Chris Lundvall, Washington

We had our usual good time at Origins. Our project this year was 1941 FitE/SE using the rules presented in Bradley Skeen's article "Europa Reform: Reasoned and Revealed" from TEM #43/44. Here a short synopsis of our impressions.

The allowance for variable overrun was, in general, not used by the Germans. I believe they had opportunities but just didn't try. I will perhaps try them in a solitaire game.

The attack at the end of the exploitation phase was used though, and the effect was devastating on occasion. However, the German players were not real aggressive in my estimate and didn't use their new advantages optimally.

The rule prohibiting overruns on the June surprise turn is bad. The Soviet player easily abuses it. I would advise removing it. Perhaps no overruns at less than 10-1 odds during the surprise turn would be more appropriate.

The Second Front air rules grafted onto FitE quite well. Both sides used CAP and DAS missions extensively.

The logistics points rules were also a welcome addition. The actual points themselves were not a limiting factor but the positioning of the headquarters was a serious constraint, especially for the Soviets with their scarce and quite immobile HQs. I would limit Soviet HQ counters to moving exclusively along rail or road lines, with no overland movement.

This Soviet HQ rule takes care of the prevalent and very destructive Soviet armor attacks on targets of opportunity common in many Fire in the East games. Other more complex solutions to this rather ahistorical behavior are not needed now.

The use of actual logistics points may be important after 1941 but simple limits on the number of HQ counters which can be activated may be easier and perhaps even more historical. Was it the actual amount of supplies or the limited administrative resources to coordinate them that limited German attack potential? I strongly suspect competent trained staff officers were much rarer than bullets in the Red Army.

The new attrition CRT worked out all right. As the Soviet player, I didn't notice too much difference on my side but the Axis players estimated about 25 divisional cadres created by the attrition result. That would be significant. The rules that each odds increase past 7-1 was translated as a positive die roll modifier is probably inappropriate as it was used to get a guaranteed "no loss" die roll result.

You left out the seasonal -2 mud combat modifier and -1 snow modifier. The armor +/-1 die roll modifier (AEC) during snow should also have been included.

Overall, the new set of rule modifications added greatly to the enjoyment of our game. It was certainly more exciting than previous plays and seemingly more historical also.

I regularly checked in on the progress of this game in the E- fest room: it had more of the "look" to the this observer of a real Russian campaign than any other FitE game I have witnessed pockets, salients, no NODLS, etc. However, the historical course of the game might also be due to the newness of the players to the revisions used. It has often been stated that the only real valid playing of a wargame is the first one - after that, the players use their previous experiences to mold their play, something the original generals could not do. Chris' opinion that the Germans did not play aggressively enough leads one to wonder if a repeat playing would take a considerably different course. - FW

Dean T. Moon, USN

I wanted to let the Europa community know that the insurance policy GR/D established in TEM #47 is definitely not lip service. I thought the "policy" was TEM humor the first time I saw it! Come on? Full replacement-cost insurance for wargames?!

I was parted from my wargame collection during a robbery that occurred while I was deployed to the Mediterranean last August (1996).

I vaguely remembered something about "insurance" for Europa Association members, but when I phoned Winston last December, I honestly expected to have to shell out the bones to replace my beloved Europa titles. On the contrary, he sent me free (to me, at least) replacements for every game he had onhand, and sent me every TEM issue on-hand for half price. Top-of-the-line customer service to go along with state-of-theart game design and production! You guys rule!

My loyalty has found a home at GR/D (next to a sizable fraction of my future income stream!).

Alan Philson, Scotland

In reply to John Berger's note in the Exchange of TEM #53:

Yes you did miss something, the OB covers only the movements of RN ships in the ETO/MTO, the OB does not deprive the Germans of the Graf Spee since there are no German naval units in it, the German version has not yet been published (hint to FW). Nor would it deprive the Germans of the Graf Spee since she was not sunk during that action. To clarify, the OB assumes that the actual battle took place with damage to the RN ships involved which governs their subsequent movements. The only reason for assuming that the River Platte action had occurred was in its effects on the movements of a lot of RN warships at a very early part of the war.

The German version has the option of having the Graf Spee appear in a German port in January 1940 and immediately going into refit. The article specifically excludes combat losses for the RN as does the German version, the only losses are those due to accidents like collision or grounding, so to take your point on the loss of the Courageous, you have to inflict this and any other losses using whichever rules package you prefer; at the time of writing, "Supermarina" / TFH style were the current naval rules.

Gary Renaud, California

Our local newspaper, The Orange County Register, has a section called "Second Front Page" yet it has never covered anything about amphibious assaults, minesweeping, danger zones, or island-hopping in the Med. False advertising, I call it.