I have always been fascinated by the Polish campaign, and Case White was the first Europa game that I ever played against "live" competition. Thus I am moved to write something about the game as it fades into possible oblivion with the release of First to Fight. As such, this article is not so much a "guide to perfect playing" as it is a recollection of some of my first Europa experiences and a nostalgic look back.

I began this article on 1 September, 1991, the fifty-second anniversary of the kickoff of WWII. It sometimes amazes me that so much time has elapsed since the end of the war. After all, I am of the generation that grew up with "Combat", "Hogan's Heroes", and "The Rat Patrol", as well as the palpable results of that war in Europe.

The most important facet of that war, going far beyond the geographical scale, or the millions murdered, or even the scale of effort by virtually all of humanity, is the fact that at that time, and at no other time before or since, the fate of civilization really did hang in the balance. Prior to the 1940's there was not enough technological progress to make an organized tyranny capable of domination on a global scale.

And as the Fifties and Sixties saw the growth of unbelievable nuclear stockpiles, it became obvious that no such power-grab could ever again be attempted without the probable destruction of the globe.

But for that brief period, 1935-1945, a global adventurer could indeed have established himself as a second Alexander the Great. I never forgot that Russia could have joined the Axis, that McClusky might have missed Nagumo's carriers at Midway, that my father, Fire Control Operator James A. Vandine, could have been killed aboard the battleship Washington at the Second Night Battle of Guadalcanal in October of 1942... the list of "what-ifs" is endless. And this greatest upheaval began in Poland on 1 September, 1939.

When conceiving this article I originally intended to enumerate a number of Case White play strategies, but soon became aware that the list of actions from my Case White games were more examples of what not to do! In the final event I found myself waxing so sentimental about the game that I finally decided to change the tone of my writing altogether from clinical analysis to fond reminiscence. Bear with me.

I had just returned from a long tour in Okinawa when I stumbled onto Case White in March of 1983. Whoa!

I had been raised on Avalon Hill and SPI, and all the conventional wisdom had it that an unbalanced game is a game which cannot be sold. Also, many notes in SPI games assured me that any large game on WWI or WWII could best be represented by faceless strips of identically-performing counters. SPI's output was astounding, but tended to produce units without soul, mere chess pieces.

Production constraints (and an unwillingness to spend Astell-like amounts of time and energy in research) dictated this approach, as well as the time-saving tactic of bending existing rules and production values to fit the latest "new" game concept.

But here was Case White! Opening the box was a revelation, a thumb of the nose at all that conventional wisdom. The German 29th Motorized Infantry Division was here. Also present was the SS artillery regiment (so grimly mentioned in Baldwin's Battles Lost and Won) and even units for individual aircraft types.

It was obvious, at last, that not all combat units were created equal. The armor and engineer effects were a beautiful addition in flavor. And the advertising prose really hooked me... I don't remember the specifics, but I do recall mention of the snows in Norway, the rubble of Berlin, and the leap from biplanes to jets and from machine gun battalions to mechanized corps. I bought everything else in the series within days.

Still, Case White kept pride of place in my heart, not least because it was the venue of choice against my first live opponent. He was a priest and I an army staff sergeant (and boy, if THAT isn't an odd commentary on Europa's attraction!), and neither of us was an expert. But we had a lot of fun, producing one of the foggiest fogs of war ever. I had the German army and he the Poles. We threw in a few extra troops on each side and all the optional rules and hunkered down to wage war.

I got a bloody nose immediately through my ridiculous deployment of the Luftwaffe. My Me109's were in no position to do anything but protect rear area airfields, leaving my unescorted bombers to make a required series of raids on suspected enemy airbases. This was my first lesson in Polish skill and bravery, as I lost four groups of He111's over Warsaw.

I determined to make up for this embarrassment on the ground. I decided that the key to avoiding Poles in my rear areas was to engage as many Polish concentrations as possible, often setting up 3:1's because my army training always told me that 3:1 was sufficient for an offensive. And so as the frontier barricades went up, I came in swinging....

My Second Bloody Nose

I picked up no less than five "no effects", most of them in front of Lodz, and I even had a couple of German infantry divisions cadred, although the Poles did take heavy casualties north and NW of Warsaw. So far, my generalship was terrible... but what saved me, oddly enough, was that it was now the Polish turn-and they had some mistakes to make of their own.

Reassured by the successes in the air and in the west, my opponent reasoned (and who could blame him?) that I was likely to stall completely if he reinforced the front, and so he held right at the border in the west, and sought combat in the air by bombing Berlin.

A withdrawal after his successes might have served him better, since after my exploitation phase of turn two I had isolated a large pocket (seventeen formations) centered on hex 13:4005, and had taken the eastern (Praga) hex of Warsaw and in the process caught three Polish air groups on the ground! (The Poles were able to retake the hex from my weak reconnaissance force during their next turn, however.)

Well, now it was my turn to do something silly and obligingly I was able to offer up two swift blunders. First, I entrained a full infantry corps to support the Westwall--only to find that no real benefit accrued from doing this according to the playing regulations... I also allowed a starving and ragged lost cavalry brigade to sneak into East Prussia and burn three more groups of my bombers on their field.

Nevertheless, by the end of turn three, the bulk of the Polish army was split into pockets around Lodz, Lwow, and Warsaw. The campaign could still end in decisive victory if I moved quickly enough. Also, the USSR intervened almost immediately. Taking Warsaw on turn four with two airsupported attacks (Third Panzer Division entered the city first) and grabbing Lodz and Lwow the same turn, I triumphantly deployed the Red Army--only to be reminded by my opponent that this intervention meant that I must immediately pull back across the Bug before I had taken Brest, where several Polish units were holed up! I could only grit my teeth while the Russians seemed to take forever to get into position to seize the city.

To quickly finish, I was able to capture the last occupied Polish strongholds, finishing up with a valiant 12-division assault on a weak pocket outside Gdynia. After we totalled up all the points, we decided that I had a decisive win. We sat down after it was completed and had a good laugh over our game.

I could afford to giggle because I had earned a decisive victory after all, and my friend could smile because he had made the Luftwaffe look pretty silly and had given me some bad moments with his inferior force.

I'll finish this up with a list of great" hints we picked up after our "championship" match:

1. Don't base short-legged interceptors out of range of your own border. You look silly.

2. As the Pole, always take the money and run. If you score successes, no matter how brilliant, take advantage by pulling back.

3. Study the darn rules--do not withdraw 85,000 men because you think it might possibly have some effect on somebody else's Intervention Table.

4. The Luftwaffe has a lot of good uses, although I have an unfortunate and lingering tendency to employ it almost exclusively as flying artillery. There were clear indications about where the Poles were basing, and in retrospect I should have been more serious about destroying that brave group of pilots. They cost me a lot of planes.

Now, none of the above is terribly helpful. It's all pretty obvious, in fact, but I can hardly wait to see what wonderful (HA!) insights I can produce for First to Fight.

In closing I would just like to say that my hat's off to the continuing excellence of Winston Hamilton and friends-may your gaming always be fun and your units never be lost in a tall rug!