Kevin Moody  - Apr 28, 2005 2:20 pm (#25173 Total: 25186)  
"The pair of designer is just as good as bread hamming nice 
ham and cheese. Perfect!" 	 

Your description sums it up pretty well, Tom.

I prefer to play something that might tend towards more
historical/narrative lines, and the game is full of scenarios based on
Axis/Wallies encounters, but abstracted with the force mix a la Squad
Leader, ASL, etc (except for their HASL's and the two Journals, of
course, and the third-party stuff, etc etc). 

It has a basic ruleset which involves only armor (what probably draws in
most players anyway), and introduces the C3 mechanics that run the game.
Very basically, each player is issued command cards representing his
various counters, broken down by company, battalion, etc. Each card
contains the soft-factors, which may vary between scenarios (usually due
entirely to the time of the conflict), such as morale levels, the abilty
of a unit to survive/recover it's morale and the effect of unit losses
on that roll, and most importantly the cards include the C3 rating which
is a letter from "A" to "F". The game plays very fluidly by having
players alternate cardplay/activations based on increasing C3 value, so
the "F"s go first, etc. In addition, each player usually has one or two
higher-level command cards, which can be used to activate larger groups
(which all have their own company command cards in the hand, as well),
help in morale checks, re-activate members of a previously-activated
unit that haven't been "spent", etc. The cards can be used to trump
another player. For example, in a recent game I played, the Americans
activated an "A" level tank unit to round a bend and go against a small
panzer group I had lurking over a hill. I was able in turn to trump his
trump by playing my overall command card and activating my guys first.
It's not without cost to do so, however, because that meant I had little
flexibility to orchestrate my other activations since their "backup"
command card had been used. (Does this make sense? It's very similar to
the GBoH stuff.) 

Each nationality has specific requirements/restrictions on doctrine,
usually reflected in their ability to separate from members of their own
unit without penalty. Those that are separated suffer from a lower
ability to hit a target and pass morale checks. 

The advanced rules add infantry, forward observers, artillery (towed
guns and on-foot mortar groups, etc), off-map air strikes and artillery
barrages, hidden minefields, bunkers/entrenchments/wire, other stuff I'm
spacing on. 

All in 18 pages of rules, with numerous examples. The rules are tight. 

There are 5 basic scenarios in the WFTL game, and about twice as many
advanced ones, IIRC. The terrain features are typically highly variable,
and allow multiple playings of the same scenario. That's a blessing, in
that the game has an enourmous bang-for-the-buck factor, but a weakness
for someone like me who prefers something based more along historical
situations. 

The counters are well-illustrated and easy to read in spite of a glut of
info. However, they are on the thin side and can tear easily when
sparating them from the trees. A scenario display tracks game turn,
scenario length, visibilty distance, road conditions, city/town
conditions, height conditions, season (affecting other factors),
wood/forest conditions, etc. It all seemed too highly variable at first
and I thought it would be difficult to remember what the conditions were
from one scenario to another when using the same map (two maps are in
the game, allowing several combinations before map variablilty is
considered). However, once we were a turn into it, it was easy to
remember what was what. Stumptner applied his TCS 3D map technique to
the EFTL map, which can be seen here if the elevation is difficult to
remember. 

The map is a little cartoonish, but that may have been why we were able
to easily filter-out extraneous map information when the scenario
altered something. 

Combat is possible only if a target can be seen. That's reflected
through a simple chart that considers such obvious things as distance,
how many additional units are in the area, unit type, spotter/target
experience levels, whether that unit is moving or has fired, if it's in
woods, if it's in LOS, and if it's within the visibility restrictions of
the scenario (some winter scenarios have some very, very short
visibility distances). Sometimes, a unit in the firing unit's group that
has spotting capabilty can spot for another, most notably for big
guns/mortars...if these units sight-in its own target it doubles its
attack value, which is typically devestating if you're using indirect
fire against a group of soft-targets. (Loaded with infantry ) 

If a target is spotted, combat is based on a comparison of attack factor
vs defense factor, with distance, unit quality, defensive terrain, etc
factored in. Three dice are rolled and results go from "Miss" to "Kill",
with the majority of hits expressed through a required morale check,
sometimes with harmful DRMs. If a target has lost units in its group,
it's more likely to break from the additional DRM penalty as reflected
on the unit's command card. Units that are broken and fail another
morale check from a hit are eliminated. If certain units naturally roll
high numbers, the result is considered a "quick kill" and the firing
unit may attempt to fire at another target. Units with higher expereince
status aren't required to roll as high to achieve a quick kill. That's
another way the high-quality German uber-tanks can be so devestating. 

It takes awhile to get the game down, but shortly afterwards it can
mostly be played off a small player aid card that includes about
everything. 

The game is also highly tweakable. For example, we didn't care for the
requirement that movement or use of a FO requires the unit to be
revealed. We'll probably adapt a hidden movement/activation system based
on mutual trust, and allow for FOs to be spotted only if they're within
a certain range of the enemy. Also, off-map air-strikes and artillery
barrages are variable...you draw a card to see what you get. The strike
may arrive immediately, or be delayed by as long as three turns. We
think that information shouldn't be revealed to the opponent, so if a
strike isn't immediate, we'll just place the card face down to the side
and bring it up at the appropriate turn...still too much info to alert
the opponent, but better than revealing everything. (I hear Markus
sighing and readying a stern rebuttal ). 

There is much, much more to the play of the game that I won't go into
(*horray!*). WFTL can be typically had on eBay for $15-$30. I think it's
worth several times that. My advice in order of the "rank of aquirement"
would be: WFTL, Desert Steel, and EFTL. EFTL can be played with the
tweaked and improved WFTL rules. Desert Steel (the last of the series)
includes a few more tweaks, but they are more suited to that game, I
think, and I'm not sure if they're worth incorprating into the earlier
two games until we get in more play.