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2GM is a card game for between one and four players. In this game, players will create and customize their decks to get the upper hand over their opponents. The game takes place in the late years of WW2 and you will get to recreate battles from that era.
2GM was originally published in 2015 over in Spain and due to the great response and sales, this second release is an attempt to get the game out to a wider market.
About 2GM
Being a war game, the idea is simple.... Defeat your opponent. You have the usual troops and vehicles you would expect from a game of this genre and all of these are brilliantly shown in great artwork.
The card quality is good and even just the base game has a lot of cards. The expansions add different country’s armies to the fold and they all have unique and relevant troops/art too. The game plays in around 40 minutes for two players, and goes up to 140 minutes at four players.
As previously mentioned, 2GM is a war game so to gain victory you 're going to need to destroy your opponents.
How it plays
Before the game you decide on a number of AP (Action points) and you then build a deck to that value. Different cards cost varying amounts, with infantry costing 1ap and a tank costing up 4ap. This adds a level of strategy to your choices as you want a varied deck, spend too much and you could end up with a shortage of cards later on in the game.
Once all players have formed their deck, you then lay out the playing area. The playing area is made up of double sided tiles which are shuffled and laid out in 3 x 4 pattern. Some of the tiles have different terrain on them which can affect the battle.
Each player's HQ is placed at opposite ends of the player board and you must try and destroy the opponent’s HQ to win the game. A game turn consists of several phases:
- Generate AP from the HQ or any special cards in play.
- Draw two cards from the deck.
- Move units.
- Deploy units by spending AP and play cards from your hand.
- Fire/Attack as long as you are in range.
- Flip over any used equipment cards.
- Discard cards back down to seven.
This is a very simple overview of a player's turn, you also have to consider, terrain and any ongoing effects. There are also, buildings, bunkers, minefields, wire and much much more in 2GM -which makes it a light-looking WW2 game with great depth and replay-ability due to the huge amount of cards on offer.
The game can end in several ways, a player can run out of cards in his deck, his HQ can become destroyed or you can put a time limit on the game.
Final Thoughts
I grew up on films like Kellys Hero’s and war games really strike a chord with me. I was hoping this would be a simple game to play, one that I could play solo and with friends. While 2GM is not difficult at all, it is a bit heavier than what it looks like at first glance.
The game has everything you would expect from a game in this genre, terrain, tanks, planes and more. The game is a deck-building hand management game at heart and it does this very well.
A war game that instead of traditional counters or minis, replaces these with cards. The game tries to bridge the gap between the heavy war games and the really light ones and to be fair it does that very well. It’s a fun game despite being a little fiddley and swingy at times, the quick playtime and set-up mean it will get a lot of action.
I would recommend anyone who would like to try a war game but find them to complex or boring, to give 2GM ago. A major appeal to the game is the building of your deck before play, what to spend your resources on, do you go big on infantry, massive tanks or Aircraft?
I must mention the game came with a massive scenario book that contains set-up instructions for many famous battles of WW2. This adds so much to the game and as you can play solo you will get a lot of game time out of this book alone.
2GM isn't for everyone and its flaws of being fiddly and not ultra-light (considering the art gives that impression) will disappoint some, but you cannot deny it’s a fun game with more positives than negatives.
