Another new company … someone has got to start showing these eager beavers the cash flow charts of some of the Big Boys. Anyway, it’s tough to naysay enthusiasm in a hobby in which consumer ennui seems to be the drug of choice these days. It’s also gonna be tough to control your gag reflex when you see the remarkable, Bring-on-the-Zantac-and-throw-in-some-Imodium box-cover for Steve Bohn’s Operation Husky game on WWII in Sicily. Those of you who have fond memories for that classic piece of Bad Study Hall Art that graced, if one can use that word, Red Christmas some years back, can file those memories away. This one has got it beat in every category, except perhaps for the “Not-So-Subtle Phallic Imagery” Award that Red Xmas has probably retired for the next century. Without kicking a dead, and rotting, horse too much, the Husky box cover is so atrocious a piece of graphic mayhem that it is difficult to know whether to laugh, cry, or go Oedipus one better. With that out of the way, I can say that I've learned over the years not to expect much from Third World outfits. However, Operation Husky, while not a great game, surprised me on a number of levels. The first surprise was the game's physical quality, aside from the atrociously garish boxcover. In fact, Operation Husky is a testament to the fact that just because you're publishing out of your basement doesn't mean that you have to have cheesy components. OH's 5/8" counters are diecut (although not backprinted) and its rules are professionally typeset. Most surprising of all, the rather small map is mounted. And not just mounted but well mounted, certainly far better than Avalon Hill's Hannibal, for instance. Artistically, the game is less impressive. The map, rules and counters are what you might have found in an issue of “The Wargamer” 15 years ago. However, I guarantee that anyone who buys OH won't even notice them. They'll be too busy staring at the box cover. The surprises continue with the game's system, which has some very interesting twists. Each three day turn is divided into four impulses. In each of the first three both players alternate expending 20 Initiative Points (IPs), which are used to move and undisorganize units. After movement, all units which were activated in that phase, and any units which haven't moved at all that turn, may engage in combat. In the final impulse all units which haven't yet moved may do so and then engage in combat. "Moved" status is shown by inverting the unit, which may move more than once a turn (at a higher cost in IPs). This is one place where OH's amateur status hurts it. Since the units aren't backprinted, once they're flipped it's impossible to tell their values, type, or even nationality. Of course you can always flip the counters back over to check them, but this is clumsy, a status made even more so by a rather curious choice of distance and unit scales. I own two other Sicily games. Both are at regimental level and feature 3 and 5 mile hexes, respectively. Operation Husky, which has 13 mile hexes, is at battalion level, a situation leading to awfully large stacks. The game does provide some division substitute counters to help alleviate the clutter. Then again, they're more like generic stack substitute markers since the game has no unit integrity rules and the stacking rules don't let you put a whole division in one hex anyway. Most of the rest of the system is fairly simple and fairly standard. Even here, though, there are some unusual touches. One that works rather well allows units with MPs remaining to enter one hex of terrain which costs more than they have left at the cost of becoming disorganized. Disorganized units cannot attack, suffer an adverse CRT column shift when defending and cost 2 IPs to reorganize. Still sometimes its worth it to capture an important position. A mechanic I didn't like has to do with the combat and replacement rules. The CRT is extremely bloody, with the only results being units eliminated. Units in the dead pile are revived through replacements, coming back in specific locations depending on the unit's nationality. What this means is that a German unit trapped in western Sicily can make a kamikaze attack, be destroyed, and come back the next turn in Messina, ready to be evacuated. Only the fact that the Axis (actually German) replacement rate is rather low keeps this sort of thing in check. In fact, a lot of Operation Husky doesn't seem very historically accurate. Normally, you'd expect a game at this level to have a great deal of unit differentiation. Not in OH, though. For example, virtually every Allied non-artillery unit has exactly the same movement and combat factors. Ditto for the Germans. Only the Italians have any significant variety in their units. The historical accuracy problems extend to larger issues as well. For example, until the Allied player captures Palermo he suffers an adverse column shift for all of his attacks, making that city a major objective during the early part of the game. In reality, though, Palermo was taken on Patton's own initiative and against orders. Perhaps the strangest inversion of history concerns the victory conditions. The Axis, as you might imagine, wins by evacuating units from the island. However, only German units can be evacuated. During the actual campaign there were more Italians than Germans taken off, so I have no clue as to what this rule is trying to represent. Even with all of this possible interference, the final surprise I got from Operation Husky was how much fun I had playing it. In many ways it's a throwback to an earlier era of wargaming, one in which maneuver and planning were less important than building a big dead pile of enemy units. The game is more than just that, though. The impulse system, for example, has some very interesting subtleties. Deciding which units to activate, whether to activate a stack more than once, and determining how much of your force to leave for the final impulse can all be very tricky decisions. What makes them even more so is that once a unit has been activated it can only attack in that impulse, but a face-up (inactivated) unit can do so in any impulse (theoretically, four times a turn). As far as balance goes, I'd hesitate to make a judgment without a lot more play. It does seem, though, that, at least in the historical scenario, the Axis player will be hard pressed to duplicate the feat of his historical counterpart. There are two other scenarios. One is a variant on the basic one which assumes that the Axis were able to extricate some of their troops from Tunisia. The other is loosely based on the original Allied plan of landing the Americans at the western end of the island. I'd give Operation Husky a “mixed” review. While it's hardly the definitive work on this campaign, it's a bit more than just a beer and pretzels game. The design has enough good things about it that I'm looking forward to seeing what Steve Bohn games comes up with next. Capsule Comments Graphic Presentation: Map and counters acceptable, but my most identifiable reaction to the box cover was a vote for universal euthanasia Playability: Easy to learn and play, except for all that counter flipping and huge stacks. Good solitaire. Replayability: Could get rather scripted. The variant scenarios should help. Historicity: Not very much. This is vino and foccaccia land. Creativity: Some interesting ideas, especially the implementation of the impulse system. Wristage: Very little. Comparisons: Two games on Sicily were published in S&T. Dick Rustin’s is now out of print, and the other was designed by John Schettler. ‘Nuff said. Both cover the campaign in far more detail than Operation Husky. Overall: If you like to kill units, this is your game. from STEVE BOHN GAMES One 17"x20" mounted map, 390 counters, 1 Rules Booklet, 2 Division Substitute Charts. Boxed. Steve Bohn Games, POB 80606, Bakersfield, CA 93380. c.$30+ Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. II # 23 Table of Contents Back to Berg's Review of Games List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1995 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