After a first play of Shifting Sands (SS) , I thought I would compare it to its CDW sisters Paths of Glory and Barbarossa to Berlin. If you want more detail of what Card Driven Wargames involve this review will only give you the briefest impression.
Having played roughly a dozen games of Pog/BtB , it was pretty easy to pick the game up. The mechanics are pretty straight forward. Each turn consists of 6 rounds. Each round consists of playing a card for 1 of 3 actions. The actions are receive operations with which you can move/fight/redeploy units. Use the card as an event which may give you reinforcements or create some unique circumstance which change play for good or temporarily. An example being if the Allies play the poor morale card , the Italians can surrender more easily for the rest of the game. The third option is to play the card for replacement points to rebuild units at the end of each turn (i.e at the end of 6 rounds).
In other words its the same system as in PoG/BtB. The combat is identical as in PoG/BtB with 'Big' (Division) or 'Little' (Battlegroup) units each with their own combat table, again deliberatly identical.
In play the game in many ways feels more like PoG than BtB despite it being a second world war theme. In PoG there are several different fronts in which the battles are fought (West/East/Balkan/Middle East ) and the play is spread between these fronts. In SS obviously there is a North African Front but also an East African,/Middle Eastern Fronts (usually fought over in 1941) and Tunisan Front (which opens up in 1942). The players have to decide which front to apply pressure on their opponent and the balance of forces is key. In this the Allied play has all the decisions to make as he must decide which front to fight on , it is almost impossible for the Axis to reinforce the East African and Middle eastern fronts and he must fight there with basically what he has in theatre.
I would argue that BtB is almost essentially an Eastern Front game, with the other fronts seem very much subsidiary to the where the main action is (which is Im sure how the Germans saw it anyway !). 449
At least until D-day which only happens with about 4 turns to go.
Another similarity with Pog is the main front can appear very static. In a recent game from turn 1 to about turn 9 there was a lot of fighting along the Egyptian/Libyan border but no territory lost as each side would gain a brief success but not take advantage of it for fear a swift counter attack could prove fatal to this front.You can travel between El Aghelia (!?) and El alamien where historically all the desert campaign fighting occurred in just 9 spaces. So even a decisive breakthrough can see just 1 or 2 spaces taken. There is no feel of sweeping movement on this front until the inevitable Axis collapse (which is always spectacular ) in late 1942.
However it feels very different to PoG due to the clever Overrun Rule. This recreates the PoG flanking maneuver , however you can flank from just 1 space and if you score high enough you can overrun your enemy smashing him to pieces then Blitzing on to your maximum move. The fear of an overrun is what may put some caution in both players. It also in my recent game, this resulted in a situation where the Afrika Corps launched several spoiling attacks late in 1942 despite being heavily outnumbered while the 8th Army commander sat on the defensive hoping to grind him down until Massive material advantage finally breaks the Axis back .( In other words El Alamein battles were unintentionally recreated ).
With the Overrun rule the fear of a Blitz remains unlike Pog where the worse thing that can happen is you can lose 1 space.
Finally like PoG/BtB SS has a large number of exceptions or fiddly chrome bits/rules. Which add to the colour of the game but can be difficult to keep track of them all. In summary I would say it had fewer exceptions than PoG but more than BtB but dont quote me on that.
So ultimatey how does it feel compared to PoG/BtB. Well the best way to sum it up , is in the title its PoG/BtB lite. It just doesnt seem as much of a brain burner as these monsters. The number of choices seems to be smaller than in these games. The fronts are narrower/smaller the unit density generally less. You still get the CDW experience but at the half the mental cost furthermore in 1/2 - 2/3 of the time. My first game of Btb took 12 hours , now an old lag I can do it in 7 hours . 301