From: RayFreeman@aol.com Subject: Tigers in the Mist Dear Fellow Gamer, If you are interested, be sure to download the appropriate graphic file from my site on AOL. Instructions for downloading are at the end of this note. I have designed a game on the Battle of the Bulge which I've entitled "Tigers in the Mist". I am offering self published copies of my game for $15.00, which includes first class postage. In order to offer the game at this low price, some compromises in "professional quality" were made with the graphics and packaging. However, the map has been professionally drafted and printed and the counters and rules have been done with Macintosh publishing software and laser printed at 300 dpi. The game, rules system, playing aids, etc. are absolutely first rate, as good or better than you get from many "established" game companies or most magazine games. This game has been in development and playtesting for a very long time, resulting in a tight, virtually errata free system. There are about 260 combat and 100 informational counters. The unit counters are 5/8 inch square and nearly all are double sided. Most of the info counters are 1/2 inch square. The counters are printed on colored card stock. There are German (blue), SS (black), US (green), British (red) and informational (white) counters. You will most likely want to mount them on thin cardboard and cut them out. Complete assembly instructions are included. The board is unmounted and uncolored. The rules, OB charts, Players Aid Cards, etc. are laser printed on plain 8-1/2 by 11 paper. The game comes in a brown manila mailer envelope. OK, that's the bad news. Now for the good part. Tigers in the Mist covers the first six and one half days of the Battle of the Bulge. The premise of the game is that historically the Germans had to get across the Meuse River by December 22 or they had no chance to win. Victory is determined by this premise. The Germans win if they can get sufficient force over the Meuse. If not, they probably lose. It is a "players game", low in complexity (3 on a scale of 10) and somewhat decision oriented. I've had people play it at Origins and some local cons in Northern California who never looked at the rules. The game system is unique. There isn't another Bulge game on the market remotely like it. The game is meant to be easy to learn and fun to play. Historical accuracy, "realism", and chrome take a back seat to playability. There are plenty of technical and psychological challenges for the players. Both sides have many difficult decisions to make in the course of a game. Tigers in the Mist uses a point to point movement system. This system is highly suitable for modeling "The Bulge" where battles revolved around towns and crossroads in dense terrain which effectively prevented very much cross country movement. The movement system is very simple, yet quite elegant, with a built in modifier to simulate traffic congestion on the poor road net. There are three impulses per turn, with each turn representing a day. The movement system forces both sides to hold back units from the front line for use later in the day. The Germans need these reserves to exploit earlier successful attacks, the Americans to plug holes torn in their front. Units can only move and attack in one of the impulses each turn, so both sides need to form reserves. The sequence of play is pretty standard: Place reinforcements, Germans move, resolve combat, Allies move, resolve combat, check supply, check victory points. The Battle of the Bulge was very much a battle of attrition, and this is reflected in the combat and step reduction systems in the game. In combat, the defender fires first and hits take effect before the attacker gets to shoot. There is only one round of combat per battle, so it is very common for both sides to have units in the same area. The Germans have to attack constantly, because they have a tight timetable to achieve victory. However, a series of rash attacks will grind away the Wehrmacht's striking power for little territorial gain due to the constant attrition which occurs in the battle system. To truly reflect the impact of battle attrition on a formations fighting power, a unique two factor stacking system was developed which not only limits the number of counters in an area, but also the total strength points per area. I have spent a lot of time and effort to develop a clean, straight-forward game system that simulates a lot of complex factors unique to The Bulge without creating a bunch of exceptions and special cases. There is chrome here, but there is no chrome for chrome's sake. OK, I lied. The SS units are black. Other than that, they work just like the Wehrmacht units. Road congestion is built into the movement system, eliminating the need for special traffic rules. There are rules for combined arms, bridge demolition and construction, entrenchments, supply, reserve panzer division release, artillery support availability, and German special forces, a catch all for the vdH paratroopers, Greif commandos, and German attacks led by captured Sherman tanks. Tigers in the Mist has been in development (not design) for 2-1/2 years, and is probably as errata free as any game on the market. It has been extensively playtested during development by groups in California, Oregon, Massachusetts, and Sweden, and found to be closely balanced, with the Germans winning 52%. Actually, some groups claim the Germans can't win while others claim they are unstoppable! This is what you get in a game: A 22 inch by 25 inch map with 180 areas and 12 perimeter zones Eight pages of Rules 2 pages of Examples of Play 2 Player Aid Cards 2 German OB Cards 2 Allied OB Cards 360 Counters on 4-1/2 sheets of colored card stock A 3 page "Dear Fellow Gamer" letter 2 pages of detailed assembly advice A unit counter key 2 pages of Designers Notes I hope that you will try my game. If you like Bulge games, you have to try Tigers in the Mist. If you love games that are easy to learn, but challenging to play, TITM is for you! To order, send a check or US Postal Service money order for $15 to me at the address below. You can reach me via E-Mail as: RayFreeman@AOL.COM. Ray Freeman 1422 Peralta Avenue Berkeley, CA 94702 To view a graphic of a portion of the game board and pieces, go to this URL via ftp or your web browser: ftp://members.aol.com/RayFreeman/Tigers/TITM.gif or ftp://members.aol.com/RayFreeman/Tigers/TITM.pict For additional information go to the following URL via ftp or your web browser: ftp://members.aol.com/RayFreeman/Tigers/TITMnote.txt NOTE: Capitalization, punctuation and spacing must match exactly! TITM.pict is a Macintosh PICT file. It can be viewed and printed by Simpletext, MacDraw II, MacDraw Pro, or ClarisDraw. The printout you will obtain from this file on a laser printer will be a bit inferior to the graphics quality in the game due to glitches in format conversion. TITM.gif is a GIF file which is platform independent. Unfortunately, this file format prints out at 72 dpi on both platforms and is much inferior to the original and the game components which are 300 dpi vector graphic files. This file also does not seem to fit on a single page on the screen due to self-repositioning, and prints out reduced to 84% of its original size. I have no idea why these weirdnesses occur. Neither file will view on the screen at 300 dpi. There will be some stairstepping due to the limitations of most monitors. Rest assured that in the game package, there are no such problems. If necessary, I can send you a photocopy of the teaser graphic via snail mail which shows EXACTLY the graphic quality of the components, including the hand drafted map. Just e mail me at the address above. TITMnote.txt is an ASCI text file which elaborates on the rules system for the game. It's about 2 pages long.