Decision Games has a rather curious track record when it comes to boxed games. They range from items that would insult the Historically Challenged, such as Battles of the Ancient World, to overwrought remakes most people already had, such as War of the Rebellion (which has sold so few copies that my royalties have been reduced to peasantries), to underwrought recyclings, such as their recent “outing” of SPI games. It was, thus, with some reluctance, that I ventured into the Lewis Carroll-like world of Cummins Design with their newest venture, Rebels & Redcoats, two “volumes” covering most of the battles of the American Revolution. Surprisingly, it was not a trip devoid of interest. However, playing it was depressingly akin to raising a teen-ager: small pleasures interspersed with sharp moments of anguish and horror. R&R, which comes in two separate, but self-contained, volumes, is a rather handsome, albeit Alice-in-Wonderland, production. The Simonitch maps are nice, further proof that Mark’s departure to AH will create a big hole in the graphics end of the business. The Dave McElhannon counters are probably the best DG has produced, with one weird caveat: they’re ALL the same color!! The only way to differentiate between the Brits and the Rebels is that the latter use red print, the former, blue. Distinguishing them is, therefore, not the problem it would initially seem to present … unless you’re colorblind, which many of you are! One has to wonder from what oxygen-deprived gray cell that idea emerged. The Rules book, though, is from another dimension, an Alternate World where English is used only by only a few “outcasts”. Never mind that Doc D’s supply of staples seems to have been hijacked on the way to Lancaster; that’s child’s play compared to the felonious assault he makes on our mother tongue. You can tell the rulesbook is from another world because the English used therein wouldn’t qualify even for a counterfeit Green Card. Never mind the bozo misspellings; in one sentence, alone, we come across “Cheaseapeak” and “Branywine”. What does matter are the number of sentences without subjects, more dangling participles than at a Heidi Fleiss Open House, and a general mangling of the English language that would make Inspector Clouseau proud and bring a knowing smirk to the entire French Language Police Corps. Where is Prince Charles now that we really need him? In the same (collapsed) vein we have a series of historical gaffes that only serve to give one pause when considering the rest of the historicity therein. It’s bad enough that the game manages to mangle the famous “whites of their eyes” (mis)quote, but who, pray tell, is Molly “Pritchard?” The only thing missing is a hex on each map that notes, “George Washington Shlepped Here.” What makes the above all the more annoying is that the R&R game system is quite interesting, an amalgamation of simplicity with some flavorful - and evocative - mechanics. That, together with a rapid, easy flow of play and a large number of battles, makes R&R a potentially appealing package. Potential, however, is about as far as R&R gets, and one can look into the future and see the R&R box sitting in the back of a limo, whining to a GAMA Board member, “I coulda been a contenda ….” The basic sequence is Igo-Hugo: Bombardment-Movement-Assault-Rally. Nothing unusual, except that that end-turn Rally Phase is most unserendipitous. What it means is that an attacking player gets to Rally his Disrupted units - even when in an enemy ZOC (!!) - while the defender must wait until the end of HIS turn, forcing him, in many instances, to attack with those Disruptos. I’m not saying that this is not accurate, or even “unfair”… although it does give an attacker, and especially an attacker with good Morale - and that means Georgie’s Boys - a rather heavily muscled leg up. Perhaps that’s what Doc D wanted, although, based on abundant evidence elsewhere, I doubt he is capable of such design subtlety. (The fact that the inimitable Larry Baggett - the Bagman of Simplicity - is the Deep Pockets behind Decision/Overlord tends to lend credence to this theory.) Other mechanics are thought out somewhat better. There is a nice, era-evocative rule on leaving enemy ZOC’s - Disengagement - along with good use of the unit Morale ratings, which run a wild gamut from ‘3’ (the usual colonial white trash) to ‘9’ (the Grenadier types, etc.). I did question the Morale ratings of the flotsam and jetsam rebels in the Bunker Hill scenario - ‘5’ seemed a bit high, and they were ALL ‘5’ - but, in general, this is one of the better areas of the design. The brittleness of these units is highlighted by a must-rally requirement, one that tends to get rid of more Americans than British combat. Combat combines fire with shock in a fairly straightforward odds-ratio CRT. The results are a nice mixture of Elims, retreats, morale rolls, et al., but the high-end, ignore the Bell Curve, odds of 4-1, which you use even when you’re attacking at 10-1, and the large number of column adjustments, combine to produce some unfortunate results that belie reality. Even worse, the results at ratios of 1-2 or worse are particularly devastating to the attacker. In itself, this is not “wrong”. However, it is crucial in the very strange Brandywine scenario, where virtually everyone is attacking through a Ford, usually at 2-3 or 1-2 odds, which the Ford shifts down to 1-3 or 1-4, making it impossible to successfully attack across the river. Which brings us to another Chris in Wonderland special effect. All rivers run through the hex, not down the hexside. I thought we’d run a stake through that old sucker decades ago; but, no, one of its spawn must have escaped, ran off to LaLa Land, and started breeding again. There is - even visually - NO need to do this. Even worse, it creates major problems with Brandywine. Can you enter a river hex (without crossing)? And because there is no Fire - only Assault - only one unit gets to attack (through the Ford) while 2, or sometimes 3, units can defend because of the hex configuration. (We assumed that, despite §8.31 telling us that CRT column shifts apply to terrain in the defender’s hex, that they applied, here, to when the attacker was in the ford … not the defender.) This makes Washington’s position at Brandywine virtually unassailable, as all British attacks are at 1-2, or worse … more on which, below. And Cornwallis’s wing, crossing downstream, simply CANNOT reach that portion of the battlefield in time. I ran 3 quick tests, including lots of Forced Marching and ignoring possible Disruptions. Not once did any of Cornwallis’s men even get close to joining the festivities. Perhaps if you ignore their “Lunch Break” rule, or allow the few American units in the way simply step aside and let them pass, they can wander in to count the bodies. The end result is a game which becomes a satire of the actual battle. Some of this results from a scale decision which puts each battle at anywhere between 200 and 300 meters a hex, although it doesn’t say which battles are at what scale. Now, aside from the fact that that means a 50% difference from one battle to the next, but no concurrent change in time or Movement Allowance, what it also does is to make a rather bitter-tasting hash of the combat system by wrapping fire and shock into one neat ball. In and of itself, the odds/ratio with DR adjustment CRT looks fine. But, in application, and especially with some heavy column shifts, the CRT can be most unrealistically unforgiving. For example, at 1-2, the attacker has only a 20% chance of possibly inflicting any harm on the defender. (If the defender is British, the chances are about 10%.) This means that a 7-8 assault has virtually NO chance of success!! And this is a CRT which relies heavily on the importance of sheer numbers, a factor not overly important in this, the era of linear firepower. Even worse, you end up getting a half dozen battles on maps so small that the only joy in playing them is that they’re over quickly. To portray battles such as Cowpens, Camden, or Eutaw Springs at c.250 yards a hex, is like playing a game of chess back in the steerage section of your favorite airline. 2000 men at 300 yards a hex? What are you simulating? Another unfortunate choice is the use of a Deus ex Machina-like turn clock. Battles end in the middle of the day, for no discernible reason that I can tell, especially as virtually all the scenarios use a casualty count as the victory condition. Germantown, for example, ends rather abruptly at 10 AM!! It’s as if a bell went off, and John Cleese emerged from a copse of trees, shouting, “All right, all of you military types, that’s it. Count up your dead and maimed and report to the prize table.” Why not just let the battle continue until one side wins? R&R is, as noted above, really two games, although the best stuff (and “best” is relative here) is in Volume 1. You get 12 battles, total, although only 4 - Bunker Hill, Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth - are in Volume 1. Volume 2 includes the two Saratoga fracases, Bennington (which is unplayable without errata to tell you where to put half the British army), and a host of small Southern imbroglios, all of which appear on one map, sort of like a Simo-collage. The best of the lot is Germantown, even with the play-hobbling rule that forces Stephen’s division to attack his own men. (There are far too many of this “you must do this” type of rule, always a sign that a creative drought is in full sway.) This is a rather neat little battle which uses most of the game’s good points to their fullest extent, providing both players with lots of tactical choices to make. It’s also nicely balanced. On the other end of the spectrum are Bunker Hill (too small a map, the rebels are rated too highly, the Navy starts in a hex that doesn’t exist, and a huge battery of British artillery in Boston cannot fire - ever - because it is Out of Command … and other similar silliness) and the most unfortunate Brandywine, discussed above. Better, by far, is Guilford Courthouse, which, while somewhat cramped, is a good, straightforward head-banger with nice historical feel. We do note that, in the space of one afternoon, we managed to play five battles; we would have played 6, but Bennington needed that set-up errata, and we’d about had it at that point. Rebels & Redcoats is a real “shoulda-been” special. It looks good, and it has some good mechanics. But then someone turned off the faucet, and the execution is truly riddled with far too many ill-thought design decisions, plus some goofy and, ultimately, annoying junk. If you’re not interested in investing $60 in a host of who-cares? battles, but you want to give R&R a try for its system, we recommend Volume I. Ultimately, however, I cannot treat with any level of reverence anyone, or anything, that shows so little consideration for language … or getting Molly Pitcher’s name right. Both she - and you - deserve far better. As I was reading through the rules I only hoped that someone would do to its author what the kindly doctor did to King George in the recent movie: belt him to a chair and stuff a rag in his mouth. CAPSULE COMMENTS: Graphic Presentation: Excellent, except for verbally-challenged Rules Book and the anti-colorblind counters. Playability: Quite good in terms of ease. Few system flaws, and the battles play rapidly. Solitaire is also good. The question is, do you really want to play these? Replayability: Lots of battles, so there’s lots to do. Far too many of those, however, have minimal kick. Wristage: Acceptable Creativity: With a few notable exceptions, runs the Creative Gamut from A to B. Historicity: Wrong scale cancels any feel for unit tactics, and far too many forced historical occurrences within. Otherwise, not bad. But, My God, Molly “Pritchard”??? Comparisons: Considering how poorly the AmRev sells, there have been a fair number of battles portrayed. Command’s Bunker Hill (reviewed herein) is far more interesting, as was the old S&Ter, Monmouth. My own Birth of a Nation (Saratoga, in The Wargamer) had more meat but was less accessible (and far loonier). Probably on a par with the old GDW Guilford game. Overall: R&R needs some R&R. from DECISION/OVERLORD [Collectively]: 4 22” x 33” maps, 800 counters, Rules Folio, Play Charts; Boxed. Decision Games, POB 4049, Lancaster CA 93539 . $30 each. Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. II # 17 Table of Contents Back to Berg's Review of Games List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 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