Howard presents a clear thought out game that seems to combine the strengths of the Matrix Game with a prestige system that looks a lot like a board game and a solid miniature battle rules supplied by DBA. It looks fun, I'd love to see it at Nashcon next year. What stands out in my mind the most about Blood Eagle is how for a Matrix Game to really work, It requires more than just a matrix. Blood Eagle is really a game about prestige, since without prestige one can not hope to be the High King. Battles are important but only as in how it effects how one is seen. Matrix arguments or "challenges" as they are termed in this game serve only to help one win battles and gain advantages. Is this a problem for MGs, I think not. My own Campaign MGs also use a structure that is beyond the matrix game. I have armies move one area a turn on a normal march. I also have effect specified for some matrix results in The Swashbucklers. This just lets people know what to expect from the world. What Blood Eagle does for me is to place focus on what an MG really does. MGs are about what critical events happen. They are decision making games. Sure, from a birds eye view we gamers see the best move but which matrix argument wins tells us what the battle field commander actually did. Some times commanders make the stupidest decisions. So MGs bring stupidity back into wargame decision making, and that means one can never be certain that ones perfect orders will be carried out at all. Lord it sounds almost "realistic". Back to Experimental Games Group # 15 Table of Contents Back to Experimental Games Group List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1991 by Chris Engle This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com