war to the death
Is a boardgame designed by D.W. Alexander and edited by Omega Games in
1986 (1st ed.) and 1994 (2nd ed.). It depicts the problems suffered
by the French armies in Spain during the Peninsular War from 1810
onwards. The French player must confront the British (the Portuguese
army is abstracted, the Spanish regular forces and the Spanish
Guerrillas and. The boardgame emphatises the logistics aspects and
requeriments that are different for French, British or Spanish.
More information about this game in:
http://www.isimulacrum.com/GamesDB.html
http://grognard.com/reviews/wardeath.txt
http://grognard.com/reviews/wardeat1.txt
As in the real world, the game is heavily biased against the French
following the historical guidelines (for example the French units
transferred from Spain to the Grande Armee for the Russian
invasion). The game mechanisms are very different for French,
British and Spanish sides and their complexity is moderate.
Ultimately, this plays in favor of the solo player: it becomes very
easy to concentrate in a given side fully forgetting the others!
After buying the boardgame and having discovered Cyberboard, I
developed a first game-box for
War to the Death, including the initial situation given by the
designer, march of 1810, before the creation of the Massena's Army
of Portugal.
In general, the original map included in 'War to the
death' reflects well the limitations imposed by the Peninsular
geography, but suffers from of some inconsistencies. With the help
of Pablo Martín
Fernández, a Spanish wargamer whom I found at the
Consimworld Forum, the original game map has been modified to
make it more similar to the true state of the Spanish road
communications network at the beginning of the XIX century.
| Old map | Intermediate map |
 |
 |
A
new gamebox
has been developed including both maps so the players could choose the
more adequate to their whishes.
A 1808 Scenario by Pablo
Martín Fernández
During the first months of 2009, Pablo has been posting to
ConsimWorld Forum some ideas about a 1808-1809 Scenario, including
Spanish Juntas, Early Spanish Logistics, Portuguese Army, Spanish
War Weariness and Romana Division . You can download the
corresponding WORD documents starting from this
ConsimWorld Forum address.
Pablo has included all the new markers in a new game-box for the first
stages of the Peninsular War, that can be download from that Forum,
WttD1808.gbx, or from this site:
Early Years
game-box.
Another map modification
The southern part of Portugal has been modified to take in account the
Elvas fortress, a feature lacking in the two previous maps. I have
followed the modifications of MSFoy, that is using my modified map
for his Solo Peninsular Campaign (see the
Prometeus in Aspic blog
| New map (Portugal corrected) |
 |
A
new game-box has been designed,
including the three maps.