From: John Best Subject: War to the Death (ex: Omega Games) James Jones commented on the relative worth or value of the Omega games discount offerings: >Just wondering if anyone could comment on these games--are >they worth getting? > >War to the Death 8.25 This is the only one on the original list that I own. The game shown above is a strategic level depiction (imo) of the Peninsular War in Spain and Portugal, covering the years 1808, all the way out to 1814 or so, if my memory serves. It's an interesting design in some respects. The game's designer is also, I believe, the author of a very well regarded book on the French anti-guerilla policies and practices as they developed them during this period. Regarding the game itself, the map is one of those box and line numbers (the rationale for doing this rather than using the traditional hex grid is well thought out, but I still don't like those kinds of displays. Each game turn represents a "pretty long period of time" (nice memory huh?)--at least a month, it might be more like a "season". The counters might represent regimental sized units--there is somewhat of a discrepancy between the length of the game turn, and the relative size of the units (my judgement is that in most wargames, unit size, turn length and hex scale are all highly correlated). The components of the first edition of this game were bland but servicable. I think the looks of the map were worse in the second edition compared to the first. Let's talk about play. Anglophiles won't care much for the position taken in this game, namely that without the guerillas to hamstring the French at every turn, the Iron Duke would have had his behind kicked out of Iberia in short order. But with the guerillas of course, it's a different story. Essentially it's a story about how incredibly difficult it was for the French to sustain their numbers in that adverse land. The supply lines are long, and the French must guard those supplies as they move slowly to their main forces out on the frontiers. As the game progresses, the French "learn" how to build special anti-guerilla battalions, and these help, but there are never enough of them. And so, for as the French, it's a very interesting kind of frustration to look at the board and say, "I've got 250,000 guys here all told, but I can't seem to do anything with them." On the negative side, for me, the game seems to march to its inexorable conclusion no matter what you do as the French (If anybody has figured out how the French can win, barring anything except completely incompetent play from the Allies, chime in here.). A second kind of problem, and one related to the above, is that not much actually happens on the board itself. I haven't quite figured out to explain this, but maybe it's the box and line display that seems to cut down on the illusion of movement. There are lots of boxes on the map that are so barren, there's no point in trying to take the French there, because the attrition calculation will just eat them up. And it gets to the point where you just want to say, why bother moving anything at all? It's like you can almost see the equation operating, no matter what you do, at the end of the year, there's going to be a few less guerillas and lot less of your guys. So, my bottom line reaction to this: It's an interesting exercise and accurate at least in some overall sense. We tend to think of guerilla warfare games as involving a lot of "hidden movement" suggesting that most of the them are not very good as solitaire games. But this works pretty well in that department: don't garrison a territory, or garrison it inadequately and the guerillas will come back, and everybody knows they're there. The excitement factor was not high for me, in fact, looking at the board was more like watching the VU meters on an elaborate stereo without hearing the music, than it was like watching the dramatic sweep of armies across Spain. Still, if you want to play this at the campaign level, you don't have too many choices (an old game by Historical Concepts comes to mind--and it doesn't cover the whole war), and you just can't beat that price point. Thanks for reading. John Best jlbest@tuscola.net