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Accessible historical board games like the ones I mentioned above are also doing a great job at getting more people into historical board games, and helping to grow the overall gaming community, which is awesome.
I'm happy to share that the team behind San Diego History Con (SDHistCon) announced the first annual Summit Award in July 2022. The Summit Award was created to recognize a historical board game published in the preceding year that most broadened the hobby through the ease of teaching and/or play, uniqueness of topic, or novel approach.
The SDHistCon team is seeking nominations for games published in 2021 for consideration for the first Summit Award. I've posted some details for the Summit Award below, which can also be found on the SDHistCon website:
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Why an award?
Awards can be useful tools to achieve organizational goals, by recognizing achievement or promoting something believed to be scarce. Awards may also be used to counterbalance a negative force or recognize positive outcomes. For the SDHistCon team, the Summit Award is an opportunity for us to recognize the positive impact of a game that broadens the historical gaming hobby by drawing in more players or by introducing a new and unique subject or perspective. Our ultimate hope is that the Summit Award helps foster a discussion amongst players, designers and publishers about new ways to broaden the hobby through teaching, play, topic, and approach.
What games qualify?
To be considered for the Summit Award entries must:
---• be a manual tabletop game
---• have a closed-system rules set that does not rely on role-play or referee
---• simulate an historical setting through specific game mechanics rather than historical themes as an afterthought to game mechanics
---• concern political, social, cultural, scientific, economic, military, or any other human affairs
How will games be judged?
Games will be judged on 5 criteria:
---• Ease of Teaching
---• Ease of Play
---• Novelty/Uniqueness of Topic
---• Novelty of Approach
---• Effectiveness as a historical game
Examples of past games that expanded historical gaming
Games that have had a positive impact on the hobby and are good examples of what we are hoping to further include: Undaunted: Normandy(2019), Watergate (2019), Pax Pamir: 2nd Edition (2019), Twilight Struggle (2005), and Memoir ’44 (2004).
Call for nominations
The nomination form is now open. After the nominations close there will be a random prize drawing amongst all the nominations. One game nomination per person please.
Awards can be useful tools to achieve organizational goals, by recognizing achievement or promoting something believed to be scarce. Awards may also be used to counterbalance a negative force or recognize positive outcomes. For the SDHistCon team, the Summit Award is an opportunity for us to recognize the positive impact of a game that broadens the historical gaming hobby by drawing in more players or by introducing a new and unique subject or perspective. Our ultimate hope is that the Summit Award helps foster a discussion amongst players, designers and publishers about new ways to broaden the hobby through teaching, play, topic, and approach.
What games qualify?
To be considered for the Summit Award entries must:
---• be a manual tabletop game
---• have a closed-system rules set that does not rely on role-play or referee
---• simulate an historical setting through specific game mechanics rather than historical themes as an afterthought to game mechanics
---• concern political, social, cultural, scientific, economic, military, or any other human affairs
How will games be judged?
Games will be judged on 5 criteria:
---• Ease of Teaching
---• Ease of Play
---• Novelty/Uniqueness of Topic
---• Novelty of Approach
---• Effectiveness as a historical game
Examples of past games that expanded historical gaming
Games that have had a positive impact on the hobby and are good examples of what we are hoping to further include: Undaunted: Normandy(2019), Watergate (2019), Pax Pamir: 2nd Edition (2019), Twilight Struggle (2005), and Memoir ’44 (2004).
Call for nominations
The nomination form is now open. After the nominations close there will be a random prize drawing amongst all the nominations. One game nomination per person please.
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Whether you're familiar with Fields of Fire or not, here's an overview of gameplay from the publisher, in addition to what you can expect from the new deluxe edition:
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Fields of Fire is a solitaire game of commanding a rifle company between World War II and the Present Day. The game is different from many tactical games in that it is diceless and card based. There are two decks used to play. The Terrain Deck is based on a specific region and is used to build a map for the various missions your company must perform. The Action deck serves many purposes in controlling combat, command and control, and various activity attempts. The units of the company are counters representing headquarters elements, squads, weapons teams, forward observers, individual vehicles or helicopters. A single game is a mission and several missions from a historical campaign are strung together for the player to manage experience and replacements. A mission can be played in about 1 – 4 hours.
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Placeholder Box Cover
What’s New in the Deluxe Edition
Fields of Fire Volume I Deluxe Edition is a completely improved edition of Fields of Fire Volume I. Based on the past 15 years of feedback, hundreds of hours of playtesting, and long discussions with the design team, the Deluxe Edition presents Ben Hull’s masterpiece of tactical infantry command in a way that is accessible to the modern gamer while retaining all of the deep complexity that veteran players have grown to love over the years.
New features Include:
- A Rewritten series rulebook. The Deluxe Edition comes with a rewritten third edition ruleset, packed with examples, diagrams and clarifying notes while maintaining continuity with the second edition rules. Our rules development team of Andrew Stead and Colin Parsons have worked to eliminate ambiguities and edge cases throughout, creating a much-improved reference manual for play.
- A Starter Guide. While Fields of Fire has a reputation for being difficult to learn, the Starter Guide makes it easy. Each chapter in the Starter Guide incrementally introduces new rules through training exercises that teach you the basics of infantry combat. Later exercises act as advanced guides on setting up for air assaults and making the best use of supporting vehicles.
- A Full Starter Mission. A stand-alone mission tailored towards easing new company commanders into the full game. This mission can be played repeatedly with a variety of simplified rules to allow you to adjust to the full historical campaigns.
- Three Fully Redesigned Mission Books. Using the much-improved format from Fields of Fire: The Bulge Campaign, the Normandy, Heartbreak Ridge, Naktong River and Vietnam campaigns are presented in a clarified and expanded manner.
- Over 200 updated counters plus various additional reference markers and new units.
- New elevation cards to enhance the Heartbreak Ridge campaign.
- A completely new set of redesigned player aids including new charts and air assault planning cards.
This game is based on four actual campaigns experienced by units of the 9th US Infantry (Regiment) in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. The 9th infantry are known as the "Manchus" for their service in the Boxer Rebellion. Their motto is “Keep Up the Fire.”
What’s New in the Deluxe Edition
Fields of Fire Volume I Deluxe Edition is a completely improved edition of Fields of Fire Volume I. Based on the past 15 years of feedback, hundreds of hours of playtesting, and long discussions with the design team, the Deluxe Edition presents Ben Hull’s masterpiece of tactical infantry command in a way that is accessible to the modern gamer while retaining all of the deep complexity that veteran players have grown to love over the years.
New features Include:
- A Rewritten series rulebook. The Deluxe Edition comes with a rewritten third edition ruleset, packed with examples, diagrams and clarifying notes while maintaining continuity with the second edition rules. Our rules development team of Andrew Stead and Colin Parsons have worked to eliminate ambiguities and edge cases throughout, creating a much-improved reference manual for play.
- A Starter Guide. While Fields of Fire has a reputation for being difficult to learn, the Starter Guide makes it easy. Each chapter in the Starter Guide incrementally introduces new rules through training exercises that teach you the basics of infantry combat. Later exercises act as advanced guides on setting up for air assaults and making the best use of supporting vehicles.
- A Full Starter Mission. A stand-alone mission tailored towards easing new company commanders into the full game. This mission can be played repeatedly with a variety of simplified rules to allow you to adjust to the full historical campaigns.
- Three Fully Redesigned Mission Books. Using the much-improved format from Fields of Fire: The Bulge Campaign, the Normandy, Heartbreak Ridge, Naktong River and Vietnam campaigns are presented in a clarified and expanded manner.
- Over 200 updated counters plus various additional reference markers and new units.
- New elevation cards to enhance the Heartbreak Ridge campaign.
- A completely new set of redesigned player aids including new charts and air assault planning cards.
This game is based on four actual campaigns experienced by units of the 9th US Infantry (Regiment) in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. The 9th infantry are known as the "Manchus" for their service in the Boxer Rebellion. Their motto is “Keep Up the Fire.”
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Here's a brief description of the setting and factions to give you a feel for what Werwolf is all about:
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Inspired by the COIN series, Werwolf is an asymmetric, alternate history strategy game for 1-4 players.
It is 1945 and Germany has been invaded and occupied by the exhausted forces of the Soviet Union and Western Allies. Unlike in our timeline, the fighting continues as German resistance fighters engage in a prolonged guerrilla war. With the Manhattan Project still incomplete, Japan fighting on and the Allied invasion of Europe losing millions of men, the Allies are war-weary and there is pressure to bring the troops home. While the Wehrmacht was defeated, the Nazi leadership has spent 1943 onwards building up a huge secret guerrilla force – Werwolf - to turn the occupation of Germany into a costly quagmire. Other groups calling themselves the Edelweiss Movement are opposed to the Nazis but also to the invaders and will fight to restore an independent and patriotic Germany. The Fuhrer himself has gone missing, and many Nazi officials are in hiding, perhaps awaiting their chance to return to power.
Four factions are now competing for control and the loyalty of the German population: the Allied Occupation Forces (Western Allied Troops and German police, referred to as Allies in the rules) the Soviet Union (the Red Army and NKVD, referred to as Soviets in the rules), the Edelweiss Movement (patriotic but anti-Nazi German resistance, referred to as Edelweiss in the rules) and the Werwolf organization (former SS and other Nazi fanatics trained in guerrilla warfare, referred to as Werwolf in the rules). The struggle will be not only for military control and the hearts and minds of the German people but also over the remnants of the Nazi war machine and research programs. The Soviets and Allies may reluctantly co-operate to crush German guerrillas but will compete to secure top German scientists and prototypes for their own arms race. As the Allies try to de-Nazify the populace and entice them with American pop culture, the Soviets will use everything from indoctrination to mass deportation to keep Germany under control. Loyalties will be split between democracy, communism and resurgent fascism or nationalism. This will not be an easy occupation…
It is 1945 and Germany has been invaded and occupied by the exhausted forces of the Soviet Union and Western Allies. Unlike in our timeline, the fighting continues as German resistance fighters engage in a prolonged guerrilla war. With the Manhattan Project still incomplete, Japan fighting on and the Allied invasion of Europe losing millions of men, the Allies are war-weary and there is pressure to bring the troops home. While the Wehrmacht was defeated, the Nazi leadership has spent 1943 onwards building up a huge secret guerrilla force – Werwolf - to turn the occupation of Germany into a costly quagmire. Other groups calling themselves the Edelweiss Movement are opposed to the Nazis but also to the invaders and will fight to restore an independent and patriotic Germany. The Fuhrer himself has gone missing, and many Nazi officials are in hiding, perhaps awaiting their chance to return to power.
Four factions are now competing for control and the loyalty of the German population: the Allied Occupation Forces (Western Allied Troops and German police, referred to as Allies in the rules) the Soviet Union (the Red Army and NKVD, referred to as Soviets in the rules), the Edelweiss Movement (patriotic but anti-Nazi German resistance, referred to as Edelweiss in the rules) and the Werwolf organization (former SS and other Nazi fanatics trained in guerrilla warfare, referred to as Werwolf in the rules). The struggle will be not only for military control and the hearts and minds of the German people but also over the remnants of the Nazi war machine and research programs. The Soviets and Allies may reluctantly co-operate to crush German guerrillas but will compete to secure top German scientists and prototypes for their own arms race. As the Allies try to de-Nazify the populace and entice them with American pop culture, the Soviets will use everything from indoctrination to mass deportation to keep Germany under control. Loyalties will be split between democracy, communism and resurgent fascism or nationalism. This will not be an easy occupation…
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