From: stephen@stempest.demon.co.uk (Stephen Tempest) Subject: Re: [consim-l] Patton in Flames "James B. Byrne" writes: >The price tag is fairly hefty so I was wondering if >anyone here has it and what they thought of it. I've bought it, but not so much played it yet as set it up and pushed the counters around - it's a *big* game. The rules are standard World in Flames, with a booklet of special scenario rules (mostly covering political bargaining to influence minor countries). That means if you like WiF, you should like this game - and if not, not... Counters are corps/army level, or 1-2 capital ships, or 500 aircraft; hexes are 100km scale on the two European maps, more on the other three maps covering the rest of the world; turns are 2-months with an indeterminate number of impulses in each turn. There are two scenarios. The first starts in early 1945, and covers the idea "what would have happened if the Allies and Soviets didn't stop when their troops met up in central Germany, but started fighting each other?" There are various specific rules governing German units (basically, they are controlled by the power furthest away from them, and have a chance of defecting/surrendering in each combat) while the Japanese are (somewhat unconvincingly) simply controlled by the Communist player. The other scenario (and a better one in my opnion) starts with the Berlin Airlift in summer 1948, and can go on until 1952. The opening turn that I played through of this saw a massive Soviet offensive sweeping towards the Rhine, hindered by Allied airpower and a naval landing in Denmark to secure the entrance to the Baltic; a stalled Egyptian/Syrian invasion of Israel; the Indian conquest of East Pakistan; guerrrilla warfare in Vietnam and Indonesia; the Chinese Communists conquering Beijing from the Nationalists; a stalemate in Korea; and a Soviet air/naval invasion of US-occupied Japan... As for the rules, I believe they're something like Version 5 of the Final (6th) Edition rules... Stephen