Designed by: Jeff Horger
Manoeuvre is a Napoleonic-era battle for two that mixes strategy, tactics, and luck.
The board is made up of modular tiles that can be put together in various ways. Players face off from either end of the board with sets of armies – you can play the French, British, or a number of others that come with the game. The armies are represented by cardboard chits and are broken into separate regiments. Each player gets a deck of cards to go with their army and deals themselves a hand of five.
On your turn you first move one regiment, be it cavalry or infantry. Then you may attack one of your opponents regiments, using a card. Each regiment has a base score for defence and attack, but both the attacking player and the defender may add further cards – if they have them! – to increase their chances of success. Often the odds favour the attacker, but how much they win by is as important as the act of winning. A mere victory only damages the regiment or forces it to retreat; whereas a complete trouncing can obliterate it completely. The final result is determined by dice rolls, and which dice is shown on the cards.
The cards also contain a few other elements – Supply cards that can return a damaged regiment to full strength, Leaders that can help attack (including more than one regiment attacking!) or defend, and Forced Marches that give you extra movement. Additionally different areas on the board such as hills, forests and towns give the regiments additional strength.
Having attacked and resolved the conflict, the aggressor now has to wait with a depleted hand of cards until his or her next turn – leaving them potentially vulnerable.
Play continues either until one player has wiped the other out, or – more likely – a nightfall resolution, where the number and position of all regiments decides the winner.
Manoeuvre is an all-time favourite of mine. There aren't many games this complex that are also as intuitive - it's not a game whose rules need to be relearned each time, even if you only play a couple of times a year. Several of my opponents have called it 'Chess with dice', but whilst it's played on an 8x8 grid, and represents an actual battle, for me the similarity is only skin-deep. The randomness of the cards you draw and the dice you roll to determine the outcome of attacks represent the struggle of trying to coordinate multiple cavalry and infantry units in the heat of battle; and both can be mitigated by clever play. I'm not saying it's as pure as Chess, but I do prefer it. A fast, furious piece of board-gaming brilliance!
The game is a battle, so like a 1990's nostalgia disco, it's Take That for the duration.
When it's not your turn you're very likely to be involved in a battle anyway, so there's no time to rest on your laurels.
Low to moderate. Your choices are dictated by the cards, but choosing when to implement them is the key to victory. And cards for eliminated regiments just clog up your hand (fortunately you're allowed to discard unwanted cards at the start of each turn).
There is variation guaranteed in which boards you use, how you choose to set up your army and not least, the cards. And with eight armies in the box, each with unique characteristics, the permutations are endless.
2-2
Players
10+
Years
30-60
Mins
Sam says
Straight-up war games aren't really my thing, but I do appreciate the mechanics of Manoeuvre - I love a game that incorporates chance that you can - to a degree at least - manage, hopefully in your favour. I occasionally play it with Joe and usually take a pasting!