Post by Whiterook on May 5, 2024 11:30:06 GMT -5
Well, the big difference I would say is, not festooned with heavy forests…so, movement is relatively unhindered; the Rhine and river canals are the biggest hinderance, of there are not bridges to cross them, which needing to be adjacent the Rhine before you can cross at a heavy movement cost, which is what makes movement down near Mulhouse a bitch and a half! The second terrain. Feature tha n can be tough on the allies is, the Germans in the West Wall…amazing defensive and movement help in that.
So moving around the battlefield otherwise, is pretty straightforward, but the combatants are densely packed all along the original front line… I would say that the way the setup is conducted, it’s going to be all mashed up along that line, with the Germans trying to hold the line and the Allies trying to breakthrough. 90% of the troops on the German side have setup hex numbers on the counters, with the other small portion of Germans free to be placed anywhere, which is generally to plug holes in the frontline. The Americans and French are all predetermined.
The real overall mechanic in the game is deciding (as the Germans) whether to head for the exit window at the bottom of the map (east), or the three supply depots, or the four of eight allied cities; the Allies either had west for the top of the map, which is near impossible (I haven;t been able to do it in five games played!), or grab a specific city behind the frontlines. This Objective-style game play is pretty darned challenging!
The Germans have the use of “Heavies”, which is a basic representation of high powered, mass artillery witching the divisions (not off board), and those (presenting a column shift on the Combat Results Table (CRT)) can be the missing edge in any one chosen unit on unit(s) battle…single use and a limited number, they can only be used when units are on a road, which makes them a little more difficult to use. I’ve never played a game with that mechanic and I look at it as an oddball mechanic that I like. I’m not sure how quickly heavy artillery can be sped to any one battle zone, but that would be the reason they can only be used on a. Road, right? (…took me a little bit to figure out that reasoning
).Big ‘ol Mortar teams, as in not a couple small smooth bore mortar teams, but rather a heavy concentration of said, can be uses for a similar CRT column shift, but again, a limited number (though more counters than the Heavies), and having to be used on Game Turn 1 only, is another oddball mechanic, which I again, like! Those can be used anywhere, but I haven’t rationalized how they get to where I place them… they must run like the Bejezzus cross country!
Movement mechanics are pretty standard… Movement Point costs upon a battlefield quantified by Terrain Effects costs. Buuuuut, there are some twists that caught me off guard, the big line being a MP cost of 2 for clear terrain! …I wasted a whole first play screwing that up for half the game! It does prove out though, as the time of year and countryside was difficult to move through. Zone of Control (ZOC) is an interesting mechanic, as it affects movement in enemy (EZOC) adjacency hexes, as well as tracing lines of Supply, which can’t penetrate an EZOC unless you have a friendly in any said EZOC hex. It took me a bit to factor that all in. As far as tracing a line of supply from any given unit (which you have to do before you can move or fight with any unit, it goes from the unit all the way back to your edge of the maps’ rear echelon area… and the only way to cut supply for a unit(s) is to surround them entirely… that took a bit to figure out too, and I’m still not comfortable with is, as it becomes tedious.
Combat is straight forward and follows a formula: Add Combat Strength; add defenders’ Defenive strength and subtract from attackers sum; add modifiers (CRT column shift totals); cross-reference on CRT for result. Pretty simple, really, and once you have the shifts down, it goes fast… I had to make a reference note sheet (4x5) to list Attacker/Defender shift criteria.
A mechanic that is new to me is the Bloodbath! When a BB1 or BB2 results on the CRT, you lose one or two (respectively) units on EACH side! That really culls the heard a lot, as you do end up with those results quite a bit (at least I did).
….those are highlights of the most interesting and impactful mechanics.
As for Alt History, I’ve never been a big enough fan to seek them out regularly, but I have a number of games in that genre and enjoy them… though now that I think of it, there is aa high sci-fi or post apocalyptic theme in them… these real history “what-if’s” are definitely a different breed, but I like them well enough as a deviation from my normal pure history fare.
I have mad respect for Ty Bomba! He is to me, a true historian game designer, a lot moe knowledgeable in history than I am, and that’s saying something (if I may be so bold). There are literally dozens of games from him that I would love to own.