RETURN OF THE $9 WARGAME


       Microgame Design Groups has issued a number of designs to bring back a 
commodity you and I thought was as gone as the passenger pigeon: The good $9 
wargame.  Heck, you say, even an issue of S&T costs you more.


       The catch is, the counters are unmounted.  It's up to you to find a 
way to mount the paper counters in a way so that you have a playable game and 
not one where a slight gust remakes history into chaos.  Myself, I've had 
help from the local ProCopy, with their big open space and free cutting 
board, and a purchase of stick glue.  I also had ProCopy photocopy the 
counters on heavier paper, with poster board for backing.  The results are 
not as good as with the Vae Victus games, but they will do.  Just keep the 
stick glue handy to re-stick "deserters."


       And what a worthwhile topic.  "Algeria" depicts the Algerian War of 
Independence, the eight-year struggle of the indigenous independence 
movement, the FLN, to win independence from France.  After granting 
independence to Morocco and Tunisia, France hung on to its large Algerian 
colony on the theory that it was an integral part of France.  Backing the 
French war effort were the colons, the Greek, Italian and French descended 
settlers who felt a takeover by the colony's Moslem majority would lead to a 
total loss of their farms and livelihood.  It was to be a self-fulfilling 
prophesy.


        Initially the French response to the independence movement was the 
"rat hunt," a colon-manned lynch mob on a mass scale, backed by aerial 
bombing of villages believed rebellious.  Eventually French tactics became 
less indiscriminate, but hardly became more humane.  In return, independence 
movement, the FLN engaged in the murder of both colons and those Moslems 
suspected of collaborating with the French.  While French public support of 
the war effort was initially high - even the Communist Party backed it - it 
fell with the continued cost, the reports of atrocities, and the heavy-handed 
attempts of the colons and the right wing army officers to keep the regime as 
it was.  The war resulted in the end of the both Fourth Republic and 
colonialism in northern Africa, and is often cited as the first victory of 
the pan-Islamic movement.    


       The game was designed by Brian Train, who earlier did "Arriba  
Espana."  "Espana" was at $9 a better strategic simulation of the Spanish 
Civil War than "For Home the Bell Tolls" at $60.  Here again he knows the 
political overlay of what he is simulating.  The drawback with Mr. Train's 
designs is that they entail a lot of die rolling, which can be fatiguing 
after a while.  Using color coded dice (here a green one and a blue one) is 
somewhat helpful for getting quick reads.     


       The map depicts the northern third of Algeria, being that the 
remainder is very sparsely populated desert, divided up into districts with 
spaces for underground, available, patroling, or moved units.   Representing 
the colonial regime here are the blue-printed French regular forces and some 
French elite battalions; paras and marins, which are interchangeable, and 
recon battalions, which are slightly stronger at a cost in their 
contact/evasion rating.  The French can also mobilize air and helicopter 
support, as well as build barriers on Algeria's frontiers.  The bulk of the 
French forces, however, are native Algerian units, printed in light green.  
(The eventual fate of these native troops at the hands of the victors is one 
of the 20th century's lesser known mass crimes.)  The colonial 
infrastructure, police and administrators, are represented by "static units," 
using a rather strange counter which apparently is a silhouette of someone 
swinging a truncheon.  The counter would seem to be more at home in a game 
about British public school life.    


       The FLN units, printed in dark green, are of three kinds; cadres, 
fronts, representing mass support, and armed companies.  Both sides have a 
Political Support Level, which goes up for territory controlled, and down for 
losses.  As in VG's "Vietnam," the insurgent side usually gets first choice 
whether to do an action or have the other side do so.  In another note from 
"Vietnam," French units are never destroyed, but losses reflect draftees 
being fed into existing units and still count against PSL.   


       Propaganda efforts can also be made to raise one's own PSL or decrease 
that of his opponent.  The French PSL also goes down for units mobilized or 
maintained (the native Algerian units are much cheaper but can be 
"intimidated" into impotence).  It is noticeable that the French counter mix 
seems to have much more than that player can comfortably maintain.  The 
French PSL will also go down due to "Terror" markers that have been put on 
the board, reflecting that the anger of the Moslem populace and the disgust 
of the metropolitan French public tended, in the long run, to go against the 
regime for either French or FLN atrocities. 


       The game is unusual in that it has no game turn track - the sides play 
until the PSL of one or the other goes below zero.  With turns reflecting up 
to four months, it's theoretically possible that a game could run into the 
present day.  Some random events can occur, generally favorable to the FLN: 
the neighbor state's independence, which gave the FLN safe bases, to 
Operation Musketeer and others.  I might have included a separate table of 
the effects of Musketeer, being that the French participated in that fiasco 
in the hope that the fall of Nasser would end pan-Arab support to the FLN.  
If the French PSL goes below 30, two bad things will occur: the possibility 
of coups against the central government, and the appearance of the OAS, a 
real loose cannon.    


       Generally, the FLN player will attempt to capture the outback while 
contesting the cities.  The French player will have to place his static units 
carefully, as these are the best hope of rooting out vulnerable fronts, which 
the FLN must maintain to be effective.   


       "Algeria" won't have the staying power of a good collection of ASL 
modules, but you will get as good of a simulation of guerilla warfare you'll 
find anywhere, and the only one I know on this heretofore neglected topic.  
And for $9, how can you go wrong?   


                                                                              
       Thomas Niksa
                                                                              
       #242, 540 Toftrees Ave.
                                                                              
       State College, PA