Seven Days to the River Rhine - Preview

Seven Days to the River Rhine by Great Escape Games describes itself as a fast play set of rules covering the NATO/Warsaw Pact 1980’s. It claims it is suited especially for large multi-player games where each side has an overall commander who guides strategy and the other players control the actual units. In this preview, I’ll let you know what I think.

Not as gung-ho as Team Yankee

I had heard of this game last year but it wasn’t until the First Partizan of 2019 that I saw a demo game taking place. Intrigued, I searched for a copy of the rules and found a set for around a tenner. The rules themselves are a nicely produced 44-paged softback accompanied with a set of special cards. More on them later.

The overall layout is clear and concise, with quite large text and numerous photographs. Unlike Team Yankee, these picture detail miniatures from several manufacturers and credit is given to them with each picture.

The process of play is based on command tokens and initiative. One player has the initiative, uses their command tokens, then there are reaction rolls and this continues until all of the command tokens have been used or the other player steals the initiative via a 6 on a reaction dice roll. On the whole, this is probably the part of the game that I am dubious about the most. It just seems so finicky and I can’t help but think that the process as described might hinder fast play more than help. Having said that, most games I have played are simultaneous movement and effect so this initiative malarkey is a bit of a stranger to me. When we do get round to playing these rules, we’ll see how this goes. There is the usual morale and stats sections and the rules don’t get too bogged down in minutia unlike some sets I could care to mention.

The biggest game changing aspect of the rules would be the Tactical Advantage Cards. These are mostly generic but there is a card specific to each side and whilst I can see how they can add to the game, I am not entirely sure they help the game play to the period, and that is a thing for me and my approach to historical gaming, hence the amendments I made to the core Team Yankee rule set last year. A play through will sort out that question. 

Another interesting part of the game is range, or lack of it. Except for infantry fire, there are no defined ranges for weapons, the inference being that given the scale of miniatures used, assigning ranges to say tank cannon fire in relation to an assault rifle would make the scale of the game look a bit funny. Again, I can see how this would help the game but would add a caveat in that if you game on quite a large table as we often do (say 16x5 feet), you’ll need to consider terrain and buildings in you scenarios or you’re just going to have a shoot ‘em up on your hands. Then again, maybe that was what they were going for with the fast paced point of the game.

Sgt Bradford and a QR code? Tsk!

There is one bugbear that I must comment upon, and it’s nothing to do with the mechanics or the style of play. No, it’s a layout choice and one that peeved me slightly with my recent look at Cruel Seas. It’s the ‘advice’ boxes, from either Sgt Bradford for the British or Lieutenant Vasilov for the Soviets. These seek to impart tactical or strategic advice for those in it for the game and whilst I can understand why the designers put these sections in, they do come across as a little condescending for anyone with only a little knowledge of the tactics of the period. It’s a small thing, and you may very well disagree, but I would prefer it if games designers did not think every reader is a bored child with the attention span of an MP in a re-election campaign. Oh, and in case you don’t understand what the rules are trying to tell you, there are QR codes that will lead you to videos explaining the relevant section of the rules. Helpful, maybe, appearing to cater for the Fisher Price ‘My First Wargame’ market, almost certainly. I know I am being waspish here but if you can’t explain a simple process in two paragraphs, are you really trying at all?

It could be considered easy, and lazy, to think of Seven Days to the River Rhine as a kind of Team Yankee lite without the model catalogue level of miniature pictures. And yes, it would be. The designers have clearly thought long and hard about what they wanted to put on the table and, my reticence aside for initiative table tennis, it feels like they have succeeded in their self declared goal. For the price, I don’t feel set upon by the rules and there isn't the relentless commercialism of Team Yankee and its ilk. As with my recent Cruel Seas preview, I have certain doubts but am more than willing to give these rules a full airing, probably in late 1990’s H’irraq at 15mm or West Germany in 20mm if the kit is available. Command Decision is our usual modern rule set (albeit at a different unit scale to Seven Days or Team Yankee), but the latter has become our alternate go to set with suitable amendments. You never know, maybe Seven Days could replace TY in that role. We shall have a play and find out.