Review: Modern Naval Battles – Global Warfare

Dan Verssen Games (DVG) came into existence in the summer of 2002. The three members of the company are: Dan Verssen, Holly Verssen, and Chris Richardson. The company was formed in response to the need for a legal business entity when they began design of the Z-Cardz Collectible Card Game.

DVG usually has about 5 games in development at any given time. As of late, they have also started to team up with talented computer game developers in order to bring some of their classic games to a whole new environment.

Modern Naval Battles – Global Warfare is inspired by our original 1989 award winning game and its 2 expansions. “Global War” is a redesigned improvement of the original game.

The cards are beautifully printed with full color on both sides with rounded corners. Box size is 9″ x 12″ x 1.5″. Cartamundi did all the printing and production work. They are a great company to work with and have a lot of experience printing games.

This new game features ships from 9 different nations: USA, USSR, UK, France, China, Argentina, Taiwan, Norway, and Japan. This gives you the ships you need to play out battles during the Cold War, Falkland Islands War, and Post-2000 naval warfare on the high seas.

The MNB – Global Warfare system maximizes player decision making to make every turn exciting. First, you get to select a nation’s fleet to command. Then, you get to select your specific ships to build what you think is the best battle group. Once selected, you’ll get to battle the fleets selected by the other players for ultimate supremacy of the seas!

Modern Naval Battles – Global Warfare includes:

• 110 Full Color Action Cards
• 110 Full Color Ship Cards
• 1 6-sided die
• Rulebook

Play

Players start the game a fleet and need to arrange them. All ships have different weapon systems – guns, missiles, torpedoes and aircraft. The varied weapons systems will have a bearing on how your fleet is deployed.

While naval combat isn’t as easy as this in reality, the very simple rules will make you feel like an admiral. In fact, this review would simply be a reprint of the rules set were I to go into it in full, which would be a disservice to DVG.

This game requires players to make decisions that will effect the outcome of the game. While that sounds strange – most games really don’t do that. In so many games of this type, you can always retcon your choices and still win. This game is strategy – you have to think when you play.

A game can take anywhere from an hour to two hours.

The Good

I’m not exactly what you’d call an old sea-dog, but the lure of nautical combat does run deep in my blood, thanks to a lot of great WWII films. I was slightly familiar with the original Modern Naval Battles, and was really quite pleased with this new, updated version.

The materials are all quite common of DVG products – high quality, durable, and easy-to-understand rules.

The Bad

None.

The Ugly

None.

Product Summary
Name: Modern Naval Battles – Global Warfare
Publisher: DVG
Game concept: Dan Verssen
Category: Boardgame
Cost: $49.99
Year: 2008
SKU: DV1-004
ISBN: N/A

Rating