A game report from James:

POG day occurred last weekend and what a little gem it revealed. POG is not a new collectable children's toy but stands for the game Paths of Glory that covers the whole of WWI in a tidy and playable game. It follows the same card play and area movement format as Hannibal, We the People and Successors. Peter hosted the day and whilst Peter faced Nick I had to deal with Dave. After a great summary of the rules by Peter we started to play the first year of the war.

I started as the Central Powers of Austria and Germany, having to deal with the three fronts of France, Russia and Serbia. I know Dave is an aggressive player so thought I should make as much of a nuisance of myself in France to deflect his attention from the other fronts were he was numerically superior, well I should have remembered my History because by turn 2 the front had ground to a halt as the trenches that were being built meant no-one was going anywhere. My early gains on this front were soon countered by Russian advances in the second half of the game. A draw overall.

Seeing this introductory game only took a couple of hours we decided to play on to see how far we could get. We kept the same sides. I started with a different move in France by trying to destroy the BEF this did not go well however a lucky break against the French 5th saw three German armies pour down behind the French trenches, but the mauled BEF stepped into the gap in the French trenches and held the woodland at Sedan to place three German armies out of supply, that was effectively game over after 20 mins. Dave then strung together some great card play and steamrollered into Germany in the East. The war was over by the end of 1914, if only this could have been the case.

I really want to sit down for the whole 8 hour(!) game now.

Many Thanks to Peter