After many years of sitting in front of a computer, I am now back rolling the dice, and have taken to purchasing solitaire games. I recently picked up B-17 Queen of the Skies, Carrier, London's Burning and Patton's Best. I want to do a review on Patton's Best (PB) because, unlike the other games, there is simply no review on Web-Grognards for people to find out about this great little game. So what is it? Patton's Best recreates the campaign of an individual tank commander with the 4th Armoured Division, as it battled its way across Northern Europe from July '44 to April '45. The player acts as the Commander of a crew of five, and controls the actions that the crew are to perform, in a similar (but more varied) style to B-17. A game can consist of a single battle, a day of fighting or the entire historical Campaign. In the Campaign you don't play every day, but must roll to see if you take part in any action on a given day. If not, move on to the next day. The single thing that I most like is the RPG aspect of the game - another great feature of AH's B-17. In PB, however, not only the crew skills improve during the game, but you get the opportunity to upgrade to better models of the M4 Sherman as you go along (17 models in all!). The enhanced RPG element includes promotions and medals for valour in combat, based on a very clever battle points system. German units include: infantry squads, MG teams, trucks, 2 types of light armoured vehicles, 3 types of anti-tank guns, 4 types of self-propelled guns and 4 types of tanks. There are three types of battles: Advance (rapid movement through generally light opposition); Battle (heavier attacks against fixed defences); and Counterattack (panzers, panzers and more panzers). In each of these battles there will be three levels of opposition: Light, Medium and Heavy. Don't expect a Light Counterattack. There are two main maps. A maneuver map made up of multiple areas of four types of terrain: forest, town, farming and open areas. They are linked by sealed and unsealed roads, or just by driving across the countryside. Movement on this map is by area movement, not hexes. Much as I dislike area movement games, I've got to say that this method works well. That is because the second map (and the one you spend most of the time looking at) is the battle map, basically a large central hex surrounded by three concentric circle representing 300yds, 600yds and 1 mile. This is the map where your battles take place. Your tank and the enemy forces (as well as smoke and terrain features) in a particular battle are placed in the relevent sector at the relevent range on the battle map. Fire directed at and from friendly forces in your task group and air/artilley support are handled abstractly. When on the manuever map, the time scale for the game is split into 15 minute segments, and you have from a few hours after dawn until dusk to complete your mission. Various actions, such as moving, recce, battle, calling for air/arty support, reloading ammo or replacing crew must be 'bought' by spending multiples of those 15 minunte increments. On the battle map, the battle is assumed to only go for 15 mins, but if you are unlucky you can 'lose' another 15 mins via a random events die roll. PB tries to recreate the limited perspective of the battlefield from a Commander's point of view. There is imperfect knowledge of the enemy, not only what the enemy unit is but where it is. This is true for both the maneuver and battle maps. On the maneuver map you must recce ahead to see whther you are likely to face Light, Medium or Heavy resistance in a particular area. On the battle map, you and your crew must use the old 'Mark I Eyeball' to locate and identify enemies before engaging and firing. The presence of a counter for an enemy tank or AT-gun only indicates that the commander notices fire coming from a certain direction. What is actually there is unknown; for example, enemy tanks all appear to be extremely dangerous Tigers when first activated. What is actually present may not be nearly as dangerous, but you won't know until you have spotted and identifed (two different actions, by the way) that tank. Now some gamers will think, "just shoot at it without identifying it" - which you CAN do in this game. But the neat trick that PB's designers have done is to give the unidentified target the characteristics of the SECOND BEST available tank or self-propelled gun or BEST available AT-gun. For example, an AT-gun is activated. It has all the defensive AND offensive characteristics of an 88mm, until identified. It may well be a 75mm or 50mm, but it fires like an 88mm until you identify the thing. Ouch! Fire selection and movement for the enemy is not 'everyone gang up on the human player' but a much more sensible assessment of what the enemy would go for - AP fire attacking lead tanks, infantry firing at infantry, trucks run away, panzerfaust squads pop up out of nowhere, etc. By the same token, if you fire at something, you can pretty much expect it to fire back at you if you don't take it out. Fire between your tank and the enemy will be familiar to anyone who has ever played Avalon Hill's Tobruk - front/rear/flank aspect of tanks and Hull/Turret/Track location, with penetration based on target armour and firing gun - although the fire procedure is not as complex as that in Tobruk. Basically, roll to hit, then roll to kill, although that simplification does not do justice to the largest list of fire modifiers I have ever seen a in board game! This applies to both main gun and machine gun fire. Fire between the enemy and you task group (you are not a single 'Rambo' tank, but are considered to be part of a mixed armoured/infantry force of indeterminate size) is handled abstractly and is possibly one of the weaker areas of the game. Your task force fires at every enemy unit and may or may not do much damage. But you will come to love them, as they absorb damage that otherwise may be directed at you. If you are hit you must check for penetration, explosion, crew hits, escape from a burning tank, and attempts to save crew members stuck in the burning tank. You will not survive a whole campaign with the one tank, unless you have the sort of luck with dice that means you would better off spending your time in Las Vegas. On that point a word of warning - if you think that M4 Sherman vs Panther/Tiger/King Tiger is like M1A2 Abrams vs T-55/T-62/T-72 then this game is NOT for you. The Sherman was a support tank and you will not be racking up 15 tank kills a day - be thankful if you can hold off the enemy tank long enough for your support troops to take it out. Now that doesn't mean the German tanks are invincible - but just remember that historical US tankers did not try to mix it up with their opponents' 88mm cannons and thick armour, unless thay had a juicy flank or rear aspect! There are some nice goodies: smoke rounds, HVAP rounds, multiple-round firing, collateral damage, ammo limits, air and arty support (the former only in fine weather), seven (!) different types of weather, and even a British variant (Sherman Firefly VC) for those people who want to battle alongside of Monty and the British Guards Armoured Division. Is it as good a solo game as Carrier? Well, no solitaire game is as good as Carrier. And the age of PB shows in the rather dull board and pieces (basic brown, grey, green, white, etc). But it is definately a great little game that can see a full day played in about three hours, put away and then restarted where you left off (thanks to the tank info sheets). Very useful for dads with kids, like me! While it is a good quick game for a evening, the 'hook' is that the RPG aspect of the Campaign Game REALLY is addictive. So much so that I put away London's Burning - which is a spectacular production number in its own right - just because I felt more like part of the action in PB. Peter Phelps http://careers.yahoo.com.au - Yahoo! Careers - 1,000's of jobs waiting online for you!