by Zachary Grant, 16 March 2023 ~ #UnboxingDay
I’m interested in the parts of World War II that are not as well known, or dare I write, “popular”, as other events, such as the D-Day Landings, the Battle of the Bulge, and the Eastern Front. The East Africa Campaign doesn’t get as much attention from wargame designers as other topics, so I was very interested when I learned about Kim Kanger’s La Primogenita, which translates to The Firstborn, published by Legion Wargames in late 2022.
Game Box
The box cover art is from a fascist Italian propaganda poster from 1941. An Italian soldier stands defiantly on a heap of dead bodies with a British flag lying limply on the ground and a battle tattered Italian flag flying over the scene, with the word “Ritorneremo!” or “Return!” at the bottom. This is not a choice I would have made for the cover art. It is eye-catching and maybe it captures the feel of the East Africa Campaign from the Italian perspective during the time period; however, there’s just something about a fascist propaganda poster that doesn’t sit right with me.
click images to enlarge
The back of the box is informative and gives a good overview of the game, its historical background and some of its components. The box is sturdy and well made. The quality of the images and the glossy finish is top-notch.
So, what’s in the box? Let’s take a gander.
First out of the box are fliers for other Legion Wargames products and a nice thank you card. I really like the personal touch of the thank you card and although I’ve never met Jodi, nor Randy, I appreciate the effort of including it.
Next is the game!
Let’s start with the counters. The game comes with one sheet of 176 counters which are .6” in size, so not quite 5/8” and larger than ½” counters. They are sturdy and easy to read. I haven’t punched them out yet and it looks like it won’t be difficult to do so.
Here are the Allies:
Here are the Italians:
Next we have the Order Sheets. Both sheets have nice background images representing their respective armies.
The next items are the Order Player Aid cards. There are two of them and they are large 11” x 17” sheets folded in half. On the left are the orders for your forces and on the right are the orders for your opponent’s forces. Many of the orders are unique to each specific force, so the cards are not identical. The card stock is nice and the print is clear and easy to read.
Here is the Allied Orders Player Aid card:
Here is the Italian Order Player Aid card:
What about the rulebook?
The rulebook has a saddle stitch binding, is 16 pages total, in full color, and has a table of contents. There is no index, which is fine. The pages have a nice glossy finish. The font is the same as the player aids and I find it easy to read.
Last and certainly not least, the map!
The map is 22” x 25.5” in size, with nice large hexes measuring a whopping 1” from hex side to hex side. I really like the large hex size and I think it suits the map nicely. There is plenty of space on the map for various tables, such as the bombardment and combat table. There is terrain effects info on the map, as well as the turn sequence for easy reference. You will need a piece of Plexiglass, or whatever transparent material you use, to keep the map lying flat.
Here a view showing most of the top of the map:
Here’s a view showing some of the bottom portion of the map.
This looks like a great game and I hope to get it to the gaming table soon.
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