"John D Salt" wrote in message news:... David Garvin wrote in news:3BED2194.BE6941DF@nbnet.nb.ca: > Good day > I was looking on the net for ANYTHING in reference to > the game series > "Assault" from the old Game Designer's Workshop. >I found squat. Well, to be fair, next to squat. [Snips] I can't recall ever seeing anything written about the "Assault!" series apart from the intial reviews in S&T. I bought "Assault" with a great sense of anticipation -- a game on a favourite subject by Frank Chadwick, a favourite designer -- and was bitterly disappointed in it. I think I was all the more disappointed because it was not clearly a bad game. It seemed to have had more research done on weapon performance than most tactical games. The counters were lovely, although the scale chosen seemed very odd in that one strength-reduction level seemed to represent one-and-a-half tanks for the Sovs. The Command Points system offered the chance of simulating command control in a way that seemed initially as if it was going to be better than anything else offered to date. Having tried a few games solitaire and against an opponent, though, it seemed to me that the command point system didn't really "gel". The rate at which points were accumulated essentially meant that ther Americans could maneouvre, and the Russians couldn't. Not that it mattered, as the result of Russian maneouvre was always to be shot to pieces by M-1 fire before achieving anything (probably realistic, but not a satisfactory kind of game). It also seemed that there was little point attempting to achieve combined-arms effects; infantry died shortly after being spotted, and artillery was pointless except to eliminate the hapless infanteers, who could not maneouvre dismounted in the time allowed for a game. Smoke would doubtless have helped if there had been enough and if the all-singing, all- dancing M-1s didn't have TIs. Either you enjoy watching hordes of Red counters being converted to junk by M-1s (actually an idea not without considerable appeal) or you have discovered some way of getting more out of the game than we did. I'd be interested to know why your games go differently. I'd be fascinated to know how you can rig things for the Reds to win, too! All the best, John. "Scott D. Orr" wrote in message news:<9mj0vt49jf6i48uc15vkrp4r63dimqiafs@4ax.com>... >On Mon, 12 Nov 2001 16:47:15 GMT, John D Salt > wrote: > >David Garvin wrote in > It seemed to have had more research done on weapon performance than > most tactical games. The counters were lovely, although the scale > chosen seemed very odd in that one strength-reduction level >eemed to > represent one-and-a-half tanks for the Sovs. The scale problem did bother me, as it gave the Soviets an unfair advantage. > The Command Points system offered the chance of simulating command > control in a way that seemed initially as if it was going to be better > than anything else offered to date. > > Having tried a few games solitaire and against an opponent, though, it > seemed to me that the command point system didn't really "gel". The > rate at which points were accumulated essentially meant that ther > Americans could maneouvre, and the Russians couldn't. Not that it > mattered, as the result of Russian maneouvre was always to be shot to > pieces by M-1 fire before achieving anything (probably realistic, but > not a satisfactory kind of game). It also seemed that there was > little point attempting to achieve combined-arms effects; infantry > died shortly after being spotted, and artillery was pointless except to > eliminate the hapless infanteers, who could not maneouvre dismounted in > the time allowed for a game. Smoke would doubtless have helped if there > had been enough and if the all-singing, all-dancing M-1s didn't have TIs. I didn't find any of this to be true. In particular, infantry is very useful in close terrain, but you have to be patient in maneuvring infantry into position. Infantry's big advantage over tanks, as always, is that it's less vulnerable, especialy at close range. As for combined arms, if you had tanks and infantry defending the same line, the tanks could prevent the infantry from being beat up by vehicles, and the infantry could prevent enemy infantry from sneaking in to kill the tanks at close range. Artillery was also very usefl--it was the one way to kill infantry without risking your tanks. The U.S. ICM-DP was also somewhatuseful against tanks (the CLGP rounds were _very_ useful, but that program was cancelled after Assault came out :). I never found that the Soviets had no chance--the Soviets were perfectly viable as long as you thought like a Soviet, using your numbers to yoru davntage, being wiling ot use road march or battle drill where you had to. The U.S.'s small numbers always made the American forces very brittle. Scott Orr