The Empire Strikes Back: A Review of "Mrs. Thatcher's War: The Falklands, 1982"

In 1982, my friends and I were sophomores in high school.  We were gamers, and we were interested in military matters in general, so when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands we knew things were going to get interesting.  

Now, going on forty years later, I was interested in finding a wargame of the Falklands War that captured some of the essence of the conflict.  I had played through Falklands scenarios in Larry Bond’s Harpoon which did a good job of gaming the naval aspects of the war, but they included nothing of the land war or the geopolitics of it.  Ditto for the 80s/Falklands expansion to William Miller’s Modern Naval Conflicts: 1970s.   I looked around at the various Falklands-specific offerings currently available---both contemporary and recent---and landed on Ben Madison’s Mrs. Thatcher’s War: The Falkands, 1982 (White Dog Games, 2017) as the most likely to provide what I was looking for.  

I was not disappointed.  

White Dog offers the game in Boxed, Folio, or Print-and-Play editions at varying levels of price; I opted for the Boxed version, since I usually prefer to avoid making my own game elements unless I am playtesting or running a mod, and since I had never yet ordered from White Dog and was curious to see how they stacked up against other game companies.  The production quality was very good, with some beautiful art and design work on the cover and throughout the other elements.  The main maps and cards were heavy enough to stand up to frequent use, and the counters have the thickness and tensile strength of plywood, with a linen-textured finish for good measure.  White Dog doesn’t ship their games with dice anymore, which didn’t bother me in the slightest; dice are cheap and easy to acquire at local stores, and as a lifelong gamer I have more six-sided dice floating around in my desk than I do paperclips.  In short, I found the game as a product well worth the price charged, and I’ll be ordering from White Dog in the future as the opportunity arises.  

MTW is designed to be set up easily, and has a minimum of components and fuss---two small maps, a couple of player-aid cards/charts, a handful of counters, and the rulebook.  After punching out, it took me all of 10 minutes to set up the game, and even less the second time around.  Don’t be put off by this, however; MTW is not a simple game.   Although it has a high level of abstraction (if you are looking for a hex-based grognard-fest with more chrome than a ‘57 Bel-Air, you will be disappointed),  the game achieves a complex balance between military tactics and political strategy---something difficult to game and, I found, even more difficult to master.  

The military side of the game is fairly traditional. The game is divided into Turns, which simulate 3 days of real time.  Your overall objective is simple: liberate the Falkland Islands from Argentine occupation by achieving military control of Port Stanley by the end of Turn 19, or as soon as practical.  There is, however, a catch: with the exception of a number of possible SpecOps raids, you can’t actually put boots on the ground on East Falkland until at least Turn 7, and even then only if the weather cooperates.  And in MTW, the weather almost never cooperates.  In the game, as in the actual campaign, Weather gyrates between being a close ally and a frustrating enemy, and is a major factor in the success or failure of your operation.   

Air Combat resolution is Odds-based, calculated using the relative Strength Points of the opposing forces; Ground Combat is s simple “Who is the toughest?”. with Strength mods for naval gun support, air support, public perception of the war (the BBC Score), and even whether or not the Pope is on his infamous PR tour.  The system is straightforward and works smoothly, in my opinion, and some of the mods have a dark humor to them which I appreciate.  

Movement at best possible speed is a crucial factor for achieving victory for the British, whether legging it (“yomping”) or going air-mobile, and like the Combat system it is straightforward and easy to master.  Of course, it is not as simple as all that.  Units must maintain their Supply to move, and there are a number of things that can bog a unit down, whether it is opposing forces or minefields.  Helicopters can be useful, but they are not available at first landing and, depending on circumstances, may end up not arriving at the Islands at all.  Even when present, helicopters can be suppressed by Weather and a loss of Air Superiority by the British in the sector.  

If the Military side of the game has a traditional order and logic to it, the Political side of it is just the opposite.  Affecting the game in major ways, you have: the United Nations, operating with its usual blend of high ideals and low ethics; your Continental “allies” (which is an amusingly-relative concept in Europe) and the supportive but often contradictory United States; the Vatican; various Third World nations, and the BBC.  In a skillful abstraction of a very complex situation, Madison caps each Turn with a dip into the Specific Headlines of the conflict, each of which can affect the game---an engine which functions as a sort of random Chaos generator which can (and often does) throw a monkey-wrench into the best tactical military planning. This function in the game does not feel at all contrived, however; it is a well-designed way to capture the absurd degree to which internal and international politics dictated the prosecution of the war, and it is one of the greatest strengths of Mrs. Thatcher’s War, in my opinion.  

This is not to say that the Political game turns on the ‘hazard of the die,’ however; your decisions can have a major impact on the British public’s support for the war which, in turn, can affect your operation.  In the first round I played, I made a very sound tactical decision and executed it flawlessly, securing my SLOC (Sea Lines of Communication) and eliminating a major threat to my ground forces...and it contributed heavily to my losing the war as the effects of negative Public Opinion disrupted those very ground operations.  To mount a successful campaign, careful thought must be given when making major tactical decisions, and second-guessing yourself in light of potential political effects becomes depressingly commonplace.  

In closing, like all games Mrs. Thatcher’s War is not for everyone.  This game is not a detailed simulation of military operations during the Falklands campaign, nor was it designed to be.  It is a very challenging, thoughtful, and---ultimately---honest attempt to capture the basics of a very complex situation, and to give the player some feeling for the challenges that confronted those who lived through it.  I find it succeeded.