The game
Norge is a game about the Norway campaign in April and May 1940. This is a large scale combination of naval combats, landings, bombings, parachuting, land combats. Norway is a large country. So the game contains one strategic map representing Norway and 6 tactical maps at a lower scale around the main harbours.
For the French player, this is an opportunity to discover Narvik. This is in fact the only French victory in 1939/1940 and this battle is proudly known by the Chasseurs Alpins, the foreign legion and the polish army who participated.
See for instance in French http://www.secondeguerre.net/narvik.htm, and in english, a detailed text about the Norway campaign: OPERATION WESERÜBUNG.
The illustration
The illustration that represents Some alpine units is signed "Casertano 80" ( Giampiero Casertano).
Opening of the box
The box contains the rules, the strategic and tactical maps, 1 die, the counters, 1 combat table sheet, 1 calendar and a set of convoy/submarine sheets
The maps
The strategic map represents Norway from Narvik to Oslo. 3 tactical maps detail the south coast and the 3 other detail the north part of the coast. There are also 4 little maps to calculate the moves off the map.
The counters
The counters represent the German, French, English and Norwegian armies. Other counters represent the destroyed bridges, the disorganized units, a black cross for the German control on harbour/airports, the weather conditions for the north and south zones. There is also a 4 arrows counters used to indicate the turn.
Special thanks to François J (living in the Alpes Maritime) for the recto-verso scan of the unpunched counters.
The rules
The rulebook contains 32 pages in 4 languages (Italian, English, German, French).
At the beginning, the Norwegian positions are fixed. The German ships position is also fixes but the player can put on each ship one army counter of its choice (except paratrooper and tank). A paratrooper unit is put near the zone A airport and near the zone B airport. 4 units are preserved to be aircraft landed later. One paratrooper and one infantry unit are preserved to be used during turn 6.
The game is played in 10 turns of 2 days each. The calendar indicates the position and the entry turn of each boat and submarine. Each turn is divided into 5 phases:
- weather forecast for North and South zone (clear, rainy, stormy)
- placement of German planes, Allied planes and settlement of air battles.
- naval phase
- ground phase
- submarine phase (secret placements and movements)
For each airport under German control, the German player can use one fighter and one bomber. The Allied player can only employ 1 planes for each aircraft carrier.
At the beginning of the game, the German player has 3 regiment units on each of its 5 ships. Later, any ground unit will come by a naval transportation as convoy between controlled harbours.
An article published in "The Wargamer 25" (1983)
This article published in "The Wargamer 25" (1983) have been written by Jack Greene. Jack created several naval oriented wargames. Especially, he published Norway 1940 (here on Boargamegeek). In the article, he wrote he was a fan of the Norway Campaign but was fair-play not to speak about Norway 1944 and only speak about Narvik of GDW - one of his favourite game. It's a very good article that explains well the weakness of Norge as an historical simulation but that also recognize that it remains an interesting game. Comparing Norge to the excellent game Narvik, it could have been a lot more negative.
An interesting detail written in the beginning of the article: "International Team Group is a division of a larger company called Kosmos. Kosmos is primarily a company that produces very striking jigsaw puzzles". I did not find any other information on the Kosmos group. Kosmos is a very usual word but It does not give results on Ebay Italy, France, USA in the jigsaw puzzle category.
The price:
| N° EBAY | Price EBAY | Country | Date | Remarks |
| 5923253511 | EUR 51 | France | 4 oct 2004 | unpunched |
| 5941248000 | EUR 56,51 | France | 13 dec 2004 | |
| 5941219106 | EUR 51 | France | 16 Dec 2004 | |
| 5165202192 | EUR 17 | France | 20 Feb 2005 | |
| 5167677904 | EUR 80 | Italy | 1 mar 2005 | |
| 5192435721 | EUR 33,50 | France | 11 maiy 2005 | |
| 5210850009 | EUR 30,60 | Germany | 23 June 2005 | |
| 5210613488 | EUR 42,50 | France | 26 June 2005 | |
| 5985051181 | EUR 6,50 | France | 8 July 2005 | |
| 5995092115 | EUR 51,50 | France | 30 Aug 2005 | |
| 8713465440 | EUR 35,50 | France | 31 oct 2005 | |
| 8757304899 | EUR 32,50 | Italy | 2 feb 2006 | |
| 8777961529 | EUR 72 | Italy | 16 mar 2006 |
NORGE overviewreference: W118
game for 2-4 players of 15 years or over
Duration of the game: 4-6 hours
Duration of a move in scale: 2 days
Level of complexity: 4 (complex)
Date: 1981
Authors: International Team
Links:
Norge onr Boardgamegeek
Norge in la caverne
Norge on Tric-Trac
Norge on Speldatabase
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