Quartermaster General: South Front

Having played Quartermaster General: East Front recently, Han and I moved on to play the South Front version. The South Front of World War 2 refers to the Mediterranean theatre. The game has a long map that stretches from Gibraltar in the south of Spain to Iraq in the Middle East. You have North Africa, Italy and the Balkans too. On the Axis side you have mainly the Pact (I think these are mostly Italians) and then you have some Germans too. On the Allies side you have the British and the Americans, and one French infantry. The Americans only enter the war mid way though. The game starts with the Axis invading North Africa. The British controls Egypt and tries to hold on. The Americans won't be coming yet for some time. However the tide of war will turn, due to how the decks are stacked. The game will develop in a more or less historical way, but things can develop in unexpected ways. 

That blue infantry is the French

In general this works like Quartermaster General: East Front. It has fewer pieces, so it feels a little closer to the original Quartermaster General. However this still feels more tactical, like East Front, and less strategic, like the original. You play through a fixed timeline. You score points at certain intervals. If any side outscores the other by 10 or more, it achieves an instant victory. Else you compare points at the end of the game. The game is card driven. Both sides have their own decks. You only play one card on your turn, unlike East Front where you play two. 

One new thing here is neutral countries. You can choose to attack them. They will join the other side, but if you capture them, some of them give victory points. Some cards let you bring neutral countries to your side. Neutral countries don't actively attack your opponent. They just have infantry defending themselves. 

Transports play an important role here. Often you need to ship infantry and tanks around. Naval battles can be crucial. There are few game pieces, so losing a piece can be painful. Also you can easily run out of pieces and you can't deploy more even if you have a card that lets you do so. So you have to think about where you want to have units. They can't be everywhere. 

In the first game I played against Han, I was the Axis and he was the Allies. I played aggressively and pushed hard toward Egypt. I was able to capture it, but I had a bad feeling. I realised I was running out of cards, when Han still had a lot. I think the Allies have more cards and normally their cards will last longer. I wasn't prepared for that and I had not been conserving my cards. Thankfully I managed to outscore him at mid game, and won an instant victory. Otherwise it would have been downhill for me all the way from then on, and I am sure I would have lost. 

As the Axis I vacated Italy and poured everything to North Africa.

Contingency cards are always available. You know your opponent's contingency cards. They are single use and they are played just like normal cards. 

I was the Axis and I was completely surrounded in Tunisia. At this point the Americans had entered the war (dark green pieces).

This was our second game and I was the Allies. Han was active in the Balkans and captured some territories. I had to respond by activating my own allies and even sending an infantry. He pushed aggressively towards Egypt. The situation was bleak for me. Then something unexpected happened. His whole army about to invade Egypt was wiped out due to their supply lines being cut off. I did deliberately try to send lone units to disrupt his supply, but I thought all I would achieve was distraction and delay. He misunderstood part of the supply rules, and did not re-establish his supply line in time. It was disaster for his huge army. Needless to say, things went downhill for him from that point onwards. 

The Axis soldiers still put up a good fight on the Italian peninsula. However the Allies simply had overwhelming numbers. One thing that worked out differently from our first game was I established a supply depot on the tiny island of Malta. In the first game I didn't feel Malta was important and as the Axis I didn't even bother to capture it. However in the second game I realised its importance when as the Allies I used it as a supply source. I still don't quite know why the lone French infantry in the game though. Just for flavour? 

Near final push up the Italian peninsula

Rome has fallen

South Front, like East Front, is a little scripted. You are not just re-enacting history though, you try to do at least a little better than your historical counterpart. That's how you win the game. You don't have many game pieces, and the board is not big. Sometimes it feels like you don't have a lot to do. The beauty in the game is how you decide to use your cards. In an ideal world, you draw all the right cards at the right time, and you fully utilise the card powers. But most of the time you have to work out how to best use your cards given your situation. Sometimes you spend cards not for their powers but for basic actions. Some actions require you discard cards. This is when you sacrifice some cards in order to be able to use other cards.