If ever three souls were fated to be mated, they are Rob Markham, 3W and the Crimean War. The Crimean War, justly or unjustly, the Poster Boy for Military Befuddlement and Mismanagement, could have no finer designer-publisher team to represent it. Rob Markham's recreation of the The Alma, the first big battle of the war (1855), is such a perfect recreation of the metaphysical aspects of this almost totally snafu-ed battle, that one almost thinks he purposely set out to provide the players with as much confusion and ineptitude as riddled the conduct of the actual engagement. One of the classic works on the war is Cecil Woodham-Smith's "The Reason Why", a question one asks continually as he attempts to play this game. Start with the maps. Why, one asks, do we need two maps to simulate this battle? … especially when half the map surface is totally unused. This is a battle that could easily - and more serendipitously - have been done on one map, with a scale of 100 yards, instead of the somewhat unnecessary 75 we get here. True, we do get a certain sense of spaciousness, but not everyone has that large a space. And it would have saved a few rubles for the buying public. The maps themselves are pleasant, if a bit pastel. Joe Youst's style is interesting and detail-oriented. However, his choice of colors needs some adjusting, it is not that easy to tell a road from a trail, and it doesn't help that some of the elevation levels (there are ten) use pretty much the same shade. Added to that is the usual 3W-confusion of what exactly we have here. There are several (important) places where there is a one-elevation change that includes a Steep Slope hexside. However, there are several other locations - again, strategically important - in which a two-elevation change gets no such slope hexside. Is this is mistake? Or is it purposeful, in which case it should be mentioned, if only to avoid annoying questions such as we are now asking. The terrain costs and penalties themselves are, indeed, most humorous. The Terrain Chart contains seven, individual lines for Clear Terrain: Clear Terrain, Level 1, Level 2, etc. There is absolutely NO difference between the Clear terrain in any of the first 7 levels. Yet we do get seven different lines. Wonder what the "reason" for THAT was? Even more non-elucidating is the cost for crossing The Alma. The Alma was a fairly formidable barrier for the Brits and the French, best crossed at the 1 or 2 bridges still left standing. It created havoc with the allied formations, most of which were in a sorry state after wading across. Not in this game, though. There is no cost in disruption or disorder or any such penalty. It simply takes the allies a bit more time to get across, a cost that has virtually no impact on the game, as the defending Russians are on the heights, quite a distance from the river, and, once across, there is plenty of time for the allies to reach the enemy. Knowing this, the allied player does not hesitate to send his brigades across at almost any location. Yet another "why", is why the counters were colored in shades reminiscent of a box of Jolly Rangers; heavy on the fruity look. I mean, the Brits were in bright red for the festivities; why do they show up here in a shade best described as Dark Tangerine … or maybe Mango. As for the French, they must have dipped into the Avalon Hill paint closet, because they're a rather froo-frooish purple. Why not ye olde, time-honored Blue for the Gallic contingent? It's all quite colorful, but with much the same effect you achieve by turning the "color" dial on your TV all the way to the left. System-wise, Alma is the wargame version of "One from Column 'A', Two from column 'B'". Rob had taken parts of his R&R system, onto which he has grafted several ideas from his died-aborning Blood & Iron ouevre. The result, in general terms, is not unpleasant, although it is somewhat unnerving to use a Command System for a mid-19th century battle that one has been using Down Through the Ages, as it were. I'm sorry, folks, but what applies to The Crusades does not apply almost a millennium later. Then again, in does make a lot more sense in this era than it does for a bunch of Kill or Die knights. Alma does incorporate the somewhat generic, chit-pull randomizer for the sequence of play that Rob gave us for R&R III, et seq. This is probably the best aspect of the game for, in a rather weird way - the Russians (or any player, for that matter) can end the turn by passing on two consecutive chit draws, a somewhat "gamey" bit that still gives the Ruskie, who is trying to buy time anyway, more food for thought than most Russian commanders of the era ever dined out on - it manages to hobble the allies so that the game does proceed with the same jerkiness of command that actually occurred. On the "minus" side of the ledger is the fact that there are no rules that really create the confusion among, and lack of cooperation between, the French and the British, problems that exacerbated their inability to blow away a badly lead and poorly deployed Russian army. When a player pulls one of his chits he may either Move or Fight with any one of his commands. Throw into this a Reserve Phase, activated by ratings + dieroll, which add extra abilities for same at the end of the turn. I'm not sure what this simulates, but it is a nice, play-oriented rule. Combat units are rated A-D, much the same as in Blood & Iron, with each unit dierolling upon initial use to see just how effective it is going to be. Although somewhat inelegant - Rob opts for record-keeping here, rather than using info markers - it is, like its counter-part with XTR's use of "unknown" counters, a nice bit of uncertainty for the players. I was somewhat nonplussed, though, to read that you do the same sort of thing for the artillery, a mechanic I suppose reflects crew capability. I'm not quite sure crew capability varied quite so widely and wildly, though, and the application of "roll-for-strength" to batteries felt most artificial. That the Russians are, for the most part, so bad that the few good dierolls they do get are not going to help much is frustrating, but this is a bad lot. And their basically poor performance level is not helped by what is the game's severest drawback, a Black Hole of Design so dark that we spent an inordinate amount of time trying, in vain, to find the rule that corrected it. In a game in which one player must depend on his position to provide a defensive advantage, there is NO DEFENSIVE OR RETURN FIRE! The player must rely on his Kreskinesque ability to pull chits to engage in any sort of defensive actions, and such capability arrives so randomly that it is possible he may never get it at all. In a game on an era where the killing capabilities of small-arms were starting to swing the balance of battle to the side of the Defender, you have no mechanic to recreate such capability. And this failure, more than anything else, is what will relegate Alma to the Dustbin of Forgotten Games. That's too bad, as, unlike most 3W products, Alma's rules are fairly clear, and play proceeds smoothly. The Frogs and the Twits splash across the Alma in somewhat desultory fashion, their Turkish allies pretty much standing around doing nothing, and then struggle up the heights … where they proceed to beat the borscht out of the Russians. All the Czar's troops can do is pray they pull two chits in a row and bring a swift end to the turn. If they don't, the allies simply note which Russian commands are finished for the turn and then attack them with impunity. The Russians can't defend themselves - there's no rule for doing such - so they just stand there like a punch-drunk boxer, getting their brains bashed. Rob, in his Designer's Notes, says that Alma "… was designed to be played and replayed." Just like they called the overweight gambler, Rob … Fat Chance. I can see no Reason Why for either of such objectives to be satisfied. CAPSULE COMMENTS Graphic Presentation: Pleasant but pastel. Terrain usage and its chart are very weird. Playability: Pretty good; system is accessible, rules fairly clear. Replayability: Unfortunately, just because the game is easy to play doesn't make it much fun to do so. Hamstrung by system inadequacies and anachronisms. Wristage: Acceptable. Creativity: If you think ordering Chinese take-out can be creative, then Alma is creative. Historicity: Not bad … actually, fairly good. Comparisons: I'd still opt for SPI's old Crimean War Quad, even if the old Igo-Hugo is not as much fun as Rob's chit-pull system. Forget Joe Miranda's "Inkerman". Overall: Very little Reason Why to buy this. Disappointing. from 3W 2 22" x 34" maps, 300 counters, 5 Play and Chart Sheets, Rules Book; boxed. 3W Games, somewhere in California … but who knows these days. c. $32 Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. II # 14 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