Death in the Trenches

A Review

Mike Welsh

Death in the Trenches, (hereafter referred to as DitT for short) is a
“professional” DTP product of Schutze Games, “professional” meaning
mounted counters. DitT is a joint effort of Ben Madison and Wes Erni,
whose prior credit is “Byzantium Reborn”, an Arriba Espana clone dealing
with the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-22, originally published by the late,
lamented Microgames Design Group and soon to be reprinted by Counter
Strike, metal box and all. DitT won a Charlie in 2005 for best DTP
published game. 

For my money, this is the best strategic-level WWI game out there, this
thing is vertiably **soaked** in historical detail, hanging off
playable, simple bedrock systems. Any game that inspires hitting the
history books is a plus in my estimation. Would you believe over 370
random events? 

Scale: 

80 miles/hex, counters are armies and corps, each turn is three months,
though August and September 1914 get their own turns. 

Components: 

You get a 23 by 17 full color map, 308 half-inch mounted counters, and
several 8 ½ by 11 charts (Turn Record, Colonial War, Entente and Central
Powers charts for special event chits (must provide your own, hereafter
referred to as “coins”), an Omnibus Marker track for keeping the
strengths of the armies, and a 24-page rulebook, of which only the first
11 are rules, 8 pages (yes, pages) are random events, more on which in
due course. You can get a peek at
http://www.geocities.com/schutze_games/DitT.html or
http://my.execpc.com/~talossa/ditt.html, which is the official site of
the game and has the living rules. 

One of the strengths of the design are the counters: major powers have
armies on the board with a “division max” counter deployed on a track
(though I use a spreadsheet available on BoardGameGeek), plus numerous
minor force armies which are considered to be one-division each. The
units are rated in both offensive and defensive firepower, along with a
rating called “fortitude”, which basically tells how hard the unit is to
kill. A typical French army counter, for example, is a 3-4-6, so if that
army had 10 divisions, it would have a strength of 30 offensive
firepower, 40 defensive, and each division gets killed for every six
hits or fraction thereof. A similar German army is a 3-5-8, so it would
be a 30 offense, 50 defense, and lose a division every 8 hits. The minor
forces allow for all manner of inclusion, which underlines the global
scope of both the war and the game. I've been wargaming since Christmas
1965, and I have never seen this many nationalities in one game. The A's
alone include the Azerbaijanies, Armenians, Australians,
Austro-Hungarians, Arab Nationals, even the Assyrians put in an
appearance. There is a Chinese army that may appear, the Japanese may
send the “liberators” of Tsingtao to the west, the Indians, Gurkhas,
Brazilians, Portuguese, Georgians, Ukrainians, Greeks, Poles, Czechs,
Swiss, Swedes, and so on. Various special units of the major powers are
represented, Bavarians, Saxons, Canadians, French Colonials, French
Foreign Legion, King's African Rifles....... they're all here. 

The map is serviceable, but has some notable errata, nothing that
hinders play but is jarring, nonetheless (Paris and Rome are both
mislabeled, for instance). The map is oriented on a NW-SE axis and
inclues England to Basra, Tunis to Murmansk. 

So how does it play? Let's take a stroll through the sequence of play. 

First, we have a random events phase. A chit is picked from a Dunnigan
Randomizer (coffee cup) and is lookup up on the appropriate chart for
that year (you can see this in the living rules on the website). The
army maximums are adjusted (the total number of divisions assigned to
that major power, which you cannot go above), then roughly a dozen
events are resolved, some which further increase or decrease the
relevant army maxes, some will involve rolling a die or two and adding
or subtracting from various nationalities going to war, some will make
armies be dysfunctional for that turn, some will give resources (the
“coins” mentioned earlier), etc. This is seamlessly done but gets tons
of history into the game and is a main inspiration for further reading
(sadly, though, there is no bibliography included). 

After this is the Naval Challenge phase: first the EP (Entente Powers),
then the CP (Central Powers) may indicate one of the five sea zones
(North Sea, Baltic, Mediterranean, Adriatic and Black) and roll two
dice, 11 or 12 that power establishes supremacy in that sea zone, 2-4
they lose. Supremacy grants various benefits depending on the zone and
the side getting said superiority. This, in my opinion, is one of the
game's few weak points, the detail and history abundant in the rest of
the game is noticably lacking here, though I understand there is an
expansion in the works to address this, and I've written my own house
rules (also available on BoardGameGeek). 

Then there is a Logistics Phase, in which new armies are created,
divisions assigned to them from reserves and nearby armies of the same
nation, and minor armies in the dead pile are rolled to see if they
return to the board. You can liken this to Hitler's War, if you are
familiar with that game. 

That gets us to the heart of the game, the Pulse Phase. Each side (who
goes first is dependent on the turn) takes turns pointing at a hex and
mobilizing some or all of the units in it to move/attack, in a manner
similar to chess moves. That “move” is made, any combat resolved, and
then the units involved flip over on their back sides, effectively
ending their turn. 

Combat is resolved using a novel and perhaps controversial system
designed by Wes Erni and used also in Byzantium Reborn. You take the
strengths arrived at earlier (back when I was discussing the counters),
then each player adds 4 to their strength, adjusts for any “coins”
played and terrain in the hex (combat is “in hex”), then each side
secretly decides how many dice to roll (2 minimum, which is why theres a
“4” added to the base strength). Then each side rolls, and that is the
number of hits inflicted on the opponent, **provided** that you don't
roll a number higher than your strength (the dreaded “overroll”). If you
roll a total higher than your adjusted strength, you inflict....nothing!
This causes much sweating and double-think, as you may imagine. Do you
roll fewer dice to play it safe and at least inflict some damage, or
ratchet it up and take the risk of an overroll? 

To take our earlier example, the ten French divisions attack the ten
Germans in clear terrain with no other modifiers. French strength is 30,
German is 50. French decide to roll 8 dice, Germans 11. French roll
1-1-1-3-3-4-6-6 for a total 25, since the German fortitude is 8, the
Germans will lose 4 divisions, leaving 6. The Germans roll a total of
40, so the French army loses 7 divisions. The side that takes more hits
must retreat unless there's an uncaptured fort or entrenchments
involved. Entrenchments require the attacker to double the defenders
losses before forcing him to retreat, in addition to inflicting a 40%
penalty on the attackers strength before rolling. As you can tell, the
wristage is high, battles on the western front in 1918 can involve
strengths in the 200 to 300 range, and the dead pile up like cordwood. 

The “coins” abovementioned mostly allow extra strength to be added to
attacks or defenses. The Germans, for example, start with 15 Krupp
“coins”, each of which give them an additional 20 attack strength if
used in 1914, +10 if used thereafter. Generally there are no limits to
how many of these you can play, so you get the “one more big push”
mentality working, battles can get each or both sides to go “all in” in
the Texas Hold-em vernacular, resulting in the stakes going through the
roof. Other coins can negate entrenchment effects (Stosstruppen), some
allow flipped units to unflip and be available to move again, and so on.

Forts are considered to be a static unit with values of 0-15-20 (except
the minor ones on the North African coast, which are 0-2-9). This means
you must not only eliminate the defenders to take the hex, but also get
20 more hits to elim the fort so that the attacker can occupy the hex, a
tall order indeed. Again, the “do you feel lucky, punk?” effect at work,
do you roll more dice and take the risk of an overroll, or “lay up” and
take a chance you won't get enough hits to elim the defenders AND the
fort? 

Once both sides pass, the pulse phase is over. We then get to the
“Unflipment Phase” where all flipped units are flipped back up to their
fronts. We then resolve any potential Armenian Massacres (there are
Armenian population center counters, if the Turks own them once they go
to war they can roll for these, the counter is “massacred” on a 6,
otherwise it can provide a potential spot for Armenian units to appear,
and each massacre increases the US Entry by a die roll). 

We then check to see if any powers surrender, and draw a second random
events chit, doing the exact same steps as the first. Finally we
“recruit” new divisions, each power adds a set number of divisions to
what they have left from the turn, up to their army max. 

That's about it. Like I said, there's a LOT here, but it plays pretty
quickly, about 12-14 hours for a full game once you have the rules down
cold.