The Grizzled

I haven't had time or inclination to do much in the way of gaming this past week, mostly because of some work commitments. However one of these did take me up to Sydney and whilst there I popped into a games shop and came out with a copy of 'The Grizzled: Armistice Edition'.

'The Grizzled' is a card game that is set in WW1. That said, it is not a wargame, but rather a game set during a war. The players take the roles of one of a group of friends who have joined the French army. It is about friendship and survival during the trials and traumas of war.

As you might expect, it is a co-operative game; the players are working together to see the group through to the end of the war.  It's designed for 1-5 players, but looks like it's best with 3-5; playing solo or with 2 players requires special rules, and does change the dynamics of the game, as you'd expect.

I played a couple of games with Catherine on Saturday to get used to the mechanisms, but yesterday evening I had a go at the solo mode, and that's what the pictures show

The game has amazing artwork, and a miniature for each of the six available characters. In fact the miniatures almost have no purpose in the game; they simply mark whether a character is currently active in a mission or has withdrawn from it.

This review (one of many) explains the game as well as I could: The Grizzled: Rise Together, Fall Together.

Here's an early mission - a failure because there are three cards with one type of Threat on them in the centre (Snow in this case). So those cards go back into the deck for the next mission.

Further into the game, and my trio of friends have suffered some Hard Knocks and are showing signs of mental stress - two have phobias, and one has a negative trait.

Some Support from the squad helps clear Charles' phobia, but in the meantime Lazare is wounded.

Later in the game Lazare is recovered, but Charles is showing signs of stress. The trick with the game is for the players to make sure that the characters that need support and friendship get it before their accumulated Hard Knocks drag everyone down. But you also have to succeed in the missions in order to drive the Threats deck down.

A final successful mission sees the Peace card exposed and the team with an empty hand of cards - they survived the war and won the game. It was close, though. There's a second deck of cards that feeds into the main deck, and if that is ever exhausted the teams' morale collapses and they lose. There were only two cards left in that deck; one badly failed mission at the end  would have seen the team lose.

So here's the figures again ....

... and the other three characters. I think Gustave is my favourite.

The theme and execution of this game works very well. Maybe not one for regular outings, but certainly one to get out from time to time. The Armistice Edition basically covers the same ground as the original, plus its expansion, but adds some new stuff of its own (Helping Hands and Recruits, which we've not tried yet), plus it has a campaign mode, where each game is a chapter in the story of the whole war; the players take their squad from the first mobilisation in August 1914 to the Armistice in 1918. The campaign introduces the rules as you play, and adds little quirks and wrinkles at each stage. 

There's an extra poignancy to this game; the art was done by one of the cartoonists killed in the 2015 Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack.