Continuing our series on the winners of war gaming’s Charles S. Roberts awards, today we’re looking at the Gunpowder or Industrial Era category, which runs up through WW2 while skipping Napoleonic and Civil War themes (which get their own categories). You’ll find some quick hits below on the nominees and winner to help you know which ones would be perfect additions to your collection. As ever, leverage Noble Knight’s Want List to ensure you can snag these games, many of which come from small print runs, when they come in stock.
Now, load your rifle and get to the battlefield.
Two Unique Battles start a new Series
A semi-sequel to GMT’s Musket and Pike series, Banish All Their Fears zooms out for brigade-level combat across two large battles. Neerwinden and Blenheim 
sprawl their volleys and cavalry across detailed maps that ask you and your opponent to find and exploit holes in the other’s lines. These battles weren’t the bloody sword clashes like we touched on in the medieval piece, nor the relatively high-powered Civil War fights to come. Instead, first strikes are important, as are getting your reserves in to buttress bloodied troops. If not, a good opponent will pounce and break open lines, leading to fast collapse.
Neerwinden offers a battlefield with the flanks split by rivers, but otherwise open and ranging for effective mobility. A punch through the middle would be decisive if successful, but focusing resources there could put either flank into disaster. Blenheim offers a single long river effectively splitting forces, putting an emphasis on artillery. Counters aplenty on both, all but filling the maps. There’s nowhere to hide here, folks.
With rules hitting a sweet middle complexity and a playtime capping out at a few hours, the battles in Banish All Their Fears make for good evening fare amid gunpowder smoke and the pounding of horse hooves. If you’ve been playing Musket and Pike or even Black Powder and want to take larger battles for a spin, Banish All Their Fears is worth a look. Also, while it doesn’t have an explicit solo mode, the unit activation and lack of cards make this an easy one to play solitaire too.
Sekigahara at the Hex and Counter Level
A beautiful game with a streamlined design goes a long way in these parts, and The Battle of Sekigahara Game packages smooth rules, a card-driven event system, and fast hex-and-counter combat into a box that plays in 90 action-packed minutes. Unlike GMT’s Sekigahara, this title focuses exclusively on the battle itself, throwing down the forces of Ishida and Tokugawa on a tight canvas map and letting them battle. What might be a pleasant single-fight experience elevates itself through two core factors:
First, the cards. Each player’s deck, like Friedrich’s event draws, simulates the various things swirling in Japan around the battle. Some straight out announce the arrival of reinforcements, while others force a die roll to determine a critical commander’s loyalty. The randomness here may nudge the game towards one side or another, but will rarely be the decisive factor. Instead, the cards add flavor and historical context, spicing up the battle.
Second, the tight combat rules that lead directly to victory. Ishida’s force is outnumbered and outgunned, but if they can fight to a defensive stand or kill enough Tokugawa forces, they’ll win automatically (otherwise it’s taking objective spaces). With combat being a D6 roll plus the counter’s factor for both sides, resolution is rapid and often bloody. The action here is kinetic, the lines are not static, and The Battle of Sekigahara Game is a lighter, furious winner.
A Strategic What-If Sequel Lets You Dodge WW2, or Not
Adapting a familiar card-driven system of area control to the fascinating years of 1920-1939, Europe in Turmoil II lets you and an opponent spin the world into a
second war or, potentially, keep peace in play. Just as the first game played the period up to WWI, the sequel throws a deck and die rolls onto the table and asks you to try and control regions. Events, ops points, all the usual suspects are here, and you know what? That’s okay! The usual suspects in Turmoil II are great.
You already know if this is your style of game – deck knowledge is crucial for advanced play, so Turmoil II works best with consistent opponents, as planning for certain events can be huge. That said, variable scenarios help control play time, ensuring you can get a game in with the time you have. Turns fly by fast, the map and counters are crisp, and the rules aren’t going to throw you for a loop. In short, this is a well-made sequel to a good game, and anyone who’s a fan of Twilight Struggle ought to check this one out. And if you’ve avoided that cold war title for whatever reason, Turmoil II gives you a chance to try out its system in a wholly different setting.
One aside – you can find, on the Compass Games’ website, campaign rules that allow you and your opponent to play a grand campaign where Europe in Turmoil l sets up Europe in Turmoil ll. It’s not drastic, but the changes in initial board state and cards in the deck make for a neat narrative from one game to the next. Just, you know, plan for a whole Saturday if you want to tackle both of these in a single shot.
Classic Gameplay, Fresh Campaign
The second game in the Imperial Bayonets series puts you in Europe, 1859, for four battles (and a campaign including them all) across varied maps at a time when 
force composition was reacting to infantrymen and their rifles becoming far more deadly. Published by Conflict Simulations, with the tagline of ‘old school war games for the 21st century’, Imperial Bayonets: For Liberty and Lombardy is exactly that – paper maps, counters aplenty, and rules that sit comfortably between complex and easy. I do appreciate, too, that every battle has several different configurations to play out, say, a surprise enemy assault at the battle’s start. It’s a neat way to add variety while satisfying simulation-focused players.
Ultimately, Imperial Bayonets caters to the history’s delvers, the ones who want to explore battles and wars overshadowed by greater ones. You’ve likely not played these conflicts before, and the force mix at this time in history is fascinating. If you’re hankering for an old school hex-and-counter that’ll take you somewhere new, Imperial Bayonets has you covered.
A Revolutionary Battle, Travel-Sized
Published in Vae Victus magazine #176, Cowpens 1781 wins the prize for this era by throwing you into a Revolutionary War battle where the Americans defeated a British force after a failed surprise. You’ll throw plenty of dice over the game’s two hour length, as it eschews cards for D6 chance cubes at every turn. This works
just fine, with events, chances at commander elimination, and more generally shaking out the luck curve while giving the opportunity for cinematic moments.
Among the litany of things Cowpens does right, from reasonable rules to solid graphic design (the counters are very fun), the fun factor here are formations. Used well, arranging your troops appropriately grants action efficiency and bonuses worth making the effort to attain. The result has a battlefield resembling less a haphazard collection of wannabe hero counters charging off this way and that, and a somewhat orderly army waging a real battle.
Cowpen’s size and scope put it at odds with the last two category winners (a good thing, as it’d be rather boring if every winner was the biggest game of the bunch) – as a magazine game, you’re getting a concise counter supply, a map easy to bring anywhere, and, from your own supply, those heavy metal D6s. This is a hotel room, beach vacation, or porch afternoon game, and one that works great solo (no hidden information here). There’s a few different scenarios and modifiers you can throw in too if you want a little extra spice.
All told, Cowpens 1781 wins this one by executing on its vision. Fun, fast, and without lots of extra fluff, this is an easy recommendation.
