Up Front at DiceConEast
Note: the main article is by Ellis Simpson. The helpful extra comments - the stuff in square brackets - are from John McLintock.
Introduction
Ever since I opened the box too many years ago, Up Front has been one of my favourite games. It is a tactical level game where each player commands a squad and tries to achieve a scenario set goal. But there is no bird's eye view of the battlefield with perfect intelligence here. Instead, you have to be able to manage a hand of cards and the barrow load of fate that comes your way. Up Front is a card game with each nationality having its own unique hand size and discard capability. This is also one of the game's strengths because playing one nationality is very different from every other. And the game plays havoc with perfect plans because there are none. You can only move, fire, rally or do lots of other things (you normally get to do when you want) when you have the cards. So, to the uninitiated, Up Front may seem a game of luck. But playing experience shows this to be nonsense. Like any good game, the best players will win more. You only have to look at the World Boardgame Championships or their regular league and tournament play.
If there's a downside it is the rulebook. It makes the European Constitution look like a James Patterson novel. Fortunately there are good sources of help available on the Internet and the game is also blessed with a hardcore of experienced practitioners who will patiently [and I mean really patiently] teach the game to interested parties. Which brings me to John McLintock. John, it's your turn...
[It's not saying much to note that the uncertainties inherent in the cardplay - especially when applied to the shape of the battlefield itself - make the card deck the most controversial feature of Up Front; one loved and loathed in equal measure by its fans and by those who haven't taken to the game. It's really a matter of point-of-view, in the game I mean. The point-of-view of the Up Front player is that of the platoon commander: in close contact with his men, but lacking the direct and immediate role of the squad NCOs who appear in the game. All the different levels of abstraction built into the functioning of the card deck are held together by this. That's why the skills of the cardplayer add to those of the combat tactician to give this game its unparalleled simulation of small unit action in all its fear and confusion.]
[The rules of Up Front certainly don't win many marks for easy reading. This isn't helped by how completely unfamiliar the game's mechanics will be to those schooled in classic hexmap and counter wargames, not to mention the modern crop of family-friendly eurogames. But the rules are written in a programmed learning format, so that you learn the game bit-by-bit as you play each new scenario. And they're not terribly long either (just a couple of dozen pages or so), so a few games and a couple of thorough reads, and you should've digested enough to start to enjoy some of the rules' many other merits. These include being pretty much rock-solid. In all my many games, nothing has ever come up in play that couldn't be resolved by a quick check of the rules. And they are sensibly organised and well-indexed to boot. So don't let Ellis put you off getting hold of a copy of the rules; all the better to prepare yourself for future tournaments!]
I met John at DiceCon and although my Up Front play is lacking he gladly volunteered to play and teach. So, I got some much needed practice in and John shone a bloody big beacon of light into the dark corners of the rulebook that I had kept away from. Real life intruded and we could not keep playing but John was keen to see if we could get a tournament going. He ran one at DiceConWest [June 2004] and was keen to try again. He ran another at DiceConEast [November 2004] and this should give you a flavour.
There were four players: me, John, Donald Hosie and Martin Lumsden. John settled on an all play all format so that way we got three games each. Magic! We played 'Patrol' under the full rules. The house rule was that each player could choose their own nationality each time.
Round One
Round 1 saw John's Brits beat Donald's Germans. Martin's Japanese crushed my Germans. Martin had managed to get enough guys to the winning position but I held them off, temporarily, by infiltrating. It couldn't last and it did not. John's comments give you a different flavour...
[Round one saw two players fresh out of boot camp learning some harsh lessons about group formation: securing the flanks has to be done, but not at the expense of the firepower of your firebase. Choosing the Germans with their 10-man squad, Donald and Ellis fell foul of one of the trickiest solutions to this problem at set up. Seeing the closing stages of Ellis' game against Martin (the Germans against the Japanese - a definite first!), I was surprised that Ellis had lasted so long, because he didn't have the solid firepower needed to hold back Martin's aggressive human waves. ]
Round Two
Round 2 went better for me. I managed my first ever win against John. My Germans were in top form. My sniper popped up to pin his Brits every time I ran out of fire cards. But he knew things were bad when his Bren Gun snapped in the first couple of hands. It went from bad to worse as my fire kept nailing his men. Poor John. Nothing went right for him in that scenario. Donald's Germans, meantime, were bested by Martin's Japanese. Martin seems to revel in the Japanese hand in Up Front. You need to be good to do that.
[With one of the quirkiest hands in Up Front, the Japanese are the fastest-moving force in the game, at the price of constant movement in the face of the enemy - always risky. Recklessness and calculation in equal measure are needed to play the Japanese, all the more so to fully to exploit their capacity to launch unnerving all-out rushes threatening you with massed rifle fire and the bayonet as you sit there gawping and searching desperately for something - anything - to do in response. Only the Russians can match this man-to-man. Everyone else has to use serious firepower, the knack of which failed Donald here. This victory under his belt, Martin was heading for a whitewash.]
[My British outdid themselves in my most dramatic game of the day. Choosing to ignore a stalking horse advancing up the flank, I ventured a respectable RR0 fire attack at Ellis' firebase (now significantly beefed-up) with my own; an instant red 6 malfunctioned my bren straight off the mark, and it promptly junked on my first repair attempt- rare misfortune! Bad certainly, but not quite as dire as Ellis paints it: I promptly transferred the unarmed bren gunner out of the group, transferred in my sergeant in, swapped the group from position B to C, then out to D, from where I began an end run for a positional victory with a 6-man group all morale 3 or better. ]
[My hand was stunning. I got all the movement and terrain cards I needed pretty much as and when I needed them, reaching range chit 3 without too much difficulty and astonishing speed. Ellis had at least twigged, moving his own firebase out to the same flank to close the range the better to rain fire on my men. It was my last charge towards victory when it all finally went a bit haywire, and I made a fatal mistake to top this off. I couldn't win the instant I hit the dirt at range chit 4, needing to win counter-infiltration thanks to the efforts of Private Beck- that was haywire. I had another group charging up the other flank for the sake of card cycle (I was looking for concealment cards), and I dropped them onto a hill (still looking for concealment cards!)- that was my fatal mistake. My assault group was thus forced to get mired in a marsh (d'oh!). There, unable to counterinfiltrate or manoeuvre, fire hampered, they were slowly but surely picked off by Ellis from his own hill. He didn't have much difficulty in surviving and breaking my last desperate efforts all along my line. A great game!]
Round Three
Round 3 saw John do me a favour by beating Martin for once. That meant a win by me would bring a three way draw. And so it proved. But Donald (using the Germans) was cruelly unlucky against my British section. For long parts of the game he was one card away from victory. And on each occasion, having averted disaster, I saw him coming back to threaten the same again. I think he was there or thereabouts to win on at least three occasions. But on the fourth I managed to get my fire group on song and they gave me a win I probably did not deserve.
[My bren didn't fail me this time, and Martin's fearsome Japanese rush ground to a halt, just short of all-out victory, in the face of the best riflemen in the game, on a good day. Ellis was left in with a chance on the honours, which he did with a second grimly-won fight against a dogged and determined opponent not afraid to press forward when necessary and so come within a single card's sight of victory.]
So John, Martin and I shared the win ahead of the plucky Donald. I did warn him that breaking off to have a game of Memoir 44 was not the best way of preparing for Up Front. Maybe next time he'll get his Up Front play done, up front!
[And so DiceCon's second Up Front tournament ended a hard-fought 3-way tie. Thanks to the SBGA for providing the venue, and to Donald, Ellis and Martin for joining in. Oh, and what's this Ellis, about Memoir'44 and Up Front? Donald did almost beat you after all, which sounds like quite good preparation really, and I know from experience exactly how quickly someone schooled in Memoir'44 can pick up Up Front, I can assure you! ]
Thanks to all for playing and to John for running this.
Ellis Simpson
14 December 2004