From: John Best Subject: Reinforce the Right! (ex which game magazine...) I got the Reinforce the Right for free; apparently DG is using the same tactic that XTR did once upon a time (ie, send the magazine to a nonsubscriber to see if he'll sign up). We've been talking about which game magazine to subscribe too, and numerous valid points have been made. I don't have anything like a major contribution here, but for what it might be worth, I got out Glory's End, the command game in #29 covering the same campaign as RtR! What's here is based on my play of GE back in 95, and my game of RtR currently, in addition to a lay-em-out-side-by-side comparison of the games (which I did over the weekend). The map scale is almost the same in both games (ie, about 15 kilometers per hex). The Command game uses the "big" hexes (don't know the size), the S&T game uses the standard size hexes. The area depicted is pretty similar--although there are very real differences in *how* that area is shown--where's the swamp? where's the forest? where's the rough terrain? There are substantial differences between the two maps. Just based on looks, the Command map is a Mark Simonitch job (ie, code for good), and the S&T map is...ok. The S&T map has gotten slammed for its "triangle" mountains, and they're bad (in the sense of juvenile--my eight-year-old recognized what they were supposed to be right away.). Turning to the counters: The Command game uses those 5/8 inch counters (everybody has their likes and dislikes; I hate the big counters). The S&T counters are the standard 1/2 inch. Both games represent units at a number of different levels, but in both games, your basic unit, your major form of currency is the infantry corps. In addition to disliking the size, the colors in the Command game were not my cup o' tea either (mostly because I just don't go for that Command tendency to make every German unit white printing on black). You get yer feldgrau (sort of) for the Germans in RtR. At the systemic level, I thought both games seemed like they have the ability to recreate the campaign. I don't have a whole ton of experience with either game, but my Germans always bog down sooner than they did historically in both games. It could be me, I admit that. The Command game also has that (for me) annoying tendency to use two counters to represent 4-step units. We've hashed the issue totally on this list. As a design technique, it has its uses, but count me among the dislikers. (My notes to myself back in 95 used the expression "drove me nuts" in reference to the 4-step units). Regarding rules: I thought the Command game's rules were more clearly presented, and much more complete than were the rules for RtR! There are several places in RtR where I'm just kind of doing one of those "Well, they must have meant this" sort of things. (Like, just the unit in a fort is doubled right, the strength of the fort can't be doubled too can it? So you double the unit and add the strength of the fort right? Show me where it says that.). In terms of play, and here I'm trying to address the game's "fun" quotient, as subjective as that might be: I thought Glory's End was kind of a yawner. It worked ok, or even well, but I didn't see anything exciting about it. RtR on the other hand, I must say, has something dramatic or exciting about it. Even after I rolled the "units can entrench result" on the Events table (and that's what really bogged down my Germans), there are still some possibilities that might enable the Germans to win WWI in the opening campaign. For me, I can summarize this by saying, after playing RtR I can now understand why some people in the year 1914 thought the Schlieffen plan might actually work. After playing GE, I had no idea why anybody would have bought into it at all. Oh, one other point: In terms of the detail/complexity/depth of the historical articles accompanying the games in their respective issues, I thought there was no comparison that the Command game was clearly the more authoritative introductory article. I thought this was interesting given that "the book" says that Command is supposed to be the game-oriented mag, while S&T is the history oriented mag. Maybe overall that's true, but on this particular point of comparison, Command had the deeper, and more knowledgable article. If anybody is interested, I'll talk about a couple of changes that I think would add a lot to RtR, and (I think) are historically based too. Thanks for reading. John Best cfjbb@eiu.edu From: Mike White Subject: Re: Reinforce the Right! (ex which game magazine...) In contrast to an earlier post, I found the rules to Reinforce the Right to be clear (we had no problems during a short playing session). The earlier post mentioned that it was unclear if forts (that have defense factors) are doubled. Under 12.54, the rules say forts are only doubled if they are attacked across rivers. "Otherwise, fortresses always defend with their printed defense strength -- a fortress doubles only the strength of units stacked in the hex." The maps are classy (except for those silly hills) and the game fun, even though I did poorly as the Germans. For good reason. I attacked in Belgium using the assualt table and rolled many ones, meaning half of a large stack of German units were wiped out while only one measly Belg unit died. The trick, of course, is to use the probe table and not worry about trying to kill the Belgiums -- just get as far into France as possible before the entrenching begins. Also, leave a row of hexes behind your units, because if you have to retreat (happens often) and have no stacking space left, they die. Silly. Come to think of it, there is one unclear part of the rules, and that pertains to zone of control. Reading this literally (this is what we did) the ZOC extends into hexes occupied by enemy units, meaning that the headquarters can't supply these hexes. In short, if you want to exploit an opening during the second movement phase, you must have a reserve stcked behind the line. Or at least the headquarters, if the rule is that you can trace into but not through ZOCs. Overall a fun game. Note how difficult it is for the Germans to use all their units in Belgium effectively because of stacking and space limitations. Another reason to race through here as soon as possible, perhaps even holding off the assault on Antwerp until later. Mike