Virtual Wargamer Discussion Board / Boardgaming / Era: Gunpowder (other)

Michael Nagel - 10:19am Aug 18, 1996 EST (#8 of 9)

I finally got a chance to play Rand/Gamut's Saratoga:1777 at my local
gaming club yesterday. I've owned an unpunched copy of the game for quite
some time, but have been loath to punch it. Lucky for me, somebody at
Avaloncon was dumping a punched zip-lock copy of it for $2 which I swiped
up without a thought! :-)

The game represents Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne's expedition from Fort St.
Johns toward Albany which was eventually intercepted by the American
General Gates (accompanied by Gen Benedict Arnold) near Saratoga. The
interception resulted in the battles of Freeman's Farm and Bemis Heights,
and the decisive victory in the latter battle convinced the French to
become involved in the War for Independence.

The system uses point-to-point movement (an inovation, I believe, in 1974),
where units can be moved only one point per turn. American units and some
of the British units can also use "Rapid Movement" to move an additional
point by rolling a 1-4 on a six-sided die. Each of the points are connected
by road, water (lake Champlain), or trail -- the latter which only
Americans and the British Iroquois units can use.

The combat units seem to represent regiments and brigades, each of which is
printed with a single value (combat). These values are typically in the 3-5
range, although there is one British unit which is a 10.

Combat can be handled in one of two ways. The first is rather odd (at least
I thought so), where no die-rolling is involved. The ratio of losses taken
by each side is determined by the difference in the total combat values of
each side. The second combat method uses a standard odds-ratio table based
on total combat strength, and a die roll which determines the winner of the
battle. A second table is used to determine losses, where each player rolls
against a column (Winner or Loser) with die-roll modifiers depending on the
combat point ration between the sides. This system leaves more to chance,
as even in a 3-1 attack, the smaller side can "win" the battle causing the
larger side to lose a larger percentage of their force (which happened
several times during our playing ... to my benefit!).

The game system also uses a very kludgey supply system which requires some
paper-work. Units which are out of supply for three turns are eliminated
(so you have to keep track of these units), and some supply points (like
Ft. Ticonderoga) don't become functional until they've been occupied for
several turns.

Saratoga:1777 seems like a labor of love on the part of the designer, and
was not developed as well as it should have been. The first evidence of
this is on the map, which has several points which are so out of the way as
to never be used. Second was the fact that the game will probably decend
into two huge stacks of counters (i.e. nearly all of them as there are no
stacking limits) duking it out in Albany. Mind you that we only played the
game once, but this was our general impression.

The game definitely falls into the beer-n-pretzels category, and its
historical accuracy falls way into question. Regardless, we had a fun time
play it (lots of die-rolling and death-n-destruction), and will probably
play it again to test out our theories.

If you're into the AmRev, and can find a cheap copy of he game, by all
means add it to your collection.

-- Mike