So, a while back, I played Braunstein, the prototype RPG that predated all other RPGs. The thing was, it was more of a wargame with the idea that people played as generals or other important assets in the war, such as factory owners and police officers. Hence, I classified it as a Solo RPG Voyage and something I call a Solo Wargaming Voyage.
And while I can easily pass off Night Witches, Winter, and Kancolle as also SWVs, they were pure RPGs, as they gave characters stats or heavily encouraged a story over combat. They were not wargames in the slightest. However, it was only a matter of time before I could come across a wargame I could solo play.
This is where Minden Games comes in. Minden Games has so many wargames for different platforms that it’s pretty amazing. Best part is, most of them come with solitaire rules. Meaning, I am able to play these solo. I bought two of these games at the FLGS, since they’re were, as of July 8th when I purchased them, the only games to explicitly say they can be played solo on the front of their book.
These games use a system called “Battle over Britain”, named after the WWII battle, the Battle of Britain. The game is a simple and quick dog fighting game where one player plays as the British air forces and the other player plays as German air forces. It’s a really simple game to jump in, so I’ll do so with Tabletop Simulator.
I’ll be playing the Spitfire, while my opponent will play the Me-109E. Right off the bat, I play the nine of spades, which not only allows me to take the high ground, but also allows me to commence firing. Determining the difference between altitude (rather, how many spaces he is from me), I managed to hit him for one damage.
During the next turn, I had advantage over the German opponent. However, he managed to play a court card, which meant he was attempting to break off and make me lose advantage. Fortunately, I had a court card of my own, though it simply had me go to diamonds, the lowest level of altitude I could go.
The next turn, my opponent is caught between a two and a four. I’m using Tabletop Diversion’s variation for Solo Play where the opponent picks between two cards. He had to choose the four while I picked the six, allowing me to take the attack once again. I rolled and got, surprisingly, a four. I say surprisingly because that is actually this game’s version of a natural twenty. So now I consult the critical hit table. And I managed to finish him off with a six, which meant that the target was destroyed.
In this case, his plane blew up. Well, that was quick and dirty. I liked it. The rules were a bit heavy to get into, but once I actually bit the bullet and played with it, it was a pretty fun wargame. Now, the game as several other stuff going for it, like rules for a campaign, different scenarios, and even rules for roleplaying. This is actually a really fun game and I recommend war gamers to pick it up.
Solo RPG Voyages 