Reaction Games (Historial Tabletop Wargaming Journal — Reaction Games) is a new company to the market opening earlier this year, offering a range of 3D printed models. The main range is 15 and 20mm WW2 vehicles but there is also a range of scenery. They are also expanding into naval and offer genres/time periods. Earlier this year they released their first wargame at the Broadside Game Show in Gillingham called ‘Traverse’. It is a WW2 game primarily designed for 15mm but can also work in other scales.
It has some new and interesting mechanics I haven’t seen before, which I am going to give you a quick overview of.
Activation
The activation of units is done alternatively starting with the attacking player. Each player has ten tokens, each token is numbered with a number of tokens being allocated to the numerical value, for example there are four tokens with the number four, two tokens with the number two etcetera.
Each player alternates taking a token at random and activating all of their units that have an operational points (OP) matching that token. For example, if you draw a token with the number three, every model with that OP can activate that turn.
This makes it so that neither playing knows when something will move, it introduces a new tactical element you need to plan around, you don’t always know when your own unit will activate which helps to simulate a sort of fog of war element. This also helps to eliminate any activation paralysis as well as activation stalling where a player with more activations activates units and does little until the opponent activates a certain unit.
Movement
Every unit in the game moves at the same speed, the distance of the range template (RT) which is approximately 12cm. However, as some units get more activations than others they get more chances to move as well as if a vehicle starts on a road it gets increased movement.
Also, vehicles are required to move in a more realistic style, move moving a vehicle directly sideways.
Vehicles in this game are treated as individual units, so once they are deployed, they can move independently of anything else, no unit coherency or such. Infantry on the other hand do have coherency.
Shooting
First thing to note about shooting is that there are very few ranges, only weapons with very short ranges need to measure for range, panzerfaust and PIAT for example. The next thing to note is that you can’t always shoot a target because you can see them. A target that’s not in the complete open with no intervening cover needs to be spotted first, this a roll on a D8. Once a target is spotted anyone with line of sight to them can shoot at it.
Shooting for vehicles is based on forming a dice pool where the more dice you have the harder it is to hit. If a single dice shows a miss the entire shot miss. A dice pool is determined by multiple elements such as new target or the shooting vehicle moved and angle to target.
Once a target is hit the gun strength is compared to the armour value, if the guns strength is higher than the armour the target is destroyed. This means the game can have a high lethality for vehicles however if cover is used correctly this can be reduced.
Shooting at infantry is simpler, whenever a small arms weapon shoots at infantry it is counted as a hit automatically. The game tries to simulate the morale affect on infantry rather than casualties. Once a infantry unit accumulates a certain number of hits a certain status is inflicted on them until they reach eight hits where the unit is removed.
At the end of the round infantry get a chance to recover and lose any hits inflicted on them.
Objectives
The objective of the game is board control; each player is fighting to claim certain parts of the board depending on if they are the attacker or defender. Each player gains a certain number of victory points depending on what parts of the table they control at the end of the turn. You control a section of the table if only you have units in the area (the table is divided into squares) at the end of the game.
Army Building
The game does not use points as many games does but a certain number of formations, each formation can contain one unit of infantry or vehicles. Once a formation has been filled you are given a certain number of upgrade points to improve the unit in some way.
For example, you can add more models to a unit or maybe improve it to a better or different version of the unit.
Other Things to Note
Infantry is designed to be used on the standard Flames of War bases however there are rules to allow you to use bigger or smaller bases without affecting line of sight and coherency. However, if the base is significantly bigger it can affect how many bases fit in an area, smaller bases should be fine.
Currently there is only unit rules for early war, 1939-1940. There will be mid and late war rules later.
While the game does use its own dice standard D6s can be used, a conversion chart is included in the rulebook.
Where can it be bought
Currently It can only be bought from the Reaction Games website for either £35 for the boxset or £15 for the rulebook individually although this does not give you the additional items you need.
Currently there is a black Friday sale if you want it slightly cheaper, the sale ends Sunday 30th November 2025.
Even if you don’t want to play the game, they have an excellent range of miniatures which a lot of are on sale currently as well. If you would like to support this new business, there is a link below.
I believe Traverse is an excellent new game and I am looking forward to seeing how it evolves.
Reaction Games website (this is not an affiliate link) – Historial Tabletop Wargaming Journal — Reaction Games