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I'd rather play a wargame than live one.
My Up Front binder.  Everything I need to play!  Much better than carrying boxes!
Up Front! OIF1
Wow!  Preview of near-final Up Front Kickstarter personality and weapon cards.
Preview of the soldier art for the personality cards of the upcoming Up Front reprint
A solitaire game in progress with my redesign set
US Airborne Personality Card proposal dedicated to Band of Brothers
RBM Art Archives – Up Front – 1983. Copyright Rodger B. MacGowan (RBM)
Amazing eBay find March 2008. 25 years old, yet unpunched, unplayed & very cheap.
Meet the Stars of Up Front (and the Expansions)

Up Front (1983)

Players
2
Best: 2
Playing time
60–60 min
Age
12+
7.88
Average rating
2,347
Ratings
3.42/5
Weight
#1068
BGG rank
Top 5,000
Alternate names:アップ・フロント
Designer:Courtney F. Allen
Artist:Rodger B. MacGowan, Charles Kibler
Publisher:The Avalon Hill Game Co +3 more
Average rating, ratings count, weight and rank are sourced from BoardGameGeek (BGG).
Game DNA
  • This game: Strategy 7, Luck 5, Interaction 5, Complexity 6.8, Theme 5
Strategy7.0
Luck5.0
Interaction5.0
Complexity6.8
Theme5.0

This game's strategy, luck, interaction, complexity and theme.

Card GameWargameWorld War IIVariable Player PowersCampaign / Battle Card DrivenHand ManagementSimulationEventsRelative Movement

Overview

Only once in a great while does a game dare to be truly different and abandon old concepts while striking out to chart virgin territory in game design. Rarer still are the instances in which these games succeed in presenting a simulation of unparalleled realism in an easily comprehended and playable format. In UP FRONT, we have just such a game. Gone are the hexes and charts of conventional wargames; replaced by innovative and attractive game components which have distilled a wealth of technical data into one of the most playable, yet detail laden formats ever devised.

UP FRONT is a game of man-to-man infantry combat set in WWII Europe. In many ways, the game is more realistic than SQUAD LEADER principles in that its inherent mechanics simulate the fear and confusion of the battlefield and the inability of leadership to assert itself far better than any tactical combat game yet published. There is no playing board; it has been replaced by Terrain cards which become the “hexagons” of the game as players maneuver their forces via Action cards over constantly changing terrain. The scale of the game is measured in terms of relative ranges between opposing forces, with most combat occurring within a scale distance of 500 meters during the course of player turns measured in varying seconds of actual time.

UP FRONT is a game player’s game, rich in detail yet easily playable within the space of a lunch hour. However, it also contains engrossing Multi-Player and Campaign Game versions which could last a week or more. Like SQUAD LEADER, UP FRONT is an open-ended game capable of depicting endless Design-Your-Own variations of small unit actions between American, German and Russian combatants. Tanks, Assault Guns, Smoke, Anti-Tank Rifles, Demolition Charges, Pillboxes, Partisans, SS, Entrenchments, Anti-Tank Mines, Infantry Guns, Flamethrowers, Armoured Cars, Halftracks, Panzerfausts, Bazookas, Panzerschrecks, Wire, Ambushes, Radios, Artillery, Minefields, Mortars, Snipers, Starshells, Heroes, Prisoners and Fords are all accounted for. In fact, UP FRONT encompasses almost everything that the SQUAD LEADER game system has taken four gamettes to do, and does so in a far more playable format. The game can be summed up in four words: Innovation, playability, detail and realism. That’s an unbeatable combination.

UP FRONT is rated 4 on the Avalon Hill Complexity scale of 1 (easy) to 10 (difficult).

Recommended for two or more discriminating players of skill, ages 12 & up.

Expansions

Banzai
Desert War
Folgore
Smoking Cobras (fan expansion for Up Front)
The Babies and the Beasts (fan expansion for Up Front)
Sword of the Balkans
The Polish Never Quit!
Waffen SS/The Fanatics
Not available yet

Player reviews, retailers/pricing and rules videos have no real data source for this game yet.

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