From: Douglas Hayden Subject: Holy War: Afghanistan (S&T 147) I picked this one up a couple weeks ago at a local store for $10. I was undecided up until I saw John Burtt and Terry Rooker's names mentioned as playtesters. Well, I figured if they playtested it, it had to be good. ;) Now I'll be looking for consimmers listed as playtesters left and right. Joe Miranda makes a workable and very enjoyable consim of a guerrila war - complete with competitive factions, unreliable troops, foreign intervention (both Soviet and American), and differing military and political control. The pieces are not particularly outstanding, but this is early DG S&T we're talking about. The map covers all of Afghanistan with parts of neighboring Uzbekistan and Pakistan for good measure. Some consimmers may have a hard time differing between high mountain and rough terrain - the difference between dark grey and dark brown not being very noticeable. Towns and cities have shaded borders for easy identification. High population areas are marked with red triangles - again making easy identification. The counters have semi-standard NATO symbology (never knew they had markings for guerrilas, mobile units, and combined arms forces) and are easily differed by color. The system is driven by two items - the political markers and the political index. Political markers consist of three types - factions which add to how many Afghan troops you can mobilize that turn, agitprop markers which do a variety of good things, and political actions such as outside support for the resistance or the almighty Socialist Revolution. How many political markers you draw each turn is determined by where the political index stands. He who has the support of the populace, gets more markers. If the index goes too far in favor of one side, game over. Getting the index to swing in your favor is determined by crushing the opposition, converting the populace to your faction, and controlling the cities and towns of Afghanistan militarily. Combat is different, but it actually works well. Each unit has a standard combat factor and an intelligence rating. Simply put - he who has the higher intelligence, gets to shoot first. Firing units can choose between conventional and guerrila combat. Conventional combat does more damage, but guerrila warfare allows the units to 'shoot-n-scoot'. Ground support from helicopters and interdiction by the Soviet Air Force, Pakistani Air Force, and even the USAF and RAF is also important. Overall, this is a fun and enjoyable consim of a topic that is rarely touched or done well - guerrila warfare. I like Joe M.'s system and wonder if he ever had any plans on doing such conflicts as Vietnam and Angola or even re-doing Nicaragua in this fashion. ---------- Doug Hayden grimlock@multiverse.com ---------- From: Markus Stumptner Subject: Re: Holy War: Afghanistan (S&T 147) > Overall, this is a fun and enjoyable consim of a topic that is >rarely touched or done well - guerrila warfare. I like Joe M.'s system >and wonder if he ever had any plans on doing such conflicts as Vietnam and >Angola or even re-doing Nicaragua in this fashion. I really liked Afghanistan and I agree that Angola would be a good topic for a similar approach. We played some of the scenarios and the campaign once (the latter took a long time). As you note, the political system appears to be inherently unstable - once one side loses heavily in support and cannot quickly rectify that, it will be ground down because its supply of event chits that might shift the situation back is drastically reduced. So the rebels cannot sit back and concentrate on recruiting in the wilderness - Soviet control of Kabul, for example, will drag the index down so quickly that they cannot hope to hold out for long. Instead of a careful gradual offensive, suicidal attacks on Kabul and provincial capitals in the hope to win big will be more effective. Also, one gets the impression that air supply is too easy for the Soviets - there will be no battles for control of the Salang tunnel in this game until the mop-up phase because it is not the bottleneck it was historically. At the same time, the different capabilities of both sides were very interesting. Command #18 contained a game of his on the Tet Offensive that shared some system-wise similarities with Holy War: Afghanistan. Of course, the time scale is different. There was apparently a political control system similar to that of HWA that was thrown out in development (perhaps it was felt not to be appropriate due to the timescale) and replaced by dierolls on a political propaganda table. The game looked and played well, but did not work as history. It was far too bloody (try playing the first scenario and comparing the end result with the setup for the second scenario - the dates coincide, but the game will see most of the Vietnamese units of the historical setup destroyed), the victory conditions meant that the US did not care for US losses but the Vietnamese wanted to keep theirs low, and the propaganda units are drastically overvalued. Each side dragging the other down to a 0-0 draw via propaganda was the expected outcome. Good ideas, nice map and counters, but ultimately disappointing. I thought HWA, while not perfect, worked much better. Markus Last 3 games: Last Elephant Offensive, Thunder at the Crossroads, Pacific War Note corrected Japanese spelling in .sig, my thanks to Rob Anderson ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Bakayaro! Bakayaro!" ("Stupid Bastards! Stupid Bastards!") -- Admiral Aritomo Goto's last words to his staff, October 11, 1942