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. TRIUMPHANT FOX Well, I am certainly happy to see a new game company coming over the horizon. For the past couple of years, if you went searching for a good game, you looked for the GMT, Gamers', and Clash of Arms logos. Now a new player is on the scene, and any company whose first game has Fox in the title, and whose second game will probably be Richard Berg's THE GREAT BATTLES OF MARLBOROUGH (Blenheim and Ramillies), has got to be worth a try. TRIUMPHANT FOX. Snappy title, well-known subject (the Gazala battles, May-June, 1942). Unfortunately, also a well-covered subject, what with the slew of Desert Fox games lately-- THE LEGEND BEGINS, AFRIKA, and an up-and-coming Berg-o-rama called BLOOD & SAND. The Battle of Gazala itself has already been done, and done well, by the old GDW FALL OF TOBRUK, and the more recent People's War Games' GAZALA. Like Gettysburg games, methinks the market here might be approaching saturation. Nice and colorful, though. Obviously, Moments in History is out to make a big splash, graphics-wise, and they don't disappoint. The one map is quite pleasing to the eye, with the standard "this is North Africa so break out the multiple shades of tan and brown" color scheme with a throng of charts, tables, and boxes in the margins to keep track of the usual gaming effluvia. The counters are colorful, a bit too much so for my taste, with pastels- orange for the British Air Force, florescent yellow on red for the 1st Armored, lime green for the Italians- replacing the more often seen drab olives and khakis. I rather prefer the more somber shades myself, but the counters are easy to read and look good on the map, and while not up to AFRIKA's standards, TRIUMPHANT FOX's graphics are quite acceptable, and at least they prevent the situation in AFRIKA where my Allied opponent (our esteemed editor) tried to attack his own units. The rulebook is laid out in the GMT format (which is fast becoming the industry standard), with plenty of graphics, boxed examples, and designer/historical notes to break up all of those boring old rules. But don't kid yourself-- within those drab paragraphs are some of the best game rules since CAESAR. I don't know what it is about desert games, but they usually seem to bring out the best in a designer. THE LEGEND BEGINS and AFRIKA are both top-notch, while John Krantz and the Blenneman brothers (Dirk and Ulrich) have imbued FOX with a depth and subtlety rarely seen in operational WWII games. FOX is a regimental/battalion level treatment of the battle, and all of the tactical niceties of mechanized warfare are nicely covered within that format. The key to desert games is how the designers attempt to simulate the ebb and flow, thrust/counterthrust nature of (no, not Sharon Stone movies) North African combat; to this end the brothers Blenneman have come up with the Operations Cycle. This is essentially a modified version of Richard Berg's TCT (indeed, the entire game has a distinctly Bergian flavor), wherein players roll dice to determine who has the initiative to perform the next operation. These Initiative Rolls are modified by air interdiction and the Initiative+ DRM, a rather vaguely described method of preventing one side from running away with the game-- each consecutive time your opponent wins the initiative, you add one to your die roll, until you win, in which case he starts adding to his, so that momentum tends to swing back and forth quite freely, which is exactly what the designers had in mind. The initiative winner may either pass, conduct an air strike, or activate a formation. The concept of formations is not a new one, dating back all the way back to Peoples' War Games' DUEL FOR KHARKOV (to which the designers give due credit), a formation essentially being a division with any attached independent units. Formations may activate multiple times during a turn, limited by the different levels of the Formation Activation Track, an excellent method of demonstrating the relative effectiveness of various units-- the Axis Panzer divisions top out at seven activations per turn, British armor gets six, while the Italian and South African footsloggers hover around three or four. Each activation, in turn, gives the formation a steadily decreasing number of Action Points to be spent on movement, combat, refitting, or minefield clearance. So, the more you activate a formation, the less you can do with it, and since formations can only recover a limited number of activations at the end of a turn, pushing a division to its limit may knock it out for the next couple of game turns. In all, a superb method of simulating the high-speed, high-stress nature of mechanized warfare. A movement action only allows you to move one stack at a time, so it behooves one to keep one's divisions nice and concentrated, a factor which hurts the oversized, badly strung-out Allied formations. The stacking limits, simulating as they do the relative differences in tactical doctrine, give the Axis a huge advantage by allowing them to lump all sorts of panzer and flak units together with their infantry regiments, creating some truly frightening combined arms battle groups. Moving adjacent to an enemy unit allows the parent enemy formation an opportunity to declare a Reaction Activation; if the enemy headquarters rolls within its Reaction Rating, it may activate, although with a lower number of action points. Note, however, that reaction activations are counted against a formation's total for the turn, so a good tactic is to try to feint an enemy division into burning up most of its activations through reaction. If the enemy unit doesn't react, spending another action point declares a hasty attack by the moving stack, although the bad guys can still try to escape your trap by retreating before combat (and woe betide a defender who fails an attempted retreat). If the defender stands and fights, the attacker may spend one or two more action points to escalate the hasty attack to regular or prepared, respectively. This allows the attacker to bring to bear other adjacent friendly units, air support, headquarters support points (representing artillery, engineers, recon units, etc.) and the dreaded Rommel bonus. Combat results are in terms of steps lost, although the defender may take losses in the form of retreats, and disruption checks, wherein units roll against their Efficiency Rating; failed units are disrupted, can't move or react, lose their ZOC, and are halved in combat. Definite bad news. I'm not sure if I buy this rule-- I don't really know what it's meant to simulate, since in my readings combat units historically rarely collapsed on such short notice, and for being in such a dreadful state, disrupted units sure do refit quickly. A better rule gives bonus action points to a victorious attacker, allowing him to follow up his assaults. Supply is, of course, crucial. Units trace supply to their headquarters, who must then follow a supply path to a road and thence off-map, although Boxes and Tobruk also serve as Allied supply sources. Out of supply headquarters pay double normal formation activation costs and their subordinate units are halved in movement and combat. This places the Axis in a dilemma, since their supply lines don't run very far past Bir Hacheim, and they will eventually have to commit substantial resources to capturing the place and clearing the Allied minefields, which can be a tricky process in itself. Every ten operations moves the Sudden Death marker one space further along, and if the combined initiative dice rolls equal or exceed the sudden death level, the turn ends then and there, which can happen at mighty inconvenient times, let me tell you. Random Events at the beginning of each turn bring some might-have-beens into play-- extra air units, sudden storms, Rommel's plane crashing, etc. Optional rules allow players to experiment with hidden movement (highly recommended), British armor doctrine, Italian surrender, and so forth. Does the above sound confusing ? Well, fear not, dear reader, because a cassette tutorial is available upon request, wherein you listen to John Krantz and Ulrich Blenneman run through an Operations Cycle, explaining the most important concepts as they go along. Kind of makes you wonder why nobody thought of doing this before (But I sure wouldn't want someone taping one of our playtest sessions-- not unless the public is dying to hear a few selections from Berg's Dirty Ditties). The rules are, for the most part, pretty clear. The big exception is the opaque description of Sudden Death, one of the more vital concepts, although a couple of practice turns and quick listen to the tape should clear up most questions. Three solitaire training scenarios give much-needed instruction in the details of formation activation and combat. As I said before, this is a game with a great deal of depth and subtlety, so please don't do what I did and jump right into the Campaign Scenario without trying some of the shorter ones first. The first couple of playthroughs can be rocky, and you'll probably overlook some of the more important rules, but once you get the hang of it the Operations Cycle flows smoothly. The Gazala battles represent one of the best situations in all of wargaming. Rommel's panzer divisions are poised to outflank the Allied army and drive on Tobruk, but the Free French Brigade holding out in Bir Hacheim stretches their supply lines to the breaking point. The Allies have two strong armored divisions, but their doctrine sucks wind and they are badly dispersed while their infantry divisions are critically out of position. The decisions for both sides are crucial-- for the Axis, should they head for Tobruk immediately (as Rommel did historically) or take the time to clear Bir Hacheim; the Allies must concentrate their powerful armor formations to block the panzers. As John Madden would say, lotsa good stuff goin' on down there. I think that the biggest decision that North Africa designers face is how to handle Rommel. Only Bobby Lee presents designers with more problems in deciding just how good of a commander he actually was, and how much individual influence he had on the battle. In my opinion, Erwin Rommel was a talented tactician and one of the few commanders in 1942 who understood the proper use of armor; however, his overall strategic vision was flawed by an unwillingness to accept logistical limitations. Time after time, he had opportunities to decisively end the North African campaign, but failed because he could never quite get enough supplies. To put it simply, you want to make the Desert Fox good, but not too good. So how do you handle him ? THE LEGEND BEGINS and AFRIKA give Rommel a movement bonus and a slight combat advantage. In TRIUMPHANT FOX, however, he approaches deism. Units stacked with Rommel gain bonuses for action points, combat, victory bonuses, minefield clearance, refitting, disruption checks, and leaping tall buildings. It's obvious where the designers' empathy lies-- gamewise, the title says it all. And therein lies my only substantial criticism of FOX. If you lose the coin toss and get stuck with the Allies, you're in for a long afternoon. After a couple of false starts, I finally sat down to play the campaign game. The rulebook says 8+ hours to finish that scenario-- bet more on the + side, as it can easily take three to four hours for one turn. The Axis get a +3 initiative bonus throughout Game Turn 1, pretty much guaranteeing them free rein, and by the end of Turn 1 Rommel had driven back the British 7th Armored, captured Bir Hacheim, and cleared all of the minefields around it, thus opening up the vital supply line around the Allied flank. In Turn 2 the Allies won the first initiative and sent the 1st Armored thundering south to challenge the Axis breakthrough, whereupon Rommel set on them with the 15th Panzer, eliminating one infantry and four tank brigades, effectively destroying the 1st Armored as a combat unit. The Free French brigade's survivors, caught out in the open without armored support, were next, and then the road to Tobruk was open. The end of Turn 2 saw the British armor badly battered, the German 90th Light division knocking on the gates of Tobruk, and the Axis panzers between the remaining Allied formations and their supply sources. As Private Hudson would say, "Game over, man !" Granted, the Gazala battles showed Rommel at his best (and the Allies at their worst), but the cards in TRIUMPHANT FOX are stacked so heavily against the Allied forces, that, like those other famous walkovers, FOX is more of a demonstration of why the Axis won, and how they did it so easily, than a competitive contest. Optional rules and scenarios are available to help even things out, mainly be allowing the Allies free deployment, so that their divisions won't be spread out like Israeli settlements on the Gaza Strip, and restricting the Axis to only attacking Bir Hacheim with Italian divisions on turns 1-3. But, no matter how badly you're getting shellacked, this is a fun, exciting game. The Operations Cycle ensures much tenseness as momentum shifts back and forth, while the opportunity for reaction means that you have more to do than just sit back and watch your opponent push around cardboard. You get a very good feel for the particulars of armored tactics and the doctrines of the opposing armies, as well as the situation facing Rommel and Auchinleck at the outset of the Gazala campaign. TRIUMPHANT FOX is a good value for your dollar-- an original system with many creative flourishes backed by solid research and developmental work. A definite candidate for one of the best games of 1994. CAPSULE COMMENTS: Graphic Presentation: Very pastell-y. I like 'em grey and somber myself, but the overall effect ain't bad. Quite good for a first game. Playability: Contains many new concepts which are easily overlooked, so the three solitaire training scenarios are highly recommended. Once you get the hang of it, though, a very tense, exciting system. Replayability: Unfortunately, this game is basically an Axis walkover. The German doctrine is so superior, and there are so few opportunities available to the Allies, that players probably won't want to sit through very many butt-whuppings. In fact, the one-sidedness makes it a very good solitaire contest. Creativity: A game of great depth and subtlety, with lots of new stuff. Desert games tend to bring out the best in their designers, and FOX is no exception. Historicity: I should note here that the historical/design notes are excellent, reflecting the amount of detailed research that must have gone into the game. All of the elements of armored mobile warfare are covered in one way or another. I think Rommel is much over-rated here, but his picture is on the boxcover, so what can you expect ? Comparisons: Lots of good games out there. GDW's FALL OF TOBRUK and Peoples' GAZALA are both quite good (although by now, hard to find). THE LEGEND BEGINS and AFRIKA are also noteworthy, although their scope is much larger. Superior to both the Gamers' Standard Combat Series and XTR's legion of KRIM clones, FOX is one of the best operational-level WWII games around right now. Overall: A very good buy. Certainly one of the best games of the year. And make sure you get the tape. David Fox fragilfox@aol.com