Components
When I stumbled across this game on Worthington’s site, it was the components that initially caught my interest. The game boasts a beautiful, fully mounted board, full color glossy rulebook, large wooden blocks (Hammer of the Scot’s sized) and very nice cards. There is really nothing at all to complain about here. This is as good as wargame (or any other game!) components get.
Topic/Theme
The other thing that drew me into the game was the topic: Frederick the Great. In the past, the topic didn’t do much for me, but after a recent game of Friedrich (an amazing game…my review of it is here: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/267963), I realized how interesting the topic is. Prussia, surrounded literally on all sides and greatly outnumbered, must use its superior leadership and interior lines to survive an onslaught from every direction on the compass (Russia in the east, Sweden in the north, Austria to the south, and France to the west).
Unfortunately Friedrich, which after a single session became one of my favorites games, is best with four players, which I rarely have, and isn’t very solo-friendly. Prussia’s Defiant Stand, on the other hand, is a typical two player wargame that works pretty well for solitaire gaming. It doesn’t have solitaire rules, but if you like to solo two-player wargames, this one will work as well, if not better than most, due to the limited fog-of-war the blocks can provide, particularly if you, like me, have a sieve-like memory.
Mechanics
This game plays a lot like a cross between two better known Columbia’s block games: Hammer of the Scots and Napoleon: The Waterloo Campaign, 1815. It utilizes a card mechanic similar to Hammer, where each player plays a card of varying value, which is used to command (move and fight) with a limited number of units or leaders. Unlike Hammer, it also uses a battle board akin to Napoleon, though with significant differences. PDS also incorporates fairly robust fortress rules that neither game uses.
The rules for the game are posted on Worthington’s site, here: http://www.worthingtongames.com/images/newsite/images/Prussi..., but I’ll highlight the major mechanics that drive the game.
Blocks: Obviously, this is a block game, which provides two main benefits: limited fog of war, since you cannot always see your opponent’s forces, and four-step reduction, as the blocks are rotated to a lower value after each hit. A block with three steps of strength rolls three dice in combat, while a block with two steps, rolls two dice, etc.
Cards: The cards are the heart of the game. Each turn (there are five per year) the players select one of their seven cards to play as either an event, or as ‘Commands’ (known as ‘Ops Points’ in many other CDG’s). 
Possible uses for the cards:
If played as Command Points, the number indicates the number of leaders or single units that can move. An activated leader can move with a number of units equal to twice their current strength. Since leaders and other blocks can have at most four steps of strength, this rule practically limits armies to nine blocks- one leader and eight other units. 
Cards played as commands can also be used to reinforce fortresses (one command point strengthens a fortress by one step) but critically, not combat units or leaders.
Command points can also be used to bring units back into the game, at full strength, from the force pool. A full strength infantry costs 1 command point (hereafter CP), cavalry costs 2, leaders cost 3.
Alternatively, cards can me played as events, which vary in their effects. The most valuable of the events is probably the cards that allow the player to reinforce (i.e. increase the strength of) damaged units on the board. This is the only way to accomplish this, and its generally most important to use them to keep your generals up-to-strength. Since units are so hard to reinforce, but generally easy to ‘resurrect’ using CP’s, it often makes sense to let weakened units die off and bring them back at full strength. Of course, they must come back in a home city, so for an invading army, this isn’t always a great solution.
Finally, some cards are battle cards that impact…well, battles. The might give a group of units the ability to fire first, or make a type of unit more effective (or your opponent’s units less effective).In summary, the cards are more flexible generally than in Hammer and its breathen, and play more like a typical CDG, like Paths of Glory, but in a much lighter (complexity-wise) way.
The cards get a definite
.
Battle Board: When units from opposing armies end a move in the same city, a battle ensues, and the units are moved to the battle board. Unlike in Napoleon, the board is not divided into left-center-right, but rather by unit type (i.e. leader-infantry-cavalry). Due to this, the battle board doesn’t ‘feel’ like you’re playing out a battle, but rather more simply like a flow chart that directs who can attack whom, and in what order. 
Basically, leaders fire first, followed by infantry. Cavalry fight there own little side battle, and only cavalry units in excess of the enemy’s cavalry can engage the infantry. On top of this, the rules for the battle board are not very clear in the rulebook, and even after posting several questions, and getting answers, I’m still not 100% clear on some situations. The designer recently posted that he (just back from a naval deployment, thank you for serving!!) will post clarifications soon.
Even with answers to my questions, I still don’t think I’ll be sold on the battle board, for two reasons. First, as I mentioned, since its not an ‘overhead view’ of the battle as in Napoleon, it really acts a rules reminder. I think the same effects could have been implemented much more cleanly using Columbia’s tried and true A-B-C system, where A units fire before B units, etc. It would have been simple to make cavalry A, leaders B, infantry C. (It wouldn’t accomplish exactly the designer’s stated goal of making cavalry fight a ‘side battle’ but for me the simplification would have been worth the abstraction).
The second reason I don’t like the battle board is that this is a pretty long game, with nearly 40 turns. And with full strength units coming back with the play of a command card, there are a lot of battles. In Napoleon, there are fewer turns and fewer battles, so taking your time on them makes more sense.
Battleboard:
Fortresses: In my first game with fellow BGGer Paul, I think we both misunderstood how fortresses should be used. We got the rules, but not the strategy. As a result, I stupidly withdrew Frederick and his three best units into a fortress in the face of a superior Austrian army. One bad die roll later, my fortress fell, and Frederick, and the flower of the Prussian army, was eliminated. Since leaders, unlike combat units, cannot be brought back, we pretty much called them game then and there.In my subsequent game, though, I figured out how to use fortresses correctly. They are great as a speed bump, where a small number of units can effectively slow a much larger army for several turns. They are not, however, invulnerable, and they WILL eventually fall to assault or siege, so more important units and leaders need to stay out of them.
Fortresses force the attacker to make an agonizing decision. Make a costly assault, or wait it out while the enemy plays CP’s for reinforcement or strengthens in other ways. In battle, fortresses hit automatically every round (i.e. a four step fortress hit for four every turn, until reduced to three, etc) AND grant up to four units double-defense (it takes two hits to inflict a step-loss).
When used properly, to hold the enemy at bay (or threaten his supply line should he pass them up) fortresses turned out to be one of the game’s mechanics that I like the best.
Fortresses get a
.
Friction of War table: Every turn, after selecting which leader to command, but before moving, the players roll on the Friction of War table. The table provides several possible impacts, but usually it restricts a particular general from moving or fighting.
It can be a real bummer when your activated leader suddenly ‘falls ill’ and can’t attack this turn. The allies generals are mostly in the ‘middle’ of the table, where the most common 6’s, 7’s, and 8’s are rolled, thus Prussian generals are essentially more reliable and mobile. A simple mechanic that add some flavor and uncertainty, along with depicting Prussian armies greater mobility. The only problem I have with the table is that it is really hard to remember to roll on it every turn.
Friction of War:
The Rules
I’d be remiss if I didn’t comment on the rules. They are not too clear, and somewhat poorly organized. Even during the first read through I had questions that were not clearly answered. And during our first game, we spent as much time trying to find a rule clarification as playing. With no index and little or no numeration of the rules, it is very hard to find what you're looking for. For a monster wargame, that is understandable, but for a game at about as complex as Hammer, that is really disappointing. The more games I learn, the more I appreciate typical wargame rulebooks where every rule is numbered, cross referenced, and indexed. As I mentioned, the rules for the battle board in particular are opaque, and I suspect that they will be revised based on player feedback over the next few months.
Gameplay impressions
After I got the hang of it, I really liked this game. The Prussians seem hopelessly outnumbered and surrounded, and their armies don’t seem to be better by a wide enough margin to make up the gap. But they enjoy the central position and can, and must, respond to one crisis after another. In our first game, Paul and I walked away with the impression that this was a fairly static game, where armies slog from one siege to another. That was simply due to my incompetence as the Prussian. In the second game, it came together. Frederick would lead his strongest force to head off whichever ally was invading. If he could maneuver them into a one-on-one fight, he could generally win. In winning, he would smash the opposing army, as combat is pretty bloody and retreats are more costly in PDS than in games like Hammer. That buys Prussia a reprieve of several turns (often several years) while that ally rebuilds his force. Of course, the Prussian army invariable suffers attrition, and must try to rebuild while racing to oppose the next invading ally.
If the allies can manage to maneuver and effect a joining of forces, Prussia may just lose a major field battle (in happened in my second game). Then Prussia relies on small garrisons in the fortresses to slow the allies down enough to give him time to rebuild. Alternatively, if the allies can coordinate a simultaneous assault from several directions at once, Frederick is faced with some tough choices about where to defend.
This game can run a little too long. I felt like the armies would keep getting crushed, then spend several turns putting themselves back together again to do it all again. Rinse and repeat. In this way, it felt a bit like the American Civil war, which may, in fact, be historically accurate. Based on the designer’s overview of the war on the first page of the rulebook, it probably is, as Frederick clearly won, and lost, several major battles, after which each side fought on.
In any case, this is a game in the Hammer family, but I’m not sure it could be played to conclusion in a single weeknight game. I can’t help but feel that four turns per year rather than five would have decreased play time to a more reasonable level, without harming the game at all. I’d be interested in hearing more experienced players estimates of game time.
Summary
After a relatively negative first impression of this game, I’ve grown to like it. It took only a single solitaire game to make it one of my favorite solo games. It has a lot to recommend it: a single map that fits almost anywhere, an interesting historical situation, fantastic components, and several interesting mechanics (the cards and fortresses are my favorites). But I can’t help thinking that with some rules editing, additional input from folks outside the developer/designer, and a few months more development, it could have been a truly great game. As it is, it’s a solid title and one I look forward to playing again.
Overall:
Last edited on 2008-02-26 19:03:35 CST (Total Number of Edits: 1)
Posted Tue Feb 26, 2008 11:47 pm
Probably on a par with GBoH and The Gamers' OCS. Lots of emphasis on march order and formation. Great OOB's; multiple scenarios for each game. Table space and counter density vary; Leuthen is a 4-mapper that's bigger than any table I own. No VASSAL modules that I know of; combined with a relative lack of interest and knowledge in this fascinating historical epoch, I'll probably only ever get to play these solitaire. As I said in the earlier post, the artwork is GORGEOUS.
