RFrom: Benoit Larose Subject: Quick Review: Omaha Beachead (VG) Hi all, My buddy Bruno and I played our first Omaha Beachead (OB) game last night and I thought I would offer my review/impressions on it. OB was published by Victory Games in 1987. It proposes a battalion-level treatment of the first 10 days of the invasion. Scale is 1 hex = 1 km, daily turns, units = 1 infantry or arttillery battalion or divisional assets (armor, AT). The map is standard size ans depicts the beach area in the north to St-Lo/Caumont in the south and up to Isigny in the west. Terrain is all bocage except for some forest and marsh. You get villages and cities (colored dots), rivers, highways. I can't say the map looks great but it is hyper-functional (color-coded elevations, colorblind beware!). Units have ID, Combat strenght (typically 3 or 4), AT Strenght (0-4) amd movement (2 for inf., 6 for Art.). Each unit is color coded for parent formation. Sequence of play is interactive with alternating Operations phases where the player who has the initiative spends variable number of Ops points (1d10) to activate units which in turn get 3 Action points (infantry only) to move/fight etc. Operations are declared on a unit by unit basis. For example, Tactical movement allows a unit to move up to its MA of 2 for 1 Action point then make a Deliberate attack for 2 APs. After being activated for the 1st time in a turn, the unit becomes Fatigued. Fatigued units may be activated again in the same turn but in a different Operations procedure at higher Operations point cost and by losing 1 strenght point. This means you can push your units to the limit but they become weaker in the process. The Operations phase when both players pass in sequence or when a 0 followed by another low roll (depends on the turn) is rolled for number of OP available. Turns thus last until each players don't want to move any more units or may end abruptly by chance. Other Operations include Barrage, Air Strike & Naval Fire strike (US only), Entrench, Transfer assets etc. Movement is straightfoward with rigid ZOC. Germans can enter Extended Deployment mode which gives them a Zone of Influence of 1 more hex than regular ZOC at a cost to defense DRM. Combat involves cross-referencing Combat strenghts on a table then applying a series of DRMs ranging from terrain to Attack intensity to Line of Communication to number of units adjacent to defenders. Armor Differential based on assets involved on both sides are calculated. German units also have inherent AT values. Results are loss of strenght points to attacker and/or defender. Successful Barrages against defenders result in Disordered (Do) and Demoralized (Dm) markers applied to the affected units. These status give DRM to attackers and Dm also fatigues the defender. There are three scenarios which actually are the same scenario but with varying lenght. We played the Short game (6 turns). The objective is to get as much VPs as possible for the US. VPs are scored at the end of each turn based upon control of VP hexes and the location of the southernmost units. The game starts with the 1st wave landing on the beach and attacking Resistance nests. US actions are limited on turn 1 to attacks on these static defenses and bringing units on shore. 1 nest survived the assault at the end of turn 1. US reinforcements started to pour in. Germans don't have many units on map at this point and 4 of them can't move so not much to do. Turn 2 sees the US consolidating their foothold and starting to move inland. They're again limited in the number of action they can take with no Fatiged units capable of a second activation. Germans are still very few on map then. Turn 3 has the US getting serious about moving ahead and the Germans trying to form a defensive line. Isigny becomes a strongpoint and has to be assaulted from the south. Trevieres area (center) is a very important place for the US to control because it basically bottles up the 29th Division which has to move to the West of the divisionnal boundary from this point south. Roads in general are important because you need them for supply. Although the US can advance even without roads, you need them (for supply) to remove Fatigue from your units. Holding Trevieres, a crossroad, in effect prevents the 29th from advancing south. In our game, Trevieres survives to turn 5, but Bruno admits he was not aggressive enough there (learning curve...). So the 2nd Division makes some exploitation up to the middle of the map on its side of the divisionnal boundary and manages to get a unit across the 1st VP line there but meets with fresh units of the 3FJ and 17SS... Then turn 4 is extremely short (3 OPs for the US!!!) and turn 5 is also on the short side (about 10 OPs for the US). VP count was at 10 by then and since it was impossible to reach 21 (minimum for marginal victory) and it was already midnight, we called it a night. We liked the game and we will try it again. Good feel for the battle, enough decisions to make on both sides to make it interesting. Smooth play. No rules holes. Playable in an evening, even the 10 turns scenario (we were slow at it last night, starting passed 9:00 and learning the rules in the process). Looks like its balanced. I recommend it if you like this scale. Reminds me of WEG's St-Lo in many aspects (assets, barrages...), which in fact covers the same battle from D-Day +6 or so and beyond. Good hassle-free gaming with a nice touch of originality. That's it. Thx Benoit blarose@total.net