Scott Holmgren - 02:54pm Jun 19, 2002 PST (#1114 of 1125) Designer of Blue Guidon Games ::: "I don't care for John Pope one pinch of owl dung." - Gen. Samuel D. Sturgis Finally got around to setting up Paul's Blood and Steel (which has no controversial Laura Secord rule). Looks like it's got lots of replay value and, at only four pages of rules, easy to teach beginners. Here are my initial thoughts... GAME SET UP The Soviets set up one infantry division "per village and any other hex on the map outside of the German deployment areas." That reads as if Soviet infantry could go in Komsomolets and Balenkhino "and any other hex on the map outside of the German deployment areas" if the Germans didn't occupy those villages when they set up. I doubt that is what was meant. Perhaps a better way to say it would be: "One per village outside of the German deployment areas and in any other hex on the map outside these areas." OPERATIONS Since Overrun Fire Combat is numbered 7.3.3 in the rules, it appears to be a part of Fire Combat (7.3). However, only moving units can perform Overrun. Perhaps the Overrun Fire Combat section should be renumbered 7.4 and should begin "Friendly units performing movement operations or movement and fire combat operations may enter hexes occupied..." in order to eliminate any confusion. Since there is no CRT, and die rolls are basically being made against a unit's attack factor, perhaps all modifiers should be changed to AF modifiers rather than die roll modifiers. This may be just a stylistic preference, but then I know what the final number is that I'm rolling against: "I need a 3 or less..." etc. In other words, a +1 DRM becomes a -1 AF, and a -1 DRM becomes a +1 AF. Then, when an armored unit stacked with a Tiger company is moving and firing at an enemy armored unit at long range in a village, it computes to 4+1-2-1-1=1... "I need to roll a 1!" WINNING THE GAME Ultimately, the Soviets need to merely hold 5 VP hexes with the units the game begins with to pull a draw (of the 18 German units, 4 would hold the other objective hexes, 13 would have to exit the map, and 1 would need to survive south of the RR). Both sides would have 17 VPs. Given this fact, there's little incentive to bring in the Soviet reinforcements early in the game; might as well use em for the VPs. That's where I like the house rules suggested on Web-Grognards that restricts the exit VPs, eliminates a Soviet Corp, and makes Prokhorovka more valuable. [I didn't include the German 167th in my calculation, although that would mix things up a little.] Overall, I like the game. Looking forward to playing it a few more time solitaire before springing it on my friend who's never played a wargame before. Nice job, Paul