by RockyMountainNavy, 7 April 2025
People play wargames for different reasons. Some, like myself, enjoy learning or studying military history through the medium of a wargame. Others focus on gameplay, relishing in facing strategic or tactical challenges presented in the form of a game. Fighting Formations: US 29th Infantry Division designed by Chad Jensen from GMT Games (2024) is a nuanced wargame that delivers the powerful story of the 29th Infantry Division through the medium of a highly playable strategy game.
Fighting Formations: US 29th Infantry Division (hereafter 29ID) is another Chad Jensen game released several years after the designer’s unfortunate passing. The title is the second in the Fighting Formations series and was co-developed by Kai Jensen and Scott Mansfield. I personally never played the former title so 29ID is my introduction to the series.
As the Introduction in the Playbook for 29ID relates:
In this second volume of Fighting Formations, we feature the US 29th Infantry Division — “Blue and Gray” — as it fought from just after D-Day in June of 1944 to the end of the year. In each scenario, one player will take command of elements of this bloodied but stalwart American formation while the other assumes control of the opposing German forces.
Story gaming
29ID comes with 14 scenarios. One scenario (Scenario 0) is an introductory scenario and another (Scenario 13) is a “build-your-own” scenario toolkit. The other 12 historical scenarios are best played in conjunction with reading the Historical Notes in the Playbook. Kai Jensen, who authored the Historical Notes, not only delivers a compelling narrative of the 29th Infantry but also shows where each of the 12 historical scenarios takes place in that story. The scenarios in 29ID are not a series of programmed learning situations though some rules are introduced in later scenarios simply because the situation for their use comes up.
Scenario designer John A. Foley in their “Scenario Design” notes found in the Playbook explains the storytelling of 29ID:
The last major focus area has to do with “Telling the Story.” I hope that players play all the scenarios in order so that they will experience in a dramatic narrative form the journey of the 29th Infantry Division. This narrative arc has two levels. The upper level, so to speak, treats of this journey as an integrated whole, combining the various elements [Timeline, Signature Events, Situation, Unit Evolution, geography and season] I’ve already described. The lower level, so to speak, gets into how and why I zero in on particular moments, selecting those moments as “scenarios” which contain a story in the moment and contribute to the overarching narrative.
Granted, each scenario of 29ID can be played separately and in whatever order the players desire, but playing them in the historical order like Foley explains at the appropriate point “in the story” of the 29th Infantry delivers a much more powerful experience. Much as the 29th Infantry Division “learned” how to fight along the way, by playing 29ID in the historical order players too can experience similar situations and see—and hopefully learn—how to find a way to victory.
Game of orders
While 29ID has the appearance of a somewhat classic wargame with hexes and counters and tables, the core game mechanisms provide different approaches to depicting combat. No better example of this difference in 29ID exists than rules for Orders. The core of the Order rules are found in rule 1.1 ORDER MATRIX and 30.0 CORE RULES – ORDERS – General Rules.
As rule 1.10 ORDERS MATRIX explains:
The Order Matrix dominating the center of the Track Display defines the capability of the players to perform the various orders—the basic actions of FF—throughout the game. Specifically, the Matrix determines which orders are available to the players at any given moment via the positions of the allotted order cubes within its colored boxes.
The General Rules portion of rule 30.0 defines how to “give” orders:
To perform—or “give”—an order, a player must have the Initiative—that is, the Initiative marker must currently be:
- on their side of the “0” space; or
- in the “0” space when they are in possession of the Fate card.
To give an order, a player performs the following sequence:
- Remove any one order cube from the Order Matrix.
- Move the Initiative marker a number of spaces towards their opponent equal to the number in the box from which the cube was taken.
- Choose to perform either the order listed directly to the left/right of the box from which the cube was taken— depending on the nationality being commanded by that player—or any order listed below it (that is, one next to a smaller Matrix number).
- Activate units if appropriate for the order [30.1]. Activated units may deploy or muster [30.2]. They may then Abandon [25].
- Perform the chosen order [rules 31-38] or choose to do nothing (“pass”). Opponent may use Return Fire/Op Fire if appropriate [34.3 & 35.6]. Unactivate units as they complete their activities.
- Opponent removes any Spent markers from their units.
- Check for possible end of turn [21.12].
An announced order must be performed in its entirety before the next order can be given (by either player).
Players in 29ID use Orders to Command units by activating them. Two different types of Command Markers are available: Mission Command and Tactical Command (rule 4.1 AVAILABLE COMMAND). Each defines a different amount of Initiative that must be paid for executing an order.
It is the constant balance of Initiative and Orders that is the gameplay challenge of 29ID. I emphasize “gameplay” because choosing Orders and Command & Activation is easier to think of as playing strategies and not taking military actions. An example of what I mean when it comes to Orders is perhaps best exemplified in the Example of Play, Example 1 – Orders:
C —The Initiative pawn is on the German side of the Initiative Track in position “1” so the German player gets the next order. Based on the positioning of the order cubes in this diagram, they could issue an Assault, Rally, Move, Fire, or Asset order. They’d like to fire and, since they are defending against a moving US force, they look to make it a bit more costly for the US player to move their units. The German player therefore selects the sole order cube in the “4” slot. (Now if the US player wants to issue a Move order this turn, they’ll have to spend 5 Initiative.) [Emphasis mine] The German player removes the cube from the “4” slot….
D —The German player immediately moves the Initiative pawn four spaces towards the US player’s side of the Initiative track to pay for the order cube selected. They announce a Fire order and start activating units.
E — As the Germans finish their Fire order, the US player thinks about the dilemma created for them by their opponent. They are in the process of moving forces toward the German positions. But now there are no order cubes in either the “4” (Move) or “3” (Rally) slots to use for an inexpensive order, but the cubes in the “5” (Advance) slot are still available. They feel it’s too early in the game to stop moving and wait for a better distribution of cubes the following turn. [Emphasis mine again] So to maintain momentum, they select a cube in the “5” slot, pay five Initiative, and issue the Move order (they could also issue an Advance order, if the situation warrants).
I admit that for a while I struggled to grok what the Orders and Command rules in 29ID depict. Much like X user @bgparado speaks to in the image below, I finally realized that Jensen is using a form of worker placement where the placement and resultant radius of Commands affects the possible activation of units. While I may struggle to grok what the Orders and Command rules in 29ID truly depict in real life, I nonetheless see how they create an enjoyable, and challenging, gaming experience.
Stepping into combat
Another game design example of playability in 29ID is found in rule 34 FIRE, specifically rule 34.13 Attack Dice. 29ID uses a “step die” approach to combat resolution.
When I first played 29ID the combat resolution system came off, frankly, as a very roleplaying game-like system.
-
- The default attack is resolved using 2d10. Modifiers change the “step” of the die; i.e. a -2D modifier changes the Attack Dice from 2d10 to 2d8 (1 step) to 2d6 (2 steps). The minimum Attack Dice is 2d6 whereas the maximum is 2d20.
- Once the step of the Attack Dice is determined a roll is made against Hinderance (see 34.141 Determine Hinderance) where if any single die roll result equals the Hinderance or less the attack ends.
- If the attack is unhindered, the sum of the two Attack Dice is added to the Firepower of the attacking unit.
- The defending unit makes a Fire Defense roll (see 34.15 Defense Totals) which is a roll of 2d10 plus modifiers; a Fire Defense roll greater than the total Firepower of the attacker successfully stops an attack.
When it comes right down to it, I am confident the mathing behind the Attack Dice and Fire Defense rolls in 29ID are very likely no different than a classic combat odds table. The use of the step die, however, hides the numbers and instead gives players more of a gaming feeling. Can I really make this attack work with 2d6? How do I get it to 2d20 for greater chances of success? The end result is a feeling of playing a game rather than manually adjudicating a simulation outcome.
Final tally
The story gaming approach in 29ID is perhaps the best way to understand the brutal reality of combat this unit faced. As Kai Jensen explains at the end of the Historical Notes:
Under Major General Charles H. Gerhardt from July 1943 to the end of the war, the 29th Division suffered the second-highest total of battle casualties of any American division in the European Theater — 20,620 men — behind only the 4th Infantry Division’s 22,660 casualties.
It was said that Gerhardt commanded three divisions: one in the field, one in the hospital, and one in the cemetery.
In their 242 days of combat, the 29th Division had:
- 3,887 men killed in action
- 15,541 wounded in action (899 of whom died of their wounds)
- 347 missing in action (315 of whom were returned to military control alive)
- 845 taken prisoner of war (six of whom died in captivity)
- 8,665 non-combat casualties.
During this same time, the division accounted for 38,912 Germans soldiers taken as prisoners of war.
Honors received by the division and its soldiers include:
- 5 Medals of Honor
- 44 Distinguished Service Crosses
- 1 Distinguished Service Medal
- 854 Silver Star Medals
- 17 Legion of Merit Medals
- 24 Soldier’s Medals
- 6,308 Bronze Star Medals
- 176 Air Medals
- 4 Distinguished Unit citations
- 4 campaign streamers
When it comes right down to it, there is no wargame that can approximate this level of violence. What 29ID does best is deliver a story with playable flavor showing just a bit of the horrors faced by the 29th Infantry Division. The fact that Chad Jensen packaged that horrible experience into a very playable design that tells that story is a testimony to their design abilities. When it comes to telling the story of a division in the crucible of combat of World War II, Fighting Formations: 29th Infantry Division tells that story through an enjoyable gaming experience.
Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and riding with The Armchair Dragoons.
Rather than list a bunch of social media links, the easiest thing to do is to check out our LinkTree, which connects you to all of our various locales around the web.
You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events.
Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.
