As I settle into the new house and continue to digest the rules for Longstreet Attacks, I set up and played Guns of Galicia, a 2012 publication from Worthington. Designed by John Gorkowski, this title depicts the conflict between the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires in the region of Galicia during the Frist World War. It features a chit pull mechanism for unit activation and simulates warfare on the corps level.

I picked up the game some years back on clearance and it was one of my earlier wargaming titles. I mostly return to it for the 1914 scenario before the introduction of trenches and the stagnation they bring. The low counter density keeps the game flowing but the design buckles a bit in the later scenarios when the maneuver gives way to more linear combat. But with the low counter density, its hard to maintain solid lines which combined with the loose ZOC rules, corps are easily surrounded and picked off.

Here are some of my thoughts in greater detail.

The first scenario, happily, I return to time and again. Opening in August 1914, the opening moves are tense with the chit pull, combining the Napoleonic flavor of maneuver with an unprecedented scale. It is here, with this ruleset, that the design sings. It is possible, if the chit pull allows, to defeat armies in detail and keep the opposition off balance and on the defensive. This is a must for the Austro-Hungarians as they seek to blunt Russian advances.

The following playthrough was dramatic and hard to predict but by turn 6, the writing was on the wall. Great little scenario.