"Command" #24, Czechoslovakia '38 "Strategy & Tactics" #162, Clontarf and Saipan "Schwerpunkt" #1 We usually stay away from magazines sans games - and certainly from "house organs", which are never much more than what they purport to be - but there's a New Boy on the Block, and that, alone, merits a glance. "Schwerpunkt" is Keith Poulter's House Organ for 3W, in which Keith lists himself on the masthead as "Le Fromage Grande [sic and getting sic-er]. Graphically it is quite good; certainly not as glitzily slick as "C3i", but several notches above The Gamers' "Operations" visually, if not intellectually. There is a good balance of text and graphics, and there is a generous use of color. The maps for the von Borries Barbarossa article are much too cluttered, though, to serve as the visual support they are supposed to be. It says much that the article was far clearer in explaining "the picture" than the maps. As for the content, there is a nice mixture of historical background (sans sources), additional scenarios, errata and replays. And then there's the stuff from Keith wherein the reader enters the World of Visual Unreality. It's one thing to wax enthusiastic about one's own output - after all, if you're not going to pump up your own balloon, who will? - but this is waaaaay beyond that. We may all be Peter Pans, playing games, but this stuff is a one-way ticket to Never-Never Land. I think we can start off with this quote: "Of the 28 games we've published in the last 2 years, 17 have been virtually perfect ." Aside from the somewhat oxymoronic implications of the last two words, this statement sent me scurrying through the 3W oeuvre to find even two games that fit this description. Keith has a disturbing tendency to greatly confuse quantity with quality: if the games sell, they must be "good". Velveeta sells, too, Keith but try to find any real fromage in it. It is a given in the industry that you can move 2000+ of almost anything, and the major insight Keith has given all of us is that if you concentrate on "moving the goods", the distributors will comply. The result is that 3W games do take about 30-40% of the in-store, shelf space. This has nothing to do with quality - something the distributors rarely, if ever, question; it reflects the fact that 3W is a factory interested almost entirely on pushing - as opposed to publishing - product. Reminds me of Mr. Bernstein's (Everett Sloane's) comment in "Citizen Kane" when reminded that Charles Foster Kane had "made a lot of money, hadn't he ." Sloane replies, with simple elegance, "It's very easy to make a lot of money if all you want to do is make a lot of money." Then there's Keith's "review" of Frederick the Great, which, with disarming guile, he predicts will walk off with next year's award for best game. (I guess if no one's watching the table, he just might.) OK, this is a "house organ" but name one "house organ" that "reviews" its own games? This is NOT the best way to gain readership confidence; it's more a blatant exercise in disguising advertising as criticism - whether he is right or not. It's like reading a restaurant review by the chef, or having a producer critique his own movie. (Freddy will be reviewed in the Xmas issue, along with the S&T game, Seven Years' War, both which cover the same subject the Battle of the Freddies.) I could slough off both of the above as a mildly humorous, but somewhat less-than charming effort to become one's own Spin Doctor. What I do find most disturbing is the center-piece advertisement for purchasing "stock" in 3W. Passing over the possibly blatant disregard of the federal and industry laws concerning such efforts, some "lowlights" include: Investors receiving what appears to be "the prospectus" after they've sent in their money. A statement that 3W has paid 10% on all shares. I'd like to hear from someone - other than Keith - who has received any of this largesse. There is a not-so-subtle "hint" that, if you don't act fast, they may be "sold out". There is, however, not the slightest hint - as you get from even the most rock-solid company - that you could actually lose money something not unknown in this industry. KP also throws in a money-back guarantee. Calling Jacoby & Meyers . Hey Keith, when was the last shareholder's meeting, hmmm? Talking to yourself doesn't count. Best I can make of this is that what Keith is actually doing is research on a game called "Black Monday", in which players get to simulate the efforts of Jay Gould and Jim Fisk to simply print as many shares of stock as they could sell. Ignoring the ad, if you have and/or play a goodly number of 3W games, "S-Punk" is a good value. But don't send 'em any more money than what the subscription asks for unless you're looking to become a counter in the "South Sea Bubble Quad". On to more pleasant stuff. Looking back over the past year's magazine games, some interesting trends are emerging. While "Command" is still a more focused, slicker production, S&T is starting to steal some of its thunder in at least one aspect. While XTR is content to put out virtually the same game each issue - they're not really identical; they just feel that way - Decision is the company that is trying out "new" stuff, taking a chance. Not all of it works - when does it ever? - and S&T still lacks an interesting, cohesive (or any) philosophy. But I look forward more to see what S&T is coming up with these day than to see to how far XTR can stretch the edge of the Krim envelope. Another disturbing - at least to me - development is "Command's" refusal to publish any form of bibliography or reference source for most of its articles. To wit, #24 contained two, rather interesting, survey articles, one which seemed to cover the entire history of Rome, the other an overview of basic battlefield tactics from Ancient Greece to Napoleon. Whew! That's a lot of stuff and not one source provided. Now, none of the insights therein was particularly new (or revelatory, for that matter). So, from where did they come? Never mind the facile cry of pedantry; what about all those "first time" reader/gamers that "Command" says it's garnering? What if they get interested and want to look a bit deeper? That, alone, is a good enough reason to provide readers with a basic bibliography. It's not as if "Command" refuses to do this sort of thing entirely; the lead article, on Czechoslovakia, 1938, provides a 9-book reference list. And then there's the reference list provided at the end of the S&T #163 article on ACW weapons. It lists four books, all having to do with Nathan Bedford Forrest. Curious. As for the games, it's the usual mixed bag. And with my work schedule demanding far more attention than the two games appeared to deserve, I called on two of our most valued correspondents: Scott Johnson, for Czechoslovakia 1938 , and the ubiquitous, but now otherwise-engaged Carl Gruber, for the somewhat unusual Clontarf/Saipan combo. Czechoslovakia 1938 is "Command's" latest "what-if" wargame, this one on a subject apparently much in demand, if one is to believe the feedback cards. (Ed. Based on my experiences as a ballot stuffer at SPI, I wouldn't!] Designing such a "game" should be easy getting correct data for it is the stumper. Answering XTR's clarion call, though, was Dr. Peter Gryner, who arrived on the sunny shores of San Luis Obispo with his OoB's, fortress data, and design prototype, all backed by impeccable credentials and the rest, as they say, is alternate history. The good doctor had been steeled into action when he saw John Desch's Case Green (S&T #152; reviewed in BROG #5; the two games only barely resemble each other, system-wise or physically). Recoiling in Rumplestilstkin-like horror over what he regarded as a complete work of fantasy, Gryner waded in with his own, rather extensive research. Dr. Gryner grew up in Prague in the late 1930's, and he has returned several times to her now-accessible military archives to obtain his information. I can just see Ty looking at the wealth of information, hitherto unavailable, being handed to him, shaking Dr. Gryner's hand gratefully, and promising him that " the Czech's in the mail!" [Ed. I swear I did not write that.] The research controversy aside, C-38 is a good, albeit unbalanced, game. The German Player will set the pace throughout, and the Czech must display more operational savvy than Marcus Welby to survive. To complicate things right off, the game's historical set-up is strange, to say the least. The Germans are scattered all over the Czech "peninsula", far too diffuse for any concentrated drive, while the Czech set-up appears to have been formulated either by a lunatic or a Sudetan Nazi sympathizer. (Same thing, probably.) Then again, arguing with the volatile Dr. Gryner is a losing proposition; he's the one with the hometown scorecard.There is no optional rule that allows free deployment, but don't let that stop you. Desch seems to have made his up whole cloth; why can't you? "Command" grognards familiar with the Ur-XTR system - Krim - will have no problem digesting C-38's rules. Physically, the game looks like every other "Command" game in the past year or so, which is either "good" or "bad", depending on what gets your wrist rolling. Combat units are divisions, with a few regiments thrown in, along with a Soviet independent army corps. The Czechs also get some belated Russian air assistance; Uncle Joe was none too happy with Adolph's attempt acquisition, but his (assumed) aid came too late, and was far too little. Right from the start, the Czech Player realizes that he's in a World of Hurt. The Germans begin by breaching his unmanned outer ring of fortifications. (Interestingly, most of the Czech units set up outside the forts, which seems insane for a map covered with 164 fortification hexes and only 46 Czech units to go around.) By turn two, the game resembles nothing less than the Oklahoma Land Grab, with counters zipping everywhere across the map to evacuate heavy industry, guard/capture victory-point cities, breach further lines, or shore up those breaches. The Germans must capture enough cities to drive the Czech VP level below 16 (from a game-high start of 45) by the end of turn 7. The Czech Player can augment his Hold On For Dear Life strategy by evacuating industrial infrastructure units, destroying German mech units, and capturing German cities. No easy task, fer sure, but the game has enough replayability built in to encourage players to try unusual strategies. Given Dr. Gryner's research, this is a good "what-if" wargame. "Strategy & Tactics" #162 tries its hand at a little what-if, too but only on the cover, a rather droll drawing of a pack of rabid Vikings disembarking from an LCT. All this to succinctly illustrate yet another one of those Odd Couple Doubleheaders Doc Decision seems to enjoy probably because it costs less to print the maps and counters together. Here we have two "invasion" games, one on the Dark Ages crash-and-basher at Clontarf; the other, the WWII-Pacific island hopper, Saipan. Clontarf covers the 11th century battle, near Dublin, that effectively put an end to the Viking presence in Ireland. It is not really an "invasion" game; rather, it is a battle in which the invaders are finally pushed back into the sea. It's fairly standard, pre-gunpowder fare, with leaders, missile fire, melee and loss recovery. The sequence is Igo-Hugo, but that is interrupted by defensive missile fire. Combat losses flip units, and recovery (sometimes) allows them to re-flip. Leaders are required if units wish to use their full Movement Allowances; they also provide combat drm's. Nothing so new or exotic here that the game cannot be learned and played almost instantly. Unfortunately, Adrian McGrath's Clontarf has all the historical flavor and gaming interest of a bowl of simulated tofu. The set-piece, scrimmage-line nature of the battle offers little to fire up your tactical neurons. The Vikings and their allies are lined up like the Radio City Rockettes, with the sea at their backs and their flanks "anchored" by Dublin and some woods. Across the field from them is an equally geometric line of angry Irishmen; they bear the burden of attack. Given that the Irish cannot go around the flanks, the only tactic is the straightforward, toe-to-toe, basheroo. The Gaels are trying to score points by killing Vikings, while the Viking Player can subtract VP's by evacuating to his longships, with drowning an ever-present risk. The design is clean enough to make it a worthwhile instrument in luring novices into our sinister and arcane brotherhood, but the battle's tactical situation will keep them amused about as long as lunch with an insurance agent. Flipping the magazine's pages we (actually Carl Gruber) come across Saipan, the reincarnation of the system used in S&T's Tarawa (#142). The game features an attractive map and counters, with units representing the maneuver battalions and armor/artillery assets of one US Army and two Marine divisions, plus Japanese infantry battalions and armored regiments. Like Tarawa, Saipan is a solitaire game, with Japanese reactions occurring at the end of each American Action Phase. And just as there was in Tarawa, Saipan starts off with a rules glitch guaranteed to confound the player right off the bat. The player is instructed to place his first game-turn invasion units in the six "beach hexes". Unfortunately, these beach hexes also contain Japanese fortifications which, according to the rules, have ZOC's and must be attacked and destroyed before being entered. Unfortunately, combat occurs after the placement segment. Then again, adjacent to the beach hexes are sea hexes with arrows pointing to each of the six beaches with no further explanation offered. Could these be the invasion landing hexes? Very inscrutable of Decision. Other than this conundrum, the rest of the game plays smoothly enough, revealing, very clearly, what brutal, bloody work it was to clear the island-fortress. You win only if you destroy every single fortification hex by the end of the 13th turn, and the Japanese counterattacks can bring very heavy casualties. Obviously, this sort of exercise is for historians and puzzle-players and for those with patience enough to wait for the errata. Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. II # 11 Table of Contents Back to Berg's Review of Games List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1993 by Richard Berg This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com