From: Roberto Chiavini Subject: Three new reviews First Arab Israeli War (Strategy & Tactics 185) This is another Miranda's design for S&T, this time the struggle for Palestine after WWII. The game is a classic magazine game of the next generation, with pleasant graphics (especially the map, while the counters are good but not astonishingly so) and rules that suffer in several places for the lack of space. Anyway, it's better than most of its competitors in the field. The game comes with only two scenarios. The countermix is varied, with several different countries for the Arab League, plus Israeli forces (of course) and the British army (only in the campaign scenario). Game scale is monthly turns, battalion sized units (with a few brigades and several militia units). Each hex is about 7.5 km across, but most of the eastern and southern parts of the map are not really used in play, as both players struggle for the important cities of Palestine (Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa). Counters have only two value: combat and movement and most of the rules are probably limited by this too narrow approach to a very interesting situation. So, many of more peculiar rules (Terrorism, Guerrilla/Commando units, etc.) could have been more complicated and interesting, while the simple approach chosen by Miranda, even if well done, it's not too effective (but probably the scale chosen limits more in depth examination of the terrorist actions). Each turn starts with a Random Event, then the Arab player start the sequence of play (Reinforcements, Reorganization, Movement, air Operations - very easy, but it has air Strike and interception -, Combat - with two different ratio CRT, SPI's Modern Battles style, but without the intrinsic terrain effect -, Terrorism, Recovery), then the Israeli player does the same, and, starting with 1948 turns, both players repeat another time the sequence of play each turn, if there are no Truce (a Random Event) in effect. Most of the units in the game are very limited in strength, other than the few brigades (that normally should be separated in battalion sized units, to attack or defend more cities in the same time), so most of the attacks are to be reinforced by the supply units, one of the more interesting aspect of this design: the supply units are mobile and are used for several different reasons in the game (to recover from disruption, to force march, to double the combat strength in combat, to entrench, etc.). The correct use of this kind of units is the real key to victory. All in all, First Arab Israeli War is a good magazine game, on a not very often simulated subject (I know only of SDC's game Jerusalem on the same subject, but more tactical in the approach), that should be fun and interesting for players who likes this kind of modern conflict (for my tastes history stops before XX century, other than for really a few exceptions) and I tentatively rate this game, after only a few turns of play, 6 1/2 in a 1-10 scale.