tony doran - 11:02am Oct 2, 1998 PST (#368 of 369) [ Mark ] If you run, you'll only die tired I've been asked several times why I like this system so much. Some of this I have stated (in a rather scattered manner) on other parts of this board, as well as in this folder. Since there seems to be some interest, let this be an attempt to pull together (perhaps even in my own mind) the various reasons why I think this series to be so excellent. First, I really like the sequence of play as the generator of the differences between German and Soviet capabilities. Forcing the Soviets to a Motorized Move-Combat-Regular Movement sequence IMO very accurately portrays Soviet command and control problems at this time. The combination of this with the HQ capability rules (which somewhat attenuate the impact of the Sequence) allows some local coordination by the Soviets, but not more than was historically the case. The use of HQ's to effect this coordination allows the series to expand into subsequent years, because all you have to do is increase Soviet HQ ranges and capability points, and voila, you have increased Soviet coordination which is still not (and never was, historically) as good as that of the Germans. Second, I like the level of depth given to the air war. The primary impact of the airwar is on Soviet coordination (by impacting the capabilities of those HQ's). I think this was the primary effect of air support at this stage in the war, but Vance has not forgotten the ability of the air to influence the tactical battle. Once again, the system seems so designed that it should work for later periods in the war when the Soviet Air Force has improved in numbers and quality. For those who like an even "lighter" version of the air War, one is available. Third, I find the supply system in the game to be very frustrating (which means I think it is excellent). One problem the OCS games were intended to address was that of having "everything along the line" attack at once. The East Front Series deals with this also, and IMO in a cleaner, more effective way at this scale, and the player does not have to become a supply oficer to deal with it. Yet it does prevent broad sweeping attacks across the whole front, because attack supply is so limited. The supply system breaks supply down into "normal" supply, and "combat" supply. The premise seems to be that the armies would generally find some way to feed the troops (providing they had an available supply route) but that to amass sufficient supply for effective offensive operations was the real difficulty. Just try to fight for any length of time along the whole front, and watch your undersupplied units melt away. I like the impact on play of this system. A major result of unsupplied attacks is that losses among your better motorized and armored units increase. It seems to me that the a weak supply situation would have just such a result in reality. It is the marginal items in a supply system which make incrementally huge differences in combat effectiveness. Things like extra smoke shells, radios, a little more maneuvering gasoline, or extra heavy artillery shells have an impact on combat far out of proportion to their "load weight" in a supply system, but they are usually the first items to be NOT sent to the front when supply is problematic because they are not absolutely essential. Finally, I think the maps together with the various rules governing movement are great. I have always been bothered by the fact that in most games you can leave a road inside a rough hex, and not pay any penalty should the next hex you enter be clear terrain. In these games that is not the case. Leave the road within a swamp hex, and you get all those swampy effects immediately, before you leave the hex. These are the things which leap out at me when I try to think why I like this system so much. But of course, the real point is that these things (and all the rest) really hang together well. This fact is a tribute to the development of the system by Vance Borries and Tony Curtis. Despite its surface complexity, the game hangs together so well that much of it becomes intuitive in short order. And damn fun to play.