Designed by Dave Schroeder for SPW/Decision
The follow-up to The Schlieffen Plan in this World War One mad hobby is a double helping of fun on the two campaigns in the East that started the 1914 season. The two games can be played separately or together, and can also be played in tandem with The Schlieffen Plan for those of you who want to get the full experience, and yes Gallant Little Serbia will be along later to complete the initial campaign. My remarks below mostly concern the Galicia game.
The system of The Schlieffen Plan is pretty simple, conveyed precisely in a very clear rulebook. The game is divisional level (with some brigades) which is a level too many for me. The most immediately arresting thing about the game is the map. It is executed very cleanly with good colours but it rather disconcertingly is neither standard hex colouring nor the rather overblown "realistic" effect. Instead many hexes are divided up into equilateral triangles of different terrain, this allows the game to identify the more limited approaches to a hex that might have clear hexsides in another direction. The crystalline effect can be odd, but it works pretty well in practice if you can just recalibrate your eyesight.
The counters are very clean and smart, as they need to be on the map. The Russians are a Russian Khaki shade whereas the kaiserliks are in white with their national colour identified in the NATO box symbol. This allows you to identify Polish, Czech, Croat, Magyar and German formations. It also means that differing strengths can be allotted to represent the more spotty performance of the K.u.K. Well it will if you assume that the "subject races" felt badly towards the Empire at the beginning of the war, though the indication was otherwise. Certainly many Poles were interested in recapturing Warsaw or freeing Galicia from the Russian hordes. Be that as it may The Schlieffen Plan is not really very political in style so you get that which you are given.
The sequence is Reinforce-Move-Fight-Replacement (Central Powers then Russia) so little pain there. After seven turns you get a Monthly Special Turn where matters to do with trenches are managed.
Movement is simple once you have grasped the portrayal of terrain. ZOCs slow but do not freeze movement. There are the usual rules for rail movement with those irritating railhead markers to which one usually assigns a few Landwehr brigades to clear up the lines. With Russia being in this game the need to handle gauge changes slows down matters as well.
Stacking is old-fashioned GDW stuff - six divisions plus three artillery units. Just to add to the fun each brigade or regiment counts as a half division. So with HQs etc one can hope for a towering inferno. Some gamers use corps markers to deal with this. You can download counters and Corps Command Boxes from the Internet.
Combat is where things change and you need to read the rules carefully. There is no odds CRT, both sides judge the effect of their fire independently of the other. Let's say a Russian division (a 4) is in the forest and attacked by two "German" Austrian divisions (value 10). The Russian may (if he pays supply) counter-attack (defend if you prefer) at three times his own value. So he will find the 12 column on the chart (3 times 4) and dice with a +2 for the defensive terrain. He scores a modified 5 and inflicts 2 strength point losses. The Austrians dice on the 10 column (their unmodified strength) but deduct 2 from the dice, they inflict one SP loss. [The defender has inflicted losses equivalent to 50% of his strength and the attacker only 10% despite the odds being over 2:1]. Immediately one identifies the power of the defence in this war. Very few World War One games actually have this effect, indeed in Paths of Glory if an attacker suffers higher losses he has lost the battle! The attacker always needs supply. The defender however may avoid paying the supply and then is treated as having his strength halved. Even better if (like the BEF) he is falling back he can avoid one third of his losses at the cost of doubling not tripling the strength for a counterattack if he retreats. All of which can translate into the defender retreating and not spending any supply but still having his face value strength and costing the attacker supplies. Retreats can also be obliged by loss levels.
Supplies are very important, not only because without them there are no attacks but because they can suddenly increase the losses when a defender turns at bay and spends supply while refusing to retreat. You will see a few Kindermord in this game. In addition supplies control the pace of the game, forcing one to keep certain areas quiet to ensure supplies are available elsewhere. In addition, the Austrians and Russians are half as effective in their use of supplies as the Germans permitting the Germans to mass fire on the counter-attack for the same cost as the poor Russians spend for feeble attacks. [Or perhaps the Eastern powers have half as many supply points in reality]. Supply is apparently based on the artillery ammunition stocks of the various powers.
I found in general that the opening stocks were swiftly used (especially with compulsory attacks) and what little arrived thereafter was insufficient so that combat petered out a little too soon. The Russians in Galicia have 180 supply points and receive a further 10 in the period to the end of November. That extra translates as enough for ten divisions to attack once (about one attack for the divisions of one of the four Russian armies on the map). The matter therefore becomes how one manages one's opening stocks. The Austrians start with 140 supply points (plus 40 arriving later, especially when 2nd Army arrives) but they are faced with two turns of compulsory attacking which (if I calculate this right) could involve between 50 and 60 supply points. The Russians will need to carefully consider their counter-attacking response because counter-attacking costs twice as much supply as attacking (I'm not sure why but I suspect a balance here). So if the Russians counter-attack at max strength (crippling the Austrians who will frequently be attacking with about the same numbers) they will devour 100 to 120 supply points - pretty much two thirds of all they have. This can lead to a rather strange game as the Austrians hurl themselves on the Russian guns taking terrible losses, but leaving the Russians with the task of herding them back gently as the artillery supplies prevent the Russians being too aggressive.
The Galicia special rules, while possibly historical, are unattractive to play. The game opens with a large number of units on the map, but few of them mobilised. As the turns of August pass the formations gradually become available for movement. At this point both sides are seized by an Iron Maiden concept of the War Plans. Each Army, Russian and Austro-Hungarian is given an objective (a fortress or perhaps just an enemy ZOC) and must move towards it. The precise details of this are not given so that there is a number of slightly wobbly factors, but (choice of targets aside) you will see that the first few turns must be exactly the same. In turns 6 and 7 of September the Austrians must attack all enemy units in the ZOCs, careful placement by the Russians offering excellent opportunities of destroying the Austrian army. The Austrian, when attacked, is so stupid he cannot benefit from retreat in reducing his losses.
Of course there is always a problem with War Plans. Can one weaken their effect using hindsight without ruining the game? Should one oblige a degree of performance but try to estimate the point when the Plan would be abandoned? There are many answers, depending often on the historical views of the designer. However, in choosing what is a recreation of Austrian and Russian actions I do not think Galicia has chosen wisely. The choreographed battles and the limitation in supplies result in a pre-digested game regurgitated for the gamer. It will be interesting to see how The Gamer's function with this in Drive on Paris.
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© Copyright 2000 by Charles and Teresa Vasey.
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