Of all the modern periods fit for pushing around historically-inspired toy soldiers, World War 2 has probably the most rulesets. But it’s still nice to see a new one published, especially when implements ideas that should be more mainstream. We’re talking about V for Victory, baby!
Listen to the Fortified Niche episode.
V for Victory pits platoon vs. platoon in a wide variety of scenarios – some of them asymmetrical! But no matter the army you have, both players get identical decks of activation cards (plus one special card for activating the platoon special power). They then secretly choose an order card before revealing them at the same time. The player who played the card with higher initiative value gets to do their activation first. Once a card is resolved, it goes into the discard pile to await next turn.
But it’s more than just activating. Each card shows the amount and types of actions – movement, fighting, tactical – the unit the card was played on can take. There’s a twist! A unit can take up to two actions per turn… but they don’t have to both come from the same activation. Excess actions on the card are lost… unless you played it on a squad of two fireteams (in which case the fireteams can resolve up to two action teams) or an officer (who can spread the orders around).
Even leaving a unit unactivated (or with a single action left) isn’t a bummer since those units can react on the enemy activation. This solves the Bolt Action Ambush problem: only a unit designated to react (Ambush) can react, so the enemy can easily bypass it. But in V for Victory, any unit with activations left can still be dangerous. Neat!
Another very cool feature of V for Victory are the spotting rules straight outta Muskets & Tomahawks. Before you even try to attack the enemy, you run down a checklist to see whether your unit can see it. No dice rolling, just simple logic of checking the circumstances. Can’t see the enemy? Can’t give the attack order.
Now, V for Victory isn’t just an infantry game. You can purchase vehicles to supplement your footsloggers, but the numbers are very much limited. What’s also limited? Their rules. The vehicles are very simple to run and only have like three special rules. A tank is a tank is tank. Still, you’ll get all your favorites – and the Soviets even get Lend-Lease!
When you choose a platoon, you usually get a commander, their command squad, and two understrength squads. Depending on the scenario and whether you’re defending or attacking, you’ll get funds to add things to it. All army building is measured in stars, with three reinforcement troopers being worth one and your medium tanks costing six and such. I don’t think you can go above twelve, so something will always be left out. The system is a lot of fun and incentivizes some rarely-seen decisions on the field. How often to do you go into battle with less than full squads? In V for Victory, you may not even have a choice.
In conclusion, V for Victory is great. I say it could serve as a Bolt Action replacement, Cassa insists that it will replace Chain of Command. No matter which of those interpretations you support, you can see this as a definite recommendation.