From: Allan Rothberg Subject: Re: Consim-l membership Rich, Arius, DttB was published by MiH. Soviet July 1944 offensive against Army Group North. They have a good presentation as to the scope of the game and details on their home page. Rich, I soloed it once already. Plays well, the battle chits and tactical ratings of the two armies are a lot more evenly matched now. It was quite frustrating to attack a single German infantry divivion in the prior game in the series (Turning the Tables) with 6 Soviet rifle divisions and almost certainly stand little chance of even damaging the German division. The German player has to be very good to prevent his army from being cut off and chopped to bits. He can no longer count on guarenteed Teutonic superiority, but finesse and finagle to keep the Soviets off balance.Even then, the Soviets have a huge manpower advantage that the Germans have to contend with. Those Panzer divisions really have to run around blunting the Soviet spearheads. Even then, the Soviets are almost certainly assured of reaching the coast. Fortunately, the Victory Conditions require a bit more than that for the Soviets to win. Came down to the last turn and some fortuitously bad die rolling on the Soviet attacks for the Germans to eke out a Marginal win in my game. Of course I have only soloed this once, so my opinion isn't quite authoritative review. Overall, the price is resonable, the rules are easily learned and the game can be played in a moderately long single sitting. There is a small amount of errata available on MiH's home page, none that isn't obvious. Couple all that with a single map, 1-1/2 counter sheets (I think) and a situation not gamed to death and you have a buy for any East Front fan on the Allan scale of 'to buy or not to buy'. Allan RGS48@aol.com wrote: > << How many of us are left on this list, anyway? >> > > Since Consimworld is down, I suspect that traffic will soon pick up. > > By the way, any of you guys played DRIVE TO THE BALTIC yet? From: RGS48@aol.com Subject: RE: Drive to the Baltic << No. In fact, this is the first I've heard of it (at least, the first time it's registered in my mind.) Who published it? Who designed it? Does it have optional Lithuanian Army counters? :-) >> Well, they are listed separately. DttB is produced by Moments in History. While generally, I am not an MiH fan, this game is a tasty little treat. It featues the Soviet drive to capture Riga in 1944, thereby splitting Army Group Nort from Army Group Center. It's one map, 280 counters (although this is a bit dsingenuous - you only use 2/3 of the map and there are about 40 replacement counters on the tree for other games) Turns are three days, broken down into three segements (of one day each). Each player (Soviet and German) receive an allocation of C3i points each turn. The player must commit at least one of thse per segment and can commit more (up to three) if he wishes. He then rolls on the command table, cross referencing the die roll with the nmber of C3i points he committed. This tells him how many units/stacks he can move and how many attacks he can make this segment. The segments themselves are either Move/Attack or Attack/Move - player's choice. Combat is fairly conventional save one feature. Each unit is rated for efficiency. In combat, each player picks combat chits out of a cup equal to the efficiency rating of the unit he committed. Depending on who has tactical superiority, players can play these cits (which represent die roll adjustments, casualty adjustments, etc) There is also a dreaded SNAFU chit for ach side which has radical effects. The rule book is fairly straightforward, brief, and reasonably enlightening. You can start playing fairly qickly. The situation at the start is interstng (to say the least) The Soviets start out with a large, powerful army, good C3i capabilit, and a 10-hex gap through which to pour all those units. The Germans, conversely, have a thin line, almost no reserves, and little C3i. Your first reaction is: "Help!" Anyway, this is an interesting little game. It's roughly comparable to a magazine game in size, for all of the spatially-challenged out there. It moves aong quite well and is quite challenging. Like I said, I am not an MiH fan but this is well worth a look; I think yu'll be playing it often. There aren't too many games of this size out there these days. would recommend this one.