Will & Wire

Will & WireNo. 1

Orders

4–5min to play

Brig.-Gen. commanding, by hand

New here? A two-minute training battle shows you how to play. It does not count.

Difficulty

A game by Bandersnatch Games. Your progress is kept in this browser.

Special kit · pick two

How to holdOne battle a day · the same for everyone

1Put your men in the trench: nothing can kill them there. Dig it out once for a better view.

2Aim machine guns across the attackers’ path: crossfire kills twice as fast.

3Lay wire to slow them down and bunch them up.

4At Zero Hour, call barrages (they land 3 seconds later) and blow the mine under a crowd.

5If 20 attackers reach your trench, the line breaks. Tanks count as three.

6Hold the line and score out of 1000, a star for every 200. Then share your result.

All the rules ▾

Place your 60 men on your side of the map. Men in a trench cannot be killed, and rifle sections snap into it. Out in the open they see more, but they can die.
Dig once. Press on your trench and drag to dig it out up to 30 m in one direction, for safe ground with a better view. Attackers who reach the new stretch count as breaking in.
Machine guns win battles. Drag the brass knob to aim. They kill twice as fast when they fire across the attackers' path, and men bunched up at the wire fall in groups.
Ground matters. High ground sees farther. The shading shows what the selected unit cannot see. Attackers choose routes your guns cannot see.
Wire slows and bunches them. Blow the mine when they are on top of it. Barrages land 3 seconds after you call them, so aim ahead, and keep them off your own men.
Tanks shrug off rifles and machine guns and flatten your wire. Stop them with the mine, a barrage right on top, or your own tank: tap Tank in battle to drive it where it is needed. Some break down on their own. A tank in your trench counts as three attackers.
The enemy fights back. A barrage opens every attack, counted down shell by shell; it only hurts men in the open. Gas drifts with the wind, snipers pick off machine-gun crews, and stormtroopers go for your weakest stretch of trench.
Every day is different. Weekdays bring 270 to 310 attackers and 3 to 5 tanks, Saturday 325 and 5 tanks, Sunday’s Big Push 350 and 6. The ground changes too: a river with fords, a wood, a ruined village, a sunken road, a ridge or a railway embankment, with flooded craters no one can cross. High ground sees further, shoots straighter and is slow to climb. Your trench may bulge into a salient or run at an angle.
Read your orders. Each day brings orders worth 50 points, one enemy surprise (aircraft, armoured cars or a creeping barrage), sometimes a change to your kit, and at dawn or dusk a low sun that dazzles guns looking towards it. The weather can change mid-battle, and some dates are special. Each day offers three pieces of special kit and you take two. The speed button runs the battle at 1×, 2× or 5×.
If 20 attackers reach your trench, it falls. Hold it and you score out of 1000: men kept, attackers stopped, tanks stopped, holding the line and 50 for carrying out the day’s orders. You lose a point for every metre the closest attacker got within 100 m of your trench; barrages cost nothing. Every 200 points earns a star, so 801 or more is five.