Small Box CDG Hidden Movement of Admiral Graf Spee in South Atlantic 1939
Overview
When I got the chance to do a preview for this game I was immediately excited! For one it is another small box CDG from Matthias Cramer (designer of Watergate). This time teamed up with co-designer Engin Kunter, it also is a topic I knew very little about. The first major Naval action of WW2 between German Kriegsmarine heavy cruiser Admiral Graf Spee and the British Royal Navy tasked with hunting it.
This is publisher Salt and Pepper’s second original game after the fantastic Resist! (see my playthrough Here!). Smartly the first thing that caught my eye was again the FABULOUS artwork by Albert Monteys. This is something you’ll see come up several times through this playthrough.
Historical Background
The Hunt tells the story of German Raiding in the South Atlantic at the very beginning of World War II. Shortly before Germany’s invasion of Poland the heavy cruiser, Admiral Graf Spee left Germany to sail for the south Atlantic. The Graf Spee (named after WW1 Far East Squadron Commander Admiral Maximillian von Spee) left with orders to perform commerce raiding to disrupt allied supplies in the South Atlantic.
From September until December 1939 the Graf Spee avoided an increasing British Royal Navy presence while sinking nine merchant vessels. The Graf Spee was nicknamed a “pocket battleship” by the British. It was designed to outgun anything smaller than it, and outrun anything with more firepower. The Cat and Mouse game between Graf Spee and the Allied Navies culminated on December 13, 1939 when a British task force located and fought Admiral Graf Spee during the Battle of River Plate off the cost of Montevideo, Uruguay. The Graf Spee was able to limp damaged to Montevideo, but fearing additional British reinforcements: Captain Hans Langsdorff ordered the ship scuttled to deny it to the allies.
A great synopsis of the hunt and battle can be found here by The Operations Room (one of my favorite YouTube channels)
Game Mechanics
The Map
The Hunt comes with a small hex map that represents the south Atlantic ocean between Western Africa and Eastern South America. This is the area that the Graf Spee historically hunted and took most of its targets in the approximate 3 months it spent harassing allied shipping traffic.
This is a departure from the more abstract nature of Watergate, but given the subject matter it makes sense. Hexes are all numbered (important for gameplay) and the various key ports are illustrated: Great Britain, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa.
Along the top is the holding boxes for the British task forces that you can advance to give the British player more ability to hunt the small map.
The bottom shows places for the Graf Spee’s recon plane as well as reserve box (more about these later.)
British Counters
Most of the counters that come with the game are under British Control. These come in two different types: Freighters and Forces. The freighters represent the commerce vessels sailing between ports in the the South Atlantic. Two randomly start on the board and at the beginning of the British player’s turn will move one space towards their destination port. If they arrive safely they represent 1 VP for the British Player. If sunk, they represent 1 VP for the German.
Each freighter is marked with the name of the vessel as well as it’s starting port and destination. The arrows at each port show the hex that vessels start in and/or enter from when reaching the destination.
The Forces represent the individual task forces the Royal Navy sent to search and destroy the Admiral Graf Spee. To start the game Force G is the only task force on the map. However the British player can use AP to advance the other task forces along the strategy track and bring other forces into the game. This increases the ability to protect the shipping lanes and hopefully track down the Graf Spee.
The value on each Task Force is used in battle and represents the AP bonus for the British player during each round of battle and is added to the total battle card value. I’ll explain battles a bit later.
Hidden Movement
What you might notice from the set up, the Graf Spee doesn’t appear on the board. Rather its location is tracked by the German player on a piece of paper off map. This piece is the critical component of the game and provides the most tension.
The Altmark, the German Supply ship is the only German piece on the map. This ship cannot be attacked or attack. It is vital during the German re-draw phase and represents the German re-supply for the Graf Spee during its hunt in the South Atlantic. When the German player chooses a move action, they can move either the Altmark or Graf Spee. If moving the Graf Spee they just record the new hex location on a piece of paper.
Action Points
Anyone that has played Watergate before will instantly see how cards work. Both games are Card Driven Games that use cards as the main engine for actions. The Hunt like Watergate sports unique decks for each faction, and both decks contain cards with both Action Point (AP) values when played for AP allow the player to use the value for a combination of actions on their turn.
Those actions are very asymmetrical but thematic:
German Actions:
- Movement: Move the Graf Spee OR Altmark 1, 2, or 3 spaces for 1, 2, or 4 AP respectively
- Search (once per turn): for 2 AP, search for a freight ship. Roll a D6 on 5+ freighter is sank, supply ship use grants +2 DRM.
- Repair Plane: for 1 AP, attempt to repair the search plane, roll a D6, if result is > number of cards removed from game then plane is moved to “destroyed” and cannot be repaired
- Reserve: 1 AP per point: reserve up to 2 AP to be used in future turns
As you can see these actions are all about hunting, and sinking ships. The ability to reserve AP is critical for the Graf Spee to search, then move before the British can react on the next turn.
British Actions
- Movement: Move a Force 1, 2, or 3 spaces for the respective AP value
- Intelligence: for 1 AP: discard a card to use intellegence value at bottom of card. This could be DRM to search roll or force German to place a hint marker in the Graf Spee’s space or an adjacent space.
- Search: for 1 AP: Search for the Graf Spee in the location of a task force, on the value 5+ the Graf Spee is located and a battle is initiated.
- Strategy: for 2 AP the British player advances a task force one space. If it exits the strategy track it is immediately placed in hex 06 adjacent to Great Britain space and can be moved and perform searches
Victory and Events
Victory
Now that I have walked through a lot of the components and actions each side can take I want to talk about Victory. The Hunt is very interesting as there are multiple ways the game can end. The easiest of this comes down to the freighters. There are 9 total in the game. If the British Player can get 5 of these to port before the German Player sinks 5 then they win and vice versa.
This is where the early game will take place. The second way the game ends is in a battle. This is the unique thing about this game. In many wargames battles happen frequently and are the main part of the game. Here however, if the British Player finds the Graf Spee a battle is immediately started.
To do so both players re-draw so they have a hand of 5 cards. Then they take turns selecting a card secretly then revealing simultaneously. The AP of the card (plus any AP bonus the British task force involved in the battle) is compared and the higher value scores a hit on the opponent. This is repeated until all 5 cards are played. The side with the most hits LOSES THE GAME!
This really changes how the game is played as one side approaches it’s victory condition. For example if the British side is up four ships to zero, they might not want to go into a battle where they could lose everything! It also might make the decision on what cards to keep in your hand each turn very interesting!
Events
Now is a good time to talk about the other use for cards in the game. I already mentioned how the cards have AP that can be used for actions, but cards also come with events. These can be used in place of the AP depending on what phase you are in: The Hunt or The Battle. Hunt events can only be played during the main hunt phase of the game. Battle events MUST be played for events if used during the battle, but are only good for AP during the hunt. Mandatory events played during the hunt MUST be played for events and not for AP.
As with a lot of Cramer designs, some events can be played as Reactions, or out of turn when your opponent does an action that meets the criteria on the card. These can be big. For example the British player has a card that interrupts a German Search and lets the British do a search with a +1 modifier as a reaction if they have a task force in the same space as the search.
I found these events to really have some interesting effects, especially the weather effects which are mostly mandatory events. Weather cards either give you a bonus (good weather) or hinderance (bad weather), but the effects last through you opponent’s turn. So for example playing good weather to get a big turn is nice, but it does give your opponent a +1 to their searches in the next turn so its not a card to play lightly.
Event removal
To further make events an interesting choice, many will remove the card from the game if played and represent a single use. Again this is something fans of Watergate will pick up on and really make you think on how and when to use that critical event during the game.
Montevideo Victory
The last victory condition and also historic one occurs during the battle. If during the battle the German player plays Montevideo, if the British player immediately pays Scuttling in Montevideo then the British player has forced the Germans to Scuttle the ship and they win the game.
Again like most of the rest of the game, if this card makes it to your hand you might think about hanging on to it, especially if you are going for a battle victory.
Bluffing
While not explicitly in the rulebook, the rules do have a few instances where bluffing is strongly encouraged. For example during German movement, all the player has to say is how many AP they are using. If they move the Graf Spee, they can move the full movement allowed by the AP expended or they can choose to only move a partial or even not move at all.
The other major bluffing component revolves around the Altmark. At the end of the German player’s turn the number of cards they draw involves the Graf Spee’s location in relation to the Altmark.
If in the same or adjacent space as Altmark the German player CAN draw a hand up to 5 cards. Otherwise they can only draw up to 3 cards. Much like movement however, the German player can maintain a hand size of 3 even if they are near the Altmark.
Impressions
Why I liked this one:
Tension: This game is full of tension. As the German player, each time you see a task force move onto the location with Graf Spee you hold your breath. As the British Player seeing your freighters disappear one by one while you desperately scramble to find the Graf Spee really makes each turn get more and more desperate as the game goes on. The choices of event vs. AP is also really good as there are some very unique events sprinkled through both decks.
Balance of Randomness: As with many wargames a lot of your main actions come down to dice rolls. I’m a firm believer that having some randomness in games like this is necessary. Battles through history are full of forces that should have lost but ended in victory. The Hunt is no different with searches hinging on dice rolls. However both sides have ways to mitigate this. For the British use of Intelligence can add hints to location of the Graf Spee and/or DRMs to search rolls. For the German, use of the Graf Spee’s recon plane can give a +2 to search rolls. Both options give nice ways to mitigate dice rolls for both sides.
Artwork: what can I say. Even with prototype components, the work of Albert Monteys here just sets the tone. If you have played Resist! you know what I’m talking about. The art on the cards really tells the story of the cat and mouse game.
Game Size and Length: This is a game that can last as little as 45 minutes. I know this because my 16 year old son beat me, 5 ships to 2 as the Germans in less than an hour. Also with a small map, and only a handful of components and a box not much bigger than what Resist! came in I have to say this would make a good game to take travelling or to a Café.
Things to look out for
Bluffing: for the German player bluffing is a big part of the game. I’ll go so far to say, if you don’t bluff in this game as the German player you probably won’t last long. While I really liked this and I think really adds to the game and the frantic feeling for the British there are some people I’m sure that won’t like having go bluff or having your opponent lie by spending points and not moving.
Cat vs. Mouse: I’ve heard this complaint with another famous cat and mouse game: Star Wars Rebellion. The complaint is that it is often much more fun to play the mouse than the cat. This could be an issue here. While I still had fun as the British Player and having a lot of forces and power, I must admit there is nothing quite as awesome as slipping behind a task force sinking a freighter than moving onto a task force and seeing your opponent actually vacate the hex you are in. It is quite fun causing frustration, but might not be as fun for some people playing the other side.
Final Thoughts
This was a game that I enjoyed immensely as did both people I played it with. The only other game I have in my collection that has a cat and mouse playstyle is Star Wars Rebellion. While both have some really cool narrative moments, The Hunt is a different beast. For one in Rebellion, the hidden player is the Rebel who plays largely defensively while the hunter is on offense. The Hunt flips that on its head, with the hidden Graf Spee like a silent predator. One that will keep the British Player sweating the whole game.
The other major difference is that The Hunt runs on the same tight CDG system that Watergate runs on. The choices between cards for AP or Events and the much quicker play time make this one much different play.
From my perspective The Hunt is another great offering by Salt and Pepper. Thus far they’ve really showed promise as a publisher to find good designers and artists and target quick hitting but tension filled games. If you are a fan of Watergate, but want something a little more tactical or if you just like quicker playing CDGs this is definitely a game you’ll want on your list.
The Hunt hits Gamefound on March 15th. Follow the project Here!
Should be no surprise but Salt and Pepper provided the preview copy used for this article. As such components may change in final product.
