Louisbourg 1758 Gameplay & Review | 2-Player Wargame | Board Game | Worthington Publishing

0:00 hi everybody I'm zil Blitz and welcome today we're going to explore the war game Lewisburg 1758 designed by Mike and Grant Wy and published by Worthington publishing in this fast playing two-player game set in the French and Indian War the British player using a combination of Naval and land forces is trying to take control of lburg from the French in this video we'll talk briefly about the history show the components of the game show the game in action and then give some impressions of gameplay the French and Indian War from 1754 to 1763 was a conflict between Britain and France along with their Native American Allies over control of the North American territories this game focuses on the 2-month siege of Lewisburg in 1758 which was a part of that larger conflict this was a turning point in the war and marked the start of British dominance in North America the British targeted the French Fortress of Lewisburg because it was essential for controlling access to the St Lis River Quebec and the Heart of French controlled North America the British assembled a vast Fleet in Army while the outnumbered French fortified the town sank ships to block the harbor and defended the shoreline the British had two possible Pathways to Victory directly sieging and capturing the Lewisburg Fortress or taking control of the adjacent Harbor after a successful British Beach landing on June 8th the British proceeded to seize several strategic points this allowed them to bombard the French Fortress and ships in the harbor finally a British assault destroyed the last French vessels

1:31 clearing the harbor for British control on July 26 the French surrendered although the French had lost they had delayed the British long enough to prevent a further attack on Quebec in 1758 nevertheless the loss of Naval protection led to the capture of Quebec the next year and the ultimate end of French power in North America let's do a quick overview of gameplay and take a look at the components now this is a two-player game that takes less than hour to play and the units as we can see in the top left are represented by wooden blocks which you're going to be standing up so your opponent won't be able to see what your unit forces are for most of the part until the combat actually starts you can see some cards in the top right this is not a card driven game but it is a card enhanced game you're going to have the options to play cards during your turns the units are a little bit abstracted the British had about 26,000 troops in this battle and the French had about 7,000 and the force pool in the game represents that about a three or 4 to1 advantage in terms of strength and units by the British over the French the sequence of play is very straightforward and there's an initial phase where we're going to be rolling for initiative and weather and drawing cards and then there's going to be a bombardment phase and then there's an action phase and during this action phase each side can take one of four actions you can either move units from a particular location raid from a particular location do an amphibious move from a location or move your ships and then any combat that results from those movements is executed right after

3:02 you do those actions let's take a look at our rule books you get one for each player and they are modest in size here we've got 12 pages of rules nicely laid out clean full color on a little bit of glossy paper and the rules end on page eight and the cover is included as well so seven pages basically of text some nice Graphics to kind of explain things as the rules are going along and uh altogether I would give this game a complexity of two out of 10 it's very straightforward you can probably learn it in about a half an hour maybe a little bit more first game might be a little bit more than an hour is kind of a learning game and then you are good to go let's take a look at our wooden block units the red are the British and the blue are the French and the way these work is that you will be of course standing them up here but the strength value is represented on each side so we can see the French Marine unit over here on the left has three strength points then once it gets hit you're going to turn it this way so this will be facing up as two strength points and then one strength point and then you pull it off as it loses its final strength point we can see here some of the weaker militia units Indian units are represented for the French as well as some Ranger units over here for the British these are the French and the British ships and the regulars for the British which are much stronger and then we have a series of six blocks that are used in the first game turn only for hiding the British Landing zones they're about 30 cards in the game and a player can hold as many as three in his or her hand at any one point in time you'll notice they have French designations and British designations um they're all basically

4:33 played for their events and you can play them at various points during your turn or your opponent's turn uh you can only play it for the event though however if it is your country's designation the only thing you can do with a card of your opponent is discarded secretly so they don't know which cards are in play and out of play the game comes with eight dice combat is Dice based so you're going to roll one die for every strength point you have in a battle and you hit on a roll of a six for the most part there are some circumstances where you're going to be rolling at triple damage where you're going to hit on a four five or six for example if you're defending the French defending Lewisburg um or you can roll at Double damage hitting on a five or a six as well so there are variations there but as a general rule you roll your dice and every time you got a six you reduce your opponent's Force by one strength Point lastly we have our 17x 22in mounted map Board of Lewisburg and the surrounding areas we can see the harbor here and then these are the beach Landing zones for the British the movement in the game is point too so areas like Lewisburg here and for example Black Rock are connected by this road you can move eight units along a road in your particular move activation or as many as four units if it is a dotted road so a less uh capable Road for transporting units and we can see that there aren't a ton of locations in the game and again with about 30 units this is a game on for the British and about 20 or so for the French this is a game that that's going to be playing fast also in a move action you're picking one location to

6:04 move all the units in that location from so you're not moving all your units at once again a game that plays really fast we also have some turn tracks here uh bombardment tables over here and then some uh zones for holding the French reinforcements and then holding for the British forces as you start to bring them into the the area let's take a look at some gameplay now what we're going to do is we're going to play the entire turn seven in a game that I've played soliter up through the first six turn so far and just to give a context there's one scenario in the game it's a 16 turn scenario and in real life this was about 7 we 8we campaign and so if you do the math it's roughly 4 days per turn if you're going by the historical length of the campaign now there are two ways that the British can win the British can win by occupying Lewisburg which sits right here or by moving their ships into the harbor destroying the French Fleet and being the only ships in the harbor now the way the British can move into the harbor is first they have to control Island battery here on the West side and then Lighthouse Point on the east side and so if we look at the situation now it's about 3 weeks into the campaign the British have taken Lighthouse Point they have not taken Island battery the French actually on the previous turn just reinforced sent troops out of lburg Fortress to come up here and defend defend Island battery so the British perhaps can't take it now let's do a

7:34 little bit of an overview of what's happened so far other than this kind of last little flourish here the British the French started out trying to defend the three Beach heads here which is white Point Kennington Cove and then this is a flat point over here the British landed in Force at Kennington Cove and had great success pushing the Brit the French off with heavy casualties the British then sent forces up here to Western settlements beating back the French here then drove up and split their forces sending half of them here to Royal Battery and the other half work their way up along the east side up here and were able to capture Lighthouse Point and if we look so far at the casualties as we take a look at the casualties here we can see the French have lost a lot of units but strength pointwise 221 221 um there are some weaker units here these Indian units do have some special characteristics that make them valuable uh but uh outside of that some some casualties here the British have lost this one rather strong unit and several of the other units are depleted for both sides they've taken some hits on them as well so now we're approaching the case where we're drifting into turn seven but one thing to be aware of here if we were playing this game two-player the French player would be sitting on the top of the screen British player would be sitting to the bottom of the screen all these units would be tilted up so you can't see your opponent's strength of forces and it's until there's a battle in which case you reveal them but there'd be a lot more mystery as to where units were and where the forces

9:05 were and actually in the last turn you know the French reinforced up here the British wouldn't know that these were weaker militia units and where those militia units were um there's a lot more Nuance to the two-player game than there is to the solo game now um as the soliter playing this soliter I have enjoyed this this is fun I would probably give this game a five out of 10 as a soliter game um it definitely ramps up a little bit when you've got the hidden element of the blocks but it is it has been fun playing the soliter there is also I should mention you know there's kind of like guess where the the peanut is under the shell kind of thing that goes on here with the invasion along one of these three points on the west side in the first game turn and there is a rule mechanic that adjusts for that when you're playing soliter so it's nice to see that so this has been uh you know definitely I think I I'd say it's kind of a it's a good soliter experience but it does miss that hidden element with the blocks so let's go in here now and talk a little bit about what each side is trying to do as we go into turn seven as the British I'm actually going to do something that I I probably wouldn't do if I were playing this game to win but I want to show some combat uh I'm going to have the British the British are going to attack across the harbor here and try to take Island battery now it I think they're going to get mauled right because the there's a strong French Force here and I normally wouldn't do this if they could succeed it would open up the harbor and win them The Siege because they would probably be able to bring their Navy in and force and wipe out the French Fleet and and win the Battle of Lewisburg um but if I

10:38 were playing this to win honestly I would probably bring these units up closer to Green Hills bring these units over here to bada Choy so they could start bombarding Lewisburg and force the French player to split their defenses because if these Bri British units get diminished or depleted or wiped out here in this attack then the French can shift these unit get back into concentrating on Lewisburg because there really isn't a threat here on island battery by the British they would have to work their units around and they're starting to run out of time to be able to do that so I'm going to do something I normally wouldn't do now as the French uh they're again they're they've given up ground they've kind of retreated now into Lewisburg and into Island battery here they're to trying to defend these two places and balance their defenses do as much damage as they can to the British units and hold on now now uh as we go into turn seven then let's get started with it we'll put the marker right here every turn starts with an initiative role and so we will uh make a roll here let's roll for the French they get a three let's roll for the British they get a five so with the British having a higher number you can choose which side goes first which side has the initiative as the British player I when we do this attack I don't if it does succeed I don't want the French to be able to react to it so I'm going to going to let the French go first and they will be uh acting first in this turn so they will have the initiative now each odd turn starts with a card draw so let's go take

12:10 a look at the cards and we'll draw the cards for each side French are going to pick first cuz they have the initiative this turn so they and they have less than three cards so they can draw a card and they add it here this is a French card with the French symbol this is a Lighthouse Point bombardment if the British are occupying Lighthouse Point which they are the French May bombard that location in addition to any other bombardment so that will be a good one for them to use and the British will pick as well this is mortars if the British are occupying Royal Battery they are not yes they are actually that's by the the water as well roll one die and apply the results as follows so they can use this card and the British have another bombardment card they can use as well so lots of bombardments going on this turn um we're going to go now to that's the the card draw phase and now we do actually go to the bombardment phase so we're going to pull this card over here for the French cuz they'll go first so uh the French will get to bombard let's take a look at how that works so now we've shifted into the bombardment phase the French can bombard any British units adjacent to Lewisburg but there are none however they can also bombard British units that are adjacent to the harbor we have two groups here and this of course is the more threatening for the French right now this unit's up here on Lighthouse Point so we are going to bombard them for the French it's a very simple role we're going to use this bombard chart we're going to roll 1 D6 we're going to apply the result they get a one which is no effect so there is no damage done by the

13:41 French bombardment but the French have this card as well that they just drew which is the Lighthouse Point bombardment if the British are occupying Lighthouse Point the French may may bombard that location in addition to any other bombardment roll one die use the bombardment table for the results so we're going to roll again they get a four which is one strength point so we are going to reduce one strength point of the British the British can choose rather than take this two down to yeah actually we're going to take the two down to a one strength unit so the British will lose that strength on point on that unit and the French are now done with their bombardment they discard that card now the British are up and the British can bombard the French ships in the harbor they can also bombard Le if they are adjacent to it but they are not but they do have units on the sides of the harbor and they can bombard the French ships not only that they have units in two locations which means they get a plus one die roll modifier on the same chart we roll for the British bombardment they get a five which is a six which means two hit points on the French ships so the French will reduce down to one hit point for each ship now the British likewise also have bombardment cards they can use Island battery here if the British are occupying Lighthouse Point they may bombard Island battery in addition to any other bombardment roll one die and use the bombardment table results so

15:14 this would actually help with their attack going across they will do this they'll roll a die and apply the results they get a two which is no effect so no impact on that bombardment but actually it does look like the rules say you can play one card in a turn so we're not going to be able to use that second mortars card for the moment the British would be able to use that in the next turn and that finishes the bombardment phase so the British gave the initiative to the French um I'm tempted to perhaps reinforce out here but I think this is okay uh instead it would be nice to get this militia back into Lewisburg they have a movement of two so they're going to go one two back into the town of Lewisburg to to strengthen the defense there now we go to the British move here and this is a thing I would probably not do but we're going to go all out on this attack here for the British just to show what combat looks like so the British are going to move in their turn and again if I were playing this to win for the British I would probably tighten the the the the screws on Lewisburg here rather than do this but I want to show how combat works and the British are going to be bold so they're attacking across the harbor here to try to get to island battery and let's calculate our strength points so we have four four and one for the British is nine strength points the French have five8 and four is 12 strength points for the French now the defender goes first and you roll one die for each of your strength points so the French here are going to roll 12

16:46 dice we'll roll two batches of six normally you need a six to to get a hit but Island batter battery is a unique defensive position for the French French it roll it hits on a five or a six every round in the combat so the French are going to fire first the British need some misses here oh that is nasty oh four hits by the French and they're still not done cuz they get a whole another round oh gosh seven hits on the British forces oh my gosh so they'll take four and three on that one brings it down to two strength points which is that wow what a that was a crushing defeat and you do take the losses out before you roll on the attack so this not not a very good move here for the the British here um they could actually Retreat here but let let's have them attack just to show what happens here so the British they drive on in the face of this horrendous attack across the harbor they get a four and a five no hits we go to the next round the fr French are going to hold their position in fight this is going to actually finish the British off right here um the British could have retreated in their option here but a four that's a 61 hit for the French and they still get a whole another six dice here that's it the British are wiped out a complete

18:18 catastrophic attack for the British across the harbor in the seventh turn and that ends this turn so that brings us to the end of turn seven we would slide over into turn eight but we've seen an entire turn of gameplay the card draw phase on the odd turns on the even turns there's no card draw phase but there is a weather roll then bombardment phase then uh one action per side and we could see there how combat worked as well now again if I were really playing to try to win as the British I would not have done that the odds were not in their favor it didn't help that the French just rolled mercilessly on their die rolls there that was a brutal assault now there is one other condition to mention the British do need to meet and they need to have at least 24 strength points of land troops not counting their ships here um available at the end of the game and now actually this puts them in I think in a very bad position because they are going to probably need to land these troops to get them in here to kind of go to Siege at Lewisburg coming across the harbor and the French will be able to move these units back into Lewisburg that battle right there I think really shifted the odds in the French favor here before that cuz now they don't really have to worry about this unless we bring these around and there's not all that much time left British almost really need to start pounding Lewisburg but it it's looking Grim with that it failed attack they lost a lot of good units there but uh this gives a sense of the gameplay and kind of the thinking and the tactics that's in here now I was

19:49 able to play a two-person game with a solo battles uh he has a YouTube channel it's Mike from solo battles um we played a two-player game just a couple days ago and then we chatted about it so let's take a look at that with some Impressions there and then I'll come back after that to give some more final Impressions on on my side this is Mike from solo battles and we just played Lewisburg 1758 two player and we thought we'd talk a little bit about our Impressions so Mike welcome and well thank you yeah what' you think about the game I I I really love it it's it's it's requires a chess-like Precision when you're playing it right you really have to calculate your moves because there's not a lot of time there's like 16 turns there's 16 turns and it sounds like that's 16 turns that's a lot but it's like I do this okay we're done with that turn right I'm going to do this yeah cuz the whole thing took us probably about I mean it's our first game and we were learning as we were playing it probably took us about an hour and a half I think once you know it it's under an hour I was playing the British I'm trying to take Lewisburg and you're the French trying to defend it but as I was got halfway through it's like I knew that didn't think I could take the city so I knew I had to try to get the harbor but then I was looking wow trying to do the math of getting there it's like I didn't have very much you you can't waste your time and you can't waste your moves no and like Frederick the great said if you try to defend everywhere you defend nowhere and I've there's so many different things to defend as a French player and you've got so little to defend but you know if I could look

21:24 through the British players's eyes I'm going well is he going to go here is he going to go you know how it's overwhelming at first right right and I think too like this you know the British are the aggressors and the French are the Defenders Of course attackers and defend but looking at the gamep play it seemed to me like as the French player you had a lot of options what you could do I did and the fact that it's a block game and the strength of the blocks are hidden Yes means that it's if it was all exposed knowledge and you knew what was there the F the British would go oh we just boom boom boom and you dead right right right but you have no idea and so I'm like going okay I've got a lot of units for only one strength point right cuz one of the big things I was trying to that I was trying to get to attack Louisberg lburg but you had some TR troops on one of the adjacent locations there this big pile they were all really weak militia noidea I could see massive troops but I didn't know they were your like these guys like Farmers with fors so it was it was it was fun to play fun to play and say is he going to fall for this right right right you know really and it's was like oh no he's moved there I'm in so much trouble but I did like that's one of the reasons why I didn't think I could take leberg is because you had all of those that big pile of units on one side was like I can't get at it from that side and I didn't think I had enough units from the other side and you really want to play again because after you've done it you've gone wait a second I had way too many units in Lewisburg right you know I could have put all those weakly

22:55 units in Lewisburg and actually had some effective stuff moving around elsewhere but to figure that out yeah yeah definitely I feel like I want to play again too because I was too slow in trying to go for Lewisburg and I realized okay the only chance I have was to try to get ships into the harbor the historical outcome and take the harbor because I had I didn't execute the attack on Lewisburg very well you know right and I was so obsessed with defending Lewisburg that I wasn't really paying attention to the other Victory condition which I should have been watching much more closely which is the way you won and I'm going okay I could have done that a little differently right but but it was fun it was yeah it definitely fun I think this going be a really good game for beginners and the other part that I liked about it kind of we talked a little bit but I think you know oftentimes when you have an attacker and a Defender there's not much for the defender to do but you've got card play you've got raiding you've got bombardment and you've got the ship movement you know we were thinking about even at the end you could have gotten troops behind my front wave retaken this uh life house point and then prevented me from getting ships into the harbor that way too you know that's something that once you get more familiar with the game you start learning that I'd be going like okay I need to do I can get around behind him yeah I can I can do this stuff and he has no idea if I've got one strength point there or 16 strength points there right right you know and so it's it's a a lot of faints and bluffing going on exactly and you because you don't it's you know the time

24:25 span you don't feel worry about Supply you you can do those moves behind the lines and yet as like the British player I I want to make sure I left some places defended but every unit unit you leave behind is a unit you don't have attacking Lewisburg so yeah a lot of fun interesting decisions I think it it is really great and the combat can be deadly but it's also it's a game where you're you're wearing the the opponent down yeah and it's mostly a case of wearing the opponent down so you're you're kind of there's no very rare I think that you'd have a one and done right oh he just got on there and there's nothing I can do it's like no now we've got this going on and how are you going to manage this chaos right exactly yeah so fun game thanks for playing and that's our those are our thoughts on Lewisburg 1758 well thanks for having me this is great absolutely my pleasure some final thoughts on Lewisburg 1758 I really like that this is a fast playing accessible war game that covers the spirit of the campaign I really like how the defender in particular is active in this game so the French feels like to me they have a lot of options in gameplay which is a strong feature I love the speed of play you can play this whole thing in under an hour it moves quickly it's also beginner friendly I can think of two or three people I want to introduce this game to that I'm trying to gradually work into the the historical gamer fold and I think this is a game that works really well for that like the variety of Victory conditions so both as the French and the British have' got a number of ways you can approach this and the

25:55 subtlety of tactics that you can use having said I think especially as the game gets to its later phases as the French you do become a little bit constrained as to what you can do again I think this is a very good game for what it's trying to be I probably wouldn't recommend it for someone who wants a deeper historical simulation on this campaign there are a number of elements that are abstracted that are focusing on gameplay and speed of play rather than a deeper historical engagement lastly I probably wouldn't recommend this as a soliter game this really shines in two-player mode when you've got the blocks and the force straints are hidden from your opponent although you can play this soliter um it's not as colorful and it doesn't really come to life to me until you play it in two-player mode if you've enjoyed this video overview of Lewisburg 1758 you also might enjoy our war of 1812 overview which is also from Worthington publishing I'll put a link to it right up here thanks for watching everybody have a great day