Note: This is the original, unedited version of a review that appeared
in BERG'S REVIEW OF GAMES (BROG).  If you're interested in seeing more
of Richard Berg's celebrated wit and insight in BROG, you can contact
him at BergBROG@aol.com.

OMAHA

The perfect tactical World War II game is like true enlightenment;
sooner or later, everyone tries to achieve it.  SQUAD LEADER, WACHT AM
RHEIN, HIGHWAY TO THE REICH, ST. LO, PANZERBLITZ, ATLANTIC WALL,
AVALANCHE, the list goes on and on.  And, like true enlightenment, few
ever achieve it, IT being the proper balance between realism and
playability.  AVALANCHE, WACHT AM RHEIN, HIGHWAY TO THE REICH, and dare
I say it, CAMPAIGN FOR NORTH AFRICA have such depth of realism that they
approach unplayability.  On the other extreme, PANZERBLITZ and SQUAD
LEADER, although admittedly on the squad level, are playable without
being very realistic.  Or rather, SQUAD LEADER used to be that way,
before they added all of those rules.

The truest test of a game, however, is like the feeling after sex; was
it satisfying ?  At what point does a game cease to be fun to play
because a) you spend all of your time looking up rules or, b) it is so
basic that it offers no challenge or feeling of history ? I tend to
prefer the "large and luscious" variety, big games with a lot of detail.
The complexity does not bother me as long as it helps to achieve a
feeling that this is what combat must really be like.  As such, I enjoy
playing AVALANCHE  a great deal, because it offers such a wide range of
things to do.  But then, I have never finished a complete game, which is
somewhat frustrating.  Basic SQUAD LEADER was the best at the
satisfaction test, being a ton of fun to play yet still simulating
nearly every aspect of ground combat in Europe.  Since then, even that
fine system has been weighed down by so many new rules that actually
playing one scenario is a major undertaking.

The Gamers' TACTICAL COMBAT SERIES, designed by Dean Essig, is their
entry into the search for spiritual oneness.  OMAHA is the third, or
rather, the fourth, game in the series, the others begin BLOODY 110
(Battle of the Bulge), OBJECTIVE: SCHMIDT (Huertgen Forest), and FORCE
EAGLE'S WAR (modern desert combat, and not counted as part of the
series, I don't know why).   Essig tackles the realism/playability
problem by designing a fairly simple system and concentrating all of the
realism on two areas, Artillery and Command.

The rules, although longish, are not that bad and much simpler than,
say, WACHT AM RHEIN or AVALANCHE.  Units are infantry platoons and
individual vehicles and ordnance pieces, although OMAHA introduces
battalion-sized artillery batteries.   Hexes are 125 yards, and day
turns are 20 minutes.

The heart of the game, and the best part of the game system, are the
Command and Control rules, which recreate how a regimental or division
commander would actually plan an operation.  Units cannot operate
effectively without being assigned to an operation (op). There are four
types of ops; Attack, Hasty Defense, Prepared Defense, and Movement.
Players use an op sheet, a copy of the game map, to plot their orders by
assigning task organizations, objectives, defensive lines, fire support,
and failure instructions.  This is a fairly complex concept, but the
rules do a good job of explaining, helped much by many examples, and
players are soon having a grand time assigning Task Force Stone to
capture Objective Douglass by moving on Axis Ice Pick.

Ops are not implemented automatically, however,  instead requiring a
variable number of game turns determined by the size of the unit, the op
in question, and of course, dice rolls.  Small forces performing simple
ops move quickly, while trying to implement a battalion-sized Prepared
Defense op can take a long, long time.

Once the ops get rolling, however, the rest is fairly simple. Units may
deploy in either Move or Fire mode; Movement mode allows them to move
and conduct assaults and overruns, while units in Fire mode may use
Direct and Opportunity Fire.  Units may move freely of command
restrictions, as long as they stay within the op boundaries.  Combat is
handled by classifying units as either Area firers and targets (infantry
platoons) or Point firers and targets (vehicles and pillboxes).  Certain
units, such as trucks and ordnance, are vulnerable to both types of
ordnance.   Casualties are taken as steps by Area targets, while Point
targets either survive the combat or they don't.  Again, these rules are
simpler than they sound and are quite easy to grasp.  Morale takes an
important role, as Area units may be Suppressed or Paralyzed by fire,
even if they don't take any casualties.  As a company's casualties go
up, its chances of breaking under fire increases. Additional rules cover
Minefields, Airstrikes, and Night Combat, all in a similarly simple
vein.   Learning scenarios are provided to allow players to practice the
major rules (combat, artillery, airpower, etc.)

You notice that I left the Artillery rules for last.  I did this because
they are, by far, the most complex rules in the game. First off, there
is a lot of paperwork involved.  Fire missions must be planned at least
one turn in advance, sometimes more.  You must also keep track of which
battery is firing, which sort of barrage it is using, and how much
ammunition is expended.  Once you actually get to a barrage, dice are
rolled for every round to determine whether it scatters, if so, roll
again to find in which direction and how far.  Then roll to attack every
unit in each impact hex.  If this doesn't sound too bad to all of you
Squad Leaders out there, try pulling off a 60-round barrage by different
calibre batteries, and you begin to get an idea of how cumbersome these
rules are.

The previous games in the series, BLOODY 110 and OBJECTIVE: SCHMIDT deal
with fairly obscure battles.  This time around, The Gamers have gone for
the gold by doing one of the most famous battles ever, the Omaha Beach
landings during the D-Day Invasion. Who hasn't dreamed of wading ashore
and storming up the beach next to John Wayne and Robert Mitchum ?  Well,
here's your chance.

OMAHA differs from its predecessors mainly by its size and scope; this
is a BIG game.  Four maps and 600 combat counters simulate the first
three days of the invasion, June 6-8, 1944.  The maps cover the invasion
beaches and the terrain two miles southward.  Specific rules handle the
usual neat-o invasion stuff: DD tanks, pillboxes, landing craft, the
Shingle, naval gunfire, etc.  The rules are detailed in their coverage
of the actual landings, and the American player will spend several hours
deciding how much force to land at which beach sector in which wave.
Leaders appear for the first time.  Scenarios cover the landings, the
separate beach sectors, each individual day, and of course, for the
fanatics, a campaign game of three days and 129 turns.  An optional
scenario allows the German player to see what would have happened had
the Panzer Lehr division reached the beach during the first day.

Graphically, OMAHA is the best game yet in the series.  The counters are
clean and easy to read, with good graphics for units and the obligatory
silhouettes for vehicles.  The casualty counters are gruesomely
melodramatic.  You know how most games only use a bland white counter
with a numeral to simulate the amount of carnage suffered by a unit ?
Well, in OMAHA they put a grinning skull on the counter, colored a
grotesque olive-brown, which stops you from taking casualties so
cavalierly.  While the maps are an improvement over the previous games,
they still need work.  In BLOODY 110, they named everything, and I do
mean everything, so that it was hard to read the terrain for all of the
lettering. OMAHA has reduced this, but still measures elevation by
contour levels in a system which cries out for coloring the elevation
levels.  The worst problem with the maps is that they didn't number the
hexes sequentially, which is very aggravating when plotting artillery
missions.

On the whole, TCS is a pretty good system, but The Gamers should have
thought long and hard before choosing OMAHA as their subject. Mr. Essig
does a fair job on the realism/playability balancing act, giving the
system an appealing simplicity.  The Command rules stand out.  Although
everyone tells you that "in our game you take on the role of the overall
commander !", few systems do it so well. Players must carefully plan
their ops, choosing cautiously between power and efficiency.  Can you
afford to wait eight turns to get that battalion moving ?  Two companies
will start faster, but are they strong enough to get the job done ?
It's a tough call, and although they take a little time to learn, the
command rules make for some very tense decisions.

The Mode Determination rule is another strong point, forcing players to
assign certain units to attack while others remain stationary to give
covering fire, a very accurate effect.  The combat rules, which weigh
some tactical games down like cement galoshes, are simple and quick
(which is part of the problem with the system, but more on that later).
The Unit Morale rules are also quite good, as too many tactical games
ignore the morale effects of accumulated casualties.

Unfortunately, there are flaws in Mr. Essig's system which prevent it
from having the land office popularity of SQUAD LEADER.  To begin with,
the rule book is poorly organized and does not seem to follow any
logical pattern, making it difficult to look up specific rules.  The
rulebook includes an index, which is a big help, but I still experienced
the SQUAD LEADER syndrome of just knowing that I had read a rule
somewhere covering Opportunity Fire or Leader Casualties, but had no
idea where to find the rule in the book.

The simplicity of the system, while appealing, is also a drawback. Mr.
Essig sacrifices too much detail to achieve an easy system of play.  The
combat rules are the worst example of this.  Area and Point fire are
each resolved on a single results table.  While this is a good idea (I
hate to keep picking on SQUAD LEADER, but I will; a single fire in that
game can require three or four dice rolls), the combat tables are not
sophisticated enough.  The Point Fire table is particularly generic.
Subtracting the target's defense strength from the attack strength,
modified by range, gives a column of hit rolls.  But there are only
three differential columns.  This means that a German Renault 35 has the
same chance of knocking out an M4 Sherman as a Panther, because they
both roll in the same column !  Obviously, more should be done to
demonstrate the historical difference in fire capability.  The Area fire
table is better in this respect, but still gives an unsatisfyingly
limited spread of results.

The original opportunity fire system was extremely aggravating, as units
were constantly subject to fire and moved at a snail's pace. The latest
edition requires a unit to roll to see if it can opportunity fire, which
speeds up movement at the expense of a ton of die rolling.  Airpower,
historically an important factor, is largely ineffectual because even if
the American player has some planes appear, they are almost immediately
shot down.

But the major, and I do mean major, flaw in the game is the artillery
system.  Mr. Essig has practically bent over backwards to simplify the
rules while creating a depressingly long and convoluted technique for
resolving artillery.  Every round requires a minimum of three dice rolls
, and after a few of those big barrages your trusty dice are worn down
to marbles.

Luckily, included in the latest edition of the Rules ae a set of
artillery tables designed by Rod Miller which allow you to statistically
determine how many rounds will land in a hex.  Thus you roll for each
hex in the fire zone, not for each round.  The Miller tables are
monumentally faster than the old system.  Mr. Essig strongly advises
using them, and I agree, although he should have realized that something
is fundamentally wrong with his own artillery rules when he advises
players to ignore them.  Simplicity is obviously the game's intent, so
why didn't he develop an easier artillery system in the first place ?

But, you ask, how does OMAHA play as a game ?  The answer is, not very
well.  As Richard Berg once said, a subject that makes for a good movie
does not necessarily make for a good game.  To Rorke's Drift, Agincourt,
and the Little Bighorn should be added the Omaha Landings.  Simply put,
the German player has almost nothing to do. The Germans sit, watching
wave after wave of Americans storm ashore, while only a handful of their
units can actually move. Although he pillbox line holds for a while, the
American second wave is almost certain to break through at several
points, particularly since the key to knocking out the pillboxes is
given away in the Designer's Notes.  The German player, frantically
rolling for Variable Reinforcements, is then in a situation of trying to
patch a hemorrhage with a band-aid.  It is a clumsy American player
indeed who can't break through and achieve his first day's objectives.

While not as discouraging as the German's lot, the American player's
role is quite anticlimactic, as I discovered after agonizing over the
composition of my assault waves, only to rupture the German defenses
with ease.   Indeed, the Landing scenarios are such a one-man show that
they make for a better solitaire game. But who is going to commit so
much space, effort (and money) for a solitaire game ?  The Panzer Lehr
scenario, which I did not play, should balance the situation nicely, but
it is largely fantasy.

Does Mr. Essig achieve true happiness and tranquility with OMAHA ?
Definitely not.  The Tactical Combat Series has much to recommend
itself.  It is far easier to play (if you use the Miller tables) than
most of its competitors.  The Command rules are great and play moves
swiftly without the bulkiness of more complex treatments.  If it
interests you, I submit OBJECTIVE:  SCHMIDT, which offers a very tense
situation where both players have a chance to go on the offensive.   As
a solitaire game, OMAHA is worth a couple of plays, but that's about it.
Even the best game could not make the Omaha landings into a fun
situation.  If the designers wanted to do a well-known battle, Bastogne
and Kasserine Pass offer more-balanced contests.   For an invasion,
Salerno or Gela would have been a better pick.  Let's hope that Mr.
Essig uses his head, and not his heart, to choose the subject of his
next game in the series.

CAPSULE COMMENTS:

PHYSICAL QUALITY-  The best yet in the series.  Maps are easier to read,
although lack of hex numbering is a pain.  Counters are good, although
the death's head casualty markers are bit much.

PLAYABILITY-  Except for the Artillery, an easy system to learn and
play.  Command rules are great, once you get used to them.  Unless you
have wrists like Sylvester Stallone in OVER THE TOP, use the Miller
tables for the artillery.


HISTORICITY-  Definitely not OMAHA's strong suit.  While the Orders
of Battle are quite accurate, a great deal of detail and accuracy
has been cut in favor of easy play.  The fire tables are too simple
and generic.  The Command rules are quite effective, though.

PLAYING TIME-  Depends on the scenario.   OMAHA  is so big that even the
short scenarios can take a long time to play.  If you use the original
artillery rules, plan to spend the rest of your life rolling dice.

COMPARISONS-   Where do I start ?  Smaller scale, and more complex than
D-DAY, much simpler than ATLANTIC WALL, although it shares that game's
solitaire situation.  AVALANCHE is a better invasion game, although it
takes forever to play.  Easier to play than SQUAD LEADER, WACHT AM
RHEIN, and HIGHWAY TO THE REICH, but the situation is not one you will
want to endure more than once or twice.

OVERALL-   If you are looking for a relatively simple tactical World War
II system, TCS is not a bad pick.   OBJECTIVE:  SCHMIDT stacks up
against the best of them, and is a lot more fun than OMAHA.   Hopefully
The Gamer's will pick a better battle next time around.

David Fox        fragilfox@aol.com