Goonhammer Reviews: Quartermaster General South Front

In military terms, a Quartermaster General is the officer in charge of managing logistics and distributing supplies for an entire army. Designer Ian Brody didn’t choose Quartermaster General as the overall title for his series of WWII-focused board games randomly – they are very much about the cost of warfare and the difficulty of maintaining supply lines.

Quartermaster General: South Front is a self-contained two-player game that zooms in on the fighting in North Africa between 1940 and 1944. As with most WWII games, one player plays as the Allies, primarily British and American forces in this case, while the other plays as the Axis, consisting of Germany and Italy, with room to add smaller countries such as Bulgaria over the course of the game.

How Does It Play?

The game is played out on an impressive 11 inch by 44 inch board, centered on the Mediterranean Sea and featuring the north edge of Africa and southern Europe as its contested areas. It is primarily an area control game, with certain, tactically significant areas such as Gibraltar, Athens and Egypt awarding victory points to whoever controls them at various points during the game.

Now that's a long board. Photo by Jefferson Powers.

In order to deploy their units of tanks, infantry, planes, and ships, players must maintain supply lines. This means that a unit on the board has to be able to trace an unbroken line of controlled territories back to their supply hub; for the allies that’s the Red Sea (via the Suez canal in Egypt) and the North Atlantic, and for the Axis it’s Rome, with Bulgaria potentially emerging as a second supply hub later in the game. The concept of keeping supplied is critical to the game – unsupplied pieces can’t attack and are removed from play at the end of the turn if their supply line isn’t restored.

A player’s turn is split up into three main phases. First they move any or all of their units on the board; most can move one space and have to remain in supply, while planes can move two spaces but have to end their movement in a supplied territory. Then comes a card playing phase, which is where the bulk of the action happens.

Card-Driven Action

Each player has their own deck of cards, which enable attacks, award extra victory points, deploy new units to the board, and so on. By default a player is allowed one card play, but many cards allow additional cards to be played, which can lead to some interesting chaining effects. Cards are also marked with a specific faction: UK and US for the Allied player, and Germany or Pact (essentially Italy and Bulgaria) for the Axis player, with many cards only affecting units that match their country. So a key part of a player’s strategy is making sure they have the right cards for the right units on the board.

A card combo that allowed the Allied player to quickly protect his supply hub from encroaching Axis forces. Photo by Jefferson Powers.

If a player doesn’t have anything usable in their hand, they still have some options, as any card can be discarded to deploy a unit from off the board, or enable a move or attack. A player can also use their action to draw a new card (although this should be a last resort). Each player also has three contingency cards that remain in play on the table and can be used as if played from hand. When played, a contingency card is flipped over, revealing a new card effect that can be used on a later turn. So there is almost always something a player can do on their turn.

Contingency cards for the Allied player. Photo by Jefferson Powers.

At the game’s mid-point (after seven rounds), each player shuffles a set-aside stack of “late war” cards into their deck. For the Allies, this represents the US finally arriving on the scene, while for the Axis it’s more of a disadvantage, as they had started to run short of men and resources.

The Cost of Fighting

Combat in the game is unusual in that there is very little randomness involved. When a unit or group of units attacks (as enabled by card play), they target a neighboring territory. The opposing player must remove one unit from that territory. It’s as simple as that...sort of. However, each card has a secondary effect that can be played in response to a casualty. These can save a unit from being destroyed, allow a retreat, cause an attacking unit to also be destroyed, and so on.

If, after an attack, there are still defending units, the aggressor can attack again, but they have to spend one of their own units to do it, and there’s a catch – the unit spent to continue the attack must be of equal or greater value to the defender’s previous casualty, according to a simple combat rank chart. The whole system really plays into the game’s theme by reducing the effects of combat to the cost in units to defend but also to sustain an attack. It also makes the battles more of a math problem, with the card reactions offering just enough uncertainty to keep things interesting.

The Pact makes a move for Egypt, which was left poorly defended. Photo by Jefferson Powers.

Players alternate turns, with victory points awarded every 4 rounds based on who controls each of the nine key locations on the board. If one player manages to get 10 points ahead of the other, they win immediately; otherwise, the player with the most points after 16 rounds is the winner.

Who Is it For?

Quartermaster General: South Front bills itself as “a fast-paced World War II strategy game.” It should be, once both players are up to speed on the rules and the strategy, but you should definitely allow for longer games while learning – my first few games took over three hours. It’s not that the rules are particularly complicated, although there are a few critical rules that are a bit buried, and you will want to re-read the rule book after your first game or two to see what you missed. The game’s focus on logistics and lack of random chance can lead to a bit of analysis paralysis as players try to work out the optimal moves.

That aside, it’s an interesting game that offers players a series of logistical puzzles to solve as they try to work out the best way to succeed with the limited resources at their disposal.

It’s also worth noting that, while an entirely stand-alone game, players will eventually be able to combine Quartermaster General: South Front with the East Front and forthcoming West Front editions to play one giant game covering the entire war in Europe. I just hope your table is big enough...

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