Trench Club Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Trench Club, a world war 1 themed board game published by PKB Games. with some great looking components, Trench Club seeks to be the next miniatures based war game for your tabletop.

Wargames come in many shapes and sizes. At their core, the common elements position players as commanders of armed forces in conflict with one or more other commanders. Decisions can be tactical like moving individual units or strategic with army-level command. They also usually involve some sort of map with or without terrain.

On the tactical side, games like Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) can lead players down a deep well of cardboard tokens while the more miniatures focused titles bring a deeper thematic integration with representations of individual units instead of the usual iconography of cardboard counters. Playability is another focus of some miniatures games. Here, the focus is on playability and getting dice to the table.

As it happens, new publisher PKB Games is aiming to bring tactical combat experience to the masses with Trench Club. The design goal is a tactical Miniatures wargame that is relatively easy to learn, featuring a WWI theme with unit experience and damage tracking built-in. Read on to see if it meets that objective. Although it supports 2-player play, a standard game can take up to 4 hours and is best with 4 players.

Appropriately for the design goals, Trench Club features a getting started summary of rules which helps new players begin play quicker. Each turn is comprised of four steps which are carried out completely before the next player takes their turn:

The first step is pretty self explanatory. A player can move their units from one hex to another, paying movement points for the types of terrain they