Yarmuk. Command, ever eager to face the challenge of making the inaccessible and obscure, if not exactly a household word, at least understandable, have given us a somewhat unusual, albeit easy to play game of this key battle between the virulent armies of the immediate descendants of Mohammed and the Byzantines. Know where it is? Can't tell from the map, which uses a blue border that does nothing other than to turn the battlefield, which was in the middle of "The Holy Land", into a peninsula, sort of like Gallipoli. Granted, the place was mostly flatter than 8-year old seltzer; still, a disconcerting visual. The 140 counters are fine, and the rules short (4 pages of actual rules), which is not the adjective I would apply to Yarmuk's play. Yarmuk presents a system which has possibilities - many not evident in this game, but enough of which have spurred XTR to Feedback about a dozen pre-gunpowder battles using it. (The first is a Ted Raicer view of Grünwald, 1410 … Teutonic Knight stuff; lest you think that Ted is abandoning his beloved WWI, the other name of that battle is Tannenberg.) One hopes that the designers of the upcoming titles do a bit more to benefit play enjoyment than was done for Yarmuk. The game is quite simple. The Sequence involves alternating movement of sections of one's army, something that can be extended, using such as "Sword of Allah". Supreme Effort (evident in the battle, not in the design), et al. Works nicely, keeps things interesting. Problem is less with the system than with what it's trying to portray. The battle of Yarmuk was a rather drawn-out affair, lasting several days, until about 1/4 of the Byzantine army decided the Muslims were going to win, and defected accordingly. While none of the latter is evident anywhere, except in the article, the designers have given players 6 days of battle, each with about 4 turn within. As it took us about half an hour to do one turn, after we got used to the game, that means about 12 hours of play for a game that has little (try no) tactical insight. Not only that, but, in reality, at the end of each day, the armies retired to their tents. Not here; play just moves on to the next turn. The CRT is virtually all retreats, which means you can kill off a unit only when it is surrounded. I 'm not sure if that's reality - what is? - but it does make for lots of flank maneuver. And this is a game of maneuver and position, more than anything else. As such, it's not bad. Or, to be more accurate, it's an interesting system, with possibilities that has been handed a battle most difficult to inject any fun into. 12 hours of Yarmuk. Gotta be someone who'll undertake this excersize in time-bloat. Not me. Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. 2 #27 Table of Contents Back to Berg's Review of Games List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 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