Operation Husky Combat Magazine #9 Review by Alan Sharif Whilst clearing out the darkest recesses of some cupboard space the other day, I stumbled across an old copy of Combat magazine, complete with its issue game Operation Husky. Published in 1979, it had most likely languished their ever since and I could have sworn I saw it blink as I dragged it back out into the sunlight for the first time in years. Combat magazine was published, bi-monthly, by Swedish Game Production. It was of a semiamateur nature and never a serious contender to S&T. The issue games had fairly low production values and they never produced anything that has been remembered as a classic. One of their specialities was to produce games with hexes and units that were half the size of standard games. This enabled them to shoehorn games into the magazine whose design would otherwise have rendered it to large for their quad sized format. However, the frustration of playing these titles kept them off your gaming table. The magazine itself was a mixture of reviews, replays, interviews and the ever present errata for previous games. Issue games were generally of a very basic nature and often the brief rules missed some important, even obvious, points. However, the entire package had a beginners enthusiasm that you could easily find infectious, either that or nostalgia is getting the better of me. Operation Husky, a simulation of the campaign in Sicily, was typical of a Combat issue game. The map was printed on fairly flimsy paper and is most charitably described as graphically challenged. The order of battle used is decidedly suspect but does not resort to carbon copy cookie-cutter type combat strengths. The units are, thankfully, standard sized and, gasp, with the exception of the Italian units, double sided. Each displays unit type, formation, combat and movement factors. A game turn commences with the Mussolini phase when two die are rolled. On a result of ten Mussolini is considered to have fallen and Italian units are demoralised for the rest of the game. The effect is that any Italian unit, irrespective of being the attacker or defender, suffering any combat result is automatically eliminated. It is puzzling as to why this should occur specifically on a result of ten and would suggest that this should read ten or more. Movement follows and uses standard wargame concepts common to many games. Different types of terrain costing varying movement points to traverse. On the first turn of the game the allied player gets to make his amphibious and airborne landings during this phase. This is little more than placing the unit in or adjacent to the hex you have chosen for their arrival. Combat is resolved next and continues in the same simple mode. Combat is odds based modified by terrain. The CRT is a throw back to the old Avalon Hill classics with retreats, exchanges and elimination's. However, an exchange result finds units with two sides being flipped to their weaker rear side rather than being removed. A game turn is then concluded with some units being eligible to move for a second time, but only using up to half their movement factors. The rules quite sensibly restrict the allies from landing armour units until after a port is captured with the facilities to land them at. Simple supply rules are based on tracing a path of a certain length to a supply source. The lengths concerned favour the Germans, hinder the Italians, and leave the Allies somewhere in the middle. Victory points are awarded to the axis player only and are earned for destroying allied units and for evacuating axis units from turn sixteen onwards. The axis player wins by scoring 30 or more victory points by games end. Sadly, the rules offer no hints on how units evacuate, an obviously crucial point. I used a house rule that an axis unit had to spend an entire turn in Messina, without allied units adjacent, after which it was removed from play. This seemed to work ok. Combat magazine, and its issue games, are best viewed as a piece of wargaming history for those big on collecting. For game players they are a very poor investment and no matter what price you picked them up for would doubtless not offer a good return in enjoyable gaming.