Matanikau and GD'40, our two December 1993 releases, will be the first games released in the TCS since 199 1. What makes these two games special is that they contain the 3rd edition rules. Considerable time and effort have gone into this revision. The focus has been to streamline where necessary and to give the player a better 'feel' for tactical operations. This article will run down some of the changes to the system and why we feel they are an improvement.

The most obvious change to anyone first cracking the rules will be that the sequence of play is different. Essentially, we ditched the old Suppressive Fire Phase and have integrated suppressive fire into a player's Action Phase. In an action, a player may either move with a unit or take a suppressive fire action (SFA). Units that do an SFA receive a fired marker; this restricts them in their ability to use over watch fire. The advantage in taking an SFA is that any rolls the target makes on the morale table will be shifted two columns to the right (a bad thing for the target). This should result in SFAs actually being used to suppress a unit! Mode changing is now integrated into movement. We did this to put some movement back into the game and it makes more sense than the way it was.

Another change was to the Area Fire Table. Formerly, when firing at a stack, you had to roll for each unit individually. Now stacking is a modifier and you can spread the losses obtained among the units in the hex. Clarification was also made to the Area Fire versus Trucks and B-Type targets with a defense of 1, making the half-tracks a little tougher to kill with area fire. Quite a bit of thought went into this because the armor in both new games is quite a bit lighter than you are likely to see later in the war. The Germans even have one tank, the Pz-I; that is a B-Type target with a defensce of 0! The changes here were the most difficult to make, being the constant subject of 'yet one more playtest'. As it is now, it plays faster and is a better model than the older system.

The same is true for the new rules on artillery. Probably the area that slowed the old system down the most, it will likely still take some time to do really big shoots. (These are very rare in Matanikau and GD'40--we'll have to wait for Black Wednesday for those!) Dean has also considerably reduced the array of different fires available, doing away with TRPs, FPF's, etc. On-Call missions with dedicated batteries are now possible, allowing the duplication of a mission for an FPF or a TRP. This has cut the player's workload somewhat while still giving him the flexibility to tailor his fire missions to his needs. To call a mission, an appropriate spotter plots a visible target hex and records the artillery battery(s) making the attack, the number of EFSs fired and the type of concentration. If the spotter can still see the target hex when the attack arrives, you may shift the target hex up to three hexes to a hex still within LOS of the spotter. You then roll for scatter of the incoming fire and the spotter attempts correction. Three results are possible: a 'good' shoot for full effect, a 'bad' shoot for half effect, and a cancelled fire. Next, roll for EFSs to see where they land within the concentration pattern. The result is some smoke in the area and severe hurt to anyone unlucky enough to be hit. On-Call missions differ in that their lag time is higher, but once in place you may fire them simply by having the observer ask for the fire. They are always good shoots in the pattern specified with the same number of rounds. They are quite handy and we hope players agree that they make things a bit easier.

We have also modified the Point Fire Table, combining many things into one table. You just need to cross- index the attack differential with the table modifiers to get three numbers, one each for close, nominal, and long ranges. A couple of run-throughs this table and we know you'll like-and appreciate-it as much as we do.

The Morale Table also underwent numerous changes. We 'stretched' it out a bit, making a suppressed result more likely and doing away with the surrender results until mid-table. Actions such as assault and SFAs have column shifts, resulting in more suppressed and paralyzed results. As a unit takes losses and its company morale increases, it becomes likely to have more serious morale problems. We added the column shifts for SFAs here instead of on the Area Fire Table, because we wanted to show the benefits to a unit devoting its time to suppressing a particular area. The benefit was not that a larger volume of fire was coming in, but rather the continuation of a harassing fire that would force a unit to keep its head down. Incorporating this into the morale table seemed logical and natural.

The command rules stayed basically intact. The only real change is in the size modifiers for Op Sheet acceptance. We thought players should be thinking more in terms of battalion Op Sheets, rather than company ones. Also, as anyone in the military will tell you, a company does not really have a staff; the smallest unit that does is a battalion. The result here is that players who think in terms of battalions will see their plans implemented quicker than a player who tries to give Op Sheets to each company.

The overwatch rules underwent some revision as well. Only single stacks can ever engage an overwatch trigger-with no die roll to fire. A stack firing at a movement-based overwatch trigger must roll a die at the conclusion of its fire; if the die is a 5 or 6, mark the stack that fired with a Fired Marker. This means that the unit cannot fire again in that Action Phase. The only exception is if there is a trigger in an adjacent hex, the unit can fire (i.e., the unit may protect itself if enemies come to close). We made this change to show that long range fire, typical in a game, is not often attempted in real life. Together with the range modifiers on the Area Fire Table, this should limit longrange fire fests and increase the number of short-to-middle range fire combats.

A few changes were made to AT Rolls. At most, an infantry unit can only take on one stack in this manner and at most one target per firing step. (This should keep the old "death star" infantry ray-gun approach out of the game.) Furthermore, we added in an infantry step loss if the roll is a 2 or 3. This reflects the infantry bungling badly and should not happen too often in the later war period. In the early war, however, the relative 'newness' of the tank often caused infantry to panic. This shows up in GD'40 with a -3 to AT Rolls made by either side. The possibility of a loss should encourage players to think twice about 'Panzer hunting' with these troops. Another small change is in the way one handle's his aircraft. We simplified the procedure quite a bit; instead of a number of aircraft each making a number of runs, the player simply finds the number of strikes available that turn and applies them. You can use each strike either as an area or a point fire. This makes it easier to see what is available and how best to use it. Also, AA fires and the "enemy mind control" rolls have been simplified to single, unmodified, die rolls which either come up with a 6, or don't. While massively simplified, this system eliminates the need to roll for every AA unit on the map.

The new TCS rules represent a considerable investment of time for us: several hundred hours, at least. We have gone to great lengths to make them easy to read and accessible to the average gamer. We would appreciate any comments that gamers may have on the new rules layout, pro or con. If enough positive response comes in, we will apply the same 'savage' editing to our other series. The other important change, to us, was giving the game more of a correct 'feel'. It not only needed to recreate, on a macro scale, the outcome of an engagement but also give the player a feel of the process of how he got there. The changes to the system all aimed to make the series more fluid and 'hands on' and, consequently, more fun to play. We hope you enjoy and appreciate the changes we made. We look forward to your comments.