The Road of Blood and Tears

The Road of Blood and Tears is a solitaire historical wargame about the South Vietnamese withdrawal from the Central Highlands in March 1975. After the fall of Ban Mê Thuột, II Corps was ordered to abandon Pleiku and Kontum and retreat toward Tuy Hòa along neglected Route 7B, with the PAVN 320th Division closing from behind. Military formations, equipment, and tens of thousands of civilians became tangled together on a broken road.

The player represents the remaining command authority trying to keep that withdrawal functioning. Movement is largely automatic. Instead of activating units one by one, the player spends limited Command Points to halt parts of the column, change queue priorities, concentrate road capacity, employ engineers, clear obstacles, recover disrupted formations, and protect the rear. Congestion, unfinished crossings, limited throughput, and pursuit steadily narrow the player’s choices.

The game lasts eight turns. The goal is to get as much of II Corps, its critical equipment, and the refugee columns as possible to safety at Tuy Hòa before the road and the column collapse.

—description from the designer