Oblique

Game Design: Amabel Holland
Map Art: Donal Hegarty
Hex Number: 86
Duration: 60 to 90 minutes
Players: 2
Solitaire Suitability: Low
Theme: 18th century
MSRP: $70.00

January 29 - February 4 2025: Canvas Map upgrade here!

Oblique is a scenario-based block game covering eight campaigns of Frederick the Great during the Silesian Wars. Players maneuver around the map, attempting to seize strategic objectives while managing their Despair and bringing their opponent to a decisive battle. Your most important actions will require the expenditure of Supply Pieces, which are generated at periodic intervals and moved along supply lines – either by road networks or by waterways, though in the latter case these must move in the same direction as the river flows. Armies without supplies cannot lay siege, build networks of garrisons, recover from casualties, or fight battles; if you are attacked when you have no supplies, you do so at a grave disadvantage. Threatening supply lines and cutting the enemy off from supply is key to tilting the odds of battle into your favor.

These battles are fought using wooden sticks in The Battle Game, a fast-playing and chess-like luckless game of canny deployments, strategic reserves, and Frederick’s famous oblique order. Your capabilities within this Battle Game are determined by what blocks you’ve brought into battle. Losses can be quite heavy and one of these battles can drastically alter the course of the campaign. You’ll need to choose your battles carefully, and try to avoid fighting when the odds are against you.

Campaigns of the period are prone to all sorts of unexpected delays: bad weather, disease, stragglers, even the distraction of a pleasant castle where a weary commander might linger perhaps a bit longer than they ought. After each Prussian turn, a die is rolled to determine how much time passes. Perhaps you’ll have plenty of opportunities and use them well, or perhaps you’ll suddenly find the game approaching its end and you’ve neglected to pursue your objectives. This unpredictability is further supplemented by a series of scenario-specific event tables for each player, rolled at four key points during a match. Will your supplies be raided? Will troops enter the fray from another theater? Will Frederick be laid low by his hemorrhoids, or a bout of tearful melancholy?

Oblique is a game requiring skillful mastery of cutthroat logistics, daring maneuver, and sound tactics. Failure to excel in any one of these spheres will result in disaster. Though the game’s rules are quite simple, you’ll need to invest your time and energy in learning to play the game well. We think Oblique will reward this investment with many dynamic and memorable play experiences.

• "22"x"34" Map
• "8.5"x11" Battle Display
• (54) 3/4" counters
• 20 blocks
• 51 wooden pieces
• (1) six-sided die
• 16-page Rulebook
• 24-page Scenario book