Category Archives: Games

Games Played — July 2026

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The games I played included the following:

A Victory Awaits

This is an MMP publication of what was originally three separate Japanese designed and published games about Operation Barbarossa (the 1941 invasion of Russia by the Germans).

Roy and I played the shorter (6-turn) scenario on the Smolensk map. (Even though I knew we wouldn’t get to finish it, it was the best way to get us both up-to-speed on the rules, the situation, and some of the strategic and tactical options.)

Roy’s German forces inevitably wiped out the frontline Russians, most of whom died in a pocket. The German panzer forces pushed on like the proverbial hot knife through butter. However, the task for the Germans is demanding, requiring a lot of terrain to be captured in the face of an ever increasing supply of defending Russians.

At the end, the Germans were threatening in the center but well out of reach of the key victory point cities. It was fun, though playing the Russians you have to recognize you cannot go toe-to-toe with the Germans; it’s a waiting game.

We need to work out how to do a complete game. Perhaps we’ll use Vassal next time around.

Sniper!

This is an old (1986) update of an even older SPI game about man-to-man combat in WW2. Each hex is 2 yards and each turn a few seconds.

Roy and I played a 1943 encounter between a German squad (with 3 machine guns!) and a USA squad, in the Naples countryside. It was a meeting of patrols.

When I was preparing the game, I realized why I hadn’t played it more before: the rules are not that long, but there are lots of exceptions and a few loose ends. I applied some house rules to make sure we could get through the session without any major problems.

The two squads bumped into one another and there was an exchange of fire. Down went one of the Americans, wounded.

The Americans took cover in the heavy terrain, seeking to advance slowly into firing positions. The Germans threw a couple of grenades and kept up their defensive fire, wounding another American. The Americans moved deeper into better cover.

The game ended in a sort of stalemate. Although the Germans were well ahead in victory points, neither side was budging from its positions, so we called the game.

While this was fun, the game’s poor ergonomics made play a bit of a drag. Each soldier has several ratings — initiative, panic, and combat skills and deficiencies — which you track on a roster, so there’s a constant switch between map and roster. In this way, as Roy pointed out, it’s like a miniatures game. It would be much easier with all the ratings on the counters.

The activation system is interesting. Each soldier has an initiative rating and activates if his side draws a chit that’s equal to or greater than the initiative. Also, each side may get multiple rounds of activation per game turn, depending on the activation chits drawn. In this way, you might get an advantage of seeing your opponent running out of activations. That having been said, if you keep your soldiers within sight of the squad leader, and that soldier has an initiative rating of 1, you’re going to be less restricted. That part needs work.

I doubt we’ll play this again, though if I could ever summon up the perseverance to create my own counters with all the information on them, and redo the activation, leadership, and panic rules, there could be a good game here. On the other hand, there are all these other games…

Barbarossa: Army Group North, 1941

This is one of a series (East Front series) of monster games at the operational level scale (5 miles per hex, each turn is 2 days, and units are divisions, brigades, and regiments) about the WW2 campaign in Russia.

The first scenario — neatly presented in a standalone card with combined map and setup details — is a solitaire training exercise to get you up to speed on the game’s basics: movement and combat. It does a good job. Also, the Playbook includes a detailed play through of that first scenario so you can see exactly how the game is played and check your rules understanding.

The second scenario, which I played twice covers the opening ten days of the campaign from the border to the capture of Daugavpils.

The game map around Kaunas showing many German units opposed by fewer Soviet units.
The Axis have taken Kaunas

I would summarize the experience as follows:

  • The rules are well written and comprehensive but they are long and detailed. There are many exceptions. You need to have the time to invest in learning the system.
  • The example play through is a big help.
  • The maps are gorgeous.
  • The counters are clean, crisp, and easy to read.
  • The player aids are excellent. However, I would have preferred the terrain effects chart to be on two pages with a larger font.
  • There are lots of tricks and tips that experienced players will have picked up. So, my play will not have been optimal.
  • The many scenarios are a blessing. You don’t need to play the campaign!
  • The supply rules are so much easier than OCS. The airpower stuff doesn’t convince me it’s at the right level of complexity or decision making. The play, once you get the rules into your brain, is engrossing. The sequence of play is not symmetrical so you have to play differently according to which side you have.
  • If you have the time and like the topic, this is highly recommended. This (or one of the other games in the series) will be on my table again.

Advanced Squad Leader

I played The Vital Hours (WO37), a September 1944 encounter near Arnhem in the Netherlands between British parachute forces aiming to force their way to their destination through a motley crew of second-rate SS soldiers.

The British inevitably ground their way forward but took casualties and couldn’t get to the exit point in time, giving me and my defending Germans a rare victory.

I also played Burnt, Blue and Gray (WP15), a July 1944 scenario set in France. I led a force of German Fallschirmjagers, backed by three StuG IIG vehicles, in a counterattack on bocage territory held by Ran’s forces (infantry, machine guns, and a couple of bazookas) from the USA 1st Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment.

German and American forces coming to blows among the hedgerows.
Action from WP 15 with the German attack about to be ground to a halt.

The short version of the story is that I focused my attack on one wing and didn’t make enough ground. This allowed Ran to bring all his previously strung out defenders into play and bottle up my spearhead. We called it ahead of time as it was plain the defenders would easily hold the line.

Next time around I am hoping Ran will agree to play this again and switch sides so he can show me how I should have played it.

As I have said before, all part of my continuing (and losing) ASL education.

Strategy & Tactics 49

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Front cover of S&T 49 featuring an image of Frederick the Great on a horse in front of a battle scene.

Date of publication (as given): March/April 1975

Context

  • March 1975: a world record attendance (104,000) at Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh see Scotland defeat Wales 12:10 in the Five Nations Rugby Championship. David Bowie’s Young Americans album, with John Lennon appearing on two tracks, is released. Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins.
  • April 1975: FIDE strip Bobby Fischer of the world chess title (because he refused to defend it) and award it to Anatoly Karpov. Bill Gates and Paul Allen form Microsoft. After the 1974 Carnation Revolution, Portugal’s first free election since 1925 sees the Socialist Party win.

Game Included

Frederick the Great by Frank Davis and Edward Curran is an operational level game about the campaigns of the Seven Years War (1756-163) with four scenarios covering (separately) 1756, 1757, 1758, and 1759.

The game was sufficiently impressive — it featured a number of then revolutionary ideas — that it was bought, repackaged, and republished by Avalon Hill. As far as I recall, there were no material changes to the system, but the new version included more scenarios. I’ve played this game fairly recently and it’s lasted well.

For more about the game (albeit it’s the Avalon Hill version) see here.

Articles

  • Outgoing Mail — editors

And then there was the oddest mass interest game of them all: War in the East. Why, we don’t know. It just sold a lot of games…

Generally, wherever you find large concentrations of college educated males between the ages of 18 and 35, you will find high concentrations of gamers.

  • Frederick the Great — Frank Davis

Quantitively, the 85,000 man army which Frederick II inherited in 1740 was the fourth largest in Europe. Quality wise, it was already the most formidable army in existence.

  • Blue & Gray — David C. Isby

In the years 1861-1865, Americans slaughtered their fellow countrymen with an expertise that no foreign nation, either before or since, has been able to approach.

  • Briefings — Short reviews of new games and books

SPI Games Advertised

On a Personal Note

This was a classic S&T encounter for me: the magazine arrived and introduced a whole new era of history that previously I had known nothing about. I devoured the covering articles and was hooked. Although it’s never been one of my most favorite periods, I keep my hand in with the occasional book and game purchase, all because of the Frederick the Great game.

I remember being impressed by many of the systems in the game and playing it fairly extensively, mostly solitaire. It was fascinating to compare the history as portrayed in the game with how books presented it.

Games Played — May 2026

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The games I played included the following:

Commands and Colors: Ancients

I played The Middle Gate (Thermopylae) scenario from Expansion Pack #6 which presents an overwhelming Persian force with about half the number of opposing Spartans, behind ramparts, featuring a vulnerable flank that can be marched around.

The Persians did the flank march and, despite suffering high casualties, secured the flags (victory points) needed for the win. The final score was 10-6 so the Spartans were well out of touch.

It’s difficult to see how the Spartans can hold out here, especially if the cards aren’t there for the required counterattacks. Both sides had turns where the available cards were useless. I’m thinking of using a house rule to overcome this, such as allowing each player to be able to use any one card as a single unit activation (anywhere on the board) instead of whatever it says on the card.

All of that having been said, it’s a long time since I’d played the system and I enjoyed it much more than I remember.

Fields of Fire

I continued playing the Naktong River Campaign from the Korean War in this top-quality solitaire game system. I completed missions 4 and 5 successfully.

Advanced Squad Leader

I played First Dance (AP228) again, an early war encounter in Belgium between French and German mixed forces of infantry and tanks. The French enter and set up a defense line. The Germans enter and try to break the line.

The Germans lost two key carriers and troops in the first turn and that decided the game, although we kept playing. The Germans made progress but they no longer had the troops required to capture the objectives. The French tank reinforcements are virtyually invulnerable.

A difficult scenario for the Germans, but that maybe only because it was me!

The White Castle Duel

A sophisticated, two-player, worker-placement euro game with a theme about two clans vying for supremacy in technology and trade as the Portugese bring western ideas into Japan.

You play your workers to choose actions and some actions generate more actions or resources which you can use to generate more actions or resources and so on, each player vying for the best victory point score. Of course, there are multiple ways to attain (and calculate!) victory points.

It was too complicated for my taste. (I don’t mind complicated games but in an abstract game the complication has to bring something to my enjoyment. If not, as is the case here, it feels like complication just for the sake of it.)

The game uses a lot of icons to avoid language and eventually I became familiar enough with them, so it gets a pass there.

However, there’s one nuclear option that allows the opponent to screw with the available actions. I seriously doubt the play-balance of the game because of this.

I also didn’t like the use of color: there were 1,001 colors in use, or so it seemed, creating an obstacle to understanding the game.

In short, although I played it twice and tried hard, I didn’t like it. YMMV.

Combat!

Part of a series of solitaire games, this one features US (player) versus German (system) soldiers battling it out in WW2 over a range of scenarios. The rules were lacking, but eventually I cracked the code.

The graphics put walls and hedges in the middle of hexes and that doesn’t work for me. It’s like a perversion of Schrödinger’s cat where the soldier in a wall hex gets the benefit of the wall no matter from which side he is attacked! I applied my own house rule to put the soldier on one side of the wall or hedge.

I don’t think it compares favorably with Ambush because of the design decisions, but it’s a brave try and I’m probably going to invest some serious time in exploring the system and scenarios.

One main criticism is that, for the most part, the system gives the German soldiers orders without any regard as to whether they can see the enemy. Orders are, instead, given based on the soldier’s morale. This can produce surprises as well as strange results. And that may be a fair reflection of the chaos of combat. Alternatively, it may be that more logical action choices should sometimes be taken.

I am still enjoying the game because it does generate a decent narrative. However, because of the stated issues, I am thinking about creating my own version of the solitaire system. There is an updated version that has allegedly made some improvements, and I’ll try and get a look at that.

Games Played — April 2026

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This month, the games I played included:

  • Wurzburg — I played scenario one of this classic Modern Battles system from SPI. It went down to the last turn.
  • Advanced Squad Leader — The first scenario was Courage of Cowan (J242) set in December 1944, featuring SS infantry and tanks trying to break through American lines. The Americans held the line for four out of six turns, but the SS broke through on turn five to make the last turn a formality. The second scenario was First Dance (AP228), an early war encounter in Belgium between French and German mixed forces of infantry and tanks. The French first turn saw them enter the map and set up a strong defensive line which hammered the Germans as they tried to break through and that was that.
  • Fields of Fire — I went back to the Naktong River Campaign from the Korean War in this top-quality solitaire game system. I completed missions 1 to 3 successfully.
  • Undaunted: Normandy — A new game to me that combines card management with tactical movement of counters on a board. I had read some reviews but none had triggered a ‘must buy this’ response. After playing it, I know why. In short, it’s half a wargame and half a eurogame. So, it doesn’t fully satisfy on either account. There are a lot of cool ideas, but I won’t be rushing to play it again.

Strategy & Tactics 48

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Front cover of Strategy & Tactics 48 featuring an A4-D Skyhawk plane in front of USS Bainbridge and USS Long Beach in the background.

Date of publication (as given): January/February 1975

Context

  • January 1975: John Ehrlichman, John Mitchell, and Robert Mardian are convicted of Watergate crimes. The Pittsburgh Steelers beat Minnesota Vikings 16-6 in Super Bowl IX at Tulane Stadium, New Orleans. The musical Over Here! by Richard and Robert Sherman closes at the Shubert Theatre in New York City after 341 performances.
  • February 1975: Billy Herman, Earl Averill, and Bucky Harris are inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Edward Heath is beaten by Margaret Thatcher in the leadership contest for the British Conservative Party. Linda Ronstadt tops both the US singles chart (You’re No Good) and the US album chart (Heart Like A Wheel).

Game Included

Sixth Fleet by James F. Dunnigan is an operational level game about naval warfare in the Mediterranean Sea in a hypothetical scenario in which the Cold War goes hot in the late 1970s, pitting the forces of the NATO Alliance against those of the Soviet Union.

For more information about the game, see here.

Articles

  • Outgoing Mail — editors

Ever since we’ve been conducting Feedback surveys, we have found about 1% of our subscribers are women. Additionally, from time to time, we have had women gamers come by SPI. Usually just to buy games. In addition, one of our female staff members is a gamer. There are any number of reasons put forward as to why the composition of historical gamers is 99% male and 1% female. We would like to hear the viewpoint of the women gamers. We appreciate hearing from women gamers, either in writing or, if you’re in the New York area, in person. Since the subject matter of historical games affects all people, male and female, we would like to explore ways in which we can make historical gaming more accessible to women.

  • Sixth Fleet; US/Soviet Naval Operations in the Mediterranean in the 1970’s — David C. Isby and James F. Dunnigan

One thing that is certain about any future naval struggle in the Mediterranean is that the main destroyer of ships will not be other ships, but aircraft. As in the Second World War, ship-to-ship combat will only take place when environmental or tactical conditions prevent one side from placing aircraft in the area. The fact that airpower controls the seas was demonstrated in 1939-1945 and it is even more decisive today.

  • Global War; The War against Germany and Japan 1939-1945 — Martin Campion

There is no telling what Germany might have produced if it had not been for the Allied strategic bombing campaign. Speer guessed that, while the damage done by bombing in 1943 was nil, the loss in 1944 was in the neighborhood of 30 to 40%. In spite of this, while the Allied bombers wrecked more and more factories, German war production went up. In July, 1944, when nearly 100,000 tons of bombs were dropped on German-held territory by Allied strategic bombers, German war production hit its peak at a level that was more than three times the rate of production in 1941. Even at the end of 1944, armaments production was still at a level higher than it had been at the beginning of the same year. Strategic bombing dealt a death blow to the Geramn war effort, not by destroying the ability to produce weapons, but by wrecking Germany’s transportation system and ability to produce synthetic oil. So, the tanks and planes that were still coming out of the factories at the end of 1944 could not be delivered to the troops and could not be run very much anyway.

  • SPI 1974 Annual Report
  • Briefings — Short reviews of new games and books

SPI Games Advertised

On a Personal Note

This issue was the first advert for the PRESTAGS (pre-seventeenth century tactical game) series: Chariot, Spartan, Legion, Viking, and Yeoman. I cannot remember why, but this generated no interest with me. Like 95% of the times when I decided to pass on a game, it was a mistake.

Wolfpack

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Wolfpack is a solitaire game in which the player takes the role of the WW2 Germans trying to have their U-boats sink as much Allied merchant shipping in the North Atlantic as possible. Despite the game’s subtitle – Submarine Warfare in the North Atlantic, 1942-44 – the four scenarios provided cover February, March, April and May all in 1943.

The game, designed by James F. Dunnigan, is a high-level, low-complexity treatment of the subject, much of the action being abstracted, though it does enough to reflect some of the real-life challenges and decision making. It was published with S&T 47.

Scale

Each game turn is 24 hours, each hex is 43 nautical miles, and each counter represents individual U-boats or packs of U-boats, a convoy, a group of escort ships, or an unknown number of aircraft. Each scenario is 15 game turns. The game map displays part of the North Atlantic from Britain to Newfoundland.

The Wolfpack map.

Sequence of Play

Convoy Initial Placement

You put the next convoy on the map. Convoys appear in numerical order, alternating from eastern to western-bound, and with a hidden escort. The escort may be a dummy or a real one with a combat strength from 1 to 3.

Weather Phase

In this phase, existing foggy weather is removed, then existing storms randomly move on the map. Convoys that are touched by a storm may straggle making them more vulnerable to U-boat attack. You also randomly determine whether another storm or fogged-in-zone appears.

Air Phase

First, you allocate air units as escort to qualifying convoys. Then you conduct searches for U-boats with remaining air units. Air units may then attack any U-boats they have found. These procedures are programmed into the rules so you cannot cheat the system.

Naval Phase

In this phase, you move each convoy according to a random movement procedure. You may find that a juicy target has moved in a most inconvenient direction! Convoys will move to avoid U-boats spotted in the Air phase. Also in this phase, escorts may search for and attack U-boats they find and U-boats may try and locate convoys that enter one of their search zones. A single U-boat has a single-hex search zone. A wolfpack has a three-hex search zone. If the search turns up a dummy, that convoy is removed from the map.

U-Boat Operations Phase

First, you may freely organize your U-boats that are stacked. A single U-boat has a combat strength of 1 and 8 movement points. A pack of 6 U-boats has a combat strength of 7 and 6 movement points. A pack of 12 U-boats has a combat strength of 15 and 6 movement points, and so on. A pack of 30 U-boats has a combat strength of 40, but only 4 movement points. In this way, the game models the clash between concentration – good for combat, but reducing search capability – and dispersal – good for widening the search, but reducing combat ability.

A bundle of U-boat counters from the game Wolfpack.

Next, you may move your U-boats. If there’s a spotted convoy, you need to move adjacent to be able to attack it. On the other hand, you might try and put your U-boats where you anticipate convoys may sail so you can try and spot them and make them targets.

Combat Phase

Here, U-boats may attack adjacent located convoys. Escorts get to counterattack. Finally straggling – which comes in 2 strengths – is reduced from 2 to 1 or 1 to none.

Game Turn Indication Phase

The almost universal administrative requirement to move on the game turn counter!

Game Play

The first thing to note is that I had no problem with the rules. Indeed, a search for errata was unsuccessful. It appears that SPI learned some lessons from the Fall of Rome game.

The second thing worthy of comment is that the game is easy to play. There are one or two details that are hidden away – like the effects of straggling – which would have been best added to the tables printed on the map. However, this minor issue aside, the game flows well. The sequence of play is straightforward and the game mechanics are logical, well-explained, and easy to do. After the first couple of turns I rarely had to go back to the rule book.

Close up of some convoys and U-boats on the Wolfpack map.

It plays quite quickly though this is dependent on how active you are with your U-boats. For example, if you have widely dispersed your forces and there are lots of searches to do, things will take longer. I finished some game turns in under 10 minutes and I think the longest was about double that.

I managed a German Substantive Victory in my game. This suggests it is too easy to win. However, I wouldn’t take a single game experience as definitive. Further, for some strange reason, I seemed to remember some of the tips and tricks I discovered all those years ago that helped maximize my score. This doesn’t always happen!

Be warned that this game has a lot of luck. You can have a good search result only to find the convoy is a dummy. You can mass your U-boats for an attack only to roll poorly and squander the opportunity. And, as mentioned above, convoys don’t always go where you expect them to.

History

As a high-level look at the topic, the game does a reasonable job of imparting some useful historical patterns. For example, it quickly becomes apparent how important airpower was. Also, weather is a fickle beast that can make convoys more vulnerable but also slow down your U-boats and make discovery harder. The whole convoy movement seems a fiction as in reality the convoys had a route that they followed and it didn’t typically include sudden drastic changes of direction as may occur in the game. The abstraction seems to be design for effect and if you suspend your disbelief a little it makes sense. The game’s optional rules give you added insight to some of the key elements of the historical campaign.

Overall

The physical components are fine: the map and counters are clear and the rules are well done. Given the limitations in place, it’s a fine looking game.

It was fun playing Wolfpack. It wasn’t the toughest challenge, but it was quite quick and provided decent entrtainment. It’s held up reasonably well. It’s not a game you absolutely have to play, but if you get the opportunity it probably deserves some of your time. If you do try it, check out the supporting article in S&T 47 first.

Strategy & Tactics 47

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Cover of issue 47 of S&T magazine with an image of the tower of a WW2 German submarine on the surface, with two officers using binoculars

Date of publication (as given): November/December 1974

Context

  • November 1974: Lord Lucan disappears, never to be seen again. The John Lennon single Whatever Gets You Through the Night goes to #1 in the USA. MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn suspends George Steinbrenner (New York Yankees owner) for two years after his conviction for illegal contributions to political campaigns.
  • December 1974: Jean-Paul Sartre visits Andreas Baader (Baader–Meinhof Gang leader) in prison. The Towering Inferno movie, starring Paul Newman and Steve McQueen, is released. Australian Evonne Goolagong Cawley beats Martina Navratilova of Czechoslovakia 6-3, 6-2 at the Australian Open Women’s Tennis to retain her title.

Game Included

Wolfpack by James F. Dunnigan is a solitaire game about the submarine campaign in the North Atlantic from 1942-44. The player, as the German U-boat commander, is trying to sink the maximum number of Allied merchant ships while trying to conserve the U-boat forces.

For my take on the game, see here.

For more information about the game, see here.

Articles

  • Outgoing Mail – editors

Coming:… in S$T 50, a game called Twentieth Century…The exact design parameters for The Twentieth Century game are still up in the air. In all probabibility, it will be a two-player game with a Multi-Player option. We have a rather novel game system in mind, but, since nothing is firm yet, we will wait until the next issue of S&T to give further details.

  • Wolfpack; The German Submarine War in the Atlantic, 1939-43 – Frank Davis

With a little help from their Italian allies, the Germans lost over 800 submarines during the six year war against Allied shipping. About 15,000 tons of Allied shipping was sunk for each U-boat lost. This is approximately two merhcant ships lost for every U-boat lost. While the Allies were able to absorb such losses, the U-boat losses proved too severe for the Germans.

  • World War 3; Potential for Conflict in the 70s – Stephen B. Patrick

…the Middle East. Here we have everybody else in the area arrayed against Israel. Israel easily outnumbers (in terms of ground combat strength) her immediate neighbors and enemies, Egypt, Syria and Jordan. The element that gives Israel a decisive edge is the qualitative superiority of her soldiers and their equipment, particularly tanks and aircraft. While the main confrontation is between Israel and all of the other Middle Eastern and North African states, one must not forget that between these states there are also long standing animosities which have only been temporarily put aside due to the confrontation with Israel. Once the Israeli issue has been settled, it is entirely likely that certain Middle Eastern and North African nations will turn their armed forces on each other to settle old (or new) grievances.

  • Footnotes – everybody
  • Sackson on Games – Sid Sackson

SPI Games Advertised

On a Personal Note

The Sackson on Games article featured some games newly introduced to the USA – including Election, and The Game of Nations – which I had been playing extensively and enthusiastically before starting my S&T subscription. After then, I barely played them again.

Back to the East

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For as long as I have been gaming – and that’s a long time – the WW2 campaign in the east has been one of my favorites to refight. I have a Battalion Combat Series game (Inflection Point – The Battle for Kalach and the Battle of Chir) in the ‘to-be-played’ pile, but it’s a more complex undertaking than I was in the mood for. This meant that a purchase from my recent UK trip, Battles in the East 4: Mius River and Vitebsk, designed by Antony Birkett and produced by Decision Games, touted as part of an accessible game series, was more suitable. And so, it’s now on the table.

Front cover of the Battles in the East 4 box, showing advancing German armor.

Each hex is 5-8km, each turn is 2-3 days, and units are typically regiments, brigades, or divisions. The system is a modern version of PanzeGruppe Guderian and similar games, but with a very neat supply system at its core. In essence, your units only work at full strength when in attack supply. This comes from your HQ units, and – varying from scenario to scenario and turn to turn – is a huge influence on the campaign.

For example, in the Mius River battle, in turns 1-5 the Germans may only have one HQ (of their choice) in what’s called Attack Supply (the best condition) and in turns 6-10, they may have 2 SS Panzer Corps HQ plus any one other HQ in Attack Supply. The Soviets have 5 Shock Army in Attack Supply in turns 1-3, 28 Army in turns 2-3, and 2 Guard Army in 2-4. After turn 4, no Soviet HQ are in Attack Supply. This means the Soviets have to make hay while the sun shines in the early turns and the Germans have to recover their lost ground in the later turns.

While the supply system is simple, it achieves much of what more complex supply systems try to do with far fewer rules and overhead. I like it a lot. It’s not perfect, but it works. Further, you can see how more subtle variations might be utilized in different designs. For example, there might be a game where each side, at the start of the game, has to predesignate which of its HQs are in Attack Supply in which turns. A player might be allowed to change his plan part way through the game, but at a cost in supply availability, victory points, or something else. As another wtist, the rules might limit each HQ to only being in Attack Supply for a limited number of consecutive game turns, reflecting unit fatigue. And so on.

The rest of the mechanics are straightforward: odds-based combat with shifts to reflect terrain and unit integrity (bonuses for keeping formations intact) as well as armor and anti-tank capabilities, leadership, and artillery support.

The physical production standards are good. It has one double-sided, mounted map with excellent graphics, a rulebook printed in color, decent backprinted counters, and play aid charts and tables. The rules don’t seem to have any major holes, though given this is the fourth outing, that’s as it should be. I found two small pieces of errata in the Mius River setup. One was an obvious typo and the other was an extra unit that had been omitted from the setup list.

So, a very playable game, at least superficially. Now I’m going to give it a go and see how it turns out in reality.

Flying Dutchmen

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I’m on an American Civil War trip, gaming wise.

I spent some time fiddling around – and largely enjoying – Gettysburg: The First Day, designed by Steve Carey and published by Revolution Games. That game uses the Blind Swords system, meaning formations are activated by chit draws and some of these trigger random events that the players can use to interfere with each side’s plans.

There’s a lot to like: the rules are refreshingly short, the physical production is outstanding, and the game plays quickly enough. The two areas that give me cause for concern are (a) how the players are able to game the random events by sometimes deciding when and where fate strikes the enemy; and (b) how each brigade is automatically able to choose its orders every turn. I don’t know an easy way to fix these, so I need to have a think.

While pondering, I moved on to Last Chance for Victory, the massive game designed by the late Dean Essig and published by MMP about the complete battle of Gettysburg. There’s also a lot to like here: the system – called Line of Battle, now at version 2.0 – has a ton of detail, but once learned goes quite quickly. There are 20+ scenarios in the box ranging from small introductory encounters to teach you the basics of fire and movement, to multi-map campaign scenarios of the whole battle. What’s especially nice is that there are separate 1st day and 2nd/3rd day maps that mean if you are short of space you can still have a go at the bigger scenarios.

The physical production standards here are also good, albeit with one annoying defect: the maps faithfully (I assume) portray the slopes and elevation changes of the battlefield, with each height level represented by a different color. There is a color key, but it does not quite match the on-map colors. Sometimes, it’s hard to work out what level units are on, and what level intervening terrain is. The Blind Swords game by Revolution mentioned above does this much better with the simple addition of a number matching the height on parts of the slope line. It also doesn’t help that the line of sight rules are less than crystal clear. I think I am doing line of sight correctly, but I’m not sure…

Previously I have played the training scenario – Dogs of War – to start me off and then got stuck into the first day of the battle as it begins small and grows and the situation remains – despite me having gamed this situation hundreds of times in different systems – one of my favorites. I have read and reread Pfanz (Gettysburg: The First Day), Martin (Gettysburg July 1) and Gottfried (The Maps of Gettysburg) and am probably nowhere near a complete understanding of what happened all those years ago.

Fighting the first day of the battle has its advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, you get to see the command system work because things will never go according to plan. However, to maintain a historical encounter, there are quite a few special rules to add to your load. It’s bearable, but if you prefer to avoid these, tackle the second or third day scenarios.

This time around, I redid the Dogs of War scenario to make sure I had the basics well assimilated, then decided to try the Flying Dutchmen scenario which deals with the CSA attack on 11th Corps north of Gettysburg town. The victory conditions demand that within the seven turns the CSA break through the Union defenses and exit 45 strength points of units from the brigades of Hays and Gordon. Breaking through is straightforward enough – the CSA have superior numbers and quality – but doing so fast enough and with low casualties is very challenging. It’s fun for the CSA player whose entertainment includes getting to use some cool sharpshooter units and beating up many low-morale Union units. The Union player has to skilfully defend, knowing that it’s unlikely the line will hold.

Action from the Flying Dutchmen scenario as the brigades of Hays and Gordon attack the Union lines.
Hoke has taken Blocher’s Knoll while Hays and Gordon try to force a final breakthrough. Doles has departed, wounded.

I have played it through to a completion twice, but have yet to get a CSA win. The last occasion, I was a single strength point short of victory. Damn! I may try again.

One of the reasons I have this on the table is that there’s a version 3.0 of the Line of Battle system on the way and I wanted to remind myself of the strengths and weaknesses of the system. I am intrigued to see what will change. Meantime, if serious ACW tactical-level gaming is your thing, I recommend the system wholeheartedly.

Strategy & Tactics 46

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Cover of S&T 46 with a mix of military unit symbols and soldiers.

Date of publication (as given): September/October 1974

Context

  • September 1974: first showing of The Rockford Files on NBC-TV. General Francisco da Costa Gomes succeeds General António de Spínola as President of Portugal. Scientists first report that freon gases from aerosol sprays are destroying the ozone layer.
  • October 1974: Frank Robinson becomes MLB’s first African-American manager, signing as player-manager for the Cleveland Indians. The Guildford pub bombing by the IRA leaves five dead and 65 injured. The Labour Party, led by Harold Wilson, wins the UK general election.

Game Included

Combined Arms by James F. Dunnigan is a game about combined arms land warfare from 1939-1970s. Each turn is an hour, each hex is 300m and units are companies and battalions. There are six scenarios running from Defense of the Vistula Bridges (1939) to the Battle of the Chinese Farm (1973).

For more information about the game, see here.

Articles

  • Combined Arms; Combat Operations in the 20th Century – Stephen B. Patrick

Because of the need to be centrally located in order to take action, this meant that battalion commanders would often not see any of the fighting in a critical sector – the crisis would often be over for better or worse by the time he arrived. Consequently, reliance on radio messages became the rule rather than the exception.

  • Patrol; Modern Infantry Tactics, 1914-1974 – David C. Isby

In summation, one can say that the essence of infantry tactics is: stay under cover, dig in whenever possible, combine fire and movement to make effective use of terrain, advance from cover to cover. If possible, surprise the enemy, hit him where he is weakest, and shoot him in such a way that he cannot shoot you back.

  • Outgoing Mail – editors

Last year, more than half the historical games sold in this country were SPI games. In the first 6 months of 1974, we sold over 150,000 games. In each of the last three years, we have published more new games than were published by all other historical game companies combined in the past ten years.

  • Sackson on Games – Sid Sackson
  • Footnotes – everybody
  • Player’s Notes – Redmond A. Simonsen and John Michael Young

SPI Games Advertised

Life Behind Bars

From Outgoing Mail, page 45:

We also received an order from a prison administration a while back. They wanted a copy of Breakout & Pursuit. The request was legitimate, we sent off the game, but never heard what their reaction to it was, or in fact, why they wanted that particular game.

On a Personal Note

The information about SPI sales (see Outgoing Mail quote above) astonished me. The USA had to be full of gamers!

The game in this issue disappointed me. It may have been the decision to use generic counters – for example “Light Armor” units had different ratings (not printed on the counters) according to the scenario – or that I was growing tired of the cumulative disruption (D1, D2, D3, etc.) combat results system. However, over the years, it was also one of the few games I kept thinking about going back to.

The Moves advert on the back page of S&T 46 won me over. My subscription to that magazine followed shortly.