Joao Lima
Scotland
Edinburgh
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Introductions
A bit about me. I've been playing wargames since around 20 years ago. I went through the boardgaming phase, and for as much as I enjoyed it, lack of opponents drove me to PC wargames. I became quite good at it, so much in fact that I now design PC tactical wargames for a well known publisher, with 2 already published and some in the works.
For all of this, I started to feel I was getting little return from it. The enjoyment of PC wargames became less and less. I tried VASSAL, but it somehow felt as the worst of both worlds, the alienation and distance of PC games, coupled with the inability to do automatic bookkeeping and rules enforcement of boardgames. So that also did not work. PC wargames meanwhile, through bugs and poor AI were quickly driving me away.
After a long period I decided to give a shot to wargames in paper again. I would also do this solo. I wanted the game to be a 2 player game, that I could see a way of soloing. This was on purpose since, if I could grab a wargame without chit-pulling and special solo mechanisms and make it work, a whole new world would open up. I decided on The Destruction of Army Group Center and it proved to be an exciting and great game. To follow it, I went with S&T's 202, Invasion Taipei. In the meanwhile a myriad of games were played, and here we are for the review of one of them.
Components
The map is printed in a somewhat thin matte paper, with each map occupying half a page. The hexes are of a good size for the counters supplied. The map contains turn markers, which unfortunately are placed in such a way that two players sitting opposite each other are not able to both read them without moving around the table. Further to that, there’s a terrain effects chart that is sprawled across the middle of the map. This is a bit of an oversight as it is positioned in such a way that you cannot fold the map in half to play each of the games without obscuring half the table. Even worst, some tables are in the magazine, some are in the map. (Or I think they were in the magazine, as my second hand copy came with a sheet printed in yellow cardstock that contains the CRT... and part of the rules!!!! Complete with part of the counter errata)
The counters are typical at the time of print They are not the big size well illustrated type that some of the newer wargames have. There is A LOT of errata to the counters of both games. From wrong setup hexes, to a lack of unit type information. The amount of errata makes one wonder what the heck happened at production stage.
Rules
The rules are derived of PanzerGruppe Guderian’s rules. The base rules are simple and straightofroward, with the special rules for each game adding a bit of chrome and also simulating campaign specific conditions.
At the start of the general rules there is a very nice summary of what happens on each segment of each turn, this could easily be adopted by more publishers. Of course the specific rules then go and alter these segments. There’s nothing remarkable about the rules, other than the use of hidden capabilities for the Soviet units, but even that is not so much of a feature as they are mostly used for the reinforcements. Even so, they provide a neat nuance.
As with the counters, the specific rules come filled with errata, and with a bit of a guesswork as the reinforcement schedule for the Soviets in Rostov points to inexistent entry points. The rules also have a step breakdown for German units, but some of the unit counters have different values than the example ones, with no reference in the rules to what should be done when they are reduced in steps.
Overall, simple enough, a bit of guesswork required, and I would never play this with a rules lawyer.
Gameplay
This was a solo game. To make things more interesting , I set out some ground rules for the German units. As an example, in Rostov they were following the general concept of what their historical counter-parts did.
With regards to Rostov, the game progressed fairly as per the historical situation, and as a Soviet I did feel some anxiety as the Germans approached Rostov and some of my reinforcements melted into smoke on contact with the German forces. In the end, the turn of the weather with consequent effect on German supplies, and my tenacious tactical counter-attacks won the day for the Soviets. It was good fun and engaging to the end.
Kiev was substantially different. Whilst I understand it’s an odd situation to simulate, the game never felt engaging, nor historical, nor even interesting. Groups of Soviet reinforcements threw themselves at the Germans trying to pick up easy VP’s, since there was little reason to follow the historical Soviet decision. On the hand, there was no reason for the Germans to create a pocket, since they would gain nothing from it, instead it was preferable to hold the cities and towns.
Final conclusion
Whilst I can recommend Rostov, I cannot really say the same from Kiev. Specially as I feel the victory conditions detract from the game. The Germans get points for locations, no incentive at all to pocket huge amounts of Soviet troops, which was after all one of the biggest objectives of the Germans in the campaign. Worst, the Soviets get points for locations and for destroying German units. A German panzer division is worth the same as Kiev itself. The outcome is that, due to the special rules preventing Soviet units from moving East after a certain turn, the Soviet should pack his reinforcement troops close to the entry hexes, and in the later stages move them all west (allowed by the rules) and try to isolate a couple of German motorized and panzer divisions in the process. Not really something I found particularly engaging...
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Posted Mon Nov 14, 2011 1:55 pm