What makes a game a wargame? Playing Flick’em
Up made me start to ponder this question.
You see, Flick’em Up is a
wild west shoot-out game similar to Legends
of the Old Wets, Dead Man’s Hand, and
The Rules With No Name. Despite the
genre, I would wager many people would find calling Flick’em Up a wargame to be an affront to their hobby. You see, in Flick’em Up all effects are determined by “flicking” a disc around
the table, there is no random number generators, no cards, no fancy terrain, no
painted models, and no charts. All
results are determined by the player’s dexterity skills. Is this a wargame or a dexterity game?
I recall in reading many varying thoughts about “Guess
Range” weapons in wargames. The argument
was often around substituting a player skill to determine results over tactical
skills. I.e. some folks were just really
good at visualizing and determining distance and therefore had an unfair
disadvantage in the rules. Therefore,
these “Guess Range” weapons were unfair and not proper additions to a true
wargame.
I wonder what these folks would say about Flick’em Up. Each player controls 5 cowboy models that
can take three hits. The game is
scenario based and each scenario has a different objective. The board is a set of terrain and 2d card-buildings
with rules for entering and shooting out of said buildings. The turn sequence is an alternating
activation, and in a turn each cowboy has two actions, move or shoot. All of this is pretty standard fare for a
Wargame.
What makes Flick’em Up
different is how you resolve movement and shooting. Movement replaces a Cowboy model with a white
disc that you flick with your finger to where you want it to go. Where the disc stops is the new location of
the Cowboy. If he hits any other models
or terrain, the move is negated.
Shooting is similar, except a smaller black disc is placed next to the
model, and you “flick” the bullet towards your target. If you knock them over they lose a
heart. Any terrain that is moved or
knocked over by the bullet stays down.
In a way, it reminds me of the spring-loaded cannons in Little Wars.
Is this a wargame then?
Things I like
The game has all the trappings of a traditional wargame
and plays really fast. A game takes
about 45 minutes. You can play between 2
and 10 players with each player taking a cowboy model. That means the whole
family can play and the concepts and play is very simple to grasp. There is no assembly or painting, you just
open the box and can start playing.
The game cleverly creates different weapons and weapon
combinations. Two pistols allow you to
shoot twice, a rifle makes use of a small template that funnels your shot and
allows a straighter shot, dynamite has a blast radius from where the marker
stops to hit multiple guys. Pretty
clever stuff.
They also have an easy way to determine who has
activated. You flip the models hat brim
over. It is either red or blue. When
everyone on your side has the same color hat, they have all activated. A new turn starts. You can also steal the initiative by shooting
the cowboy with the initiative marker.
The game comes with 10 or so scenarios, but it really
gives you everything you need to make any custom scenarios you want. Therefore, the game has near infinite
re-playability.
Things I Do Not
Like
Well, everyone is pretty much the same. The only difference is what they are armed
with. Everyone has a pistol but in some
scenarios they have rifles or dynamite.
There is no skill progression between scenarios, permanent injuries, or
guys missing the next game. No matter
how good or bad you do in one scenario, your start the next with 5 cowboys vs.
5 cowboys. I am sure such rules and
ideas are beyond the scope of play for a game such as this; but it left me
wanting more.
Some of the scenarios were not well thought out. They follow pretty standard wargaming tropes,
but sometimes the incentives to action were a bit bizarre. For example, in the 2nd scenario
you are trying to take out each sides’ leader.
This led to us playing a very defensive game, which ended up going down
to a dual on time. All the preceding
effort culminated in an alternating activation duel that the previous actions
had no bearing on. That was a bit of a
downer. I could see similar situations
arising in other scenarios too.
Meh and Other
Uncertainties
The elephant in the room is that all the “tactical” skill
could be off-set by player skill. For
example, I was really good at long range shots with my pistols. Meanwhile, some of my team mates couldn’t hit
the broad side of a barn at close range.
However, that dictated how we played, and the tactics we had to adopt as
a team. The order in which we activated
and what each cowboy did was decided on by the capabilities of the player and
not the model.
So, does that distinction remove Flick’em Up from the realm of wargames? Is it that much different than judging the
range of spring loaded cannons in Little
Wars? If you argue that the
capabilities of the troops vs. the capabilities of the player are what matters
is Chess a wargame instead of a
board game as the skill of the pieces indicates how they can be used
effectively? Plus, in all wargames doesn’t
the capability of the general play a key part in determining victory? I don’t know the answers.
Final Thoughts
We had fun playing the game as a family with people who
are NOT wargamers. It was a nice
distraction and allowed us to whoop up, praise good shots, lament bad ones,
laugh when a cowboy failed to move where he was supposed to go, and have a good
laugh. All of which is similar to my
wargaming experiences. It was a fun 45
minutes and then put away until next time.
However, I can’t really answer if it is a true
wargame. I imagine most of the
“wargamers” that we play games with will find it fun, but not see it as a
“true” wargame. Wargamers do not seem to
feel that the physical capabilities of the player should dictate the flow of
the game, and in Flick’em Up! It is
all about what the player can physically do.
For my part, it
was hard to see this game too much differently than many of the skirmish games
I have played over the years. The only
difference was rolling a die/flipping a card to determine the outcomes of the
actions versus physically flicking a marker.
In my mind, it still felt like a wargame.
What do you think?
Does physical capability play a role in wargaming, or does that relegate
it to something else? Your thoughts?
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