Blame Canada

Upon loading up the map we quickly became aware that all of our favorite battles are not apart of this game. You don't get to burn down the White House or battle for New Orleans or take Mackinaw Island in 1812 Invasion of Canada. Five of us decided to take on this game maxing out the players and the fun. We have again used Vassal for the online platform for this game as we all couldn't show up at Rick's house tonight.

The factions for this game are The British and Native Americans vs The United States, The British and Americans are divided up in to regulars and Militia. Rick took on the role of the American regulars and I took up the American Militia this is a rare occurrence as Rick and I are usually split up in games like this.

The fun part of this game is the way the units move. each turn is in a random turn order and on your turn you play a movement card and up to 2 special cards. The movement cards tell you how many "armies" you move and how many spaces they move. An army is any group of units that contains at least one of your units. So you end up moving a lot of your fellow players units. This adds a fun little bit of chaos to the game that our group really enjoyed.

Rick and I started the game off by seizing Montreal (a key resupply spot) and making

advances into the middle of the board and far west side of the board to disrupt and spread them as thin as we could. The Brits came back quickly and took back all the land we had taken. We could see at this point there is going to be a lot of back and fourth along the border.

Combat uses special dice to roll and each faction can roll up to 3 dice per round of battle with exception of the regulars who roll up to 2, but the 2 dice they get to roll have more hits on them compared more fleeing on the militia dice. You have to have at least the amount of troops in each battle to roll the corresponding amount of dice. The dice have sides that are Hit, Command and Flee. If you flee your unit is set aside and you can bring them into the reinforcement zones during your next turn. Command lets you move your unit to another friendly adjacent space.

In the end the Americans egged out a victory. The British/Canadian/Native American troops lost under protest as there was a little side bar conversation in the Zoom chat between Rick and myself.

During one of Nick's turn he was pondering if he should do something silly and Rick replied "This is a silly game." I would agree its a little silly but in a fun war game kinda way. If your looking for historical accuracy this isn't your game if you looking for a fun game with a lot of flavor of the war of 1812 then this is your game. We laughed the entire time we played the game.

Designed by: Beau Beckett, Jeph Stahl

Players: 2-5

Published by: Academy Games, Asyncron Games, Schwerkraft-Verlag

Year Published: 2012

Recommended Ages: 10+

Time to Play: 90 minutes