The review of Normandie '44 (Vae Victis) interested me. It certainly is a good idea and has much to commend it. Nevertheless having played it I have some concerns about it. I tried it a few times solitaire some time ago. Following the review I wondered if perhaps I'd got something wrong and tried it again. There are a number of features I was unhappy with. Well, for a start I couldn't even decide what some of the rules were. Even with the errata there are still numerous points that are not clear. Some of the rules strike me as a bit dubious. Allied airpower seems fairly ineffective. Admittedly the weather was pretty bad but in the opening half of the game the Allies only have a one third chance of getting any tactical airpower. I would have thought that in rainy weather they should get half the airpower rather than none at all. My real concern lies in the combat system. This is one that gives players the option to retreat without loss, as an alternative to taking step losses. A method that can result in some odd situations at times. This game only reinforced that opinion. There is a small introductory scenario on the capture of Cherbourg that I tried three times. To start with the Germans are scattered in the open, while the best defensive position is around Cherbourg. They actually want to get back to the defensive lines as quickly as possible. The Americans attack and the Germans simply use any losses suffered to run back to Cherbourg. Combat results meant they could retreat 1 or 2 hexes. That's often further than they could go in a normal move! Once they had their units around Cherbourg they were too strong and the Americans had no real hope of breaking in. Abandoned that scenario and tried the invasion. The German defences are extremely tough and in many cases there seemed to be a high probability of taking losses. In the three times I tried the invasion the Allies failed to get ashore on at least one beach every time and in one case failed on three. My understanding of the rule is that the Allies have to eliminate the intrinsic defence before they can land. Allied shore bombardment can help but it only has a 50:50 chance of success, less for the Americans as they have less gunfire support! Airpower cannot help either, as tactical airpower cannot provide support. Once the Allies get ashore in strength things are different for a few turns at least. Now the Germans have to rush units up to block the front. The Germans don't want to retreat and can't afford to take casualties. The Allies however can launch some big attacks that are almost guaranteed to inflict losses on the Germans. If the latter run away they leave a hole in the front and can't bottle up the Allies. They don't have enough units to cover the front properly. If they take step losses the unit dies, that is even worse. After pondering this for several nights and replaying the opening moves three times I gave up. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong and I'd be interested in other people's reaction to the combat system. This is a great shame as there are some clever ideas in the system and it has the potential to be a great game. Back to Perfidious Albion #101 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