Designed by James Meldrum for Simulations Workshop Cuba Libre (Free Cuba) simulates the Bay Of Pigs invasion of April 1961. This was when a band of Cuban exiles, trained and equipped by the CIA, landed in Cuba hoping to spark an uprising. This in turn would lead to a provisional government, US intervention and see Fidel Castro's communist regime ended. Unfortunately there were a series of mistakes made in intelligence and planning for this operation. Add to this some pure bad luck and the execution was far from smooth. I did wonder if this would make a fitting subject for a balanced and enjoyable game. For your money you get two 11" x 17" maps, 120 single sided counters, four player aid cards, and a sheet of option cards. The option cards need to be cut apart, the units mounted and likewise cut apart. Units are platoon, company and battalion size, each map hex represents approximately one kilometre and each of the games twelve turns represents six hours. The rules are simple and well laid out, the graphics, whilst unsophisticated, are good except that the exile and optional US marines are too dark making them difficult to read under electric light. Each player turn commences with the air phase. On night turns air units are grounded except that the Exile player can drop any available parachute units. These are likely to drift and heavy weapons drifting into swamp hexes, of which there are a lot, are lost. Dropping them on a daylight turn eliminates the risk of drifting but leaves them open to air interception by the Cuban airforce. In my opinion dropping at night is the safer option. Air units can be used to attack ground units, with the Cuban player is also able to use them to attack exile naval units. In all cases they are subject to anti-aircraft or air to air combat. Different aircraft types are represented and if you match the right type to the right mission, Sea Furies versus naval units for example, they can be deadly. However, such missions take their toll and you soon find your limited air assets being eaten away. All the different missions are resolved via a simple totalling of combat factors and rolling of a die with each type having its own CRT. The Cubans have the upper hand in the air so the Exile player has to choose carefully when to commit his air units. Movement follows and is fairly standard. However, the terrain is heavy going and units are generally going no where fast unless by road. During this phase, Exile units are transferred to beach hexes from naval units at sea. On night turns only Infantry may land. There is a limit to the number of units that may land per turn and they are simply placed on a beach hex within four hexes of the vessel carrying them. Naval units are a tempting target for the Cuban airforce for if a ship is sunk any heavy equipment units on board go down with the ship. Infantry can swim ashore. So, once all the units have landed do you simply move your naval units off map and out of harms way? You can, but land units trace supply to these vessels and suffer supply shortages if they are moved off map. It's a bit of a catch 22 as naturally the shortages apply equally if naval vessels have been sunk. If supply is short Artillery and MG units have to roll a die every time they are used, even in defence. This can, and will, result in them being removed from play as ammo becomes scarce, a nice touch. Combat follows and is voluntary between adjacent units. It is the usual odds and terrain with ranged units able to firein support. It is worth noting that such units may only provide support once per game turn so the owning player must balance his firepower between supporting attacks and saving some for defence. Results are disruptions and, in extreme cases, elimination. Units are flipped to there reverse when disrupted and as all units have the same blank rear it is wise to mark them so as to be able to distinguish between Cubans and Exiles in this state. Disrupted units receiving a second disruption are eliminated. A player's turn ends with the Recovery phase. A die is rolled for each unit to determine if it remains disrupted or recovers. Such units move and defend normally but have no zone of control and defend at half strength. Some disruption markers would have helped here as one is forced to flip units back to their front side to determine their movement and combat factors. Although there is technically only one scenario, the game comes with a host of options at a cost in victory points once you have explored the historical game. Players may remember something like this in SPI's France 1940. In this game each player chooses one option card at random. Its contents remain unknown to the opposing player until it is played, if indeed it is. The cards range from having no option and suggesting you bluff, right up to support from US Marines. The game situation reminds me a little of Anzio during WW2. The Exiles must land and make hay whilst the going is good, occupying defensible terrain to establish a perimeter. The Cubans soon arrive in force and must liberate all town hexes and an airfield hex if they are to win. The game has the feel of a Command issue game, one of the decent issues that is, right down to a bonus rule for concentric assaults. It is simple to play with smooth procedures used throughout. Perhaps this was a rejected submission for the magazine? Fans of XTR's approach will certainly like this a lot. It is not a game I am likely to keep but would recommend purchase to anyone with an interest in the subject matter or amphibious operations. It is certainly worth playing a few times. The Exile side is the most interesting to play but this is still a solid game on a neglected topic. Back to Perfidious Albion #100 Table of Contents Back to Perfidious Albion List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by Charles and Teresa Vasey. 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