West Front: Pen and Paper 2026

An operational rulebook covering sectors, defensive lines, logistics, simultaneous orders, initiative, artillery, gas, aviation, retreats, routs, surrender, and some of the most known scenarios of WWI.

The game is designed to be played with paper and pen, on sheets printed at home, using very simple maps that schematically represent the battlefield — but the maps are not used to place counters or physical units. Each sheet is a plain text file, editable and printable to suit your needs. Each scenario can require many sheets and generate a bit of clutter. The game is not designed to be fast, nor to help the player avoid mistakes. The basic idea is to represent the general staff of two armies during the planning phases of major battles of the First World War. Generals were almost never at the front line, information was almost never certain, and mistakes were an everyday occurrence. The game uses a system based on Logistics Points (LP from here on) in which each general staff has a certain number of actions available covering any part of the battle, from planning bombardments to giving direct orders to divisions. LP represent the availability of munitions, the use of friendly lines to move, withdraw, and reinforce divisions, and the use of aviation, artillery, and gas. Deliberately, ordering an attack costs no LP at all. In the First World War, an attack order consisted of an officer's whistle: the troops poured out of the trenches, and there was not much left to do but watch how it turned out.