Kerry Anderson - 12:52pm Aug 9, 2000 PST (#8143 of 8144) [Disclaimer: This OotW is from Kerry Anderson, the designer of the gameand may be tainted by paternal instincts] The unbelievable has happened. When I got home yesterday, I was pleased to find six copies of VIMY RIDGE 1917 produced by Pacific Rim. After four years, they finally came through! I guess I won't be needing to produce the DTP version for now. Pacific Rim has produced the game as one of their Just Plain Wargame series. This means a professionally produced game that comes in a plain white envelope (with a sticker showing the game title) for $16. This is a lot cheaper than other commercial games and for that matter, not much more than most DTP games. The components are professionally produced with 200 back-printed counters, a 22x23 map, a 12 page rules booklet and one player's aid sheet on cardstock with all the charts on one side. Just to be perfectly clear, this is NOT a DTP effort. The counters are mounted and die cut and the map is a single sheet printed on a heavy paper. The rules are printed (not photocopied or laser printed) and bound with a saddle staple. The counters are quite good. All the important information is clearly presented. The NATO infantry symbol has been dropped in favour of a single box coloured and labeled by division. Machineguns and trench mortars retain their familiar weapons type symbol. This information is then surrounded by historical unit identification -- useful but not necessary to the game. On one side of the counter, a jagged bar goes along the top to denote entrenched status, while the other side contains a triangle to indicate facing. Canadian counters are a dark gold, British are khaki and Germans a light, sand colour. Not too sure what happened to *feld-grau* but this is a minor quibble. All in all, they are easily distinguishable, which is what matters. From initial inspection the rules appear to be quite close to the original. I've noticed a few changes (and I'm sure I'll notice more) but these appear to be minor and work well within the game's framework. In other words, the game is close to the original system; no heavy-handed "development" work here (phew!). Regretfully, the map is another story. I know Jeffry Tibbets has gone through a lot over the last couple of years -- his story reads like a Greek tragedy -- but sheesh! Maybe he was on Prozac at the time as the colours are absolutely garish. Now admittedly, the map contains a lot of information and presenting this is a challenge. Still, Jeffry's choices are pretty wild. The main trenches are black with squiggly coloured lines in them. I suppose this helps to differential the main trenches from the communications trenches but why do the German trenches have multiple colours? The Canadian main trench has a red squiggly line in it (okay), while the German lines of trenched are coloured from west to east white, yellow, purple, orange, brown, blue, light green and dark green (???). This may work on a Ukrainian Easter egg but on a wargame map, no. The cities are presented in a uninspiring white-and-grey speckle pattern and the woods are shown as bunches of green mushrooms. Lost are the boundaries for LOS effects (I think he flipped to obstacles filling the whole hex but I can't find a reference in the rules). The bombardment boundary lines are coloured and stippled (better advise Gen. Curry that the black line has been changed to green), which looks quite similar to the barbed wire -- black and stippled but with a slightly different stippling pattern. The background mapsheet colour is bleach white on which the five elevation levels are printed. The colours step through the brown scale from sand to gold to light brown to dark gold to dark brown, which the counters might blend into. The contour line that outline these follow a reverse pattern from red-brown (3 levels) to khaki to sand. I suppose this is more functional but it really clashes with the elevation and all the other colours fighting for attention. Setting all this criticisms aside, the map is functional. I would be worried about it putting players off from giving this game a whirl. If there is enough interest, I may produce a DTP version of the map and make it available though the Microgame Co-op. E-mail me if you are interested. * * * * * * * The focus of these remarks so far have been on the physical presentation of the game. Being the designer, it is not my place to review the actual game. Still, I will recap the concept presented in the game. VIMY RIDGE 1917 is a simulation of the battle where four Canadian divisions -- for the first time functioning as a corps -- stormed the ridge. Units are battalions and companies, hexes are 250 yards across and each turn represents 30 minutes. Units may be in one of three statuses: exposed, entrenched or underground. Entrenched units are invulnerable to infantry fire so attacking units must leave their trenches and become exposed to cross no man's land and survive any defensive fire to assault the enemy in melee combat. What distinguishes Vimy from other battles, such as the Somme, was the use of artillery. The Canadian artillery was orchestrated to conduct a rolling barrage over the German position consisting of four stages. In each stage, the artillery would creep from the current line to the next line and stop, laying down a continuous wall of fire on that line. The infantry would then follow behind the barrage catching the Germans before they had a chance to recover. This barrage is represented in the game system by barrage lines printed on the map. Anything in the current barrage area or tries to cross the current barrage line gets blasted! Artillery is thus abstracted out giving the players a chance to focus on the infantry battle. Even with the successful implementation of the rolling barrage, this is still a battle from the First World War and it's pretty ugly. A devastating barrage followed by lots of blood and guts, troops scattered all over the place and machineguns mowing down entire battalions. The game also includes two tank companies (mobile, armoured machine gun companies that get stuck in the mud) and two land mines (boom!) Warning, this game has lots of wristage. Kerry Anderson (Designer)