From: John Desch Subject: Re: Ty "goes a bit overboard for East Front games"?? >>41 Wave of Terror (Battle of the Bulge) 'monster' game > >Fixing-up a copy of Wacht am Rhein that someone gave me REALLY >has me itching to see this game. I would think that the magazine >portion would be showing up any day. Ty sent me an advanced copy of the game on Friday (I would hope that it's coming to all subscribers shortly). I must say they've done a nice job with the presentation. The sequence of play is similar to Proud Monster in that you have a player turn couplet for each 24 hours. The twist is that you can chose how to orchestrate your attacks by either moving and resolving combat or vice versa. If you choose to attack and then move, you get a column shift bonus. I played through six days of the campaign this past weekend (in addition to doing many other things) and it flowed pretty much historically. The exception was that Bastogne was impossible to hold against an aggressive German player, but the northern shoulder held well, the southern finally anchored itself south of Bastogne, and the Meuse was secured by the British 30 Corps. The 106th bit the dust lock, stock and barrel, but the 28th got out of the maelstrom in good shape (50%). I ended the game with the Germans massed in the middle (near Marche) contemplating where to go and Patton driving north with the bulk of four divisions. My second game is not going well for the US. We'll see how it works out. Special rules and features: Artillery. Both players get artillery, though the Americans are much more mobile and can mass up to six units to support an attack or defense. The actual value is determined by a die roll, so one unit can supplement a defense from one to six points. Artillery is crucial for holding terrain, but is has two weaknesses: 1) it either shoots or moves; if you try to use it to help hold a shakey line you won't have a chance to move it out of harm's way during your player turn and 2) each unit stacks by itself. Since stacking applies during the entire turn, an artillery unit stuck at a crucial road junction can hold up the flow of your forces. The game is at battalion level so all of the extra units are there. Only the division designations are shown (if anyone wants a complete OoB, let me know) because units from different divisions cannot attack the same hex. Bear with me on this one, it works well in the game and offers a real incentive for players to keep their divisions together. Peiper. You can create a special kampgruppe using any four units of the 1SS Panzer Division. This stack can ignore all in-turn stacking rules (it gets to the forefront quickly) and can really cause a problem for the Allies. It poses a real threat to the POL dumps (two real, two dummy) the capture of which will allieviate all German supply problems, which start kicking in on turn 4. The Peiper marker goes away on a roll of six, whereupon those units must observe normal stacking limits. Other rules include column movement which allows you to move double if you stay on the road and don't move adjacent to any enemy units. There are no ZoCs, but this does not create a problem because all non-road hexes cost two MPs (mud and snow, folks). Gaps in the line can be expoited, but the rough terrain and low movement factors (four to seven) serve to mitigate a lack of ZoCs. I'd be happy to answer specific questions as they occur to Consimmers. I hope you have as much fun playing this game as I did designing it! John T. Desch jtd4@cornell.edu (607)255-5014