Tom Kassel - Aug 6, 2004 1:49 am (#21231 Total: 21251) Lightning:Midway & Lightning:D-Day I just bought and tried out these new card games from Decision Games (designed by Dan Verssen) and I'm quite pleased. They are designed as 30 minute games and they met that objective even on the initial play of each. Although quick and simple, they still included interesting decisions and exciting changes of fortune. The basic mechanic is simple. There are some force cards representing military units (air groups in Midway and Divisions or Corps elements in D-Day). You nominate an assault (In Midway, choose some of the in-play air groups and an objective (a carrier or Midway), then the defender chooses some defending air groups. In D-Day, select a single active unit on a beach and target a single defending unit), both sides play various action cards to modify strength (or possibly cancel the assault altogether), then total up strengths and high man wins, killing the objectibe in Midway or the defending unit in D-Day). After that the games differ a bit. In Midway you alternate actions which can be assault, resupply (play up to three force cards from hand to the table) or prepare (draw cards up to 9 card size). After an assault, the committed air groups of both player are returned to hand to refuel/rearm. In last night's game, my Americans sunk Soryu on the initial turn, using a nice combination of action cards to overcome the Japanese fighters apparent heavy superiority. There then followed a few turns of indecisive action, until the Japanese play with many air groups in play attempted a Knock Out blow which can attacks all objectives at once using all his available air. I responded with the No Target event card to cancel the attack and thus send all his air to hand. Then in my turn played my own Knockout Blow to sink three carriers at one go. In D-Day,you lay out the five invasion beachs, each of which has a stack of inactive force cards (3 each beach, apart from Omaha which has 4 US cards). Starting with the German, you play a single action each beach which is either ativate a force by turning faceup the top inactive card or assault using a single force vs single target. You play five turns and then check how many beaches the allies control (4-5 needed to win). One of the key mechanics is that certain units are able to attack on your turn without using your single action for that beach, enabling multiple attacks per turn. This makes such units priority targets. There is an escalating level of violence each turn as the game progresses. At turn end you fill you hand to an increasing maximum size. On turn 4, all attacks get +1 strength for much slaughter and on the final turn 5, just the allies get +1 strength as they try to finish clearing the beaches. In our game, turn 4 saw a huge slaughter of both sides but the final turn bonus was enough to clear all five beaches. It seemed a little one sided, but looking through the German deck after the game, I saw several big cards that hadn't come into play, so the result could easily have been different. I enjoyed both (my opponent preferred Midway) and look forward to playing again