Greyhawk Wars

Greyhawk Wars was part of TSR's push to reinvigorate the Greyhawk line in the early 90s. Taking on Carl Sargent, the company had decided that after Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms had filled similar niches in the genre of fantasy, something had to be done to push Greyhawk forward. According to Jeff Grubb, fellow TSR developer Douglas Niles took his suggestion to "burn it to the ground" literally (spawning the myth that Grubb had it in for the venerable setting), and TSR decided an epic shakeup was in order, giving birth to Greyhawk Wars and producing the From the Ashes boxed set.

The game Greyhawk Wars has gotten someting of a bad rep in Greyhawk- and old school-circles, with grognards claiming that Wars blew up the setting and saw it drifting permanently away from Gygax' original vision.

I disagree.

Greyhawk was always a war-heavy setting, having been developed from a miniature wargame and the pages of Dragon magazine saw reports of troop movements and army strengths. Gygax inevitably led the nations of the Flanaess to war. True, a fantasy world war is maybe a bit of a stretch, but the conflicts - between Iuz and Furyondy, Nyrond and the Great Kingdom, the hidden danger of the Scarlet Brotherhood - were present even in the original Folio-edition.

Now the game itself surely has its flaws. But it is an enjoyable wargame. Last sunday, a few of the D&D-group came over early to try their hand at dominance over the Flanaess.

I set out the map, country cards and counters the evening before the game. As I let the players choose the countries that they played, I set out all the options: 

• Iuz and the Horned Society
• Furyondy and the Shield Lands
• Great Kingdom and the Sea Barons
• Nyrond and Almor
• Scarlet Brotherhood and the Sea Princes
• Keoland

Of all the starting countries, Keoland is by far the weakest, and Scarlet Brotherhood allied with the Sea Princes is a close second. As I had tree friends coming over, it was to be expected that they chose Iuz, Furyondy and Nyrond as starting countries. I was left with the Great Kingdom.

It is interesting to note that there is a great disparity in starting forces. Great Kingdom for example, has a large number of troops at the start of the game, while Furyondy and the Shield Lands have to scrounge the lands for defenses. 

We set the victory condition for the game: 20 countries per alliance. Whichever side, Good (Furyondy and Nyrond) or Evil (Iuz and Great Kingdom) managed to control 20 countries first and hold them at the end of a turn would win the game. We never arrived there because of time constraints, but it was nevertheless a good game - though it only lasted two turns.

Observations

What follows is some observations about the game:

• The game is actually two games: a western front and an eastern front. The war is fought between Furyondy and Iuz and between Nyrond and the Great Kingdom. There is little interation between the two halves of the map. Only the forces of Iuz (operating out of Stonefist on the eastern front) enter a little bit on the war between the Aerdy kingdoms. 
• It is a race over territory. Only in the second turn did we discover how easy it is to conquer countries and add them to the number of countries controlled by your alliance. By raising armies, splitting forces, occupying areas and declaring them conquered, one can easily expand one's empire. As the Great Kingdom, I discovered the entire eastern seaboard open to my troops (ferried across the Solnor Ocean by Sea Baron shps). To the west, Furyondy's player, after allying with Keoland, Celene and two Ulek states, had enough forces to waltz across Geoff, Sterich, Bissel, Gran March and the rest of the West.
• Hero Actions are important but not decisive. During the Action Phase, hero counters can engage in diplomacy, fight monsters and discover treasure, or recruit mercenaries. But all of these have a significant chance of failure. Even with friendly states, the chance of alliance is 50/50. Defeating a monster happens only on a lucky roll of the dice. And if you draw a mercenary card of the opposite alignment, then the action is lost. Yet if an alliance, a treasure hunt or a recruitment succeeds, it is significant. During our game, Nyrond conquered both North and South Province and subsequently allied two Iron League states, surrounding my Aerdy forces. Furyondy succeeded in allying with Keoland, Celene and Ulek, providing the western forces of Good with a significant advantage in numbers. 
• Be careful with your armies. A rash battle can result in the destruction of a significant number of troops, which take two turns to compensate in relation to enemy players. The game gives you the option to retreat at the end of every combat round. A wise empire-builder knows when discretion is the better part of valor.

Conclusion

In the end, the forces of Good, mainly due to the efforts of the Furyondy-Keoland-Celene-alliance, succeeded in controlling 10 countries at the end of turn two. We had to end the game there because our regular D&D-game was about to start and players were already arriving. Both Iuz and myself are brooding on vengeance, however, so we all expect the Greyhawk Wars to resume somewhere in the next couple of weeks.