From: Rob Lindsay Subject: Blood on the Snow review for grognards Blood on the Snow Avalanche Games reviewed by Robert Lindsay There are some people who just cannot get enough of one subject. Joe Balkowski seems bent on filling a small house with the his Civil War series, Richard Berg and Mark Herman seem to be doing the same for Ancients combat, and here we have Mike Benninghorf with the third game of his on battles in finland during WWII. This is not exactly a area with a lot of name recongnition, but if you (like me) are a sucker for obscure battles then you could do a lot worse than this treatment of the battle of Suomussalmi, which featured the encirclement and destruction of 2 full Soviet Divisions, which marked the beginning of the Finnish rally during the Winter War. Blood on the Snow is a operational version of the battle, with units on a company/battalion level. The games is boxed with a very intresting graphic design of a soviet tank and several ski troopers advancing in the snow. The 120 counters are very colorful with white and lightblue Finnish units vs. red and maroon Soviet units. I just wish they hadn't forgotten a turn counter. The 22 x 17 inch map is well, different, primarily white and dark green woods with blue-grey frozen lakes and rivers overlaid with a red(!) hexgrain. It's not as bad as some of the great map disaster of wargaming (OSG's Dark December springs to mind) but it takes some getting used to. the 12 page rulesbook and single player chart are much more subduded and functional. Overall it's a fairly appealing package, marred only by the graphic overkill on the map. The game uses a combination of systems used by both designers of Avalanche Press. It uses the impulse chit system for it's sequence of play that first appeared in Benninghof's Salla (PR) and Kestanga (PR) games . This has been modified somewhat similairly to AP's Macarther's Return game to give the Finns more impulses relative to the Soviets (5 vs. 5 to split between 2 divisions). The CRT originated in Last Elephant Offensive (PR), desended down through Honour Alone (PR) and Macarthur's Return(AP). There have been special rules added to reflect finnish tank fright, capture of russian AT units, forts, ice roads. ski units, dummies and hidden strength for the Finns. It can be seen that BotS is desended from the Just Plain Wargames line of games, slightly larger with much nicer graphics. The game turn sequence goes as follows: first there is a roll on the weather table table to determine the number of impulses in the turn. this will give between 2 and 5 impulses for each side. The Finns can use all 5 impulses for all their forces while the Soviets must split theirs between the 2 divisions (each division must be given at least 1 chit if on map, and each soviet division has only 4 chits total. Their are 3 types of chits Full, choice and half. Full gives a full move fight impulse to the player and a chance to recover artillery previously fired in the turn. Choice gives the choice between Move and Attack. Attack gives attacks and artillery bombardment but no movement. Move gives full movement but no attacks. Half allows half movement or a chance to attack on a die roll of 1-3, else nothing happens at all. As each chit is draw a player executes his chosen option. Movement in this game is hampered by fairly severe terrian costs, the maximium move by the Soviets would be 8 hexes along a road with a tank unit while the Finnish ski units can move 4 hexes through the forest to the Soviets 1! With ZOC entry cost of +2 MP and + defender's terrian cost +1 to attack if not starting adjecent, this is not a game of lightning warfare. The combat system requires at least 4:1 odds to have even a chance of causeing a step loss to a non-surrounded defender, and any results against the attacker must be taken as step losses (there is a 1/6 chance of attacker's losses at even the highest odds). The only help for the Soviets is their artillery, which can support attacks (at half strength in the ubiquious forest terrian, or bombard with roughly a 1/3 chance of causing a step loss, and their tanks, which have a 1/6 chance of causing a Finnish step loss to non-AT equipped Finns each attack through panic. The Finns counter to this is to use their better movement allowance and greater number of impulses to encircle and cut the road based supply lines of the Soviet units, which cuts their defense strength in half versus the unsupplied Finns defense strength being lowered by 1. The game system is well designed to showing a powerful but ponderous Soviet force versus a very nimble and lighter force of Finns. There are three scenarios in the game, the initial assualt, the encirclement of the 163 division, and the encirclement and destruction of both divisions, plus a campaign game covering the whole battle. The scenarios are 6-7 turns each while the whole campaign runs 34 turns. Victory in all scenarios is based on terrian objectives and exiting units for the Soviets, versus killing Soviets for the Finns. The game plays well and I had few problems with the rules. The finns are greatly outnumbered at first, but they only have to delay the Soviets (which the game system helps with greatly) until the Finnish Reinforcemwnts arrive. The tricky part for the Finns is attacking the Soviets, which is not easy even with the Soviets out of supply. Maximium use of the encirclement modifier against carefully selected hexes is a must. The Finns have little artillery to soften up denfending Soviets with and even less excess manpower to waste on ineffective attacks. The Soviets can pretty much go where they want as long as they stay concentrated. The problem is that keeping in supply will become more and more difficult the further the Soviets advance, and being out of supply is a much more severe problem for the Soviets than the Finns. In many ways, despite being set in a wintery WWII environment, the game feels in a lot of ways like a vietnam game, with the Soviets as the roadbound US and the Finnsa as the VC in the jungle. The price is a little steep for a folio sized game, but I would recommend it if you like either WWII or Vietnam games or just games on "odd" subjects. Now to see if we could adapt the system and get a good game on the German summer offensive to capture Murmansk in 1942... -- Robert Lindsay, Computational Serf, Storm Prediction Center, Norman OK lindsay@doplight.nssl.uoknor.edu http://www.nssl.uoknor.edu/~lindsay/ Oh, God, could it be the weather... T. 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