From:     Petri Juhani Piira  <ppii@colossus.cs.hut.fi>
Date:     20 Dec 1993 12:46:52 GMT
Subject:  Arctic Storm

    The "Arctic Storm" by GMT games has beautiful components, and an 
    innovative system. But it has, as published, a very severe problem.

    The game simulates the Soviet attack on Finland, 1939. (The Winter War).
    If both players choose to play "historically", the game sort of works.
    Russians lose huge amounts of troops in assaulting prepared defenses and
    from getting their units surrounded... but the victory points lost
    are partially offset by the gains in territory, and partially by the
    original victory points (65 at the start of the war, when 20 is enough
    for victory).

    But if the Finnish player chooses to _attack_ on the long front between
    the Arctic Sea and Lake Ladoga, the game breaks down very badly.
    Finnish ski-mobile units get to move 12-15 hexes each turn, while opposing
    soviet units move 2-5. And there are not enough soviet units to build a
    solid line - in fact not even enough to defend all towns in the Soviet
    Karelia.

    This means that the Finnish reservist battalions can easily capture most
    towns in the soviet area, getting some serious victory points at the same
    time.

    Also because the instant a Soviet unit is surrounded by Ski ZOCs it
    becomes totally helpless, two Finnish battalions can easily surround a
    soviet division, or a stack of regiments. Getting victory points from
    placing them in mottis. The beginning numbers of Finnish battalions
    are enough to surround ALL soviet units in the area south of Murmansk and
    north of Ladoga Karelia.

    So, under the original rules, the game becomes a soviet try to evacuate
    his "attacking" units before they are destroyed, and an attempt to defend
    his supply sources against a Finnish assault ( being a Finn myself,
    it has a certain appeal :-) ...)  but it is still broken, as a game.

    We discussed this after a couple of games with a friend, and decided
    to not allow Finnish units to move into Soviet territory. After all,
    historically Finnish units were on the orders to not enter Soviet Union,
    so this makes sense. But, playtesting revealed it not to be the solution,
    because now the Soviet player would win by not attacking... he just
    needs to withdraw his units away from the border. Ok, it would have been
    better historically to not attack (the Soviet losses convinced
    Hitler that the Soviet Army was worthless, thus making Barbarossa an
    option to him), so the simulation kind of works, but the game does not.

    So, I made a new attempt to fix the game, and came up with the following
    rules, which seemed to work in a (solitaire) playtest:

    1) There is a 1 point intrinsic defensive strength in all Soviet towns.
       - this makes it difficult for the Finnish battalions to capture them.

    2) Soviet units in the Soviet Union are always in supply.
       - Now Finnish incursions to surround the soviets have no point, except
         inside Finland, as it should be.

    3) The Soviet player will not win if he hasn't captured Viipuri (Vyborg).
       - To force the soviets player to attack. Even capturing Viipuri will not
         win the game unless he has enough victory points, so the attacks
         elsewhere must be made too.

    These rules force/give the opportunity to the players to play
    "historically", allowing the game to work as intended.

    If there is some real errata around, I would like to hear about it,
    otherwise I would appreciate input from the players of "Arctic Storm"...

    Petri Piira
    ppii@niksula.hut.fi