From: Roberto Chiavini Subject: Two reviews Lemberg (S&T 198 game with Verdun) The game simulate the Galician battle fought in September 1914 between the armies of the Russian and the Austro-Hungarians. The basic system is the revised Over the Top rules by Joe Miranda, in their more recent incarnation after the quad game of the same name and previous S&T about Mons and Marne. For the battle of Lemberg you have only one scenario (nine turns) and use most of the rules for the system, but several of them are not exploited to the limit, as the early phase of the war doesn't consent a real use of artillery (you are limited to only one unit barrage attack against each hex - i.e. you may roll only in the 1-4 column of the Barrage table and you don't get extensive damage with this column, with only a chance in six to eliminate an enemy step and one chance in nine to crater the hex) and air units are limited to reconnaissance work (that you don't use if you play solitaire). Anyway, the system works, even if the situation and especially the Victory Conditions don't seem very balanced. Anyway, let's see first of all how all this works. Units are rated for combat and movement, while HQs have even a range of command, and artillery units a range of attack for their barrage strength. In the Lemberg scenario, most HQs have only 1 hex radius (i.e. they must be adjacent to all their units to give command - units Out of Command suffer negative effect for movement and combat, as usual in most wargames), while artillery have a two/three hexes range, with normally a two barrage strength value. There are several optional rules, but I think that most of them greatly add to the historicity of the game, so I use all of them in my solo replay. The first player is the Russian, who set up second; after set up, the Austrian player has to reduce six of his units, simulating the casualties taken in the previous offensive. The Austrian has to defend the city of Lemberg in the center of the map (surrounded by forts which give a two columns shift bonus to the Austrians and have an intrinsic value of two), so this is the focus of the Russian offensive. The Russian turn (the Austrian one uses the same phases) starts with the Friction (i.e. random events) phase, with only one half possibilities to get any interesting results by the table (as there are no special rules for the scenario), then there is the Command Phase, where he judges command status for all his units, then there is the Initial movement phase (most infantry units have 4 movement points, while HQs have 2 and artillery units have 3 - so the Russian advance is slowed by their HQs). After this, there is the Reinforcement and Replacement phase (only the Austrian have reinforcements starting with turn six - both players have replacements in reason of two points each turn for the Russian, one for the Austrian). Then there is the Offensive Barrage Phase, followed by the Defensive Fire Phase, which in this scenario is used mostly to suppress enemy stacks, getting the favorable shifts in the Assault CRT. Assaulting other units is always voluntary and you may try to get the most favorable ratios, as you don't have to make suicide attacks as in other wargames where you are forced to attack all the units in your ZOCs. Even the Breakthrough Movement Phase is not really exploited in this scenario, as the Hqs cannot move in this phase and could be very risky for the Russian to move his infantry units away from their leaders. There are a couple of errata I found in the game (there is no mention in the set up of the 9th Russian Corp, while is not clear if the intrinsic strength of the forts is used only in attacks against ungarrisoned forts, or it is added to the units strengths - I think the latter is correct and so did I play, but I'm unsure of my interpretation), but for the rest the rules are clear and the play is smooth. As I said before, I think that the victory conditions are too harsh for the Russian player and really difficult to get something other than a marginal defeat: he has only nine turns to run across a difficult terrain (there are several streams that adds to the Austrian defenses), with only a central road to move faster his HQs (units on road pay half movement point for each hex they move across), and with a normal luck I don't think he may obtain any of his victory conditions. Anyway, the game is worth a try or two, as the system works in recreating the attritional feel of the war, the graphics are goods and the time you have to spend not particularly relevant (a couple of hours or so). I rate the system for Over the Top 7 out of 10, while Lemberg 6 out of 10.