Master Europa WWII Boardgame Rules Review by Russ Lockwood

Master Europa takes the classic Fire in the East/Scorched Earth (Drang Nach Osten/Unentschieden for real boardgame grognards) and turns the entire system upside down with several new concepts (and a couple of refined "classic" concepts) to extend an already excellent game system. Note: Master Europa is NOT a separate game--it is a set of rules to be used with the existing Europa game. You must own the Europa game to use ME. Europa, once GDW and now under the aegis of GRD, is a divisional level boardgame covering the European theater of WWII at 1 turn=15 days. Some counters reach down into the battalion level, others go up to corps level, but the majority of units are divisional in size. Despite the massive undertaking (The east front module, Fire in the East, has something like 3-4000 counters, and the extension, Scorched Earth, just about that many), it is a relatively easy game to learn. According to designer Tom Johnson, Master Europa upgrades the game with more historical realism, on occasion at the expense of playability, but overall tweaks it enough to be a different game. Please note that once you implement Master Europa rules, you cannot mix the original rules in--it's an either-or situation. Major Changes The first change is the stacking limit--basically doubling the original version. Johnson notes that when they started looking at some of the battles around Kursk in 1943, the concentration should be double again, but they chose a plain 20REs (8 of artillery) to work with from a play balance flavor. The second is German effectiveness. If you've ever read how a German battalion could hold off a Soviet division, and tried to do that in original Europa, you'd quickly see the futility. It's still futile in Master Europa, but there's a better chance of doing it. Basically, the German counter strengths are multiplied by a factor depending on who they are fighting and when. For example, when the German blitz into the USSR in 1941, it's 3X. By the time they are falling back to Berlin, it's only 2X. As the Soviet player in 1944, this makes a big difference as I tried to mop up bypassed German forces. In my piece of the motherland, there were no more than 6 or 7 divisions scattered behind the front lines, some of which had held out for a month. And yet, I had to use somewhere on the order of 30-40 CORPS and 2/3rds of my available airpower to eliminate them. Not that it mattered much, as the Germans had pulled back to a line from East Prussia to the Carpathians--neatly outrunning the Soviet supply capacity. Ah, but next month, those rear area corps would be up at the front lines... Which brings us to change number three: air. This is not as elegantly done--you need a calculator. And you need to read that particular rules section a few times. Yes, it is a single die roll, and yes, double yes, the Patrol attacks and 'damaged' status are now gone, but the required calculations take a little too much of my minimal brainpower. Johnson calls them adding "texture," and I'm sure the process becomes easier as time goes on, but when you need a calculator, this is a little too math-intensive. Worse, the air combat results table and AA table have two numbers separated by a slash, with no key as to what those numbers represent. And that brings us to a revised ground CRT (Combat Results Table). This is another superb idea--extending the table and getting rid of NEs (No Effects). It's a little "bloodier," says designer Johnson, and includes more varied results (like defender quartered and retreat). And the fifth major rules change is in exploitation. In Europa, only mechanized units moved after combat to exploit a hole in the front line. In Master Europa, all units can exploit, although non-mechanized do so at 1/2 speed. Now, you can punch through a line, hold the gap with infantry as armor pours through. There is also a reaction phase, using well-defined criteria, that sllows a defender to try and plug a hole before exploitation phase. All In All Master Europa is a must buy for Europa fans--as as one of the early buyers who cut out the Moscow hex for the discount on Fire in the East, I guess I qualify. I purchased two Master Europa modules: Eastern Front ('41-'44) and Western Front Invasion ('43-'45), but passed on the Blitzkrieg (France '40 and Britain) module. Note: Johnson includes a set of color counters (printed on a color printer and glued to a cardboard--you'll have to cut them out) in Western Front Invasion. These are corp level counters for the US and Britain, plus a number of new "Quartermaster" counters used to transport "Depot Maintenance Points (used in overseas supply, as when D-Day occurs, etc), and other markers. Eastern Front also contains a set of about a dozen counters. Johnson expects to produce a dozen Master Europa modules by the year 1999. A full Naval System (there's something that needs considerable work!) is due by '98, and a strategic air war by '99. In between comes North Africa, Poland, Finland, Balkans, Germany 1945, and partisan modules. The final module is a single set called Master Europa where all module rules are united--which is probably by the year 2000. Available direct from Tom Johnson, 1412 'B' South Hastings Way, Eau Claire, WI 54701, E-mail: swcectj@discover-net.net. $18 per module. Back to Historical Game Review List Back to Master Game Review List Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 by Coalition Web, Inc. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com