Philipp Klarmann
Singapore
Singapore
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This game is about the
Palestine-Arab front of WWI in all its glory.
The absolutely substandard counters, hard to read and butt-ugly are
not detracting from the excellent work done on the map. The downside
again are the tables on the map which surprise with some of the most
cryptic descriptions for the gameturn track ever (CWRC or something
stands for the CP's Western Replacement Points). The map is divided by
a thin dotted line into the Western and Eastern theater of operations.
This somewhat surprising design idea helps with the most interesting
scenario in the game, the Race for Damascus which is played by both
players taking over the CP role on one half and the Allied on the
other. As Damascus is on the Northernmost edge of the map, it's quite
an interesting idea and it works better than just having two players
slog it out on the same sides.
The game centers around victory points which are given only for
certain towns and cities and only if they are physically occupied.
This almost forced a restart for us as we had not observed that rule
wondering about the many garrisons. However, we could easily fix it.
The game has the famous Miranda Random Events tables which have one
downside: the beginning of the Arab revolt is also random. This means,
the Eastern theater sees practically no action till then and the event
can fire early or rather late. One should always use the rule that the
latest start date is the historical one (which works like a charm).
Some randomness comes in again as the first batch of Arabs arrive via
dice roll and boxcars make the life for the Eastern CP rather
unpleasant (as happened in our game).
The game has sticky ZOCs which limit movement considerably,
disengagement from ZOC means halfed movement, so watch your flanks.
The CRT has again some real oddities and favours the attacker quite a
bit especially if he has flanked the defender (which is difficult to
avoid on the Eastern map).
So, for 1915, the Turks make their futile attempt to cross the Suez or
rather hold back. Then the Allies arrive in force and slowly push for
the North. Gameplay in the East is much more fluid where useless
Turkish garrisons are picked up one by one. A real battle rarely
happens. One must mention that being out of supply is no big deal at
all, a bit odd for this theatre. It works surprisingly well as supply
never really is a problem in the West, where the Allies push their
railroad methodically each of the quasi-seasonal turns.
Come 1917, the things are heating up as both sides have significant
firepower in the West and the Eastern Arabs approach the towns before
Damascus. The victory points force the players to keep garrisons,
again that works well especially in the East.
So, in total, a good 20 turns for a full campaign game, playable in
one long sitting or two evenings. The game lends itself rather well
for solitaire gaming and works especially well in the Race for
Damascus scenario.
Thumbs up.
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