Brave Little Belgium: The WWI little army that could

This review of Brave Little Belgium was featured on Episode 105 of The Five By.  Check out the rest of the episode, which also features Codinca, Root: The Marauder Expansion, Dice Throne and Concept.

Every so often there’s a discussion online about how to bring in more diversity to wargaming and how to make wargames more accessible. There isn’t enough time on this podcast segment to address the first issue, but for the second one, having a rulebook that isn’t the length of a novella helps immensely. For gamers who don’t play wargames, there’s nothing else more daunting — well, other than a grumpy grognard on your table — than opening up a new wargame, seeing a million chits and a 50-page rulebook. 

Luckily, publishers like Hollandspiele, which specializes in military history games, offers one such game that’s perfect for gamers who want to dip their toe into the proverbial wargaming pool. Brave Little Belgium, designed by Ryan Heilman and David Shaw, is a quick-playing 2-player wargame that came out in 2019 and plays in about an hour. The game comes with a mapsheet of Belgium, 8 dice, and 88 chit counters.

The game is a great introduction to popular wargaming mechanisms such as chits and chit pulls, and the rulebook is an easily digestible and understandable eight pages. The game takes place during World War I. Germany has declared war on France and needs to plow through Belgium, which declared itself neutral but is now working with allies to try to hold off those German forces. One player plays as Germany, while the other plays as the Entente forces, which consist of Belgium, French and British troops. 

The game takes place over at least 6 turns, max 8. The setup is probably the hardest part of the game — that is if you don’t know your Belgium geography. Chits are separated by army, and stacks of them are placed at various points on the map. There’s a handy-dandy diagram on the back of the rulebook, which I missed the first time I played and couldn’t help but laugh at myself when I realized it existed. There are also fort markers that are placed at the fort locations. Lastly, Garde Civique chits are randomly placed face-down across cities and towns on the map by rolling two dice and consulting the chart on the player mapsheet. 

The army generals’ chits that start the game are placed in a cup of your choosing, as well as three Turn End chits, and special events chits that favor each player. A couple other army generals are placed on the turn track, meaning when that turn starts, they get thrown into the cup for the potential for their army to activate. 

Chit pulls are a popular wargaming mechanism. You randomly draw a chit from the cup, and then that army activates. When three Turn End chits are pulled out, the turn ends. Sometimes that happens much faster or longer than you anticipated, which contributes to the tension of the game. There’s nothing like staring at your opponent and dramatically pulling the exact chit you need. 

Army forces are split into two types: infantry and cavalry. Infantry have two movement points, while cavalry have four movement points. Movement across the map takes one movement point between straight lines or two movement points between squiggly lines. 

When an army enters a location that contains their opponents’ chits, a battle occurs. Players then move their chits to the battle section of the mapsheet and separate their troops based on their combat factor. The chits are clearly marked with a picture of a dice to represent that. Both players roll dice and hand out hits accordingly. This battle box is actually quite handy and makes it easy to understand how battles work. 

For example, a unit with a combat factor of 5 has to roll a five or higher on their roll to successfully  hit their opponent. To apply losses to your armies, you either turn the chit over, revealing a weaker army unit, or remove them from the game.

When battles occur at a fort, the fort will roll a number of dice based on each step it possesses, and it needs to roll a 5 or higher to hit. As the fort takes hits, and this is after all the army units have been depleted, it loses a step and it’s turned counter clockwise to indicate that. 

To win, the German player must destroy a fort at Liege, destroy the fort at Namur and occupy a city on the other side of the victory line on the western side of the mapsheet with an infantry unit. The German player must complete these objectives by the Aug. 19-21 turn. If the German completes these objectives after that turn on Aug. 22-24, then the game is a draw. If the German player does this on the final turn of the game, the Aug. 25-27, then it is an Entente victory. To summarize, the longer the Entante player can hold off the German forces, the better. 

There is one other way the German player can lose. When three Turn End chits are pulled and the turn ends, the German player can activate any armies that didn’t get activated during that turn. But they must roll a die first, and if they roll a 4, 5 or 6, they commit an atrocity and move up the atrocity track. The German player then moves their army like a regular activation. If the German player commits 5 atrocities, they immediately lose the game. 

If you’re vaguely interested in checking out a wargame but don’t know where to start, then Brave Little Belgium is a good one to check out for an hourlong game of battles, strategic movement, chit-pulling and dice rolling. It’s a classic David Vs. Goliath situation (the Belgium troops are small and spread out at the beginning, and the German forces are coming in hot and heavy, and it makes for a satisfying win when the Belgian army holds them off. I also particularly appreciate how you’re eased into the game with the introduction of more French and British troops each upcoming turn. 

And that’s Brave Little Belgium! This is Meeple Lady for the Five By. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as Meeple Lady, or on my website boardgamemeeplelady.com. Thanks for listening. Bye!