After intriguing us with Arctic Storm, then confusing us with 1940, Redux Ritchie has Risen yet again with another snap on WWII, this time in the fertile steppes of Russia: Lost Victory, the 3rd battle of Kharkov. Ritchie’s designs are like all those “chunky soups”: lots of ingredients, very thick, but sometimes far fewer “meat-and-potatoes” than vegetables of dubious origin. With LV, though, Dave does provide us with a hearty, albeit overly rich, meal. The centerpiece of the design is an unorthodox sequence of play. Each turn (turns being 3 days each) is divided into 3 operations phases, one for each player. Within his operation phase, a player may perform the following operations: movement including overruns, rallying disorganized units, bombarding, and combat. However, those operations are not performed in any lock-step sequence; a player is free to conduct operations in whatever order best suits his purpose. For example, to penetrate an enemy line, Friendly Division A might bombard Enemy Division Z to disrupt it and cancel its ZOC, so that Friendly Division B can move past it to reach Town X. Or two or three divisions could start the Ops Phase by attacking a hex to create a gap for a fourth division to move up and overrun an enemy unit 4 hexes past the front line. At any time during the operations phase, a player might conduct an air strike against an enemy unit, or even better, an enemy HQ, to disrupt it and lower its command values during a subsequent combat. The point is that the player, not the designer, determines how and when he will attack or move and in what order, the only limits being his success, failure and available resources. This demands of players a lot more "generalship" than you normally see in board wargames. (Not exactly in the XTR, real he-man mode is this one). Two other, interesting features of the sequence are initiative bidding and reaction. To determine the first player for the operations phases of a turn, each player must bid the number of attacks he will conduct during each of the three Ops phases of that turn. The player with the higher bid gets to go first. The drawback is that he is then committed to that number of attacks each Ops phase. If he fails to conduct the bidden number of attacks, he must disrupt a number of his units equal to the bid, and the sequence immediately switches so that the reactive player becomes the initiative player. As it is hard to foresee circumstances well enough to accurately bid how many attacks you can perform (with sufficient gain), this mechanism forces you to make no more attacks than you can win, or be forced into either losing the initiative (and suffering disrupted units) or making suicidal attacks just to keep the initiative. Makes for real tough decisions. (Did anyone say we play these games for fun?). Reaction allows the non-moving player to counter enemy moves to a limited extent, as well as not having to sit around, leafing through this week’s “Victoria’s Secret” catalogue, while his dim-witted opponent painfully plods his way through a movement phase. Anytime an enemy unit moves within the ZOC of one of the non-phasing player's units, that unit and all other units of its formation (division or corps) can, on a successful die roll of 3-9 for the Germans and 4-8 for the Russians, move one or two hexes, depending on whether the units are leg or motorized. This allows you to make minor adjustments to your line as the enemy's movement reveals his intentions, but it also carries the risk of disrupting the reacting units on a die roll of 1-3 for the Russians or 1-2 for the Germans. My one problem with this otherwise great rule is that the game makes no consideration for a reacting unit's "speed" relative to that of the moving enemy unit. In other words, reconnaissance, motorized, or cavalry units are no better at avoiding the enemy than infantry is, while infantry, in turn, can get out of the way of faster units. Combat units are very interesting. In typical WWII fashion, they are rated across the bottom with attack-defense-movement factors, but at that point all resemblance to other games ends. To the left of the NATO icon, most units (obviously depending on troop type) have a bonus rating for either artillery, engineering, ski bonus, assault bonus, armor, or anti-tank. The first four ratings produce column shifts in combat, while armor and anti-tank ratings give die roll modifiers. For example, a German grenadier regiment might have an apparent attack strength of "6" but its gun rating of "3" would give it three column shifts in the odds-ratio CRT. Furthermore, a grenadier regiment, like any motorized or armored unit in the game, has its attack and defense strengths doubled in clear terrain. In similar fashion, armored units have bonuses which translate into die-roll modifiers: the better the armor, the higher the DRM. In an example of an attack by a Russian tank corps, the Soviet player would receive a column shift right for the mechanized brigade's artillery plus a DRM of 3-6 for the armor bonuses of the 3 tank brigades. These add up to significant advantages when a player uses the right combination of troops in an attack (or defense). Another note about gun bonuses: a unit does not have to directly participate in an attack at all but can "support" it by contributing just its gun bonus. Infantry can also just barrage with gun bonuses instead of attacking. This allows pre-emptive defensive barraging of threatening enemy concentrations or preparing an attack by preliminarily bombarding target hexes to disrupt the defenders. The CRT is odds-based, with four different rows for terrain type. Combat is resolved by a d10 die roll and modified as described above. Results are attacker/defender and expressed in numbers, and will be familiar to Arctic Stormers. Normally, a numbered result requires the owning player to take an equivalent number of step losses or hexes retreated. Results in bold require a step loss before retreat. An underlined result makes the affected units go immediately out of supply, and an asterisked result damages any participating air unit or heavy tank unit. The unit capabilities, terrain and the structure of this CRT make it critical to use not only the right units for a given attack but to deny the enemy player his bonus-generated column shifts or DRM's by attacking him while he is disrupted or out of supply. At first, the CRT seemed too attritional, but once I got the hang of things (again, sequencing attacks correctly with the right troops and in the right terrain), I was punching big holes in the enemy line with little loss to myself. What I don't like about the CRT is that unless you have very high odds, most combat results can all be taken as retreats regardless of attacker/defender types: i.e. infantry can run away from armor and motorized units. HQ's regulate combat for both attackers and defenders through the mechanism of a "C3I" die roll required before any overrun or attack. The dieroll, modified for weather and number of attacking formations, is compared to the command value of the attacking and defending units. If the dieroll exceeds the command value for either side, this causes either a favorable combat shift for the opposing player or referral to a "Snafu" table. Depending on how much the C3I dieroll exceeds the command value of the attacking or defending unit, the Snafu Table, if used (choice is optional) can produce "confusion" (more combat column shifts), logistical failure or breakdown (affected units go out of supply), "no-shows" (just what it sounds like), friendly disruptions, or losses to friendly fire. These effects are interesting and colorful, but the C3I die roll has to so far exceed the HQ's command value that, in most cases, it is better to go ahead and take the column shift than to consult the Snafu table for something that is unlikely to happen … unless an HQ's command value is exceeded by a truly massive value. The designer's intent here is to limit the number of formations a player risks using in a single attack (each attacking formation adds 1 to the C3I die roll). But, after several playings of the game, I found that there were few cases in which the Snafu Table was worth checking and that the whole mechanism should be dropped or otherwise simplified to reduce needless complexity. The whole exercise seemed hardly worth the extra die-rolling. As is usual with GMT games, the map, counters, rulebook and charts are well done, but there are some problems. First of all, some very necessary information is lost in poorly-edited rules. For example, the printed entrenchments around Kharkov do not really "exist" until game turn 4. This is not noted on the game turn record; it is found in a footnote to rule 11.33 on p. 16. Shouldn't something that important be on the terrain effects chart? Many other important items are buried in the rules. You remember having read it but damned if you can find it when you need it (This is called the Lion of the North Syndrome). GMT could also have thrown in a few more record-keeping. Players have to keep track of bids, the number of attacks performed in an Ops phase, numerous column shifts and DRM's, as well as how many times Soviet supply shortages, rear area reorganizations, fuel depletions and emergency fuel supplies have occurred. Furthermore, there is also no way of marking off which Ops phase the game is now in. That’s a lot of information to juggle without help from the publisher. Lost Victory takes a long time to play and requires painstaking attention to detail. It's not all that complex, though; rather, it is very subtle and you have to think twice about whatever you are doing. In his notes, the designer compares the experience to conducting an orchestra. The comparison is very apt. Marshaling large and quite diverse forces, you have to mix and lead them in the correct balance and sequence to achieve a symphonic-like harmony and momentum. (And if that wasn't a pompous statement, I'll eat my hyperbole!). There is a lot of detail and play-technique that is not apparent to the first-time player … or anyone taking just a casual look at this game. I had to play it several times before I appreciated what Ritchie was doing. And while I still wonder whether just a few things could not have been streamlined, it eventually became worth the effort. CAPSULE COMMENTS Graphical presentation: Excellent, although a few more tracks would help. Playability: Requires a lot of concentration and thought. Not difficult, just “thick”. Replayability: One of those games where you always think you can do it better the next time around., Wristage: Moderate Creativity: A bit too much, but interesting nonetheless. Historicity: Very good. Comparisons: See comment, above, on Ring of Fire. Overall: Not for the faint of heart, nor for those looking for simple entertainment. For those of introspective and investigative bent. from GMT 1 22” x 34” map; 480 counters; Rules Book; Study Book; 2 Playaid cards; boxed. GMT, POB 1308, Hanford CA 93232. $32. Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. II # 16 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