From: Hank Meyer Subject: Re: Campaign to Stalingrad Guy Eldridge wrote: > >I bought it & played through the first couple of turns solitaire. There are >certainly some interesting ideas. The F & M review said the errata was >necessary to play accurately. Is it available anywhere online? Do others >agree with this assessment? I'm note sure if it is available online (in Web or Euro Grognards perhaps?), but the complete errata (believe I have it all) consists of the following (incidently, which issue of F&M contains the review you mentioned above): Rules Clarifications, Errata and Changes (dated Sep 92, 2 pages small print). Rules Modificatins, Clarifications, and Errata (dated Dec 92, 4 pages small print incorporating the materials in the previous Sep 92 addenda). Balancing CTS - Rule Modifications for Campaign for Stalingrad (dated Mar 94, 4 pages small print) including optional rules based on additional play-testing (1 page) and a very detailed completely revised air game (3 pages). This is all in addition to the previous errata. I believe this errata should be available from Terran Games as they have picked up Rhino's stuff since Mark moved to Avalon Hill. Two items of errata/clarification that aren't in the above that were answered for me by Mark are: 1...Counter corrections: The one step side of the 27th Panzer Div, 700 VB Panzer Bde, and 1st Hungarian Panzer Division should all have WHITE stripes on the unit counters. 2...Clarification: What happens if all Soviet Remnant counters are in use and a Soviet Mountain or Infantry division is reduced a single step? Answer: It becomes a REPL unit. If there are no more REPLs, then it is eliminated. Note: It is very easy for the Soviet player to combine remnants (rule 21.7). There was also a 5 page article in Canadian Wargamer's Journal in issue #34 (Spring 1993) on CTS including some minor play-balance fixes and a complete analysis of combat charts and expected losses based on strengths of various units. Given the nature of the combat tables (and necessary rerolls) this is not obvious to the player and is well worth having. The authors believe the game is such that: ...Played properly, the Russian cannot lose the game. All you have to do is set up in single stacks in triple lines, or double for that matter, with interlocking hex bonds. This minimizes your losses while maxamizing the German's. In addition, the game degenerates into one of attrition rather quickly... To fix this perceived imbalance, the authors' propose some possible solutions: 1. Bidding for sides based on allocating a bonus number of attack column shifts, giving the German an advantage on the combat charts for the first few turns. Each column shift bid point gives the attacker a column shirt for a turn. This is an interesting concept - the player with the higher shift bid plays the Russian. No more than a plus 2 can be used in any turn and no later turn can have a higher plus shift than the turn before.Example: Player A bids high with a bid of six, player B plays the Germans and allocates the six turns of column shifts as follows: Turn 1 (plus 2 shift to each attack), turn 2 (plus 2 shift to each attack), turn 3 (plus 1 shift to each attack), turn 4 (plus 1 shift to each attack). 2. A more radical thought is to take away the last (remnant)step from all non-guard Soviet infantry units. 3. German garrisoning the north edge every fourth hex instead of every other second hex, forcing the Soviets to garrison the north edge as well, and/or allowing advances throught hex bonds ((perish the though!!!)). I'm not convinced the imbalance exists, but the bid system is a really neat device to handicap a game of clear up an imbalance. >Sorry if this has already been discussed. I don't know if it has...at least I don't remember a recent discussion. Anyone else have any thoughts on the game? Hank hcmeyer@uci.edu