Kasserine Pass: A review by John Best Historical Background: The game covers a well-known series of engagements in Northern Africa that took place in February, 1943. After the Allies came ashore in Western Africa in late 1942, the Axis and Allied forces engaged in a race to build up their numbers in Tunisia. The Axis won that race to land material in the area, and, as Rommel retreated westward into this theatre with his forces, the Axis command calculated that they might have a two-week window of time in which they would enjoy a numerical superiority over the Allies in Tunisia. The decision to strike with 10th Panzer, 21st Panzer, an assault group from DAK, and some Italian elements, led to a series of rapid-fire victories over the Allies, notably over the Americans at Kasserine Pass, where a number of deficiencies of the American Army were made clear. As it turned out, dissension and confusion in the Axis command structure probably robbed them of any strategic results, despite the flashes of operational brilliance displayed by the momentarily re-energized Rommel. Game History, Reviews, and Provenance of the Review Copy: Kasserine Pass (1st ed.) is a product of the legendary designer John Hill's Conflict Games Company. It is copyrighted 1973 (36 years ago). Conflict Games produced a number of wargames in the early 1970s time period covering a diversity of topics including the Yalu River campaign, Operation Overlord, and Verdun. The first edition (sometimes known as the "yellow box" edition) was packaged in an approximate 8.5" x 11.5" x 1" box with a cartoony Panzer on the cover. There was a second edition that was the result of a merger or partnership with Games Design Workshop (GDW) in the late 1970s. Finally, there was a kind of "re-make" or re-issue of the game in 1992 by GDW under the title "Bloody Kasserine" (I hope to be able to do a review of the re-issue-it's very interesting to see what Frank Chadwick and the good folks at GDW did with the game.). There is an electronic review of the second edition on BoardGameGeek. The reviewer liked the second edition, but it is worth noting several of the responders liked the first edition a lot more than the second edition. I don't believe there are any electronic reviews of the first edition, although there are a number of traditional format reviews. I've listed just a few that appeared in Fire & Movement: KASSERINE PASS (CONFLICT) ARTICLE LIST FIRE & MOVEMENT Magazine F&M #10 Foxes of the Desert, 1940-43: A Game Survey of the Desert War: Warren G. Williams (Review) F&M #13 Kasserine Pass: Mark Saha (Review) F&M #60 World War II Anthology: Chapter 1: The Mediterranean Theatre: Vance von Borries (Review) The Review Copy: I bought a punched copy of the first edition in what I would judge to be excellent condition on Ebay in 2001 from Michael Sincavage. I paid $8.50. The game's original (1973) price was $8.98. Physical Components and Appearance. I have not personally seen the boxed version of the first edition (the "yellow box" version), but I know that it exists. My copy of the game was advertised as being in a Ziploc bag, and at the time I took this to be the original packaging. But actually I have no idea if this was a repackaging by the person who sold the game to me, or someone else, or if first edition was indeed marketed in a Ziploc bag in addition to the boxed version. In any case, the components consist of one 25" x 21" map, one 4-page (!) rule book , two Order of Battle/Arrival charts on colored cardstock, one CRT on colored cardstock, one small piece of paper containing errata and clarifications, and 150 die-cut non-backprinted counters. The map shows an area from south of Gafsa to LeKef in the North (there is no compass rose on the map) and from Fondouk in the east to Tebessa in the west, at a scale of 4.5 miles/hex. The hexes are oversized (21 mm). The background map color is white, but the hex grid itself is red; the roads are red; the outlines of the bright gold highlands of the Western Dorsale are red. The towns and villages are red boxes. The little squiggly lines depicting the high crests are red. It's not all red: the rivers (running down the middle of the hexes) are bright blue. It looks like the whole thing was drawn with a magic marker. The spines of the individual hexes do not always match up; in fact, if you look closely, each hex is almost like a snowflake in its unique geometry. It takes a moment or two to get used to, but the map is clear as far as what terrain is being represented by each hex, and the overall effect of the map is greater than the sum of its pieces. Here's something else: the map is printed on a coated, shiny paper that is referred to as "rubberized" by some. There are no map credits per se; I'm guessing that in those early days of wargaming an outfit like Conflict Games was pretty much John Hill doing everything. The counters are oversized too (15 mm). The 60 Allied counters (Americans, British, and French) are all shown in black text on olive green (The British have a "B" on them, the French an "F"). The 67 counters representing the Axis forces (German and Italian) are all shown in black text on buff. There are 23 blank counters, approximately half of each color. The counters are all NATO style; there is a combat factor (barrage factor for artillery), and a movement factor. There are no markers in the game, not for minefields, not for out of supply status, and not for particular combat results that come out of the CRT sometimes. There is no counter to be used as a turn marker. It's true that you don't need minefield markers or out of supply markers: There are no rules for supply, and no rules for mines either. I don't really like the big counters too much, but they are more legible for my aging eyes than the normal sized counters are. Basically, the counters represent battalions: The Allies sport historical designations that seem reasonably accurate; the Axis forces are more stylized, with only the divisional affiliations on the counter. The counters are obviously hand-drawn. But let's cut John Hill some slack; it was 1973. And when the counters are laid out on the map, the whole effect is not bad, at least in the sense that the effect is not bland. System and Mechanics: Here's the turn sequence: Axis movement, Axis combat, Allied movement, Allied combat. There are no air rules, nor are there any supply rules. Well, actually there is a supply rule, and it's worth quoting in its entirety: "Supply: Since, the whole game is only 12 days long it is highly unlikely that anybody would run out of supplies to the point where a special rule would have to be made. So, don't worry about it." So this is definitely a beer and pretzels game, but read on: There are some subtle elements here. One of the innovative elements of the game has to do with ZOCs. The Zone of Control rule states that "As soon as you move into an enemy 'zone of control' you must stop and fight that unit." And there is a cost to enter a ZOC, which you have to be able to pay up front, or else you can't enter the hex at all. The cost for the Axis units to enter ZOCs is +2 Movement Points (MPs), but the cost to the Allies is +4 MPs (The rules refer to this as "cost of combat" which makes sense, given that you have to fight units to which you are adjacent). That seems like a clever and low-impact way to simulate the tactical expertise of the Axis units. But then a later rule takes it even further. This rule stipulates that Panzers, Panzer Grenadiers, and German recon units can move through the ZOCs of American infantry at a cost of an extra 2 Movement Points (MPs) per ZOC (that is, just the normal cost of entering a ZOC in the first place). There are a couple of interesting effects here: The ZOCs of the Axis forces are a lot stickier than are the ZOCs of the Allies, and the American infantry ZOCs are the least sticky of all (less sticky than the Italians for example). There are a couple of other Axis effects worth noting. Panzer, Panzer Grenadiers, and German Aufklarungs units can "break off" an "Engaged" Result on the CRT (that is, they can exit the ZOC and go to a free hex for a cost of +2 MPs. Once there, they are free to re-engage a different Allied stack presumably.). The Allies can't do that. In addition, the Germans can selectively attack units in a stack. Stacking is 3 units per hex, plus one "support unit". The support units are engineers, artillery and "flak". So basically the Germans can roll up a stack of four units (total combat strength = typically at least "8") to an American stack of three units (total combat strength = typically "3"), select one unit to attack with two of their own (thus getting 4 to 1 odds usually) and then "soaking off" on the rest of the stack at 2 to 1, which usually isn't going to hurt the Axis too much. The Allies don't have this capability. It's true this technique can backfire sometimes (it depends somewhat on the composition of the opposing stacks). In short, I liked how John Hill was able to get some very interesting effects by adding a few SIMPLE rules onto a SIMPLE system. The counters all the look the same, and it's the same system for everybody, but the Germans aren't playing the same game. And notice that John Hill was able to get these effects without using the most basic crutch from North Africa Design 101: There are no "Rommel" rules, or nor is there a Rommel counter. Of course, it's not all wonderful. There are some things about the CRT that I just don't think were completely thought out, although they are thought-provoking. The CRT is a 2D6 affair (which I also think is unusual for 1973) with the usual Avalon Hill type results (A Elim, D Elim, A Back, Exchange, that sort of thing). But there are a couple of twists here too. There is a "Contact" result, which means that former defending stack must either attack the units who Contacted the stack in their previous player turn (the former defender now turned attacker can reinforce the stack), or else retreat all the Contacted units. You can roll a Contact result even at 8 to 1 odds (only snake eyes will do it, but still.). More problematically, there is an "Engaged" result, which 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. Now the defender who was Engaged can counterattack in his own player turn, but if he does, he must counterattack everybody who Engaged him. Actually that's not the hard part. The hard part happens when a defender who is engaged with one stack finds himself also adjacent to another enemy force in his player turn that was not involved in the original engagement (this happens when an adjacent friendly defending unit gets a D Back result and the attacker advances into the hex that is adjacent to the original defender who winds up with the Engaged result). The basic rule states "you cannot sit in any enemy's "zone of control" unless you attack him." So what does one do here? It seems to violate the spirit of the Engaged result to let the engaged defenders attack somebody else, maybe at much better odds than they would have against the original bunch who Engaged them. Yet it also seems to violate the basic rule if you let the Engaged defenders sit in an enemy ZOC without attacking him. The rules are not much help here either I'm afraid. If this was something that happened once per game, you might just write it off, and move on. But it happens more like once per turn at least. And then you have the Germans with their armor and their ability to break off the Engaged result. Ai Yi Yi. It seemed like every time I rolled an Engaged result, there were possible different implications that broke one or more other rules in the game. Maybe this was what John Hill wanted, I don't know. One final positive note here: It looks like there was an attempt to address these ambiguities in the 1992 GDW remake "Bloody Kasserine". Rules Completeness, Rules Length, Complexity, Organization: The rulebook for Kasserine Pass is 4 pages long, but this includes the cover sheet which is labeled (somewhat hilariously) "The Conflict Game Company Presents" above a drawing of some German officers, presumably including Rommel. So there are actually only 3 pages of rules. There is no numbering scheme for the rules, nor is there any "case structure". There is just a set of headings with text underneath them. But even as short as they are, the organization still seems a little ad hoc. For example the brief Combat rule comes before the somewhat more extensive Sequence of Movement rules, even though movement comes before combat in the game. There were several times where I thought that things that should have been mentioned together were not, and things mentioned in one place were indirectly contradicted by something appearing in another part of the rules. Here's another point: Almost all wargames, even simple ones, nevertheless depict complex situations and systems, and therefore, I think the player needs to realize that with only 3 pages of rules, he is going to be creating some houserules, or, as I prefer to think of it, making it up as I go along. The rules are not hard to understand; they are reasonably well-crafted in a kind of colloquial, down-to-earth style that is the antithesis of the SPI quasi-legalism. It's just that you have to be ready for situations that require interpretation. I don't think that I made any actual mistakes with the rules, in the sense that I forgot to do something, or realized later that I should have been doing something all along. However, I don't think I played either side particularly well, and there were times when I had a nagging feeling that "I did this differently the last time I encountered it." As I've tried to point out elsewhere, it's important to realize that the game, even as simple as it is, still possesses a fair degree of subtlety that might not be apparent at first blush. Game Play and "Feel": I'm not going to give a play-by-play for the whole game that I played, but I will try to summarize the events that are on the "highlight reel". Before I get to that, let me describe the conditions under which I played Kasserine Pass. 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 Kasserine Pass 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 GDW double-blind game, The Normandy Campaign. For the first several turns (each turn represents a day, beginning with Feb. 14) I pretty much duplicated the historical deployments, and got basically the historical results. The Axis had taken Ferriana and Kasserine (the town, the actual pass was a different story) by turn 7 (Feb. 20-Rommel got there on Feb. 19 I think). To get another victory point, the Axis forces were driving on Sbiba, and things definitely got wild and wooly in the high ground east of Sbiba. In one case, the Germans had installed a whole Panzer regiment on the high ground (two Panzer battalions supported by a Panzer Grenadier battalion). On Feb. 21, the Allies attacked with the American Rangers battalion, a British armor battalion, the American mech infantry battalion, and assorted other units in adjacent hexes. The attack went off at a meager 1:2 but the Allies rolled an 11 (Exchange!). Heavy casualties for the Allies, but they succeeded in wiping out an entire Panzer regiment. Then on Feb 22, a scratch kampfgruppen from the 10th Panzer finally succeeded in busting into Sbiba, which they continued to hold until the next to last turn. On that turn (Feb. 24), the Allies gathered their strength for a counterattack on Sbiba and rolled the Engaged result. Technically, the Germans did not have to do anything on their part of the final turn (Feb. 25), because they had been engaged as the defender, and the burden of continuing the attack was on the Allies. But I knew that the Allies would continue to reinforce their engaged stacks on their last turn, so...I staged a surprise counterpunch with the engaged Axis forces on the last turn of the game (doubtful Axis tactics on my part to be sure) The result? The Axis rolled retreat results, though ZOCs and so they were bounced out of Sbiba with heavy losses. The Allies retook Sbiba, and thereby won, on the game's last turn. At the end, the Axis forces held Ferriana and Kasserine for 2 victory points, which was one point shy of an Axis victory. It doesn't get any closer than that. I get the idea from reading comments on BoardGameGeek (BGG) that Kasserine Pass 1st ed. is often played as a "tournament type" game between highly competitive players. I can see why. If played as written, there is a strong chess-like element here that I think would lend itself to highly competitive playing. Moreover, the comments that I've read indicated that the 1st edition is tightly balanced with players of even skill winning about 50% of the time with either side. As I stated, I played with hidden units. But I think if players could see and study all the counters, learn the CRT inside and out, and know how to work it, the game would be a very tense, exciting, see-saw battle. Overall: It was fun to look back at a game from a time when the most creative designers were just beginning to step out of the Avalon Hill framework and apply mechanics like a 2D6 CRT, and breakdown counters, that we take for granted today. The early wargames were sometimes called "paper time machines", and in this case, the wargame was a historical object itself that took me back to those early exciting days in wargaming when it seemed like there was no limit on what these games could do. There is also an element of "complexity out of simplicity" present in this game that I appreciated and found clever. It's true that there are elements of the historical situation that are simply missing here (based on the reading I've done, the historical situation would be better modeled on both sides as a command-and-communications game, rather than a hex'n'counter type wargame.). But, when played as presented, the game is surprising, quickly-paced, suspenseful, and compelling, and that all adds up to fun. _______________________________________________ Consim-l mailing list Consim-l@mailman.halisp.net http://mailman.halisp.net/mailman/listinfo/consim-l