Randy Pukalo, Minnesota

I bought FitE/SE this past year, thinking they would be the last wargames on World War Two I would need, seeing as I have games covering almost every other theatre. Boy, was I wrong! I have become so enthralled with the Europa system that I have to get every game in the series. Once you have tried Europa, you're just not content with simple, glossed-over games covering WWII.

I particularly like the inclusion of all the "ant" units that add the chrome and detail so lacking in other wargames!

This seems like a good time to make a few disclaimers about the variant in this issue, Sudden Storm. It is not an attempt to redefine or redesign Europa. It is not the first phase of a project to reissue Europa games with a "new, improved" system. It is not indicative of any new direction being taken by GRD and it is not intended to imply that there is anything at all wrony with standard Europa. It is a magazine scenario/variant based on a suggestion from one of our readers, and nothing more.

If Sudden Storm has an agenda, it is to streamline the game Fire in the East so that it can be played in significantfy less time. This is especially beneficial in a convention setting, where covering as much ground as possible in a short time is an important objective. I want to give Sudden Storm a real workout in such an environment.

Therefore, I am organizing a game of Sudden Storm to be played at Europafest in San Jose this summer. I would fike to have three players per side, but can get by with less. If you are planning to attend Origins/Europafest and would like to participate in a well-run, competitive, and memorable event then drop me a line. I will bring the game -- you need only show up ready to commit a reasonable amount of your time and to have fun. - Rick Gayler

Frank Watson, Virginia

I was glad to see John Astell agreed with most of my economic ideas. I guess I succeeded in my basic thesis that Europa economics is a solvable problem. I would like to comment on some of John's additions.

I think John misunderstood my intention of how to include agriculture in an economic model. I didn't mean that only food processing should be part of basic industry; I intended for all agriculture to be part of basic industry. "Subsistence to the population" is mostly food-in fact, call it "food" if you want. Pile people's plates high enough with yummy things and they'll think a long time before revolting. And subsistence or food output from basic industry would cost mostly "labor points" of some kind. There could be an upper limit on food production in some nations, particularly Great Britain, to reflect limited arable land.

John makes a good point about needing to study cement. My thoughts on cement are basically the same as for strategic materials. You don't have unlimited cement, but you'll make do with what you have and prioritize the use of that cement into projects for which there is no suitable substitute material. For example, you could make some pretty dandy forts out of concrete. But you don't have to use concrete to make a fort. You can use lots of mines, like in the desert, or coconut palm logs on Pacific islands, or you could dig trench systems that would qualify for more than "field fortifications." Meanwhile, you save your scarce cement to pour concrete for submarine pens and footings for aircraft plants.

John is right on in the area of maintenance. I thought about it and decided to ignore it for the time being. The same thing goes for lead times. I agree with John 100% that a pay-as-you go system is better than cash-up-front, as long as it's playable. My statement that "cash- up-front" would suffice was another grudging bow to simplicity.

On to the subject of headquarters: Rick Gayler asked in Rules Court in issue #33 if allowing divisions to break down into supported elements, only, would have much of an effect on Western Desert. In my opinion, the only real problem would be the early British armored divisions with the support group configuration. Historically, the support group often operated independently from the armored brigades, with unsatisfactory results.

You would also lose a bit of historical trivia when Ritchie and Auchinleck decided to go to the "brigade group" (in Europa, supported brigades) as a standard configuration for a British or Commonwealth division. This changed the previous policy of keeping the divisional artillery together.

There would be some dominoes in the game mechanics to work out, too. For example, you could no longer transport a division element by air. Also evacuation from beaches would be difficult, since virtually everybody would have heavy equipment. Allowing only the evacuation of an equivalent number of infantry RPs might help on this point.

Even though I don't think the proposal would really pose problems, I wonder if it is the best solution. The problem cited is that players ahistorically use their HQs as small combat task forces. I'm not sure headquarters units don't have that capability. What's in a HQ unit anyway? The division artillery, obviously, plus some engineers, a signal company, maybe a recon company, assorted clerks, cooks, and bottle washers, and other units. If you really wanted them to, these guys could probably control an unoccupied crossroads (they do have all that artillery) for a time before enemy line units came along and clobbered them. The problem does not come from capability, but from value of the unit. In Europa you can replace this HQ unit for the cost of a single infantry replacement point, the same as the lowliest scratch infantry regiment. That makes it temporarily expendable and that's wrong. These are expensive, skilled, specialty troops. They have expensive equipment, too.

In Europa, an HQ has unlimited support ability for units in its hex-the same as the biggest artillery unit. I think it would be better to put constraints on the replacability of HQ units than impose an outright ban on them. This would lead players to treat the HQs more historically, and you would do it for the right reason-the unit is valuable and hard to replace. This is the way we handle other specialist units already, so it wouldn't even really add to complexity.

Great idea! In FitE/SE (where the worst abuses occur) they could be handled by treating HQs as artillery units (which is basically what they are). This would force the Soviet player to spend scarce artillery RPs for HQ replacement, while the German player would have to accommodate HQ losses as part of his 'one artillery RE per month" limitation. This approach would address the abuses without altering the basic system. -Rick

Mark Telford, United Kingdom

I was for some time involved in the playtesting of For Whom the Bell Tolls. The Spanish Civil War is of particular interest to myself, and I anxiously await publication of the game. I read in TEM #32 of proposed Allied/Axis invasion scenarios. This is a must in order to maintain the interest of hard-core WWII enthusiasts, I believe. Whether this is really feasible within the constraints of a self- contained Lame or not, I'm not so sure. Would you really include all the counters needed for these hypothetical invasions'? Perhaps support scenarios in TEM would be more appropriate, as most of the counters would probably have to be taken from other Europa titles.

One thing I do hope is that the level of detail and the "conflict specific" rules are kept in place. The early war scenario. with its complex assortment of factions. was the most difficult to get used to. This should be kept. but the level of difficulty could be left up to the players with extensive use of optional rules. I found that the more you got used to it, the more interesting the game became. Attention to detail and hard work really paid off. Meanwhile, I would suggest an easy-toget-into mid-1937 scenario, after the 'May events' have taken place. This was not present in the playtest version, but was in the earlier No Pasaran! game, and could be easily adapted to FWTBT.

The Late War scenario I found to be the least interesting, as the war was decided by then. At this stage (i.e., 1938+) the possibility Of outside intervention would add sparkle, especially if it was variable and dependent on certain events. (This sounds a bit like Grand Europa).

I am also writing to publicize a new newsletter being published here in the UK. It is to be called El Aficionado, and will be devoted to all things related to the Spanish Civil War. The first issue will be released in Jan/Feb of 1994. It is 100% amateur. published on a shoestring and photocopier. and totally dependent on continuing interest by its readers.

We hope to cover tabletop war ' games, boardgames, books, models, basically anything that we can find worth writing about. At the very least, it should act as a contact point for those of us interested in this period. (We have contacts already in the US. as well as in Europe.)

By the way, TEM has really improved since its early issues. The number of scenarios coming out is really staggering! Finally. let ine put my name down as a supporter of Dean Brooks' compromise naval system, which sounded reasonably realistic while maintaining playability.

Swedish EXchange

Contrary to custoim, I will not start this letter with claims that I have been a faithful Europa player ever since Drang Nach Osten first appeared. Since I was only one year old at that time, it would be an obvious lie anyway. On the other hand. I can claim to have bought my first Europta game at the ag of 14, and how many of you Europa-grognards can say that?

There seems to be lot of Second Front chauvinists out there who seem to think that everything but FitE/SE and SF are Just sideshows of' minor interest. Me. I don't mind it'. Second Front will be released in time for Origins 2014 as long as GRD supplies me with other Europa games and scenarios in the meantime.

In my opinion, A Winter War is one of the best Europa games ever! And that is not just because the Subject is close to me (geographically). Here are my comments on the game, for what interest they may have.

Gary Stagliano has done an absolutely excellent job in tailoring the rules for the special conditions of the winter war. I'm really impressed by the fact that you have factored in all the effects of winter into the game system so smoothly that I don't even notice them all!

As for the rules that are unique for this game, I fulIy agree with making the armor rules optional. When I played the game, I didn't even once in a game to get any AEC modifiers anyway. And, since the rules ARE included (together with the Europa standard supply rules) as advanced game mechanics, not even the most fanatical Europaphile (like myself) could complain. And another rule that you're hardly going to miss in this game is the mountain stacking limits.

The reduced stacking rule is something new for Europa. I found this rule a very simple way to achieve realistic effects of the problems that made the Soviet forces unable to utilize their superiority in numbers full\. I can imagine a lot of similar situations in other Europa games where this rule could come in handy. Perhaps something for Russian surprise effects in FitE?

The partisan rules seem somewhat unclear and hard to grasp, which makes it difficult to use them correctly. Also, you get some strange supply effects if you use the advanced supply rules. For example, a U-2 partisan unit in regular mode that changes to partisan mode and back again seems to be resupplied. Also, exactly what CAN a unit in partisan mode do? Can it attack? It has no attack strength on its partisan side. The whole rule seems to be in need of rewriting A Winter War probably has the oddest naval rules of all Europa games, which is just to be expected since there is ice almost everywhere.

There is certainly a wide variety of straits, both frozen and unfrozen, in this game. Is there no difference between a frozen and unfrozen bridged strait?

The western intervention rules accurately reflect the uncertainty and farfetchedness of the operation. While a roll of 3 on 2 dice seems like a remote chance to say the least, it actually makes it a 37% chance that western intervention will occur sometime during the game.

The Map. One of the first things you do when you've bought a new Europa game is sit down and examine the map(s). With the new style maps this has become more fun than ever, especially if you can compare to the old maps. The more important change from the old FitE map of Finland seems to be two new roads, one between Kuhmo and Rugozero, and theii there is the soon-to-be-voted-the Europa- road-hardest-to-pronounce Ilomantsi- Medvezhyegorsk road. Also, the road to Petrozavodsk has become a low-capacity railroad which will certainly ease a Finnish offensive in FitE.

There seems to be some problems with the colours on the map, especially the process blue, that makes it extremely difficult to read the names and hex numbers on the map.

The multiple names of cities is very interesting, especially since this means that the Swedish names of Finnish cities are included. However, I noticed a definite inconsequence in the naming of Viipuri. The name Vyborg is the Russian name for the city. The Swedish name is Viborg. If it was your intention to mark out the Russian names of the Karelian cities, then Keksholm should be Keksgolm. But since the new style maps are tailor-made for the special time period covered by each game, no Finnish cities should have Russian names.

I'm a bit dubious about Karesuvanto. As far as I know, the Swedish counterpart (on the other side of the river) Karesuando is the bigger of the two. The name Kolen for the Scandinavian, mountain range is completely new to me. Perhaps the Norwegians use it. In Swedish it's called Skanderna. You haven't considered to put out the dots over A, A, and 6? After all, they ARE different letters, not just variations of A and 0. And Malmo and Vasteras look incredibly stupid in Swedish.

The Counters. I'm glad you've changed back to the old style countersheets. Those in First to Fight really made me worried! Of course, I got one of the pealing countersheets, but I doubt that even when they didn't split these counters could be as nice as those in BF and AWW. These counters are the tastiest counters I know of! I never expended as much effort cutting out counters as when I buy a new Europa game -- I always carefully smooth the corners of every counter, knowing that these counters will be used again and again. Of course, this will probably mean two weeks of continuous cutting when I get Second Front, but, hey, that's part of the fun! It seems like the Soviet regular army has gone slightly orange since First to Fight. Is this a continuous tendency? Perhaps we will see Russian troops camouflaged as Greeks infiltrating the Balkans in Grand Europa?

I'm the kind of person who can't resist offers like "also included are the entire Icelandic army of World War II," so of course I went completely bananas over those cute little armies of the Baltic states. You can bet that, as fast as I get my hands on a new-style map of the Baltic nations, I will be waging miniwars such as Latvia's invasion of Estonia (including, of course, possible Lithuanian intervention)!

On to another issue. One thing that I absolutely demand from any wargame is the ability to recreate history. Of course it should be possible to change history, but if it is impossible within a game to recreate the actual historical chain of events, then something is wrong. In this sense, there is something wrong with almost all of the Europa games. I will list the problems with each game separately.

Fire in the East/Scorched Earth/The Urals: I haven't played the game past 1941 myself yet, but from other accounts there seems to be problems too large to ignore in the later years of the war. The problems of recreating history appear earlier than that, however.

My impression is that it is completely impossible for Guderian's panzers to reach Smolensk and sweep up on Kiev from behind as they did historically, supply problems being one of many reasons. And I would like to meet the German player who can claim to have reached Rostov in 1941!

War in the Desert: In fact, the only thing that seems possible to accurately simulate in WitD is the initial British offensive! Once the Germans are in, nothing goes as in history. The Enter Rommel and El Alamein scenarios point out the problems well enough! In fact, the entire Europa combat system seems to be badly suited for desert warfare, as the battles tend to become the six- month meat-grinder variety rather than the swift seesaw war that was characteristic for desert warfare.

Balkan Front: No problem recreating history here! In fact, it is very hard to NOT recreate history! This is because the rules for neutrals and intervention at the very least fit the description of "dumb." For example, I do NOT believe that the first clear weather turn should be the one and only turn that German intervention can take place.

The Germans might have planned for an intervention as fast as the weather cleared, but that doesn't mean that I have to! Also, the rules for secondary railroads are clearly inadequate. They actually force the Germans to call for Yugoslav assistance. There seems to be an RE- limit variant for secondary railroads in playtest in other games. I really hope that this version will be used as the official Europa treatment. That rule would at least allow a limited German intervention through Bulgaria.

First to Fight: The problem here is not with historicity but with the abuse of the Europa rules. It surprises me that other Europa players haven't complained about this before. The defense of the three-day turn seems to rely upon the fact that the game will play about the same with standard Europa rules, but will be less exciting with just two game turns (any Polish player who has tried to hold onto all of his major cities until turn 5 for a possible French offensive can assure you that that isn't very exciting either). The sole compensation for the shorter turns, however, are higher costs to enter ZOCs! No mention about the five combat phases to one.

If the intention with the three-day turn is nothing more than the "same results but more fun," then there ought to be other modifications as well. Hiaher movement costs are one thin-. More important would be a combat chart with more AS results.

My suspicion, however, is that the three-day turn is just a cover-up for another case of the can't achieve historical results problem. Assuming a German surprise turn, a standard-rule game of First to Fight would probably see German panzers in Warszawa before the Poles have a chance to move even once!

A Winter War: Well ... I just have nothing to complain about here! Except for the victory conditions. The fact that only divisional and air losses count for victory purposes provokes some really slimy tricks. For example, since only totally eliminated Finnish divisions give victory points, the Finns tend to give rebuilding eliminated divisions to cadre strength higher priority than anything else. This way it isn't difficult for the Finns, despite high losses, to keep all his divisions out of the replacement pool. Another trick is to break down divisions... Also, the Russians will definitely prefer losses to his armor, as these units are non-divisional. This latter trick will punish itself in time, however, since the Russians will need all the nondivisional units they can get to create strong stacks.

Speaking of slimy tricks, I have a very simple way to get round the problem with positional AA. I just don't treat them as combat units at all. They can't retreat in a battle and they don't affect enemy movement in any way. A bit like resource points or supply points, or what have you. This way they become the movable intrinsic AA they ought to be.

I would now like to comment on the Swedish army of World War II. I don't own a copy of Narvik, but the Objective: Sweden scenario OB suggests that there is a basic fault with the Swedish OB. You see, contrary to most other armies of the time, the Swedish army is based on the regiment rather than the division. There were divisions, certainly, but if I remember it right, each division had five infantry regiments and one cavalry regiment.

Thus, as I see it, there are two possible ways to portray the Swedish divisions. One way is like corps headquarters. The other way is to make it possible to assemble two or three regiments into divisions when the need arises. The important thing, however, is to focus on the independent status of the regiments.

I was very amused to read about the "central plains" of Sweden in the diary of Hans Schiller (#27). Is this something that will be corrected on the new maps? And by the way, if you translate "the Dalalven river" in its entirety, it ends up "the the Valleyriver river"!

Finally, I would like to offer my services to GRD. If you, sometime in the future, need help with research or translation of Swedish sources, then I'm available. After all, I am a journalist student, so research is part of what I do!

Whew! It seems like my letter became more extensive than I intended! Feel free to cut where necessary and shred elsewhere, as long as you publish what you feel might be of general interest to the Europa community. Also feel free to correct my English grammar if faulty or backwards. No need to preserve the exotic feel of this letter!

I wish you the best of luck in the future, and may Europa games keep coming out in a constant stream forever!

Greg Marshall, California

I have played Europa games for many years now. Recently I was invited to playtest a new Europa-style game based on World War I called The Great War. Eric Pierce is the mastermind behind this game and the effort and time that he has applied to this endeavor becomes obvious once you have played it.

Eric's approach to The Great War is extremely clever. He has designed each rule, chart and playing piece to reflect pre-World War II abilities, yet in such a way that you can imagine the game evolving into what is now Europa.

When I first started to play the game as the German player I falsely expected a very slow-moving game, with trenches almost immediately stagnating play. In fact, the game was actually fast-paced with hardly a sign of trenches until almost the start of bad weather. And even in areas where trenches were starting to appear in large numbers, the game still proceeded very smoothly.

The hardest aspect of the game is to remember that this is not World War II. The units in The Great War are greatly restricted in their ability to move due to reduced movement ratings and increased ZOC costs. I was constantly worried about leaving my flanks exposed as I raced towards Paris, fearing that the British were going to sweep behind my armies and create havoc. The British did indeed move behind my lines, but very slowly. Unfortunately, I was unable to overcome this worry, so I stopped my advance for one turn to combat the British army heading towards Belgium. Even though I almost completely destroyed the BEF and caused the survivors to evacuate through Dunkirk (which gave me great personal satisfaction), this gave the French player time to move enough of his army into my path to prevent me from taking Paris. This little detour eliminated any chance of a quick victory for Germany.

Eric has also effectively incorporated the use of naval power into the game. As the German player I decided to stage a small amphibious landing on the coast of Belgium behind some troublesome British cavalry.

Unfortunately, to completely land all my units I was required to do battle with the entire British Home Fleet. Outnumbered, I decided to give it a try. Four rounds later the British ships were sent retreating, with their fleet reduced to a size equivalent to my remaining ships. To the dismay of the British, they were no longer able to maintain the blockade against the German coast as a result, allowing much-needed resources to be delivered to German ports. Ultimately, this action helped in causing the British to evacuate at Dunkirk.

It is my belief that all dedicated Europa players will find this game challenging, fun and smooth playing. I know that when it finally goes on sale, I will be one of the first in line to purchase it.

As testimonials such as Greg's continue to arrive from all over the country, it is becoming evident that Eric has created something really exceptional with The Great War. -Rick