To The Vistula!

A Comparison of Three Recent WW II Rule Sets

Point of Attack

by Bill Rutherford

PoA's most prominent feature is its sequence of play. The authors are unabashedly proponents of what one might call the Chaos Theory of warfare. Players make contested die rolls to determine who next has the initiative and how much they get to do during their initiative. You've probably seen Piquet (PoA's parent game) played at one or another of the game conventions; players turn cards over from a sequence deck, spending impetus (or action) points to conduct activities, based on which card has most recently been turned. The cards allow players to do things like move their armor, move their infantry, execute an indirect fire attack, acquire a direct fire target, make a command check, or even do nothing at all ("Hunker Down" is what they call it).

This lends a great amount of unpredictability to things, as the same player could conceivably get the initiative several times running but could draw a variety of cards that either allowed great advances or little activity at all. The sequence decks may be tailored to an individual force prior to game play as a result of scenario concerns or of army characteristics. PoA's game turn, as noted, is a half-hour long, but several initiative phases may occur during a turn, with much activity.

As noted below in the scenario orders of battle, PoA uses several types of dice (the old fantasy role-players out there will find new life for their polyhedra!) that lend a wide range of variety to the units' capabilities. Play of the game is actually quite simple - the player rosters and a single game chart (with a half-dozen or so tables) are all that are needed for play. Units, by the way, are platoons and are abstracted in a manner similar to that of TF: all infantry and armor platoons have three stands and all batteries, MG platoons, etc., have two stands.

Movement and combat are straightforward, with single die rolls resolving most issues. Combat die rolls are contested, i.e., both the attacker and the defender roll a die to determine the results. PoA's combat is much more abstract than that of the other two rule sets. The same features are present - ranged combat, advantages for firing into armor's flank, etc., but it's considerably more generic. Spotting, as with the other games, is deterministic and is easily the most forgiving If you have a line of sight you can see. This is mitigated by the use of sequence cards, though, because even if a unit can physically see a target, it must be able to act on an Acquire Target sequence card to actually get a lock on it for combat.

Another manner in which cards are used in the game are the morale chips. These are used as a sort of game-currency, allowing players to trigger opponents' morale checks, reduce their opponents impetus points, and (if the sequence cards permit it) attempt to rally their own troops. Running out of morale chips is a very bad thing.

Morale chips and one other interesting feature - stratagems - are acquired during the pre-game army creation process, based on random card draws and the army size. The main complexity of PoA lies in this pre-game preparation, as every unit and commander needs to be detailed; the type of dice used in the various game activities (see the roster) are all dependent upon the unit's national characteristics, competency, and morale level. PoA makes this simpler, though, than with previous versions of Piquet in that a complete set of tables providing die types for the various game units is provided. One must still look them up and transcribe them but this is a lot easier than dicing for each and every one…

Strategems (as defined in the game) are random features that may influence the battle. A player might have a strategem that provides an extra reinforcement, an air strike, an unsafe bridge, or a number of other things. These generally aren't game-tilters but they do add interest to the proceedings.

To the Vistula! WWII Rule Sets Reviewed

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