From: Elias Nordling Subject: The Barbarossa Campaign (Panzerschreck #3) review The following mini-review was posted by David Buckland on Consimworld. It seems that he arrived mostly at the same conclusions as I did, though I wouldn't be as harsh. --- Issue #3 of Panzerschreck contained the Barbarossa game, with the player as the Germans. Given the small physical size of the game, this is going to be a fairly broad-brush treatment. However, the main problem with it is, as has been noted elsewhere (by Elias Nordling?), that it is far too easy for the Germans to win. Frankly, the imbalance is such that I wonder how much playtesting was done of the final version. To take just one issue, various cities (Leningrad, Sevastpol, etc) become fortresses through random events, which is not a problem in itself, but the benefits are trivial, making these places far to easy for the German to take. It looks as if the fortress rules might have been changed late in the day, since as things stand, they barely seem worth the counters used to denote them. A minor point, but one small complaint I had about the Reichstag game was the lack of unit designations, which I feel add to flavour, even if not essential. It may seem unfair to turn round and criticise Minden (the publishers of the magazine) for using such designations in this game (the Germans are given corps designations, the Russians armies), but while in the earlier game some at least of the units involved were equivalent to historical formations, this is not the case with Barbarossa, where the German units are somewhere betweeen a corps and an army, and the Russians between an army and a front. I do not mind this kind of fudging myself, but would prefer when this is the case not to have the fudge highlighted by the use of what I consider to be inappropriate designations. It is true that the game can be fairly easily tweaked to make life for the Germans much more difficult. The basic mechanics of the game include changes to the balance of advantage on the Eastern Front which will, if the Soviets survive, gradually tip things against the Germans, and eventually lead to their wholesale retreat. By altering the speed with which these effects kick in, the game can be superficially balanced fairly easily, especially with a few other changes, like beefing up the effects of fortresses. However, this leads to my mind to another set of problems. I would hope that any game on this conflict as a whole would at least stand a reasonable chance of recreating the broad flow of historical events: a big initial German advance in 41, a limited retreat during the subsequent winter, a renewed offensive, but with waning effectiveness in 42, etc, etc. Not asking for this to happen every time – just that it is a reasonable possibility. The problem I had with my attempts to tweak the Panzerschreck Barbarossa was that they tended to make anything approaching the historical German advance in 41 far too difficult: lessening the effects of the tweaks led back to the old problem of too many German victories. I was just getting into the process of ever more complicated changes to address these issues when I realised that life was too short, and that I have other as yet unplayed games clamouring for attention. So, IMHO the Panzerschreck Barbarossa is a flawed game. It has some interesting ideas – the combat system, the rules for armour advantage, Russian production, and so forth – but these don’t outweigh its problems where I am concerned. Issue number 4 is due out the first of May, and will have two games included: Battle of the Atlantic, and Berchtesgaden: The Alpine Redoubt. You can watch the Minden website for news when it is released. Sounds interesting, I'll keep an eye open! mvh Elias --- Elias Nordling telephone: +46-8-648 09 62 Hasselquistvagen 25a 2tr e-mail: elias@nordling.nu S-121 46 Johanneshov Sweden homepage: http://elias.nordling.nu X-Sender: u86400967@m1.864.telia.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3 Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2000 00:19:22 +0200 To: admin@grognard.com From: Elias Nordling Subject: The Barbarossa Campaign (Panzerschreck #3) optional rules Thanks for the new message, and comments from David Buckland. I know games like this won't be everybody's cup of tea, but I don't agree with his conclusions (but of course I'm biased!). He is right though about the fortification rules getting tweaked near the end... there were other approaches brought forward but I decided to go with the "simple" one (as published). I will list some "optional rules" that did not make the final cut, but maybe they would address the concerns, especially about taking over Major cities. I am going to try and ask around and see if we can put some new options, like the ones below, in Pzsk #4. In the mean time, here are the options I was talking about. (At this point I don't know if these will be included in Pzsk #4 or not, so please don't quote me as saying these are "official" at this point. Thanks!) THE BARBAROSSA CAMPAIGN: ADDITIONAL OPTIONAL RULES (Section X) (1) MAJOR CITY DEFENSE: The first "Advance" combat result against a Major City in any particular turn is treated as "No Effect"; the second "Advance" result stands. (i.e. to fall, a major city must be attacked from at least 2 diff. squares, and get 2 "Advance" results) (2) INCREASED DEFENSIVE TENACITY: In any turn after 1941, all Russian cities and major cities treat marked Green combat chit draws as "No Effect/End". Also, Russian cities may not be Blitzed after 1941 unless the German has German Tank Technology. (3) WINTER 1941: The Winter 1941 Economic chit draw is automatically a "Any Russian" chit. Use a spare counter, and treat it as an "Any Russian" chit and place it on the Economic Display as usual. I should add that there probably is a problem with the victory conditions as far as Encirclement is concerned... as it stands, if Leningrad, Moscow, S'grad are all Encircled (not captured), the German wins. This prob. should be "one major city at most may be Encircled and still have the German win", i.e. at least 2 of the 3 must be captured. Thanks again for your comments. I do appreciate hearing from gamers, and hope that the games I produce are generating some fun! Any comments about these "new optional rules" would be appreciated. Gary mvh Elias --- Elias Nordling telephone: +46-8-648 09 62 Hasselquistvagen 25a 2tr e-mail: elias@nordling.nu S-121 46 Johanneshov Sweden homepage: http://elias.nordling.nu