Introduction

GRD has been pretty busy. First to Fight and A Winter War are sitting pretty at game stores everywhere, and the buzz is that-don't hold your breath here-Second Front might even be out by the time you read this. The latest gossip reaching my ears suggests that Second Front is almost completed, and that GRD will release it before Christmas 1993. We'll see if Santa hits the beaches. The year 1994 might even see another game released, the long-awaited For Whom the Bell Tolls (John Gee and Jeff Millefoglie, it tolls for thee). Moreover, there are a number of ongoing miscellaneous projects in various stages of completion.

The large amount of current Europa activity, however, should not stop us from considering what lies in the future for the series. I speak here not of the eventual Grand Europa, but rather the next scheduled Europa entry in the Collector Series, the remake of Western Desert. During the next year, a pretty fair amount of work should go into designing this game, and Europa devotees should be able to voice their opinions about what to put in the simulation. This article, then, looks at some of the options available and offers a few suggestions.

Playing Dr. Frankenstein, or, How to Make a Monster

As I understand preliminary thought on the subject, the Western Desert remake (herein titled War in the Desert) will be substantially larger than the original-at least a "mini-monster." The original idea was to combine The Near East and Western Desert into a single, larger game. This would save some costs (boxes, rules, etc.), and provide greater coverage. Then, too, The Near East is hardly the sort of exciting module that would sell well on its own. I can easily see the rationale for this decision.

You'll notice that Torch was not mentioned. There was initially some objection to including Torch in the set, but recent word is that the tide may have turned. Let us hope that it has. When I think of "war in the desert," I think of Monty, Rommel, Tobruk, El Alamein, and, oh yeah, Kasserine. The perennial Europa stepchild, Torch, should be allowed to go to the ball this time. Inclusion might make the package more expensive, but War in the Desert just wouldn't be the same without Patton reading that magnificent bastard Rommel's book.

It's difficult to argue with economics (just ask David Stockman), and it may be that the relative success or lack thereof of the monster Second Front will determine how big game packages can be in the future. But War in the Desert would be sadly incomplete without French North Africa, and the inclusion of Iraq (even given our much more recent war in the desert) is a rather disappointing compensation.

We also have to ask ourselves what will happen to Torch if it is not included in War in the Desert. Sales of the original game were evidently disappointing, so I cannot imagine that GRD is much more ready to redo Torch than it would be to redo The Near East. I think that Torch would find itself shuffled to the very bottom of the "redo" pile, somewhere below The Fall of France (though perhaps above a new East Africa game). To me, this would be a shame.

[Rest easy, Mark. GRD does indeed intend to include the Torch counters, maps and campaign in the War in the Desert Collector Series package. -RMG]

How to Launch a Counter Attack

All three of the original "desert" games share one characteristic besides sand-filled hexes: they have small countermixes. There just aren't many units trundling around in these simulations, even when you consider the slightly more intimate scale that the desert game OBs use.

This actually provides GRD with an opportunity. Because not that many units are required for the game, GRD can use its countersheets to provide Europa players with some of the longmissing Europa OB material. These additional units are not only necessary components for the play of (please doff your hat before reading the following two words) Grand Europa, but would also make the creation of a number of additional scenarios and variants possible.

There are a number of possible options; I think the OB most needed at this point in time is the Italian OB. It would be nice to have the complete Italian order of battle from Summer 1939 to the summer of 1943 available, barring those units actually appearing in other games (Fall of France, Balkan Front, FitE/SE, although the OBs for some of these, especially Fall of France can probably use revision). Currently, we only have glimpses of what the Italian fighting machine, such as it was, was like; it would be nice to finally have the complete picture.

Almost as fragmented as the Italian OB is the current Europa British/Commonwealth OB. Europa will eventually require a complete OB for these countries; why not start including it here? I would think that the British/Commonwealth OBs for the period of time from the beginning of 1941 until the beginning of Second Front would be suitable for inclusion in this game (the 1939-40 OBs could be included in the Collector Series remake of Their Finest Hour and The Fall of France as required).

I fully realize that War in the Desert can't include everything under the sun, but we ought to start thinking about how many things we can stuff into the game. What about a Europa Order of Battle for all of North Africa from Summer 1939 on? Corps counters for War in the Desert would also be nice. And while we're on the subject of components, how about including a large-scale display for the El Alamein area as well as the Tobruk display? I can't speak for all gainers, but such a display would certainly save me loads of effort.

The Golden Rules

Aside from subject matter and components, the third major point of consideration is, of course, how the game will be played. What will War in the Desert have, in terms of rules? Let's explore a few options.

The first priority for War in the Desert should be playability. Since the basic Europa rules themselves are pretty playable, the emphasis should be on variety. By this, I mean primarily that War in the Desert should not commit the same mistake that First to Fight did, and have only one scenario. The actual war in the desert lasted a long time, and contained a number of important watersheds. The new game should contain scenarios for these.

Some scenarios have already been designed, and have appeared in the pages of this magazine. "Kasserine Crisis" and "Enter Rommel" spring to mind; Frank Watson's "Operation Crusader" scenario is a more recent example. Other possibilities also present themselves: El Alamein, Gazala, etc. Players should be able to play "battle scenarios," intermediate scenarios lasting a year or so, and a large campaign game. One or two hypothetical scenarios along the line of Balkan Front's "Case Y" scenario would also be very pleasing, and would take very little effort. This would give the game replayability, and would allow players options other than the extremely long simulation of the entire campaign. Luckily, scenarios are less difficult to devise for this game than for, say the Russian front, because the scale is so small and the war so well-covered that essential OB information is comparatively easy to find-something our magazine scenario designers have already discovered.

Scenarios should also take advantage of the counters in the countermix. If The Near East is amalgamated into the game, then include a scenario involving Turkey, either a Turkish intervention scenario, or some sort of invasion of Turkey scenario (possibly using counters from Balkan Front). If any other OBs, such as the Italian OB, are included, then include provisions for using some or all of those counters. Let us hope that from now on we won't have any counters which must completely languish until Grand Europa.

War in the Desert should also take advantage of other games-it would be nice to have a scenario mating Balkan Front with War in the Desert. And what about -- gasp! -- linking War in the Desert with Second Front?

If War in the Desert can profit from scenarios created since the publication of Western Desert, it can profit as well from the careful examination that the rules have undergone by desert devotees. I think that Ben Knight, the former editor of this magazine and recent "simplicity-in-design" award winner, has probably offered some of the best suggestions for revision (see TEM #14 and ETO #52). Some of his suggestions have been simple tweakings of the order of battle, but he has also illuminated some of the larger problems with the Western Desert rules.

The rules, for instance, do not accurately depict the British strategic situation very well in several respects. The sections of the rules dealing with invading the Levant are probably the most notorious in this regard. War in the Desert should not give the British advantages they did not really possess.

There are other elements to the Western Desert rules that have not really been adequately addressed by anyone so far. Here I refer mainly to those rules which differ significantly from rules in other Europa games. The two best examples are the supply and replacement systems. Grand Europa will eventually require some sort of system- wide replacement rule, and will require as well a comprehensive way to handle supply, both in North Africa and Europe.

Since these rules must be devised at some point in the future, why not do them now, for War in the Desert? Why not include a replacement rule which helps standardize Europa replacements? And why not rationalize the supply rules, so that the desert game(s) can be linked seamlessly with other games? War in the Desert should also introduce the concept of resource points to Africa, so that Europa will finally have a system-wide conception of what can be done with resource points.

Jump on the Band-Kubelwagen

In the above paragraphs, I've given you some ideas as to ways in which the upcoming War in the Desert can be a more satisfying design effort. I've obviously got my vision of the Platonic ideal for War in the Desert, and I hope my ideal is not a solitary one.

Whatever your vision, though, you should take it upon yourself to let it be known to GRD. Without your input, GRD will do War in the Desert the way it thinks it should be done. This way may be just fine -- but you don't know, do you? Now is the time to describe to GRD how you'd like War in the Desert to look. You have a stake in the future of Europa, too.