| Title | Volko Ruhnke's Nevsky is a fiddly that has its own quality |
| Author | Bruce Geryk |
| Posted in | Game reviews |
| When | February 11, 2020 |
Wargame design has developed so profoundly over the past four decades that a collection spanning this era almost feels like a series of geological strata..
@Brooski Wow that is quote the review (excellent as always). Did you play solo or against someone? If you played with someone how did it go?
Oh, I wouldn’t write a review of a game without playing it multiple times against someone. My first play (and a subsequent play) were here against one of the playtesters who happens to live in my area. My second play was described late in the review, in this paragraph:
I need a recommendation for a good wargame set during Nero’s reign so I can fiddly while Rome burns.
I am blind! Not sure how I missed that sentence.
I like the board a lot. Makes me want to jump back into CK2.
Fantastic review. I feel like I was levied into Bruce’s campaign, taken to war, and left exhausted and wistful at the end.
Thanks for the review, Bruce. As a historian who’s done more than a little bit of research on the challenges of military and political command for feudal lords in the European Middle Ages, Ruhnke’s efforts to make accessible the delicate process of raising troops and keeping them in the field sparked my interest in Nevsky. The similarly delicate process of seasonal transport and fodder? Less so.
I’m sure there are people who appreciate the granularity described in the review, but I’d honestly have preferred something even more abstract, like the movement rules from Sekigahara (another good game about the pitfalls of pre-modern militaries).
One of our regular commenters, @Tom_Mc, also brought up Sekigahara in an email. I kind of dismissed it as a comparison of two different systems four centuries apart. Maybe I should reconsider.
That’s the first time I’ve seen fiddly used as a noun. Well done.
They are different systems representing different historical situations, but the fundamental question of “how to get an army to a battlefield and how to make it fight once it gets there without one of those items undercutting the other” is asked (and, apparently, answered) in both.
I like how, in Sekigahara, cards represent your influence over your commanders, spent generally outside of battle and specifically in it. It allows both for a smaller army to defeat a larger one in detail and for an army to be too big and too heterogeneous to move or fight effectively. Equally, I like the distinction in Nevsky between Fealty and Service, but the interaction of conveyances, fodder, routes, and seasons in the movement rules does sound too… well, fiddly, to the point that it obscures the historical circumstances being modeled.
I haven’t played enough to deeply comment but I agree with Bruce that the combat is almost too simple after all the detailed movement and transport work you have to do. To me its incongruous. Its as if it can’t decide whether it wants to be steeped in detail to evoke the period or “simple and elegant”. Either approach is valid, but I’m not sure you necessarily get reese’s peanut butter cups by trying to do both. I need some opposed play.
When I last visited @brooski, we played Sekigahara, which I loved*, and then he showed me Nevsky, and, hoo boy. I can appreciate from this review what Nevsky is trying to do, but between Bruce’s write-up and how nonplussed I was at his first-hand explanation of the logistics, Nevsky looks like a disaster to me. Which is unfair to say, since I haven’t played it, but barring some fortuitous shipwreck on a desert island with nothing but a copy of Nevsky and a buddy, I don’t anticipate ever playing it.
I’m increasingly coming to the conclusion that rolling individual d6s in any “serious” game is never a good idea. I’m looking at you, Twilight Struggle!
-Tom
* and bought
Rolling individual d10s is fine, though. See Mark Herman’s Empire of the Sun.
From the rules I’ve read and the accounts presented here it looks like Nevsky is solidly a game about logistics. The combat portion does seem like it’ll be lightning quick compared to all the effort put into just getting your lords mustered and mobilized. I’ve still got some hope for it, but Bruce brought up a design feature I really dont like.
I hate having to look at a main board while keeping track of my sideboard and other player’s side boards as well. I see why they did it in Nevsky but I hate having to divide my focus like that and really appreciate games that manage to put everything in front of all the players right there in the middle for all to see.
Sounds like a great candidate for appification!
So glad you played it. I had zero doubt you would love it. I think it’s one of the gems in the hobby.
I really enjoyed the review, Bruce, and while I definitely agree the game is fiddly, I think we disagree on the end-result quite a bit. I found most of Nevsky to ‘work’ quite well at getting me to think along the lines of the conflict in hand. The combat, in particular, I felt was fine for what it is precisely because of how high the variance is–the system is built to actively discourage combat, and that maps with how few field battles there were in this period.
Secondly, after reading your review and thumbing through the comments here, I wonder if you and your opponent might not have misunderstood a very important rule about movement? I’ve quoted below:
To move along a track, you need a cart. To move along a waterway, you need a boat. But in the winter everything is frozen, so you actually need a sled. And in the “rasputitsa” (the springtime thaw in the game) even the tracks are flooded, so you can only use boats.
Movement, per se, is never restricted by lack of transport (except in the case of Sail actions, but those are relatively rare). It’s only movement of Provender and the Supply action that is so restricted. Indeed, the rules actively encourage dumping Provender and feeding off the land via Ravage actions, which is something I’ve found works considerably well if planned for properly.
Corrections:
“giving the player [the] ineffable but unmistakable feeling”
“rubric of aspirational” (double space)
I’ve registered to express my appreciation for this review. I had to make a quick decision whether to buy a second hand copy of Nevsky and google led me here. I found a considered, relatable review, that allowed me to walk away with confidence in that decision. The subject appeals so strongly I briefly tried to justify purchasing it as a campaign engine for battles using some other system, but that would be putting the cart/sled/boat before the horse. Thank you Bruce.
I’ve played Nevsky a few times over the past month and really enjoyed it. Wrapping my head around the transport rules took a while, but now that I have them down, I find that they make for very satisfying/agonizing decision-making. By our third game, we were maneuvering and counter-maneuvering with aplomb.
In our last game, we played the “Return of Prince” scenario, aka The Russians Strike Back. Toward the end, with Aleksandr leading an enormous army besieging Dorpat, the Bishop of Dorpat said, “f*** this, I’m out” and promptly resigned his military commission.
That left only Bishop Heinrich of Ösel-Wiek. Rather than march forth to confront the eastern hordes, he jumped on a ship to go raid the Russians’ poorly defended northern shore. Thanks to this tactical cowardice (and Aleksandr finally running into supply issues), the Teutonic forces managed to eke out a victory.
I’d like to play the full, two-year scenario at some point, but my friend and I are fairly slow to take turns in this game, so I’m not sure if we’ll ever devote the time.
