Conquering Hell: The Battle of Montfaucon, September 26-28, 1918

“I deemed an attack on Montfaucon without any artillery preparation and after dark when we could not see the barbed wire entanglements, against a position held by a large number of machine guns and heavy guns whose fire could be brought to bear on it, would be extremely inadvisable.” –Reaction by Colonel Claude B. Sweezy, commander of the US 79th Division’s 313th Infantry Regiment, on receiving orders for his regiment’s attack on September 27th.

Conquering Hell is a moderate complexity level game of the battle for the heights of Montfaucon during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. The heights at Montfaucon dominated this sector of the German defenses, and taking them were crucial to the American Meuse-Argonne offensive that sought to breakthrough once and for the enemy’s Hindenburg Line. The US artillery conducted a three hour saturation bombardment that exceeded in ordinance weight all of that fired by both sides in the American’s Civil War, and cost over $180 million (over $1 million a minute). Much was at stake militarily and politically for this American-led offensive, as the war’s end was increasingly apparent for all of the combatants, and how any peace negotiations would be conducted, as well as who would be best suited to set the terms of any peace treaty, would in many ways be measured in the blood and treasure spent on this battlefield. Can you do as well or better than your historical counterpart?

Conquering Hell uses the same design as The Yanks Are Here! The Saint Miheil Campaign. Infantry units are Regiments, tank units are battalions, a hex is a third of a mile across and day represents six hours of time. The game is easy to learn/teach and true to the history. Like The Yanks Are Here! the Fighting Eagles game can also be linked so Conquering Hell so the air battles fought in Fighting Eagles have context and effects on the Montfaucon battlefield.

—description from the designer