Hold the Line
Frederick’s War and Highland Charge

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Frederick’s War and Highland Charge from the Hold the Line series available from Worthington Games are enjoyable and challenging. Frederick’s War is the main game that you receive as a boxed game and as an add-on Worthington gives the gamer the Highland Charge expansion which adds additional counters, a few new or modified rules, and all new scenarios.

The Components

The Components for Frederick’s War is as follows;

  • 1 colorful box
  • 1 mounted mapboard
  • 90 large counters
  • 1 sheet of terrain tiles
  • 3 six sided dice
  • 1 rule and scenario booklet

With the addition of Highland Charge player receive the following items;

  • 72 large counters
  • 1 rule and scenario booklet

As you can see from the example below, the map as well as the counters are crisp and clean.

The Rules

The rules for Frederick’s War is only 9 pages in length and the rules for Highland Charge is only a single page. The rules covered in Frederick’s War are;

  • Introduction
  • Map Board
  • Game Units
  • Setup
  • Sequence of Play
  • Action Point Determination Phase
  • Movement
  • Combat
  • Leaders
  • Victory Conditions
  • Scenario Section

These 11 sections take up 9 pages of the rule book with 8 pages devoted to the scenarios, 1 page devoted to Optional Rules and the back page has the games Charts and Tables.

The Highland Charge rule booklet has 1 page devoted to the rules and 5 pages worth of Scenarios.

Scenarios

Frederick’s War contains 8 scenarios which are;

  • Mollwitz April 14, 1741
  • Chotuzitz May 17, 1742
  • Hohenfriedberg June 4, 1745
  • Kesselsdorf December 15, 1745
  • Kolin June 18, 1757
  • Leuthen December 5, 1757
  • Hochkirch October 14, 1758
  • Liegnitz August 15, 1760

The Highland Charge scenarios that are included with the game are;

  • Sheriffmuir November 13, 1715
  • Glen Shiel June 10, 1719
  • Prestonpans September 21, 1745
  • Falkirk January 17, 1746
  • Culloden April 16, 1746

As you can readily see between the two booklets, you receive a wide range of scenarios from which you can select to play.

Summary

Hold the Line Frederick’s War and Highland Charge use simple game mechanics that will be very easy to learn but the strategy used in fighting the different battles will be difficult to master. While experienced games should be able to play a scenario in approximately 90 minutes, you can expect the first game to take a bit longer. This is an excellent game for a Friday night game club or for having a friend over for a weekend to game. Frederick’s War and Highland Charge is simple enough where an experienced gamer can explain the game system in 15 minutes and have the board setup and playing in 30 minutes. The challenge with Frederick’s War and Highland Charge is not learning the game system but mastering the tactics to win the Scenario.

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