Lightning War
Steve Brophy
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My eye was recently taken by an advert for Decision Games new Lightning War card game series. In my 35 or so years in this hobby, I've always enjoyed card games, whether of the Paths of Glory type, where the cards are part of a boardgame, or the pure card game types such as Modern Naval Battles or UpFront. The first two offerings in this series are Lightning War D Day and Lightning War Midway. As a naval buff, I decided to buy the Midway game. It is advertised as a fast paced, easy to play card game, and on the evidence of, admittedly, only a few playings, it seems to live up to the blurb. |  |
For your money you get a game box just over 6"x 5"x1 1/2" which makes it easily portable. Inside are 2 packs of 2 1/4"x 3 1/2" playing cards (55 per side) and a rules sheet on one side of a piece of paper 11" x 8 1/2", and that's it. No dice, you don't need them. A suggested layout for the cards to play the game is on the reverse of the rules sheet.
There are 4 types of cards, Country, Objective, Force, and Action, these latter cards being divided into Tactics, Events, Leaders and Special cards. Each card has a photograph in the top half, and the majority of them have a combat value and text describing their effects, in the bottom half. They are all marked with their type (Tactic, Event etc.) to the left of the photograph.
Each side has 4 objective cards, the Japanese have 4 carriers and the Americans 3 and Midway island. Victory is achieved by destroying all of the enemy objectives.
To start the game, each player takes his Country card, which lists his starting forces and the sequence of play. He also takes his starting Force cards and Objective cards, and sets them out face up on the table in front of him. The rules are not clear as to whether the Force cards should be face up or face down, but if memory serves, the Q and A on Consimworld says face up.( It also clarifies the almost inevitable anomalies you get in a game where the rules are this short, e.g.. the text on Action cards is actioned as they are placed onto the table provided they are not annotated with "After the Battle", even if they are subsequently discarded due to your opponent playing a similar Action card.) The Force cards all represent the aircraft that took part in the battle. The starting cards all have the letter S in the top right hand corner. The players then take their remaining cards, shuffle them, and deal themselves 9 cards each as their starting hand.
The sequence of play is as follows, American player first.
1. Discard from your hand as many cards as you wish.
2. You may then do only one of the following:
a. Attack an enemy objective.
b. Put up to 3 force cards on to the table from your hand,
c. Draw more cards to bring your hand up to 9.
To attack, you move one or more of your force cards that are on the table, to the middle of the table, and announce which objective you are attacking. The defending player then moves some of his force cards to the middle, and both players then begin to alternate playing Action cards. The defender cannot play Action cards if he has not committed at least one Force card to the battle. There may be no more than one Action card of each type in play on the table at any one time, so if for example, the American player played a Tactic card, the Japanese player could play a Tactic card and the American one would be discarded. The American could then play another Tactic card to cause the Japanese one to be discarded, or he could play a Leader or Event card. Some cards have an additional bonus. Say there is a Japanese Event and a Japanese Leader card on the table. If the American player has the" Nimitz" Leader card in his hand, he could play it, causing the Japanese Leader card to be discarded, but in addition, the wording on the Nimitz card states that the Japanese Event card is also discarded. You don't have to play a card each time, you can pass and let your opponent play another one. You can even trump one of your own cards if you wish.
Play continues back and forth until both players pass in succession. At this stage their will be a maximum of 3 Action cards on the table, one Tactic, one Event and one Leader, You then add up the combat values of your Force cards, add on the combat values of any of the Action cards that are yours, and compare your total to that of your opponent who has done the same for his side. The attacker wins if his total exceeds that of the defender, any other result is a win for the defending side. If the attacker wins, the objective is destroyed and removed from the game. Some cards have an After the Battle notation on them, and these instructions are now followed. Any remaining Force cards are returned to the players hands, and the Action cards played, discarded. Since you can only deploy a maximum of 3 cards on your next turn, you can see that it is important not to over commit your forces to an attack, because you may well be left defenseless when your opponent takes his turn.
Special cards state on them when they can be played, and usually involve whether a task force has been spotted or not. There is also a rearm and refuel card allowing you to deploy a card from your hand to the table, and a Knockout Blow card allowing you to attack more than one objective in a turn. Some Force cards are dependent on a specific carrier or Midway. Lose the carrier/Midway and the Force card is also removed from play.
The game usually lasts no more than half an hour and only takes a minute or so to set up, especially if you leave the Objective, Country and starting Force cards on the top of each pack when you finish playing. Our hobby is always crying out for games that might attract newcomers to it without scaring them off with 80 page rule books, and this seems to fit the bill nicely. Even an old grognard like me, finds it an enjoyable game, fun, simple yet not simplistic. I hope they bring out a Battle of Britain game.