith’s and Wharton’s brigades, ten units in all. He works from the 3,965 at the start of the campaign, takes off Vaughn’s 819, and compares the result with the 2,500 in Revolution’s Kernstown.
Scenarios.
Wimple helped with the victory conditions and made the counters.
Congress of Vienna: Modelling Coalition Behavior, Part 2 — David R. Hughes (pp. 42–49)
This is the second instalment of a series on GMT’s Congress of Vienna (designer Frank Esparrago, developer Fred Schachter), played as a four-player game. Hughes calls the solitaire version “mechanical, clunky, frankly tedious.” He defends combining Russia and Prussia into one power.
Phases.
Coalition logic. Hughes quotes Kissinger, via Gordon Craig, on what happens once the common enemy is weak: “a coalition is at the mercy of its most determined member.” He gives an example from his group: one British decision not to attack in Spain on Turn 1 may have lost 1813 for the coalition.
Play time. About two hours per turn online and 90 minutes face to face. A full game takes nearly 20 hours.
Hughes praises the design’s coherence, its components and the designers’ support. Part 3 will cover lessons learned.
1920: Nest of Eagles — review by Clint Warren-Davey (pp. 51–54)
This reviews Phalanx’s 1920: Nest of Eagles (designer Jarosław Flis), a classic hex-and-counter game on the Polish-Soviet War with nine scenarios. Warren-Davey’s one-word summary is “fluidity.”
Reactive Movement. This is the game’s defining mechanic. Once in your own turn and once in the enemy’s, you can move every unit that is stronger than the enemies next to it, or not next to any. Cavalry counts 50% stronger for this test and moves 4 instead of 3. Deciding when to flip the single RM marker is “nearly always the biggest decision of the turn.”
Lines of Friction. These take the place of zones of control. They make sideways movement harder but do not stop it, so units can slip around flanks.
Combat. It is “surprisingly bloodless.” Most battles cost no losses, and they shift a Morale Advantage instead. Real damage comes only from surrounding the enemy, and the CRT caps attack strength at 8. Support units each add +1: an armoured train, armoured cars, tanks, and one Polish biplane squadron. The designer says he included them because “they’re cool.”
Political rules. These cover Konarmiya Cossack desertion, unreliable Ukrainian brigades, Lithuanian units, Cheka units and revolutionary units. Warren-Davey’s one major criticism is that there are many of them and the game uses no cards. He would have handled them as a small event deck.
Components. He calls the components excellent and says the “user interface” is one of the best he has seen in a hex-and-counter game.
Verdict. A “full and rich wargaming experience” that is “sure to take pride of place on a grognard’s shelf.”
Across Nine Tsushimas, Part One — Dav Vandenbroucke (pp. 56–62)
Vandenbroucke compares board, miniatures and computer games on the Battle of Tsushima (27 May 1905). He played them all solitaire, and on purpose he raised the Russians to Japanese levels of training and morale so the battles would be competitive. Part One covers four games:
The remaining games come in the next issue.
Pass in Review — Hans Korting (p. 62)
A book review of Guus de Vries, Arnhem–Oosterbeek 1944: Then and Now (Pen & Sword, 2025). It pairs battle photographs (British, German Kriegsberichter and Dutch) with the same places today, plus a map and a walking tour of the perimeter. Korting criticises the editing: cross-references read “see p.xxx.” His verdict: “highly recommend… a title that you will be revisiting.”
All in all a great read. $8.00 in PDF format!! Sure beats $40 bucks from some other House rags.