Irish Freedom by White Dog Games

 Jim wanted to try out another solo game as a team effort, this time 'Irish Freedom' by White Dog Games. BGG entry here: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/360480/irish-freedom As a solo game the player is the Irish fighting for independence against the British forces of oppression including the infamous Black and Tans. The scenarios cover both the War of Independence and the Civil War, which can either be played as standalone scenarios or combined into one longer campaign.

The map is a stylised area movement map with six major regions joined by roads. Each of the regions is subdivided into four areas with one of three terrain types - 'bog', town land or city. eg Dublin is a city, whereas most of Kerry is bog! This matters as each type of unit has a different combat rating in different types of terrain.

The aim of the game is to force the British to sign the Treaty within ten turns. At the start of each turn there is 'Treaty test', comparing a dice throw against the number of regions occupied by at least one British unit, the number of cities not occupied by an Irish unit minus the number of eliminated British units. So the idea is to occupy enough ground and inflict enough losses to force the British to negotiate.

We had a fair turnout for this one, myself, Mark and Russell were the rebels, John A and John B the British and their chums in the Royal Irish Constabulary. In the standard game the British are system controlled, whereas playing this as an opposed game Jim let the British make various tactical decisions.

A slightly different view of the map with more detail - you can better make out the different terrain types. There are also various hieroglyphs to do with unit recruitment, and some of the cities are marked as ports. Port of Dublin was vital as that is where British reinforcements arrived.

I was Tom Barry, in charge of Kerry and Cork.

Russell had the West and Midlands. As you might expect Ulster and Dublin were centres of British force. Mark was Micheal Collins himself, and could activate two regions a turn to do something.

The starting setup in 1919. Apologies for the blurry images. The red units are various types of 'British', in ascending order of combat power, RIC, Black and Tans, Army. The police and Tans were generally more effective in towns and cities.

The green and blue units are IRA (the green/blue distinction matters more in the Civil War scenario). Their units in ascending order of power were mobs, guerillas and flying columns. Generally they were best in bogland and worst in cities. Flying columns can move between cities along the roads.

The first couple of turns were spent by the British consolidating their hold on Ulster and Dublin, crushing the mobs in Dublin. We built up our forces in the rest of the country but they kept get battered by superior forces. On an activation you can 'recruit' a unit - in the case of the IRA a new guerilla, or you can upgrade an existing unit to the next level, mob to guerilla to flying column.

Then you can make a move from one area to another, and if you end up in the same area as an enemy unit, fight a battle, which is a simple CRT modified by the difference in combat strength. You can stack a maximum of two friendly units together. So while there are a lot of units on the map, not many of them move in a single turn.

The British started pushing units into the Midlands, but we had been steadily recruiting and upgrading out units in the south and west and finally had some military success against the Tans (two eliminated units in the big red box). The only way to beat the better British units was by stacking and picking where to fight in favourable terrain.

With a number of units now upgraded to Flying Columns, we even managed to take the fight to Dublin. One column took the bogland outside the city, but the British had rather unwisely left the port ungarrisoned so another unit occupied it, cutting off their flow of reinforcements next turn.

Exciting stuff and a good point to end for the night. Totting up the Treaty Points we had now got the British down to five, so on a six, they would sit down and negotiate. I don't imagine our hold on Dublin will last as most of our units only have a combat value of 1 in a city while the British Army is worth (4!), but we can hope...

With sides a bit stronger there was a fair bit going on and inexplicably I didn't take any photos!

Briefly, we got kicked out of Dublin but instead gained a foothold in Ulster which provoked a very strong response. The British had a go at Kerry and Cork which proved to be a mistake as a failed Tans attack left Cork itself ungarrisoned, and while British Army units rampaged around and even took control of the region, eventually Tom Barry's flying column headed south and ambushed them in bogland in northwest Kerry.

The battle resulted in complete defeat for the British and as we rolled into turn seven, there were five British units in the eliminated box and IRA units occupied North Dublin, Cork city and the whole of Kerry.  This reduced the Treaty Score to three, and we duly rolled a four. The war was over and Britain agreed to peace and an Irish Free State. Hurrah!

That took six turns/noths and was worth 3 VP (faster times generate higher scores). I think that was fairly average. Anyway, it was a very intriguing game - interesting to play and informative too. The limited actions each turn avoided the whole turning into a blood bath and meant there were hard decisions  to make each turn which actually impacted the outcomes and it wasn't overly random.

I think having the British played by people instead of the game system probably meant they took better decisions, hence the Army magically ending up in southwest Ireland in no time at all. Jim had added some extra things like automatic reinforcements of reach side each turn, which I'm not convinced about as it increased the unit count and induced some odd behaviours eg the British were encouraged to leave Dublin empty to fit another seaborne Army unit in, but of course it also left it wide open to IRA occupation.

Anyway, it was a good game and I'll look forward to playing the Irish Civil War although it has a hefty UK price tag Being an import (£50 plus) so I don't think I'll be rushing out to buy it.