Nels Thompson Monty's Gamble gives you the first 4 days of Market Garden-- the tournament scenario, the Basic Game-- in probably 3 hours. You can play a full 10 days to find out whether a final, desperation push can get XXX Corps across the Rhine. The game covers XXX Corps only-- no action on the flanks, no optional reinforcements from these flanks, etc. The game is thus fairly simple strategically (get to Nijmegen early, get to Arnhem asap afterword). Mike Rinella has done some clever things to get the most out of a one-evening game: 1. Allied VPs only "count" if they are controlled by XXX Corps (except for Arnhem, which counts for 2 of its 4 if controlled by 1st Abn). The Allied player thus wants to take territory with the abn divisions, so XXX Corps can take over w/o further fighting when it arrives, but the actual VP comes only when XXX Corps links up. If the Germans can stop XXX Corps, they'll win. 2. Abn divisions are restricted to operational areas. 82nd Abn cannot march into Arnhem. XXX Corps has to do the really heavy lifting. A judgment call by Rinella, and he has had to defend it, but really, an excellent decision. 3. The Allies get more impulses than the Germans, a nice design decision in a game representing such a well-supplied army versus one thrown together for an ad hoc defense. While the Allies still have fresh XXX Corps units to arrive, either initially or as reinforcements, they get 2 impulses for the price of 1. This gives the campaign a great feel, with the Allies taking an impulse, say, in Arnhem, and also bringing someone from XXX Corp on to attack, for example, Best. 4. Variable XXX Corps reinforcements. The traffic jam is simply and elegantly simulated by releasing divisions as reinforcements only when the Allies cross the Waal and the Maas. Again, nicely done. The Allies are under great pressure to advance up the Highway to make room for reinforcements which can be used to keep the Highway clear, and there is no bookkeeping for traffic jams and supply problems. 5. Speaking of supply: Supply problems are well-represented by forcing the Allied player to string out his depots in less than optimal fashion if his units are dispersed along the highway. If the highway is contested, units past that point on the Highway are likely to be unable to refit that day. The Breakout: Normandy supply depot rules work well with little modification to shut down supply to units that are cut off from the Highway or from their drop zones. 6. Speaking of cut off from their drop zones: Arnhem is a mini-game in itself. If 1st Abn is able to take it in force and hold their supply drop zones and maintain uncontested interior lines, the Red Devils will hold out until XXX Corps arrives-- if XXX Corps arrives. On the other hand, if the Germans are able to infiltrate the Red Devils' positions, the good guys will be unable to refit, and although they're tough, they become vulnerable. German victory can come in this way by reducing the bridgehead over the Rhine, even if XXX Corps is smashing its way to Nijmegen and beyond. 7. The game does a great job of pressuring the Germans, in particular, into their difficult historical choice. Do you reduce Arnhem, or do you redirect those resources against XXX Corps, and let the Red Devils starve slowly? Much depends on the initial success of the Allied action. Can you slow XXX Corps? Has 1st Abn established a solid position? 8. The bridge repair limits are strict. If the Allies cannot capture some bridges intact, they simply do not have the repair equipment available to get up the Highway quickly. Again, Rinella has made a good design decision. Undoubtedly the Allied army had plenty of bridge-repairing engineers. But the number that could be put into action in the van of XXX Corps was few. The Allies are limited to 2 repairs per day. Here again, you have an elegant treatment of the "traffic jam" along the Highway. 9. I've mentioned the pressure on the Germans, but the time pressure is truly on the Allies. Every day, once that impulse marker inches upward into turn-ending territory, the Allies begin to sweat. In fact, they're sweating it even before that, because they're doomed to a slow death if they don't make headway early. No impulses can be wasted. (As the German player, you love to make the move that threatens to cut the Highway, that forces the impulse-burning response from your opposite number.) The advance must be well-planned, with moments of sheer bend-to-my-will audacity. The game has a handful of weaknesses. First, victory in the Basic Game can come down to whether or not a town like Wyler or Best falls. That's kind of silly if we're measuring the success of the campaign, but with a 4-day Basic Game, you've got to draw the line somewhere. If the Allies haven't taken Nijmegen yet, but everything else has fallen, and 1st Abn still holds Arnhem, well, that's probably going to be an Allied victory in the Basic Game, even though we could argue that the issue is undecided at that point. (Perhaps the best way to play this game is simply "Rhine or Bust.") Another issue is that in the Basic Game, the Germans can't do nearly as much as the Allies. Unlike in its approximate predecessor, Breakout: Normandy, they aren't even doing exciting things like running interdiction. That said, of course nobody takes your game away at the end of the 20th; you can just keep playing. The issue for the Germans in Monty's Gamble is due to several things: their units are weak and few initially; they don't get the double impulse advantage the Allies get with XXX Corps, so there is no attempt to infiltrate the Highway and Arnhem in the same impulse; and last, the Germans will probably choose between defending Nijmegen and counterattacking Arnhem-- either decision robs the game of some drama in the other area. It's probably fair to mention that some of Rinella's OOB decisions have been controversial. For example, the Germans have a lot of very weak units, but they still each add +1 to an assault, and they suck up 4 casualty points when fresh, just like a Guards armoured unit. One or two divisions are represented by 3 brigade counters, while other divisions are represented by numberous similarly-strengthed battalions, which collectively will take much more damage. Rinella chose to give armoured cars a pretty healthy attack factor of 5 (a battalion of paras is a 4, by way of comparison), but I accept his reasoning that if the a/c goes into combat on the "point," in a game of this scale, one can assume other stiffening forces are present. Rinella deserves to be defended in his choices. A boardgame is not miniatures. We don't just add up the number of 12-pounders on each side and go at it. A boardgame works best when the designer has made some compromises to keep the historical framework in place and to direct the action along the historical choices presented to the commanders. My take on the game after a handful of playings is this. If you are a buyer of wargames, buy it. The map is gorgeous, and it gives you the whole campaign. At what, $41?, it's a steal against the $55 games out there. Easily the equal of Wilderness War, for example-- another outstanding game, but it retails for $55, I believe. If you like area-impulse, buy it. Did you like Storm Over Arnhem or Breakout: Normandy? Buy it. If you've never played the others, and you want to take the plunge with a system that has spawned many loyal fanatics, buy it. Monty's Gamble is the only one in print, and it is bringing new blood to area-impulse. If, on the other hand, you only want to buy sure things in the wargame department because, for example, you have a life, or you pour what should go into your 401(k) retirement account into your miniatures, then you will want to be careful that Monty's Gamble is what you want in a game. Do not expect the detail of monster games. My earlier brief comparison to Wilderness War is apt. The action in a one-evening game at times borders on the abstract (which, as we all know, a game like Squad Leader never does, right?). What is "really happening" during an isolation roll? What "really happens" in a weather change? If you want to be able to change the operational areas in a tournament game, or if you want to know how many of which types of vehicles are in the armoured units, or why one unit is a "mechanized infantry" unit even though it had some tanks attached in the actual campaign, well, think before buying. You'll get answers to every one of those questions if you ask Rinella, but maybe you won't like the answers. You'd have to be the type of person who could accept the answers and still enjoy the game even if you would have done it differently. No joke about asking Rinella, by the way. He supports the game daily on consimworld.com, and he'll answer any questions you email to him. I won't give his email address here, but if you want it, visit consimworld here (http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX?14@1.1Ql9aRQak0C.130308@.ee6f72a/2646) and you can even see his response to this review. I think most wargamers should buy this game. But I know that some people don't buy many wargames, or they want to confirm that they agree with the designer in some crucial aspect, before they purchase. I've tried to be of help to someone who would look to buy the game. If I'm an apologist for it, I'm sorry (get it?). I recognize that no game is for everyone, and I hope I've fairly characterized the type of person who might not like the game. Too much information for ya? Sorry I've rambled. Go back to the good things I've said about the game above. Oh, and true to the area-impulse format, it's very tense in the playing, and you're never waiting long for your turn.