Blocks!: Richard III

I have a soft spot for wargames that hide most of their complexity behind a short ruleset, and Blocks!: Richard III is exactly that kind of package. Avalon Digital's digital adaptation of Columbia Games' block wargame puts Lancaster against York across an area-movement map of Great Britain, with the goal of eliminating all five enemy heirs or locking up control of England's powerful nobles. The whole game runs three campaign scenarios, each resetting at the end but carrying over the permanent attrition of "rose" nobles and royal heirs, which means the cumulative strategic pressure builds in a way that keeps even shorter sessions feeling consequential. The core mechanical hook is the block system's fog of war. You see your own forces at full resolution, strength pip by strength pip, while your opponent stares at featureless backs until combat is declared. That hidden-information layer forces exactly the kind of bluff-and-probe decision-making I find most satisfying in wargames: do you commit a strong stack to an attack when the enemy formation might be reduced cannon fodder, or a wall of fresh Burgundian mercenaries? Sea movement compounds the tension further, letting either side bypass land chokepoints, raid rear areas, and pull off the kind of encirclement that would make a purely continental campaign feel flat. Warwick, the notorious Kingmaker, adds a treachery mechanic where key figures can attempt to flip enemy nobles rather than fight, though in practice the mechanic underdelivers, as his treachery value is low enough that defections are rare unless you specifically build around it. Here is the point where Diego the spreadsheet keeper has to be honest about the AI. Multiple reviewers and Steam community comments alike flag the same problem: the solo opponent leaves units exposed, overcommits, and loses to players of even modest experience. This is a meaningful dent for a title whose strength as a board game always lived in the hidden-information duel between two people reading each other. The digital version does handle hot-seat local play on the same screen, dynamically reorienting blocks each turn so neither player peeks at the other's values, which is a genuinely clever solution. If you have a regular opponent, especially one already familiar with Hammer of the Scots or Crusader Rex, the digital format removes all the fiddly block-rotation bookkeeping and speeds up combat resolution cleanly. For newcomers to block wargames: do not be intimidated. The ruleset is compact, the area-movement map is readable, and the three-campaign structure means a full session runs roughly two hours, with single-scenario chunks available in under an hour. That accessibility is real. What the game does ask is that you read the rules before diving in, since the in-game interface alone will leave you uncertain about recruitment zones and political turn timing. The manual is downloadable and short. Spend fifteen minutes with it and the systems snap into place quickly. The interface itself is a stable 3D rendering of the board, responsive enough, though recruitment placement discovery via cursor-hover rather than persistent map icons is a UI choice that wastes time early in each round.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

Be the first to comment on Blocks!: Richard III.