From: John Best [mailto:jlbest@advancenet.net] Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2009 7:45 PM To: consim-l@mailman.halisp.net Subject: Bloody Kasserine--a review Dear readers of consim-l, I've enclosed a review of the GDW game, Bloody Kasserine. This game was basically a remodeled version of an older John Hill design, Kasserine Pass. In my opinion, though, as you'll see, the older game seemed to be more fun. I did have fun writing the review though, and I hope you might enjoy reading it. If you have questions, please feel free to bring them up here, or in a private email with me. As always, thanks for reading. John Best jlbest@advancenet.net Bloody Kasserine: A review by John Best Historical Background: The story opens with a listless and mentally beaten Rommel who was retreating to the defenses of the Mareth Line in Tunisia ahead of the relentless Montgomery, who, despite having overwhelming superiority, showed his respect for Rommel with the distance that was kept between the pursuer and the pursued. Rommel's attitude began to change at a conference on February 9, 1943. An attack was planned to begin five days later with Fifth Panzer Army (von Arnim leading the 10th and 21st Panzer divisions) and First Italian Army (Rommel, leading DAK, including the 15th Panzer and some Italian elements) against the unsuspecting Allies. When the storm broke like a thunderclap on the dangling flank of the American II Corps (Fredenhall), routing American forces at Sidi Bou Zid and causing them to retreat at Gafsa, Rommel began to believe that there was a genuine chance of turning the tactical victory into an operational one, advancing with armor on Feriana, and even Tebessa, a large logistics center in Algeria. With the approval of the theatre commander (Kesselring) of this plan on February 17, Rommel wrote to his wife Lucy that he felt like an old warhorse hearing the trumpet. But then the bickering between the German commanders began. Von Arnim did not agree to the concentration of force, and even though Rommel and DAK advanced against the Americans again at Kasserine Pass on February 19, Rommel recognized that his own forces were too meager for the operation he had in mind. By February 21, even as 10th Panzer was entering Thala (with a certain Colonel von Stauffenberg as a staff officer), Rommel, observing the Allied resilience despite their being roughly handled, called off the attack. His victory over the Americans at Kasserine was destined to be his last in North Africa. Game History, and Reviews: Bloody Kasserine was designed by the legendary Frank Chadwick, one of the principal luminaries of Games Design Workshop (GDW) which published the game in 1992 (17 years ago). The game is closely based on a much older design by John Hill (who is credited with the "Original Game Concept" in the rules to Bloody Kasserine). If you scan the indices for Paper Wars and Fire and Movement on Web-Grognards, you will find a reference to a review of Bloody Kasserine appearing in F&M #39, but this is inaccurate. There is a brief review of the much more well-known game Decision at Kasserine appearing in F&M 39 (F&M 39's nominal publication date was 1984, well before Bloody Kasserine was published). Looking at F&M #87 (Nominal publication date: May-June, 1993), there is a lengthy "Year in Review" article in which the "hit" games of 1992 are given a frothy, gushy treatment by the regular contributors of Fire and Movement. Bloody Kasserine is not mentioned at all. There have been two previous electronic reviews listed on Web-Grognards, one written by Doug Murphy that appeared originally on consim-l, the other written by a person who is identified as "Sean who was Paul" on BoardGameGeek. Both reviews were favorable. Provenance and Price of the Review Copy: I bought an unpunched copy in excellent condition from an Ebay store known as Titan Games in February 2002. I paid $15.50 US; the game's original (1992) price was $18.00. In September, 2009, I tracked an apparently unpunched copy on Ebay until a few hours before it closed; at the time I stopped watching, it had received only one bid for $5.00. Physical Components and Appearance. Bloody Kasserine was published in 9.5" X 11.375" X 1.125" box. Drawings of a Tiger tank in its desert mustard color and an American M4 Sherman tank in olive drab grace the box cover. The box contains one 17" X 22" map, one sheet of 176 oversized (5/8") counters, one rulebook, two identical 8.5" X 11" player aids on cardstock, one sheet showing errata, addenda, and commonly asked questions (dated 14 May 1992), and two D6s. The map shows an area from somewhat south of Gafsa to LeKef in the north, and from the Faid pass to Tebessa in the west. The hexes are oversized (20mm) to accommodate the counters. The map scale is 5 miles/hex. Everything you would expect to see depicted is present on the glossy paper map: Clear hexes are a basic sandy tan; the highlands of the Western Dorsale are a golden yellow outlined in a light brown. The main roads are red, the secondary roads black, as are the smaller towns. The larger towns (LeKef, Tebessa and so on) are shown in larger gray undetailed blocky constructions. The few wadis are shown in a deep blue. There are no charts, tables, name, or turn record on the map (there is a compass rose at least). Most of the wargame pioneers who advanced the classic GDW graphic style had apparently departed by 1992; the "Art Direction" is credited to Kirk Wescom and the "Graphic Design and Production" to LeMont Fullerton. I didn't recognize either name. Neither the map nor the counters look like one of the GDW classics of the 1970s; whether this is a good thing or not I'll leave up to you. The counters mostly depict battalions. German units are again shown in a mustard yellow; it took a little getting used to, but I thought they looked good. The Americans are shown in green, the French in blue, the Italians in a sickly chartreuse, and the British in a copper penny color. The combat units use NATO symbology (except for the company breakdowns which show an iconic profile of the main vehicle in the unit, and the air units, which show a profile of the main aircraft). Each ground unit is rated for combat and movement (sometimes the combat strength is broken down into different values for attack and defense). "Support units" (artillery, anti-tank, engineers) have a white unit box; this enables them to stack one more unit above the three battalion max. Some units (artillery, armor) have a red outline box around their combat values. Such units are prohibited from going into the very rough hexes, of which there are many. The counters are backprinted, but only with the set up hex, or the divisional affiliation in the case of the Germans. Each counter has only one step for combat purposes (if you are playing with the breakdown counters). Historical designations are used on all the counters, and the box boasts that the order of battle is "the best ever to appear on this action." Overall, the map and the counters created a nice visual impression on me. I wouldn't describe this as the most beautiful wargame I've ever seen, but the map was clear and functional, and I don't think you'll mind looking at the game for the amount of time it takes to play it. System and Mechanics: The turn sequence could not be more simple: Axis movement, Axis combat, Allied movement, Allied combat. There is no chit pull mechanic; there are no leader counters who allocate movement points; there is no command span. There are a few units locked down at the beginning of the game, but throughout most of the basic game, you move all your units their full movement allowance, and they always go exactly where you want them to. Generally, each unit must pay to enter a ZOC (Allied units pay +2, Axis units pay only +1), and then must stop (But some German units have some flexibility here). At the end of the movement phase, mandatory combat ensues between all adjacent units. Combat is handled very conventionally with attacking units adding up their combat strengths and computing an odds ratio against the total value of the defender's combat strength in hex. There are some very conventional terrain modifications to combat strength. In combat, the Axis forces have some flexibility regarding the mandatory attacks because they can attack a specific unit in a hex "selectively", and soak off against the other units in the hex. Artillery units barrage in support of attacks and defenses within range (adding their strength, very similar to the Final Protective Fire mechanic that was used in a lot of SPI games of the 1970s). An artillery unit may support only one attack or defense in a player turn, but there are no limits to the number of artillery units that may support an attack or defense. If you've played any of the SPI Napoleonic quad games from the 1970s, then you're familiar with how the artillery units operate here, throwing their combat strength out to whatever combat they are supporting within range (and their range is long, more on that in a later section). Combat is resolved on 2D6 CRT with mostly Avalon-Hill "whole hex" results (AE, DE, Exchange, etc.). I would not describe the CRT as particularly attacker friendly. For example, you can roll an AE even on the 3:1 column with a "12". There are a couple of twists in the CRT: Sometimes a "Contact" result occurs, which ostensibly means nothing happens: There are no losses, retreats or advances after this result. But the defender in such a battle will become the attacker and in his own player turn, and then he will be committed to either attacking the opposing stack, or leaving the hex before the end of his movement phase. The "Engaged" result is even more complex. Unlike the "Contact" result, the "Engaged" result does not offer a retreat option for the defender. However, the defender who gets Engaged does not have to counterattack in his own player turn. He can elect to reinforce, but not attack, or just sit there, knowing that the attackers who engaged him, will have to re-attack him in their next player turn. This rule seems simple enough to understand and interpret on the face of it, but in the reality of playing I found that it was very hard to implement correctly and consistently. The Germans clearly had the benefit of having fought for several years by this point and their expertise is reflected in several ways. First, as already mentioned, they can attack the units in a hex selectively (although they still have to attack all the units in a hex one way or another). In addition, the Germans can break down their mighty panzer and recon battalions into company sized counters at any time. So, if the 580 Aufklarungs battalion (6-9) attacks an American infantry battalion (2-6) at 3:1 odds and rolls an "Exchange", the Germans are required to give up only one of its three companies (a 2-9 unit) to satisfy the Exchange. I broke down all the panzer and recon battalions at the beginning of the game. I liked the idea of creating purpose-built or mission-specific kampfgruppen. German panzer, recon, and panzergrenadier units can also break of "an engagement" (I took this to mean an "Engaged" result, and discovered later that the errata also state that) at a cost of 1 MP. Finally, those same German units can move through EZOCs if they are projected only by American or French infantry, at a cost of 1 extra MP. Really, those are four very simple tools that the Germans have at their disposal, but they make a world of difference in game play. There are eight rule sections labeled "Optional Advanced Rules", which can be used to add more realism, depth, or just for rebalancing purposes. Here's a great quote from the introduction to the optional rules: "No matter how much playtesting we do, customers always find better ways to play one side or the other than we did! If play becomes unbalanced over time, use these rules to give one side a little more help." Regarding the customers and their ability to think of things that I never thought of as a designer myself, I can only add "Amen brother." The main optional rules had to do with Tactical Air Support, Counterbattery Fire, Supply (the basic game has no supply rules), and Weather. The other four deal with Reduced German Recon assets (take out the Recon battalions and replace them with only a company!), German bickering, German cooperation, and Patton in command (Americans pay a lower cost to enter an EZOC, and all the reinforcements are on an accelerated schedule). Neither the basic game, nor any of the optional rules discuss anything like "combined arms" effects, or the effects of anti-tank units. Essentially, anti-tank units just have a bigger defense strength than other units do. It doesn't matter whether they are being attacked by tanks or not. These kinds of rules might make the game more complicated than Frank Chadwick wanted it to be, but I found myself missing those kinds of rules as I played it. Rules Completeness, Rules Length, Complexity, Organization: The rulebook for Bloody Kasserine is 15 pages long, including a description of the unit types shown in the game, the examples of typical counters, and an informative five page synopsis entitled "The Battle of Kasserine Pass". The actual rules make up only seven pages, so the length of the rulebook per se will not try your patience here. The rules are organized in paragraph form around the major headings that you would expect (e.g, "Movement", "Combat", "Combat Results"). The sequence of the rules seemed pretty logical, or at least standard, to me. The rules are supported with one diagram and example showing how German tactical expertise works, but in general, there are no examples of play provided. The relatively numerous sections each with a title "Player Note" offer some hints for play and these are offset in a gray box. There are indications in the rules, both in their written tone, and relative brevity, that the GDW intended Bloody Kasserine as an "introductory game", and by that expression, I mean a game that could be played by two people who were previously unfamiliar with wargames. I guess there were still some such people in 1992. Be that as it may, I think this game could deliver on that promise in some important ways: The game does not have a large footprint, or a large number of counters. And it's certainly the case that two experienced gamers will be off and running with this game in a matter of a few minutes time after opening the box. As this implies, at a conceptual level, the rules are not particularly complex. However, there are certain situations that occur seemingly often in the game that certainly demand some thought, and in that sense, the rules might be somewhat less than complete. For me, most of these situations had to do with combat, and "Engaged" results on the CRT. On the errata sheet there is a set of six "Commonly Asked Question" (My understanding is that these questions were originally posed by the inestimable John Kula-many thanks!). The answers to these questions go a long way to clarifying what happens when non-engaged units find themselves adjacent to Engaged units in their own phase, but there were still some wrinkles that I found myself dealing with. If you play this game, you'll be studying this list of questions and answers. A lot. Game Play and "Feel": I won't be able to give a play-by-play of the whole game, but I will try to summarize the arc of the game's "story" and I'll detail some of the specific episodes or encounters that stood out for me as interesting, exciting or otherwise entertaining in an effort to tell you what it "felt like" to play the game. Before I do that, there are some disclaimers that I must address regarding the way I play these games, as these may affect the amount of credence you wish to accord my report. First, except for the playtesting that I do, I always play wargames solitaire. Second, I always observe The Gamer's rounding and Fog of War rules in all my wargaming. Third, to enhance the Fog of War effect, I covered each counter and stack in Bloody Kasserine with appropriate counters from another wargame, and I did not permit myself to look under the covering counter for the nonphasing side. For this purpose, I used the Allied and Axis "front line markers" from the venerable Ben Knight designed double-blind game, The Normandy Campaign. That is, the Axis units and stacks were covered with an "iron cross" counter from The Normandy Campaign, while the Allies were covered with a "white star" counter. Fourth, I read a rule two or three times: If I still don't understand it, or if I'm bored by the second or third reading, then I make up something that seems plausible historically, simple, and workable in the context of the game. For example, that happened with regard to air power optional rules. Just for the record, I'm not advocating this sort of thing, although part of the fun of playing wargames for me is seeing if I can make rules up that are just as clever as the designer's. In this play of Bloody Kasserine, I did use the breakdown counters, and I did use the air units from the optional rules. Keeping in the spirit of the older design upon which this game is based, I did not use the optional supply rules. Here's how it went. On the initial turns, von Arnim and Rommel both did their thing, rocking the Americans out of Sidi Bou Zid and Gafsa. However, the Americans were able to get some licks in: On Turn 2 (each turn represents a day, the game begins with Turn 1 on Feb. 14, 1943), still near Sidi Bou Zid, 3 battalions from the American 1st Armored attacked two companies from the 7th Panzer regiment, rolling a "3" and making the Germans retreat through ZOCs, thus destroying them. But such outcomes were unusual in the early turns, and by Turn 4, my notes show that I was already wondering how the Allies could win the game-"they've already lost tons" of units. By Turn 7 though, I was also noticing another pattern. For example, in one wild and crazy outflanking maneuver made by DAK against hex 2418, the Allies had a French cavalry unit, and a British armor unit defending on high ground (improbable, yes I know, but the game does not prohibit that sort of thing). The Allies called in the gunfire available to them. The attack went off at low odds, and the Germans rolled an "11"-AE, eliminating a battalion of panzergrenadiers, and a company of panzers in support. The combat strength of the artillery is in general way higher than the combat strength of the other ground units especially when you play with the German breakdown counters. The resulting firepower can thus boost an attack up, but it can also bring the odds down. My notes indicate that for each formation in the game (which tends to have its own artillery counter representing all the guns available, presumably), "it's like each group has a battleship in tow". By Turn 8, I had noted that the Germans' strength was gradually being whittled down (still nothing like the Allied losses), but the Germans were now able to make relatively few powerful stacks. Finally, by the bottom of Turn 8, there was actually a rupture of sorts in the Axis line-they really had only a few low strength units between Feriana and Kasserine. It was basically the Allied artillery that was creating this effect. The Allied artillery was making it hard for the Axis to attack at more than 2:1 odds, and there is a 1/36 chance of an AE at 2:1 odds. The relative sparseness of any game support features directly on the map was getting to me too. On this turn I noted, "No turn record? That's annoying for a game made in 1992!" On Turn 9, the Germans had been on the verge of achieving a breakthrough in the high ground of hex 0913 and hex 0914, as they attempted to drive on Thala (the "hard way" over the mountains instead of through Kasserine Pass. But this drive was defeated when they were forced to counterattack because they had unengaged defenders in the ZOCs of engaged attackers. Both times the attack went off at 1:1, and both times the Germans rolled a "12" (AE!). That misfortune pretty much ended the Axis' chances of victory. The Allies retook Feriana, and this became the only victory point hex that was still being contested. On the last turn (Turn 11), the Axis attacked Feriana with 19 strength points (against 16 defending, 1:1). The Axis rolled a "9", with the result, AR2. The Allies simply sat in place on their half of the last turn. The Axis held 5 victory points (2 for Kairouan, and one each for Kasserine, Sbiba, and Faid), which is an Allied victory, one point short of a German Tactical victory. So after Turn 4, it looked to me like the Allies couldn't win, but by Turn 10, it was the Axis that actually had only some meager chances. The game's victory conditions focus only on geography, but it might be interesting to look at the losses in unit terms: Nationality Units (dead pile) Strength lost Axis 22 66/68 (att/def) Allies 27 91 So the Axis did indeed dish out a lot of punishment to the Allies, but the point is always made that the Allies could recover their strength (eventually, not in the time frame shown in the game) in guns and vehicles, but the Germans could not. I'd like to offer some of my impressions about game play, not necessarily in any particular sequence. First, as already noted, artillery seems like the real difference-maker in the game. The Allies end up with nine artillery counters, whose strength totals 58 factors, against the Axis who have only three artillery counters, having a strength total of 22. The artillery can add their strength both offensively and defensively, so the strength differential means that the Allies have 36 "additional" defense factors that they can use to offset the relatively higher combat values of the Germans. It's true that these factors are limited by the range of the artillery counter, but this raises another question. With a scale of 5 miles per hex, what do you think would be an appropriate range for the artillery counters? How about 4 hexes? They don't all have that range, but some of them do, and I don't think any of them have less than a 3 hex range. First of all, I think there is a little problem with unit scale here. Obviously, the guns did not really have this kind of range (you can see the source of my battleship comment though), but the long range is, I think, a little bit of a design kludge for having all the guns of a division shown in a single counter (which is definitely the case for the Axis). In terms of game play, the attacker has to declare his artillery support first, so the defenders know where the attacks are coming. For the Axis, this means they are probably going to have only one artillery unit in barrage support, but the Allies are going to be able to call in a whole "web" of gunfire on the threatened hex. As the Allies were reinforced with more and more artillery, the Axis attacks had less and less success. I should add in fairness that the rulebook does have some text about using some of the optional counterbattery fire, and the airpower rules to counteract some of these effects. I can't comment on that: I did not use the counterbattery rules, and the air rules were too hard for me to figure out as they were written so I used my own simpler procedure. Reading about the events suggests that the various actions and battles were often independent and isolated from each other, but the game felt much more linear across the entire battlefield than those accounts suggest. This doesn't mean that it was a bad game per se, but it seemed like the various formations could reinforce each other much more quickly, easily, and over greater distances than was the case historically. At least the way the game played for me, there were a lot of attacks at low odds, and the outcomes of such attacks were often unpredictable. Do you like games where each side's momentum seems to swing back and forth with each turn? I think there are lot of players who like this sort of "Yay, I'm winning-uh oh, now I'm losing, but wait, now I'm winning again!" kind of game. I like baseball games to be that way, but not necessarily wargames. This seems like a very "luck" oriented game to me. On a more positive note, I did appreciate the attempt to blur the "edges" of the player turn as the abstraction that we recognize they are. What I mean is that sometimes when you are the nonphasing player, there are things that happen on the CRT (mostly the Contact and Engaged results) that don't necessarily seem bad exactly at the time. But these things sometimes do commit to some sort of action in your half of the game turn, especially if you were counting on certain units to be unengaged and available for maneuver. Overall: I appreciated the simple design steps that were used to show German tactical expertise. A few easy rules created a powerful Axis force, realistically, and without a lot of mind-numbing, excitement-deadening overhead. I appreciated the attempt to tell the basic story of the events between February 14, and February 20, 1943. It was a story that would be repeated over and over again for the next two years: The Axis still had the power and expertise to surprise, but not to sustain an attack against their enemies. And the inevitable attritional factors of war meant that such surprise attacks were ultimately more costly than strategic. Against that, I found that I didn't care for the "whole-hex" combat results, and the "bang, you're dead" one-step units. I also did not like the game's volatility. These were simply personal factors for me. In a technical sense, this game played ok, but it was dry meat that did not sustain my interest at all. I had a lot of fun playing the precursor game on which this game was based, the old John Hill design, Kasserine Pass, and this game does not seem to be that different on the face of it. Perhaps my expectations of the 1970s game were low, or my expectations here a little too high. Suffice it to say that I believe the next time my copy of Bloody Kasserine is opened, it will be by my heirs who may enjoy a chuckle or two in remembrance of me and my arcane hobby as they puzzle over the contents of the box and my handwritten notes.