The topic of First World War is definitely something I am interested in – and I expressed this in my My Passion for History – World War I article. During last year I had a chance to play several interesting titles covering that period, among them Paths of Glory and Fields of Despair. While great games and covering the topics in fantastic way, they required significant amount of time. Thus I started to look for a bit lighter and faster title with that historical period.
I was eyeing The Longest Trench for quite some time – and even had a chance to observe my colleagues playing it on some of the conventions. That one is a two-player card wargame, telling the story of First World War from the strategic viewpoint. It does it in a very interesting way, by recreating World War I in a historical series of land and sea battles. The Central Powers (Germany and her allies) are opposed to the Entente (Great Britain, France, Russia and their allies).
It uses clever deck-building mechanism, open and secret information about forces you deploy and some balancing mechanics. With bonus cards each session can be different – and you can use both draft or random draw to enhance your deck. The longer you play the more you will appreciate it!
I had chance to play this title extensively lately. My experiences, observations and suggestions I gradually converted into a set of materials which I would like to share with Dear Readers today. This post has a goal of being kind of a dashboard and one source for all my Longest Trench content. Hope you will enjoy it!
First things first – let me start with the overview of the game – background, components, some basic mechanics as well as victory conditions. This is best place to start and familiarize with the game if this is your first contact with it.
We go deeper with the main game rules, explaining in details sequence of play, components, boards, special exceptions as well as general flow of the game. This is more procedural and theoretical part – however, you can use it instead of reading the rulebook!
What is the best way to really learn the game? A gameplay, presenting the actual rules in practice. We shall tackle the whole 1914 and its first four battles. Central Powers will be on Attack and Entente will try to withstood the onslaught. Let us see how it goes!
That would be all from me – I hope I sparked a bit of interest in you guys to test this game!
The Boardgames Chronicle 