Episode 387: Churchill AAR

[Rob Zacny]

Three Moves Ahead 387:

Churchill AAR
It's a very special Three Moves Ahead as we find Rob visiting Bruce in person to play a variety of wargames. The star of the weekend is Mark Herman's Churchill (previously covered in 3MA #330), a game in which players assume the role of Churchill, Stalin, or Roosevelt over the course of ten critical conferences. Also discussed: 13 Days: The Cuban Missile Crisis.

Churchill, 13 Days: The Cuban Missile Crisis

 

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[Skyrider68]

Enjoyed your revisit of Churchill, one of my favorites of the past year.  I like the big-picture scaling of the game, the want-to-play-it-again feeling at game's end, and the feasibility of  3 familiar players completing a full-length game in an afternoon.  I always look forward to bringing this game back to the table.  It will be interesting to see how the system evolves with Pericles, which is going to start arriving on preorder doorsteps in the next few weeks.

 

One part of the game you discussed that left me puzzled:  You referred to a coordinated strategy of swapping the Theater Leadership issue(s) between the western allies each turn.  Were you referring to TOTAL control of both theaters, so as to get the additional 2 bonus offensive support points?  Otherwise, I wasn't clear as to what the benefit would be of a theater leadership changing sides each turn.  Winning a leadership issue marker when you already control a given theater still gets you the 1 support for holding it from previous turn, plus 2 more support for successfully "defending" your claim to the leadership.  I couldn't figure what you guys were getting at when you talked about swapping the leadership each turn, unless it was the aforementioned bonus.  Also, I'm surprised that Uncle Joe didn't  take away your other toys for what sounded like a lot of focus on those leadership chits.  :-)

 

Do you recall what the final score was for all 3 sides?  Is it a game that everyone is eager to revisit, or is it a checked-that-box, time-to-move-on experience?

 

Thanks for another good episode!

 

[markherman54]

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1742612/commentary-recent-three-moves-ahead-churchill-aar

 

Thanks, I had a great time listening to the episode. If you get a chance I have posted some strategy thoughts based on what I heard. It would be interesting to see if you could fill in some details that were not discussed.

 

Great stuff,

 

Mark

[cornchip]

Mr. Herman! Thanks very much for the game, the response and for prompting Bruce to (soon) flesh out some game details I was also wondering about from the episode. Hope you'll be on another 3ma episode soon.