About three years ago, Doc Decision - née Chris Cummins, but who calls him that these days? Except for his staff, who have been memoed that the correct mode of address is “Dr. Cummins”; le medecin du jeu, c’est moi, one assumes à la Louis - the “guru sans view” of the oxymoronically named Decision Games got this notion that resurrecting the glamour of the Good Old SPI Days of Yore was a good idea. Actually, it wasn’t a bad idea; the good doctor simply has no idea what to do with that idea… or any gaming idea, for that matter. New England Simulations does, although their execution is far from ideal, too. They narrowed their focus, somewhat, and their basic attempt is to take Kevin Zucker’s old (and rather clanky) Napoleon’s Last Battles system and bring it, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century. While the effort has been noble, and visually exciting, the end result is still on a respirator. Dresden is NES’s second volume of their “Night of the Not-So-Living Zucker” series, following their Napoleon on the Danube (Wagram) effort of two years ago. They have surely learned one major lesson from the latter: to sell a game these days it has to look good. And Dresden is mighty good looking, indeed. The overall effect is probably what SPI games would have looked like had they remained in business, under the original leadership. From the stylish box, complete with MiHer, Uli Blennemann, leading a Prussian charge through the town - and, folks, if that ain’t Uli then Ty is the designer of the La Bataille system; and is if that weren’t enough, check p.31 and tell me that’s not Howard Stern dressed as Murat! - to the mutedly sophisticated, but enticing, map and counter graphics, through the top-rate Rules Book, you get a lot of visual bang for your rather drab US buck here. Dresden has a lot of color, without parading it up and down the streets, retinal trumpets ‘a blaring. This is one of those games that really has that “Play Me” look. Unfortunately, when you do play it, it starts to show its age, much like a tattered corduroy jacket complete with raveling sleeve ends and hasty patchwork: it’s comfortable, but everyone can see the holes … and parts of it simply don’t work. What NES appears to have decided to do is to, first, present the Zucker/NLB system relatively intact, as a Basic game. NLB was your truly dirt level, Igo-Hugo, move-fight special. No command, DE/AE, 1-6 dieroll CRT, and you could play it without reading the rules. That it bore no resemblance to Napoleonic warfare - nor to the warfare of any other era, including schoolyard fisticuffs - mattered not to those who were looking for a move-em, kill-em, can I get 3-1 special. Granted, the Hinkle-led NES design staff - and a nicer, more gamer-oriented bunch of guys you can’t find - has put a few more turnips into Kevin’s soup recipe, such as Disruption, a new (and somewhat weird) CRT, and unit losses by Strength Point (like you would see in a major tactical simulation), but you can play this one, basic style, with your eyes closed. (One can almost picture a modern-day, Bobby Fisher-like Decahydral Spudmaster, complete with paper bag over his head, wandering down a line of tables filled with various modes of the NLB quad, stopping only to bark out, “Young Guard to the Duke’s south hex.” Boggles the mind.) The problem is, some of the stuff is so stone stupid that you wonder how it lasted past the initial playtest. One teeth-grinding example will suffice to produce major eyeroll. Artillery can bombard, but never defensively. (And why not, please?) Even worse, artillery bombardment is resolved using odds-ratio comparison!! This means that a ‘2’ point artillery unit has a better chance of inflicting a negative result (which will virtually always be a retreat, which is a totally useless result for an enemy unit that is two hexes away anyway!!) on a 500-man unit (2-1 odds) than it does on one of the gigantic Prussian 12-pointers (6000+ men, but a no-go 1-6 here). Guess all those tightly packed Junkermen use their sheer mass to repel the cannonballs. So annoyed by this Neanderthal sans portfolio rule were we that we simply stopped using bombardment. It didn’t do much of anything anyway, so it was a case of Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish. The advanced game gives us Command … plus a few other additions, such as variable weather (nice, but a bit confusing in implementation), some interesting reinforcement possibilities, and the intriguing but truly strange Cavalry Charge rule, which, at first, we disliked but warmed up to after a bit. More anon. The Command rules allow you to use a host of leaders the game gives you, overall to division level. The rules for such are a bit more convoluted than they could (should?) be, given the general approach of the system, but they’re a damn sight better than those foisted on the similarly-systemed Battle of Nations (Leipzig; from CoA out of the old OSG). It’s a hierarchically organized, restriction-inherent command system, which means command is a hindrance, not a benefit. (With no command rules your units can do anything they want.) That it’s not much of a burden on the French comes from the fact that they are, mostly, on interior lines, Napoleon works wonders, and the majority of their first day troops - XIV Corps - have no command restrictions. The combined Russian-Prussian-Austrian army is limited more by having over half of their units in Reserve than by their commanders. And heaven help you if you roll a ‘1’ when Napoleon arrives; the Allies cut out faster than the locals at Jurassic Park. One of the interesting effects of this is that we felt that, while the effort to give us a cogent Command and Morale system was notable, the game was more fun simply ignoring most of them, picking out the one or two advanced rules that gave the game a more historical feel. Even more comment came from the combat system … aside from the general denigration and defenestration of the artillery rules. This is a six-sider, odds ratio CRT that is heavier on nostalgia than reality. However, it is far more sophisticated than it appears, even if the rules fail to explain much of what is going on. (The Rules Book, while marvelous visually, is not a strong point in terms of coherency.) Virtually all results are retreats, even the A1, D2 results, the number meaning the number of hexes to retreat, not the SPs lost. On the far end of the bell curve, though, there are some stomach-lurching DE and Ex results that require a leap in faith almost as large as the leap in algorithmatical computations it took to do this CRT. E.g., while from 1-1 to 2-1 odds, we get only an incremental increase in Defender Bad News, from 4-1 to 5-1 we get a change of venue from Iowa to Bosnia. Why? More happily is how the CRT works in play. Although virtually all results appear to be Retreats, retreating into/through an enemy ZOC produces Step Losses, and most (but not all) “R”’s come hand-in-hand with Disruption. Add to this the aforementioned Cavalry Charge rule, and you get a nice evocation of success-through-concentration rather than all-along-the line attack mentality. It matters little that the Cavalry Charge rule appears to make little sense in an isolated state - a 10 point cavalry unit, were there one, charging a 2 point unit would have the same chance of positive result as a charge by a 1 point unit! - its effect in terms of Disruption, et al., fits nicely into the combat scheme. The battle itself is one of moderate, if not consuming, interest, one whose maximum strategies become quickly apparent during the first play. The French are almost overwhelmed numerically at the start; but they have only to hold the city until the rest of their army meanders in. It, therefore, behooves les grenouilles to quickly retreat their outlying XIV Corps units into the protective shadow of the Dresden walls, where interior lines and defensive position make it extremely tough going even for a well-handled Allied army. By the second day, when the other half of his army arrives, Napoleon is well-situated to push the Allies away and resume control. There is not a little tension inherent in this situation, although I think replay would become rather static, given the above. Unfortunately, Hinkle ameliorates much of this by giving the players a remarkably overwrought victory mechanic which has little to do with reality or the situation. There’s a whole lot of getting points for holding specific hexes at the end of each turn (sic!). This not only has little to do with what’s going on historically, but it forces the players to keep track of an endlessly changing “tab”. Moreover, it channels the Allied Player into totally non-historical thinking that has more in common with feline territory marking than what Schwarzenberg and de Tolly were attempting to accomplish. (One can almost envisage Barclay running into a Dresden suburb street, loosing a stream at a nice tree, and running off, yelling, “Got One!!!”) I know, I know… I’m carping and caviling here to a fare-thee-well. We actually had fun playing the game and situation - after we dumped the artillery rules and came to a sort of loose peace with Cavalry Charge. But this is a long game, despite its surface simplicity. And that simplicity IS only apparent, as many of the rules are presented in a somewhat opaque manner. The situation has a nice, built-in tension level, you probably can figure out what Hinkle means (even if Mark, himself, can’t), and it looks great on the table. But it’s like test-driving an antique car: looks great until, suffused with nostalgia, you turn the corner and throw a piston rod. NES has a potentially valuable stretch of road in its hands. But it’s an old highway, and it’s got far too many bumps and potholes to be accessible to the general gaming public. Time to stock up on asphalt and get that road-roller into gear, Mark. And try a ten-sider die, too . . . works wonders. CAPSULE COMMENT Graphic Presentation: Excellent; pleasing and comfortable. Playability: Good, with some confusion in implementing some rules. Rules writing not one of Hinkle’s strong suits. Replayability: Situation tends to be repetitive. Historicity: Research good; some of the mechanics and period feel are in never-never land Creativity: Some good ideas are not brought to fruition. Wristage: Acceptable. But why are we still using a six-sider die? Comparisons: It’s better than the old Zucker NLB system, including Battle of Nations (what isn’t?), and it has more “illusion of movement” than GamesUSA’s Borodino stuff, but the Napsters are gonna stick with Uncle Ed and/or the Loo. Overall: Odds-ratio artillery bombardment says it all. Your ‘33 Hudson may look real nice; but unless you fix the engine, it ain’t gonna run. Needs more than a high-school tune-up. from NEW ENGLAND SIMULATIONS One 22” x33” map; 400 counters; 4 Play-aid charts; Rules Book; Boxed. $3?, from NES, 217 Depot Rd, Hollis NH 03049 Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. II # 20 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