lew ritter  - Jan 9, 2008 11:43 am (#21442 Total: 21443)  
www.jerseygamers.com 	 

Look Away - John Prados Civil War Magnum Opus

Playing "Look Away"- Again! I am amazed how much I enjoy the game, It is
very rare that I keep any game on my game table for more than a few
days. I enjoy the complexity and number of command decisions that the
game provides. If you have hesitated buying the ATO annual because you
think its a "magazine game"? " Look Away" has the depth of realism and
interesting mechanics that will match any boxed game on the market. 

The rules allow each player a small number of Ops points per turn.
Average four for confederate and five or six for Union. For a small
amount of Operationale Effort points that the players can bid for
initiative and determine movement. the more Ops points you spend, the
higher the movement chart and the faster your units will move. The
Movement Chart results are split, for example with a 4/6 result, allows
Union force a four movement points and confederate force six movement
points. 

At the end of each impulse, players must spend WEP (War Effort Points to
keep leaders and their forces "active" or else they flip and go inactive
with lower command values and greater chance of not activating at all. 

The Union has a few OverAll commanders in form of corps and armies,
while most Confederate will be corps or individual divisions. the8ere is
a fog of war element in that the size of the force is hidden on an off
board chart. All you see is a leader and a numbered force marker. 

Combat is a little convuluted. You may roll reaction movement to send
stackls of reinforcements to a friendly force under attack. This allows
a small battle to grow to be a Gettysburg Forces must roll greater than
their batle rating to join in the combat. If they fail, they lose morale
levels. After all the leaders takwe shots, losses are totalled and
retreat or morale check is made. Extended battles can be made by players
who sense that an additional round of combat can be decisive., but it
uses up your scarce Operations points. 

Their are many decisions to be made in a turn. Should you try for a few
small impulses or spend most of your OPs points in one impulse per turn.
The cost in keeping leaders "active" at end of each impluse must weigh
heavily on your decisins. 

Cavalry has many functions including scouting, tearing up rairoad
tracks, giving cavalry superiority to your battle. Supply, foraging,
training (to regain lost morale points) are handled in moderate detail.
Each leader has a number of gun factors that can give drms, but must be
payed for with Ammo points. 

Supply is well handled in the game. the player has veulnerable suply
depots and wagons that extend the supply radius of the various depots.
it shows the vulnerable logistical tail of any civil war battle better
than any game except for the old Battleline Shenandoah. 

The game is not super complex, but there aamalgamation of many rules
sections the players must keep track of that makes the game a love it or
hate it, but cannot be indifferent to this game. If you enjoy Civil War
and are willing to invest time into a system, you will be rewarded with
one of the best Civil War systems and simulations. 

I am currently playing scenario four. The Union army is massed outside
Richmond, but the Rebels have a series of forts and their main army are
set up a mer few hexes away from the Union. It is a game of maneuver for
both sides, or else both sides would attrit each other in bloody head to
head combat.. 

. I kept thinking that the Union Army is hardly a juggernaut that I
envisioned. The various Armies of Tennessee, Cumberland etc are kind of
small, really glorified corps. Many have just a few divisions in them. 

Both sides took two impulses and bloodied each other as the Union armies
tried to get around the Confederate rightflank and swoop into Atlanta.
This put several Union forces out of supply and communication. This is
very expensive in terms of WEP costs. I think neither side can afford to
have more than one or two impulses per turn. 

I noticed how easy it is to lose Morale points. If you retreat before
combat, lose a battle and retreat or fail to contact an enemy force and
bring it into a battle, you lose a morale level. 

It seems very hard to regain Morale levels after several rounds of
combat. You must move to a town or city and spend points to go into
TRAINING. This doesnt seem possible in many cases TO BREAK CONTACT WITH
ENEMY. In any event, this would create huge stacks in those towns or
cities with Strat Attrition problems. In a campaign game, spending a
turn or two training and regrouping makes sense and is realistic, but in
a three turn scenario, it can mean the end of your offensive.