Peter Card - 05:12am Jun 12, 2000 PST (#7232 of 7254) 
Most recently stuffed at Paths of Glory

Now out of the wrapper and punched, and with the introductory scenario
played, is MiH/CH's Tunisia '43. 

I have some minor criticisms of the map. There are places on the map
where it is difficult to say exactly what terrain is present. I assumed
that even a tiny little bit of mountain implies mountain. More
seriously, the different flavours of road are differentiated only by
colour. Major roads are an easily distinguishable pink, but minor roads
(pale blue) and trails (blue/grey) are hard to tell apart. Since Vance
von Borrie's upcoming Tunisia game for GMT will use a map with common
ancestry, this sort of thing bears watching. 

The game uses the Triumphant Fox / Piercing the Reich system. The mostly
battalion sized units are organised into formations. (In the Faid Pass
introductory scenario, each side has only one formation to play with.)
The players dice for initiative, with the loser gaining an advantage
next time. The winner activates a formation, and dices again for the
number of operation points he gets. More capable formations - usually
German ones - get more Ops points and thus can move more units in
operations. Play tends to alternate back and forth as first one player
then the other activates a formation, until neither player can or will
move, or the game turn comes to a random Sudden End. 

Combat is integrated into movement, with die roll modifiers for
artillery, air support, armour superiority and friendly occupied hexes
adjacent to the enemy. By spending more Ops points the attacker can
escalate the combat from hasty to regular or prepared and improve the
coordination of all these bits and pieces. The defender benefits
similarly if holding a prepared position, and suffers if peviously
disrupted. 

A chit pull then determines the combat strength of the participating
units based on their effectiveness ratings and level of coordination.
Cross reference the modifed 2D6 combat roll on the awe inspiring CRT
with the odds ratio for the given defending terrain, and Manfred is your
uncle. The results are step losses and a die-roll modifier for the
subsequent effectiveness check. Fail this and a unit is flipped to its
disrupted side, with various disadvantages. Combat losses are tracked
with strength markers. Units generally die over several combats from
attrition. Some of the defenders losses may be taken as retreats
instead, depending on circumstance. The winner of a combat chooses from
a selection of rewards. Thus the attacker might get exploitation
movement, set up a prepared position or launch a follow up attack. 

The process is not as daunting as it sounds , and rewards proper
organisation and preparation. Once you get the processes down - and a
variety of quick reference sheets are included, it can flow quickly. It
will never be as quick and easy as a classic sum-divide-roll combat
system.