Trench Raid: Solitaire Patrol Command on the WW1 Western Front

Trench Raid is a single-player game set on the Western Front in World War One. The player assembles a group of 10 raiders and plots their course on a map towards the enemy lines on the other side of No Man’s Land. With 12 different raid objectives and 20 random events that can take place during the crossing, no two playthroughs will be exactly the same.

The game also includes rules for campaign play — whether their raid was successful or not, the soldiers who make it back to their trench lines relatively unscathed will steadily get better at raiding, learning through experience how to survive.

“The generals would want to know which German units were in the line opposite you. And so they’d send up the order for us to raid. ‘Go get prisoners,’ they’d say. We knew it was a waste of time, and we hated it, but we did it. The idea was to crawl through the wire and jump into the enemy trench. We had to be quiet, so we fought with our bayonets, or with a studded club or the butt of our rifle. If we weren’t quick, the enemy would shout, and then the fun would start. Our bomber would throw a Mills bomb into the next bay, and after it went off the rifleman would dash forward and dispose of anyone who was left.” -British officer Murray Rymer-Jones

Complexity: Low
Playing time: 1 Hour Per Raid
Solitaire Suitability: Very High (Designed For Solitaire)
Players: 1
Map Scale: 1 Hex = Several Yards
Time Scale: 1 Game = 1 Raid
Unit Scale: Individuals