From: John Best Subject: Re: Desert Fox (was Re: Top 10 MAGAZINE games??? -Reply) Markus S. responded to the question of comparing Desert Fox several other games: >>How does it compare to Legend Begins, Ronnel in the Desert, Afrika, etc.? > >Simpler and quicker than Legend Begins, more complex and slower than >Afrika. Surprisingly heavy for a magazine game. Arguably, till the >release of TLBDL and DAK, this could be argued to have been the best >overall game on the campaign. Very interesting supply system, where >you switch supply units between their "truck" and "depot" sides with >different capabilities. > >It's not a quick game, yes. > > Markus > I concur with Markus' assessment. I was never quite sure I was interpreting the supply rules correctly. As I recall, the rules were somewhat ambiguous with regard to whether the "truck" sides had any inherent supply capabilities or whether they simply extended the "throw-range" of the depots. But that's a quibble: Desert Fox is a very beautiful game. All N. Africa campaign designers face the "telescoping time" problem that we discussed a couple of weeks ago. The length of the turn in DF (1 month I think) seems like just the right granularity for the alternating periods of furious activity and build-ups that marked N. Africa. On one dimension I preferred the Quarterdeck game, Rommel's War: RW starts with the Italians, and the OB seems pretty accurate. You can photocopy, color, and mount the facsimile counters from the old issue of Moves and play the Fox Killed prequel to DF, but the counter set that appeared in Moves seems like a pretty inadequate depiction of the Italian forces. And now something else occurs to me: Weren't we anticipating the release of something called Desert Fox Deluxe by Doc. D? As I recall, former consimmer Hank Meyer was working on it pretty seriously. Or did it actually appear and I just missed it, or forgot about it? Just one more comment please: On the intangible "fun" factor, was I the only one who really felt let down by the follow up game, Trail of the Fox? Something about those turn length, hex scale and unit scale interactions that seemed to work just right in DF, but then, for me, they just didn't cut it in Trail of the Fox. Thanks for reading. John Best jlbest@tuscola.net From: Linden Moore Subject: Desert Fox remake was Re: Desert Fox I saw Doc Decision at Celebrate history and asked about this.  He said that Hank has got himself involved in a second career and it kills his time.  I do not think we will see a remake of Desert Fox unless someone else steps in. Linden Moore BTW,  NO Cal wargamers get ready for Celebrate History this year.  It will be in April and will not conflict with any socal conventions. Come game.   >      And now something else occurs to me:  Weren't we anticipating the > release of something called Desert Fox Deluxe by Doc. D?  As I recall, > former consimmer Hank Meyer was working on it pretty seriously.  Or did it > actually appear and I just missed it, or forgot about it?  Just one more > comment please:  On the intangible "fun" factor, was I the only one who > really felt let down by the follow up game, Trail of the Fox?  Something > about those turn length, hex scale and unit scale interactions that seemed > to work just right in DF, but then, for me, they just didn't cut it in Trail > of the Fox.  Thanks for reading. > John Best > jlbest@tuscola.net From: John Best Subject: Re: Desert Fox (was Re: Top 10 MAGAZINE games??? -Reply) >John Best wrote: >>facsimile counters from the old issue of Moves and play the Fox Killed >>prequel to DF, but the counter set that appeared in Moves seems like a >>pretty inadequate depiction of the Italian forces. > And Markus S. responded: >John, do you mean by that that they were too weak? What Moves issue >did that variant appear in? (I have an old Moves issue with some >optional rules for DF, but I don't think it's that one.) > > Markus > Uh oh, my bad. I was writing without really thinking: The prequel I was referring to appeared in S&T "Special Issue" #1. I wouldn't really say that the Italians as they are depicted there are too weak, but my complaints have more to do with the level of detail shown in the countermix. For example, the Italians have 14 units at the start, including only one arty regt, and one medium tank regt (the 4th). By contrast, in the Gamer's Africa, I think the Italians start out with 20 units, including 5 arty regts. The regts that are present seem to be the ones that accounts mention as being there when O'Connor launched his attack. The Gamer's set up does not include the 4th tank regt, but they do supply another nondescript tank unit (the "medium" group), and I think this is the ad hoc unit that the Italians scraped together during their hasty retreat. And at a subjective level, there's just more detail shown in the Gamer's countermix. Like for example, you get two little piece of crap tank regts to depict the vaunted Babini brigade. So, while I like Desert Fox, I don't think it plays that well from the actual campaign's beginning. I've been talking about the Gamer's Africa in this post (which is also a wonderful game imo), but I also think Rommel's War (Quarterdeck games) does a better job than DF of portraying the Italians. Thanks for asking the question Markus. Thanks for reading. John Best jlbest@tuscola.net