[Nevsky Run Download Under 1gb
Gildo Santiago
I love asymmetrical wargames, especially those that are designed by Volko Ruhnke. Some of my favorite designs that he has graced us with are Labyrinth: The War on Terror, 2001-?, Wilderness War, Fire in the Lake: Insurgency in Vietnam and Falling Sky: The Gallic Revolt Against Caesar. He has though taken a step back in history with his last two designs (Falling Sky and its expansion Ariovistus) and focused more on the ancients and now he is taking a stroll into the Medieval period with his latest design Nevsky: Teutons and Rus in Collision, 1240-1242 from GMT Games. While at Origins 2018, we met up with Wendell Albright who is serving as the developer of this game and he gave us a quick intro to the system and I could immediately see that this was destined to be a good game. I immediately contacted Volko and just had to ask him nearly 35 questions on the design. As usual, Volko was extremely gracious and gave me the following answers for you to read through and come to understand whether Nevsky is a game for you.
Please keep in mind that the materials used in this interview of the components, maps, player boards and card are not yet finalized and are only for playtest purposes at this point. Also, as the game is still in development, details about the game may still change prior to publication.
Volko: Starting with the gap in wargamer attention to the era, the most compelling aspect is the wealth of stories there, yet to be told in our medium. We call it the feudal system for a reason: feuding was near constant, warfare and trial by combat so central to politics and society, that we have a remarkably rich military history to explore as hobbyists.
At the same time, the nature of warfare may strike us as unusual and exotic, perhaps even more so than that of the classical era centuries more distant from our time. The early Medieval period (or Dark Ages) saw a rebuilding of society including military culture from the wreck of the Roman Empire. The high Middle Ages developed that shaky reboot into its own new form that continued for centuries before development into modern professional military practice. This is a long and twisting road that bears detailed examination and simulation well beyond the comparative handful of wargames on medieval topics, particularly at operational scale.
Volko: With so much Medieval action to choose from, I am most eager to visit the most consequential and diverse spots. Just as the boundary of ecosystems tends to host the richest and most varied forms of life, so warfare at the frontiers, at cultural boundaries, tells the most engaging stories. Replaying which German baron will rule a certain Burg for the next several years may be interesting, but how much more interesting to re-fight the campaigns that set borders between Russia and the West that survive unaltered to this day!
Christiansen, Eric. The Northern Crusades (1997 Second Edition of 1980 original). Rich in cultural and economic description of the Teutonic sweep into a Baltic region of diverse pagan and Russian peoples, including the roles of popes and legates and some pages on the crusade against Novgorod.
Michell, Robert and Nevill Forbes, translators. The Chronicle of Novgorod 1016-1471 (1914). The near contemporary source most frequently quoted by historians of the 1240-1242 campaign, providing in conjunction with the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle some description corroborated from both sides.
France, John. Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, 1000-1300 (1999). A more modern version of Delbrckian systemic analysis of medieval warfare: higher political authority, horse and foot, castle and siege, campaign and command, ravaging and supply.
Oman, C.W.C. The Art of War in the Middle Ages (1885). Brief, readable, fundamental essay on the nature of medieval warfare, later deemed to overemphasize the role of the heavy knight in obtaining decision on the battlefield.
Verbruggen, J.F. The Art of Warfare in Western Europe During the Middle Ages (1997). The most influential 20th-Century work on the general topic; a corrective to or at least elaboration of Delbrck and Oman regarding, for example, the supremacy of the armored horseman, Verbruggen gave more examination to the impact of a combined arms system of elite cavalry, numerous pike-armed foot soldiers, and supporting archers.
Grant: What other topics or conflicts might eventually find their way under this banner? Have you already started scratching out notes, mechanics or special elements for any specific one?
I have done some early research on each of these settings and have scratched out or at least made mental notes on special elements, and some of the design decisions in Nevsky are in preparation for how the Series will portray these other settings with as much convenient reliance as possible on what I hope by then will be familiar mechanics to Levy & Campaign players.
Volko: As Wendell said in your recent Origins interview that you mention below, there are a lot of moving parts. He laid them out well, and I encourage anyone interested in getting a quick sense of what our model covers to give that video a view. The big subsystems in nested interaction are:
Volko: As one of his handles, WIFWendell, suggests, he is a World in Flames aficionado, so experienced and adept at hardcore tabletop military simulation. Levy & Campaign is rather more wargamey than my COIN Series designs, so I needed a developer who would be highly competent and comfortable in that genre.
Every 40 Days, each side will use Levy by Lords and sometimes Call to Arms by higher authorities to Muster people and equipment that they think they will need. Lordship is limited while possibilities of what to gather are wide. Players will need carefully to weigh and wager what might become necessary this turn.
Grant: Sleds, carts and boats means lots of ways to move goods. How are each important in the game and when are they useful and not so much? Also, weather impacts the Eastern Front I see but in a different way. How did weather effect Medieval armies in the east?
Volko: Medieval operations had to match the rhythm of the Seasons. Interestingly, the particularly long and harsh winters of Russia did not mean campaigning ended. On the contrary, the frozen ground and water meant that movement across marshland became easier, for example. Armies used sleds in place of the wagons of summer.
Grant: I also understand that armies can Ravage areas or Forage for food. How are these two actions different? Did the idea of Ravaging have its genesis in your previous Wilderness War design?
Ravage is bent on destruction: the point is to inflict pain on the rulers of the Ravaged territory. Goods are taken during the burning, of course, but they are incidental to the strategic purpose. In the game, only enemy territory may be Ravaged, but in any Season, earning VP and one Provender plus one Loot (which can be used to reward and encourage your Lords).
The force structure is that either side will have Mustered some number of up to six Lords each, perhaps with help from their Higher Political Authorities. Each Lord will display on a 5-inch square map some starting units and Assets such as Transport, plus markers for Vassals that he might Levy to add more Forces.
Forces divide into Horse and Foot, Armored and Unarmored (see below). Each unit piece represents from 50 to 200 fighting men, though even that range is a low-confidence one, since the numbers are in so much historical dispute.
With regard to immersion, the use of wood helps me because I can better envision through three-dimensional shapes in appropriate colors the groups of men arrayed on a field than I can with flat counters bearing numbers and images of a single soldier or two each. Medieval cavalry attacked in wedge formation, per Delbruck, while infantry formed rouge phalanxes; so we have wedges for Horse units, brick-shaped blocks for Foot. I have not heard of any complaints in this regard from anyone who has played the game.
Here in Nevsky, the stricture of the cards represents poor communications across the countryside once a war council divided, plus iffy obedience within a feudal system that gave subordinate Lords a lot of sway over their own operations.
Grant: As you mentioned a few times above, the game uses Event cards and Capabilities that are found on the same card. How does this work? Why was this your preferred way to deal with cards?
In this sample playtest Arts of War card, the Event at top and Capability below are mildly related: each represents some aspect of the Russians benefitting from what is going on out in the Baltic, either trade or an island uprising there. The Russian player in considering this card has a choice between exerting effort (Levying) to obtain the Baltic Sea Trade benefit or leaving that on the table for a chance of an Osilian Revolt stinging the Teutons, at no other cost to the Russians.
Volko: I kept combat straightforward (at least, I hope so), to keep the attention at the operational level. The mechanics are loosely derived from those used in Falling Sky, but with more unit types, differentiation of Melee and Archery, general positioning on the field, and other added aspects. For much more detail on combat in Nevsky, please see my articles on InsideGMT, especially Part 3 and those that will follow, here: =20619 .
Volko: Lords who are Attacked and/or defeated in the field when they have a friendly Fortification behind them benefit from Withdrawing inside rather than Retreating to another Locale. Whether or not an enemy has Withdrawn inside, an enemy approaching a Fortification, such as a Castle or walled City, immediately gets a Siege marker on the Fortification.
Protection from Walls or Siegeworks is shown in a very similar way to Armor: a die roll range that cancels Hits. Stonework Castles have Walls 1-3, while mostly wooden Forts have 1-2, for example. Each Siege marker adds to the Walls for the Attacker: three markers are Walls 1-3, etc.
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