Just played a game of EuroFront this weekend in bitterly cold London overlooking the Thames, very nice setting indeed. We started playing Friday evening about 6 PM and Finished on the Saturday 11:15 PM with an Axis surrender in July 1942. Split was 2 Axis and 3 allied although this turned into 2 Axis, one Soviet (me) and separate commanders for the west and med fronts. We had a fun time playing it - there's a great game here. Game started with the invasion of Poland. Seemed to go well for the Germans but they used 4 HQ steps and a few supreme ones as well which, in light of posts on ConsimWorld, would seem to be too high. Other than that, German loses were very light. The Axis managed to get a cheap victory in Norway as the Allies decided not to contest it. We then settled down to the phoney war awaiting Summer for the western offensive. These early turns went quickly and although mistakes were made, the Axis soon got the idea of leapfrogging HQs to provide a continuous offensive. The west opened up with the Paras taking out the Belgian fort and BeNeLux fell rapidly afterwards. The British had reinforced France with a sizeable BEF. The offensive proper opened in May 1940 and was effectively over in June 1940 although the last vestiges of French resistance didn't give way until the end of July. The Allies counterattacked aggressively and caused a lot of loses on the Germans. The feeling of the group in the post-game analysis was that the Germans attacked on too wide a front and didn't really concentrate enough. Highlight of some pretty exciting gaming was the creation of the private Perkins legend. The British counterattacked an exposed German panzer corps with 3 full corps at single fire. Every one of them ,including a supporting airstrike, missed. (15 dice) In the ensuing German attacks the French on the flanks of the British were whittled away. The Allies decided to evacuate the remainder of the BEF leaving one unit to screen them from 3 Pz corps and 1 inf corps. The infantry corps and 2 Pz corps managed just the one hit between them - it was left to the third Pz corps to finish the job. It too missed - leaving the single British soldier to evacuate the trenches and re-join his comrades. We noticed the third Pz corps had not completely fired and on the last combat roll got the last British step. Every time allied solidarity was checked we referred to the sole BEF loss as the Private Perkins factor. The Allies were forced to offer armistice when the BEF had finally gone and the Axis then decided to go into Russia in 1941. They had a long discussion about Spain and Gib but decided against it. They had conquered France pretty quickly which allowed a fast build-up against Yugoslavia and Greece. Yugoslavia was taken out almost as the Germans passed by but Greece was brought into the Allied fold by diplomatic event and so was better prepared for the Axis onslaught. They managed to hold out with British assistance until the bad weather arrived and didn't fall until the first turns of 1941. The Axis had learnt their lessons and although army loses in the French campaign were high, it was done with fewer HQ steps than the campaign in Poland might have suggested. The Med front settled down to a period of building with both sides committing max resources to the region and glaring at each other over the Egypt/Libya border. The Russian campaign opened on cue - June, 1941. As the Russians I had set up the strong infantry in the North hoping to pull back in the south where the Axis HQ might have more trouble keeping up with the pace of the advance. The German offensive opened up with the expected violence and lots of Russians died but the main defence line held. Columbia needs to update the Russian front with a new fortress - Riga. The Germans quickly clobbered most of the defenders and I was left with one inf unit left. The Axis left 2 inf corps and a Pz corps to clean it up as the rest of the army moved onto Leningrad. Not only was Riga still in Russian hands in July 1942 but also it had inflicted a few infantry loses and 2 Pz loses. Incredible series of die rolls had allowed it to survive. By the time winter had arrived in 1941, the Russian front took a very historical line save the southern front where the Axis was short of Rostov. The Med opened up with an attack by the DAK but was met with blistering British mech fire and sent reeling back. At the same time, the British amph corps launched a very early Torch and attacked Vichy so opening up Tunis etc as another front. This diverted a few units from the Russian front and brought much needed respite to the Russians. Winter 1941 saw the arrival of the shock armies and consolidation of Russian tank corps for an offensive. The offensive destroyed about 7 units (2 Pz) and managed to retake Zap (sp) but this was quickly re- taken in the German 1942 summer offensive. 1942 saw the German go back on the assault in Russia but only in the south - the north was too heavily defended . the Germans Pz spearheads got caught in ongoing battles into which I fed units one at a time while building up reserves. My Operation Uranus reserves consisted of all 4 of the 4 stepper tank corps plus a few mech and other sundry armour. A powerful force once fully built which I reckoned would have been about Sept 1942. Meanwhile, the allies had collapsed the Med Front clearing out the last of the Axis in June 1942. July saw the amph corps land in an undefended Italian port and promptly collapsed the Italians. This coupled with the worsening situation on the East Front resulted in Axis surrender. As this was our first game we almost certainly played a few things incorrectly but we had tremendous fun and will play another in the New Year. A pretty simple system really with a surprising amount of depth - we liked it a lot Further thoughts: Whoever designed the gamer record sheet deserves a pat on the back. Looks fairly complex just to keep track of weather etc but when you get the hang of it, it really is an invaluable tool Weather seems to have a number of charts to describe the die rolls. all give the same result but all are different e.g. page 28 and 54 (page numbers are approx). A nitpick really but only one chart should ever be used and other rules sections should cross-reference it. The rulebook requires: * table of contents (this would be very nice) * more detailed index (essential - the current one is pretty useless) Questions from the group: - Med Front: units acclimatise, PP lost thru shipping and cost for units are very expensive. Why have all these mechanisms ? Being experts now as we've completed one game, we felt that it was just too expensive to get offensives going. Should be expensive but is this overkill ? - What's to stop the Allies doing Torch that early - seems to be no reason for them not to (we probably missed something there) Great game Columbia - we are all looking forward to the re-match.