From: Roberto Chiavini Subject: more reviews ROCROI (Vae Victis 11) For his eleventh number, Vae Victis chooses a battle from the Thirty Years War, the battle of Rocroi, another battle in which there was the French army (victorious, of course). The graphics of the counters are as good as you may get with today computer graphics standards, even better than the usual great stuff. Unfortunately, the game is not up to its external face. The system, in fact, is a strange mix of several different ones, taken in a casual way from games as distant (in time as in design) as the original SPI Thirty Years War quad (the artillery units which may be captured and used back by the new owner) to Vae Victis's Champs de Batailles (the use of lines for movement and the use of flank and rear sustain in the attack), to Berg's chit activation system for the various corps. The units are mostly one sided, with only a few dozens double units (mostly Spanish tercios). They have a value for movement, a morale factor (added to a six sided die roll to check for disorganization or demoralization) and a letter for the type of formations and weapons (from A to D, cross-checked in a way similar to the one used in the Great Battles of History series by GMT). There are two kinds of commanders: the corps commanders (four for the French, three for the Spanish) and the commander in chief (Don Francisco de Melo for Spain, the Duc d'Enghien for France). They are activated by random draw of their chit (the commander in chief may activate all the units and the corps commanders in his command range; so, after certain conditions, several units may move two times during a turn). Combat is very convoluted, with dozens of different modifiers and an attrition system (as most of the result are simply retreat or disorganization for the affected unit) which is very slow in achieving important breakthrough (it's too boring for my tastes, not too dissimilar, in its not bloody results to the CRT of the various Markham quadrigames published by WWW, started with Royalist & Roundheads). The game is eight turns long, very playable in solitaire, but too slow, too boring to get my vote as a game to merit repetitive plays. This is a misfortune, as I like the period, I like the colorful units, I like even the situation, but I really dislike the combat system. All in all, I rate this game 5 « out of 10.