It's no secret that I have been harboring a Buena Vista design for almost a decade now. So, it was with much interest that I played through Richard Pfost's often interesting design on this most under-appreciated battle. (It has everything: two different armies, unusual terrain, off-the-wall personalities, and a battle as close to a draw as one ever gets. Great stuff.) I managed one complete, and one half-way, play-through of Buena Vista. The Good News is that it is a fair amount of fun to play, it proceeds rather historically, in terms of what actually happened (or could have happened), and, like the real thing, is a very tense undertaking for both sides. You do get the feel of the differences between the two armies, the neo-Napoleonic Mexicans against the looser, lighter almost-ACW tactics of the North Americans. The game also looks rather nice. So, you're waiting for the other shoe to fall, aren't you. Well, here it is. Despite its overall historical feel, there are some awfully weird things going on here. For one, Pfost gives us the Mexican brigades as double-sized (rectangular) units. Fair enough. However, he then forces us to have them attack with their short side, not their elongated one. This means that a Mexican brigade of some thousand men has a combat frontage of 100+ yards. That chihuahua just don't hunt, folks. Pfost insists he did this to show how difficult these brigades were to maneuver. Perhaps, but they're just as difficult to maneuver regardless which side ends up facing the enemy. Then there's the Random Events table. Now, my feeling is that events such as these have to have some grounding in happenstance, or even reality, to work at any other level than "gaminess". Pfost obviously does not subscribe to that theory. I noticed that the first time I rolled for an event … and General Wool died. Now, not only did Wool not die at this battle (true, he could have, but read on), but he did so approximately a mile from the nearest bullet. What, fell off his horse? Tarantula got him? Actually saw Jeff Tibbets? Then there's the event that allows one player to reduce any one enemy unit (in range) by one step. Didn't take too long for the Mexican player to see this as a great way to get rid of that pesky gringo artillery. Which is his best weapon … as opposed to the invader's firepower which, based on the CRT, must be based on the fire capabilities of a semi-automatic Mauser. Blowing away half a Mexican division in one turn is a bit much. (True, they can come back - much later - but let's get real here.) Flawed, but worth a shot. And a nice try. Wish I could say more about Bomba's latest attempt to prove the Custer-Rorke Syndrome is only in our minds, Blitzkrieg 1940, a look at the German invasion of France. The system is fine, working nicely at conveying the frantic feel of the invasion, and, if the counters look like somebody thought Jolly Ranchers were a good color scheme to copy (purple frogs?), the Beth Queman map is rather nice. So what's the problem? Problem is, who cares? Except for those with a heavy masochistic streak, who wants to play this out as a game? It's blow-out time, and just because Ty has tweaked the Victory conditions to attempt to make a game out of it, you'd have more fun watching re-runs on the Home and Gardens channel. My suggestion is to combine this one with Joe Miranda's Balkans '41, shave your head, and move to Montana. Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. 2 #25 Table of Contents Back to Berg's Review of Games List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 by Richard Berg This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com