Lone U-Boat: A Solitaire Wargame is another design from Mike Lambo, and this is already the fifth material I have made about his games – which tells you how much I appreciate what he does. You command a German U-boat in 1942, hunting merchant vessels and trading blows with destroyers and corvettes. This is a book game, with rules running to about twenty-two pages and ten missions inside. I would say Mike’s designs are getting a little deeper – not more complex, but with a bit more chrome than the twelve-page titles I started with – and still very quick to set up and play.
The heart of the system is the detection level, running from zero to three. At zero or one the escorts simply sail toward the anchor; at two or three they come straight for you. Each turn you roll for action points and spend them on moving, turning, changing depth, repairing or firing, with everything costing more the deeper you sit. There are two ways to play it – patient hide and seek, or bursting in and fighting it out – and below I probably leaned aggressive a little too early.
Rather than read the rulebook at you, I set up scenario four and teach the game by playing it, so the damage tracks, depth levels, escort algorithm, depth charges and emergency dives all come up as we go. I am honest about the result, and I walk through the two rules mistakes I caught myself making: descending costs more action points than ascending, and a forced emergency dive costs you two action points the following turn. One more thing – the counters are borrowed from another game, and there is a small quiz about which one.
If you have not met Mike Lambo’s designs yet, I gathered my thoughts on the whole family in Phenomena of Mike Lambo Solo Designs, and my other materials on his games are collected under my Mike Lambo tag.
Below I am teaching the rules while playing through one of the missions:
Hope it will give you a good insight into the game. Enjoy the material!