Second World War At Sea: Bismarck

Should this hit the table?

Quick read before the metadata.

The game Second World War at Sea: Bismarck has a high level of direct confrontation, with battles and competitive actions having immediate impact on opponents. It also offers strategic depth in confrontation through players' decisions and strategies indirectly affecting others. The game requires frequent attention to other players' actions, enhancing the interaction frequency. However, cooperation is not a major emphasis in this game. Overall, the game has a strong interaction score of 7.35.

Teach 2.3

Teaching signal

Replay 4.0

High replayability

Interaction 3.7

Highly interactive

Scaling 4.0

Scales well

Strategy 4.5

Deep strategy

Control 3.5

More strategic control

Table feel

The game Second World War at Sea: Bismarck has a high level of direct confrontation, with battles and competitive actions having immediate impact on opponents. It also offers strategic depth in confrontation through players' decisions and strategies indirectly affecting others. The game requires frequent attention to other players' actions, enhancing the interaction frequency. However, cooperation is not a major emphasis in this game. Overall, the game has a strong interaction score of 7.35.

Replay value

The Second World War at Sea: Bismarck has a high variability gameboard, offering different experiences each time it is played. The presence of expansions adds new content and gameplay elements, enhancing replay value. The game provides deep strategic possibilities and room for players to improve their strategy over time. The player interaction score is average. The game scales well with different numbers of players without compromising its appeal or balance. It is moderately easy to learn, striking a balance between depth and accessibility. Overall, the game has a good replayability score of 7.9.

Luck profile

The final luck score for Second World War at Sea: Bismarck is 7, indicating a moderate level of luck influence. Random elements have a notable but not exclusive impact on the game outcome. Players have substantial ability to mitigate randomness through strategic decisions and planning. The game outcome is primarily determined by player strategy and decisions, with luck playing a minor role.

Overview

What ABG knows about this game

From the Avalanche Press website: The British Home Fleet tried to stop her, but Bismarck’s guns ripped apart the battle cruiser Hood. The pride of the Royal Navy went to the bottom of the Denmark Strait southwest of Iceland and Bismarck disappeared into the fog. But HMS Prince of Wales had managed to hit Bismarck below the water line, and she left behind her a slick of fuel oil. The British Home Fleet relentlessly tracked the German warship, and she finally sank beneath a hail of gunfire. This Second World War at Sea game has one of the larger operational maps in the series; the North Atlantic is a big and empty place. There are two 34x22-inch maps, covering the area from north of Iceland south to the latitude of Spain. The tactical map is a generic blue field of hexagons, used to resolve surface combat. There, ships maneuver and fight using their gunnery and torpedo factors. Each player rolls a number of dice according to the ship’s capabilities, hitting on a result of 6. Gunnery and torpedo damage tables give the results: ships can suffer damage to engines, hull or armament. The game includes 24 pages of rules and 12 scenarios which feature not just the Bismarck chase, but also the North Atlantic raids made by the German warships Admiral Hipper, Admiral Scheer, Gneisenau and Scharnhorst.

Mechanism

2

Hexagon Grid Simulation

Family

3

Country: Germany Players: Two Player Only Games Series: Second World War at Sea (Avalanche Press)

Type

1

Wargames

Media

Images and visual references

Images, galleries, and videos are grouped here so the page feels visual before every asset is fully hosted.