HOLD THE LINE- new from Worthington

Any of you guys pick this up? I preordered it a few months ago and promptly forgot about it...then it showed up out of nowhere last week, packed with a French and Indian War expansion that you can only get with the preorder.

It's basically the CLASH FOR A CONTINENT/FOR HONOR AND GLORY "Battles for America" system but with rectangular cardboard chits instead of blocks and different battles...rules are cleaned up, more clear, and there's better charts. And the components got a HUGE upgrade, now it's on par with the German stuff. No flimsy map board or cheap tiles- this is an extremely nice production. I like the chits better than the blocks, surprisingly.

I'm going to do a Gameshark review in a couple of weeks, but I definitely recommend this one so far...I really, really like the system a lot. It's similar to Commands and Colors but without the cards or section activation and just enough extra detail to give it more flavor Accessibility clocks in around 8 pages of rules and 60 minutes playtime and with piles of scenarios this is a very, very attractive package.

Looks very interesting. Let us know how it plays.

This is definitely registering high now that you've pointed it out. I'm still looking for good intro wargames to get people to play with me, and this looks like it might fit the bill.

I think this is a great intro-level wargame- it's extremely straightforward and immediate, probably even more so than a Commands & Colors game. The rules are extremely baseline, no exceptions, crazy wargamer talk, or anything like that. The terrain is easy to grasp, and there's just a couple of different unit types. Command rules are simple, leaders just basically make your guys better. There is a distinction between close combat and ranged combat, but it's mostly just the addition of a morale check and possible retreat.

The only thing is that since it's Revolutionary War/French and Indian War, the battles mostly don't have the "name" recognition something like a WWII game would have. But it looks great on the table and anyone remotely inclined toward wargames will likely be interested in giving it a shot.

Special added super bonus- it's awesome solo.

Does this have a scenario for the battle of Trenton and the battle of Princeton?

the*mad*gamer wrote:

Does this have a scenario for the battle of Trenton and the battle of Princeton?

Yes, it does.

Whatever happened with the 'rumour' that it was going to contain actual "minis" for it all? I was looking forward to seeing those and had actually considered replacing the wooden 'bits' of the "Clash for a Continent" kinds with others, from most likely the previous "RISK" game, but NOT the current "Black OPS" type. That is still available, from what I'm seeing of them BOTH on the shelves of even our 'boonies' "Wal-Mart"! You even have a *Bonus* 'item' from the 'Artillery' figure as HE is carrying a "flag", for which that can then become a HQ sort, and even to designate upper echelon 'Units' with this. For the most part, then even the 'Cavalry' could become a 'Leader' kind as there weren't too many 'Cavalry' involved for this era, and some were even denoted as being a 'Dragoon' type. That designation usually meant that they'd ride to "Battle", dismount, and then engage within 'Combat'. It was just some expedient method in order to have the Troops arrive quickly and avoid being worn out from "marching abouts", so that these were 'freshest' to engage any opponent.