On Thu, 11 Mar 2004, Andreas Ludwig wrote:
> Got this cheap and mint on ebay. Any reviews, comments? On CSW at least it 
> has no folder....

I have fond memories of this game (which I think was designed by one of
the veteran SPI people, possible David Ritchie, unless I'm confusing him
with Richard Hamblen).  I played it about half a dozen times a decade ago
and keep thinking of going back to it (and of applying the system to other
desert battles).  It was not a short game, but it covered an interesting
and under-gamed battle, offered effortless fog-of-war when played
face-to-face (but that didn't get in the way when playing solo), and had a
fairly straightforward system with some interesting chrome. The most
striking detail was the handling in combat of the different combat arms
and nationalities.  For example, armor units are harder to hit than
infantry, but will then take step losses as a result, whereas infantry is
easy to hit but will generally be "pinned" (become immobile) instead of
taking step losses right away. So if you're not happy with it just
"hugging the ground" you will have to use followup assaults to cause
actual losses. (The Italians have a separate column on the table that has
them being pinned even more quickly but that also means that simply
shelling them from a distance will almost never get rid of them, you have
to get close and personal. Remember that this is an operational game; that
way it provided some effortless tactical detail as neat chrome.


This would have been an interesting competitor to von Borries' North 
Africa series; should have applied to more battles.  


<rant mode on> On another note (I know you did't say that Andreas, so this
comment is not directed at you) but I am always irritated at people who
open discussion topics on CSW with the comment "I'm surprised this game
doesn't have its own folder already", and these are the ones most
responsible for the plethora of folders on old games that see five
postings and then do nothing but hanging around in the way for years,
requiring more scrolling to get to the places where stuff is actually
being posted.  The place is a rabbit warren were some clueless people have
such a hard time finding the game's folders that they are setting up
duplicate or triplicate folders already (and in fact it's nearly the same
individuals every time).  It's a simple fact that old games don't get
discussed as much as new ones.  There are sufficient more general folders
to discuss games of about any era.  <rant mode off>

<deep breath>

Sorry. :-)

Really should get that game off the shelf again.  John, if you read this,
do you have a copy? :-)

Markus


Last 3 games played: Air & Armor, Bay of Bengal, Solomon Sea
--------------- http://www.dbai.tuwien.ac.at/user/mst/games/ ---------------
"Bakayaro! Bakayaro!"  ("Stupid Bastards!  Stupid Bastards!") -- Admiral 
Aritomo Goto's last words to his staff, October 11, 1942