From: BYRONSTING@aol.com
Subject: Re: Totaler Krieg

Totaler Krieg is the best WW2 European theater of operations wargame.  I have 
played endless hours of Third Reich (3rd, 4th ed., Advanced 3rd Reich), yet 
seldom did any game last past '43.  Krieg seldom ends before a nail-biting 
'45 decision.  The money sucking black holes of World in Flames et. al. were 
dispelled from my gaming universe after watching game after game end with a 
Wermacht's Barbarossa victory march through the Soviet Union.  I still 
occasionally pull out the unpunched Planes in Flames counters to look at, 
maybe someday I'll frame them.  ETO could be a good game, albeit very long, 
if they would write some rules for it.

Card play in Krieg allows the players to decide the strategic course of the war;
divides the game into limited and total war; shows the limitations of the
contesting factions' war economies.  The counter pushing part of the game requires
significant forethought from the players through the segmented sequence of play.
The combat results "feel" right.  Seemingly invulnerable defenses crumble under 
the correct formula of allocated force.  Overly optimistic drives can be 
cutoff by mobile counter-strikes.  Unimaginative frontal assaults end in 
depleted, ineffectual forces.  Throughout the game system random generated 
effects promises that no two games will be alike nor any "Perfect" plan will 
ever be devised.  The maps in TK are an immense improvement over the original 
Krieg.

Gripes?  Maybe the rule book is so confusingly organized because the game itself
is not linear in its play.  The perforated, utilitarian, anesthetically pleasing
cards will become more so, once your through writing what they forgot to print on
them.  The inclusion of a new overrun rule in the core game mechanics instead of
the optional rules seems thrown in, and I fear, not fully tested.  80$ retail for
a game with little more than 500 counters?

Well, it has been a long twenty year quest to find a game that simulates WW2 in
Europe convincingly and playablely, even with its imperfections, Totaler Krieg
has ended my search.  Obtaining the errata at the Totaler Krieg! web site is a
must. Oh, by the way, be sure to read what an exchange result really means, like
so many things in Krieg, it's not what you may think.

Byron