From: "March, Robert" Subject: SS Panzer (some review, some questions) I got SS Panzer last week, read the rules on Saturday and played 2 turns with a friend on Sunday (if he signed back on to make sure I don't rag on him - hi Davin, you're extremely slow!). I think the game came out beautifully in terms of the map and counters. They are a top notch job. I'll quickly run down the gameplay. The game covers the German attack (and Soviet counterattack) on the Kursk salient in July 1943. The scale is 500 meters per hex and the time frame is from 8:30 to 11:30 am on July 12, the apparent height of the fighting around the Psel river (I won't try and spell the city name from memory only). Each turn has three phases: Soviet Bombardment, Action Phase and Recovery Phase. The Sovs have the lion's share of artillery as is expected (at least from my limited knowledge of the east front) and get to try and pick off German units (or at least suppress them) before anything even happens. The action phase involves a chit pull sequence. A counter for each formation (3 German: Totenkopf, Lebestandarde, Das Reich; 6 Soviet), all Soviet bombardment chits (16, I think, maybe 12) and one aircraft counter. When a formation is pulled, all of its units can move, move & fire, fire, set up a kill zone or recover from suppression (if German). When an aircraft is pulled, a visibility check is made which changes the LOS limit and calls in an airstrike from one side. An artillery chit gives the Sovs a slim chance to hit a German. Fire Combat is fairly simple. Each armor unit has a gun rating which is compared to the armor rating of the target (if armored). The difference, if positive, is the range at which the attacker may fire. Various factors affect the chance to hit and number of dice thrown. As an example, a tank that has not moved, firing at another tank in clear terrain at a range beyond one (only possible with a better gun), will get to roll three dice, scoring hits on rolls of 1, 2, or 3. For one hit, a unit becomes suppressed, which prevents it from moving or firing (even in reaction to a unit entering its ZOC). Two hits suppresses a unit and eliminates 1 step. Three hits eliminates two steps with a suppression. There tended to be a very high number of suppression hits in our game yesterday. Besides armored ranged combat, anti-infantry combat is possible at a range, but only with some select units. The procedure is different in that hits are scored only by rolling less than or equal to the ant-infantry factor (with modifiers as usual). In addition to fire combat, there is close combat where you can rush into a hex and fight. The defender usually gets to make a last ditch effort to prevent the close combat but only gets one die. In close combat, everyone gets two dice for resolution and suppression hits are ignored (here is where many of our questions came up - do units with zero range anti-inf or close combat only gun factors get to use entry fire?). Another question: when accumulat 3401 6656 06587644ds and components to players with no previous exposure to the system, and seeing if they can make sense of it. In this case, that role fell to the subscribers of COMMAND. Fortunately, they have responded with a barrage of questions and suggestions, and Chris Perello, to his credit, has provided timely, intelligent errata to cover most of the issues raised. I have incorporated that errata into this review. The 34" x 22" map covers the area south and west of Prokhorovka at a scale of 500 meters per hex. The map is attractive and functional, including all of the charts needed to play the game, except for a scatter diagram mentioned in the airstrike rules. Experienced wargamers won't have any trouble working around that one, it is a familiar concept. The map includes icons to show where the Soviet Static Infantry setup. The Static Infantry are the survivors ofing hits, do you add up all hits from all units and then apply them or do it as each unit happens (thus EACH unit must make two hits on its attack to cause damage)? Since suppression is ignored, do you take a step loss for each hit or is the first one 'wasted'. Do terrain effects count in close combat (if so, it is very hard to do damaged at all, especially with infantry units)? Do multiple rounds of close combat occur at once or only one as each participating division is drawn from the cup? If leaving close combat, can you exit in any direction, or only the one from which you came (my opponent engaged my trench line in c.c. and then exited on the other side saying it wasn't illegal - rather than argue at that point, I let it slide)? Finally, can units outside of a close combat target units so engaged, thus suppressing the ones in close combat? The air combat is interesting. It is never certain who is going to get the raid. Each plane counter has an anti-armor and anti-infantry rating. They can target any hex (is that right, or is it just a unit and not all in the hex) and can be fairly devestating (I know that I kept many of the German tigers out of action for much of the game). Also, when the air phase happens, you roll for visibility which represents the varying amount of dust kicked up by the battle and its effects on effective attack ranges. The last phase is the recovery phase in which suppressed units become unsuppressed (with some exceptions of course). Victory in the game is determined by control of specific hexes. The Germans can achieve a solid win if they capture the 3 entry points into Prokhorova (argh! that's probably wrong) which is well beyond what happened historically. Also, either side can win (the original was a draw) by capturing a certain number of victory hexes. One last question, can each German artillery fire only once per TURN? The rules say that the German artillery is flipped back to first use side after each Soviet artillery impulse. Since the chit pulls are considered impulses, my opponent argued that every time we pulled a Soviet artillery chit during the Action phase, he should get to flip over the German artillery back to first use. I think that you get your nine shots and then take any others at your own risk. As far as the game play is concerned, I got the feeling we were playing something drastically wrong. We expected a real meatgrinder, but after two turns, had only seen about 20-25 units