From: Markus Stumptner <mst@dbai.tuwien.ac.at>
Subject: Eylau (Avalanche Press) first impressions

I've been playing Avalanche Press's (ex-GamesUSA) Eylau game, the latest
in the Eagles of the Empire series, a few times over the past weeks.  For
those who don't know it, this series features area movement and
double-sized counters for infantry units with individual battery/cavalry
regiment counters, an extremely compact and playable representation of
even the larger Napoleonic battles (and they have some mid-19th century
ones in their sights as well).  Visually, it's extremely well done, with
the long counters it's hard to imagine another game coming closer to
giving the impression of looking at a period battlefield map.

The wait for Eylau was a long one, and the series rules have been
completely revamped over the first two games (Borodino and
Friedland).  The combat system, which was differential-based with gobs of
modifiers, used to work ok, but you always needed the table for
reference.  This has been replaced by a block game style "roll six to
hit" system, and the rest of the system was streamlined as well.  As a
result, the rules are now shorter (9 pages in a large font), and the game
plays much faster. There are scenarios for each day of the battle and
another one for the  full two-day event, with a variable (and
hidden) setup for the main battle depending on how you do in the meeting
engagement on the first day.  There are a number of game specific rules
dealing with the awful weather, Murat's grand charge, and other chrome.

There were a few rules problems which have been fixed.  Since we played
without the fixes, I can't talk about balance, but the progress of the
battle seemed to fit the historical conditions fairly well.  Fast, tense
and nice to look at.  I used to like this series because it gave me an
alternative to the space and time requirements of the La Bat series while
being a good simulation - it is now even simpler and more colorful
withouth having lost anything.  Very impressive.  

	Markus

Last 3 games played: Burma (Gamers), Eylau, Hunters from the Sky
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"Bakayaro! Bakayaro!"  ("Stupid Bastards!  Stupid Bastards!") -- Admiral 
Aritomo Goto's last words to his staff, October 11, 1942