Review: BelloLudi WWII Skirmish

By Mitch Reed

Some of you may recall my review of an area game from Peter van Dop and the folks at BelloLudi, a Dutch game company. Peter sent me another game of his to review called BelloLudi World War Two Skirmish game 1939-1945 and it has some of the same great mechanics and playability of his previous title.What I like about Peter’s games is how he creates simple rules for gamers and non-gamers to enjoy. Peter focuses on bringing games into environments such as the workplace for employees to team build and have some fun. This focus also makes BelloLudi’s rules a great way to bring non-gamers into the hobby, which is crucial to grow the community. Peter’s goal is to produce rules that are less than 20 pages which are intuitive while staying true to the genre and are easy for players to quickly pick up.

WW2 Skirmish is much like the other games in the series where command and control play an important role. Each turn starts with a Command Phase where players select a unit and then roll a special die to see if the how many orders the unit has for that turn. Not every die roll works out and if you roll a “B”, then Murphy has spoken and then you see what Blunder has occurred. I know many gamers have a distaste for mechanics that limit their freedom of action with their units. However that is how it works in the real world. Things happen, sometimes bad things, and you must roll with it.

During a turn a unit can move, change formation, charge, ambush or take cover to just mention a few ways in which you can use your units. Of course, you can also shoot and engage in close combat which revolves around a d6 which is modified based upon your units and the targets current environment. Hits can kill the models in your unit which is usually a squad of models, take too many casualties your unit can become disordered then shaken and if they continue to suffer, they end up broken and then they flee the field. One great mechanic the game has that most games often skip is dealing with a unit that surrenders and you must handle the remnants as POWs.

Units can be infantry squads of up to 12 models, heavy weapons such as HMGs, mortars, flamethrowers and artillery. The rules do feature rules for using cavalry, so players who love using mounted troops will be in luck here. Players can also utilize tanks and other vehicles in their force mix.

The game does not feature force lists except one Dutch Militia unit as an example, troops are either elite or regular and are pointed out so you can make the two opposing forces equal so you can create a balanced game. The lack of lists may be a deal breaker for some, however when you think about it, we have so many resources in other games to create forces for this game. It also ensures that you can play any battle during the war, since no game’s points system can cover all the troops involved in the war in a balanced and fair way.

Perhaps you should think of WW2 Skirmish as a sandbox game where the rules have all of the mechanics you need and you as the player can decide on what forces play in the game. I love this approach and I feel many gamers will like this as well.

As in other BelloLudi games, players have the option to use a special set of cards that help drive interaction between the players. While these cards are optional, I feel they can add a lot to the game when running it as a convention game or as a team building event with colleagues.

I tried out the game with some models I have for Bolt Action and played it with my son who sadly is not into miniature historical gaming. He was able to quickly pick up the flow of the game, and was making real tactical decisions before the first turn ended. This showed me how the game can bring non-gamers or non-historical gamers into the hobby. The community needs easy to pick up games that can attract others into collecting armies and heading to a game table.

One danger of running a simple game, is that potential players may regard it as a dumbed down version of a more complex game. That isn’t the case the BelloLudi games. They fall into the simple to play, difficult to master category. During gameplay a player must make a lot of tough tactical decisions to win the game.

Another thing that is great about this game is how it is just an excellent set of rules for multiplayer games. Many current games are just not table ready for having more than one player per side, this game is built to have two teams of multiple players engaged in WW2 combat.

While I play other WW2 28mm skirmish games, this game is one I plan to play quite a lot in the future. The approach Peter takes in designing his games makes them perfect to introduce other to our hobby and even more important the game is so much fun, and even more fun with a crowd of people.