Tales from the Vienna Woods

Variety of Game Reviews

Reviewed by Markus Stumptner

Long time since I've written in. Here are some highlights of the last two years.

I spent most time playing The Gamers' TCS (Leros: Wonderful. Hunters from the Sky: with the command system variant from the Gamers webpage, finally true to history. Black Wednesday: wonderful but even longer than the rest. Objective Schmidt: interesting but drastically and ahistorically unbalanced). Unfortunately they're all in the "long to very long" category.

Duel in the Desert (an oldie): one of the much-maligned double blind land games from The Wargamer. Simple (six pages of rules), fairly quick, very tense. Due to the relatively large unit scale double blind play is not too cumbersome, but incredibly tense. Great game.

Aspern-Essling: Finally a game in the NBS series where the graphics don't get in the way. The counters are much more clear than Marengo and the map is much nicer than Austerlitz. Feel is good, of course it's also a very long game. We played at about half real time which for a two day battle means a long time. I wonder a bit about the order of battle. I have two sources on the Austrians, the Osprey book and a small booklet from the Austrian Museum of Military History, and neither supports the Austrian divisional organisation found in the game. I've also read in the German magazine "Manoeverkritik" (ex-Musketier) that the French have their own problems; apparently they're too strong.

Lion of Ethiopia (another oldie): We played this as a standin once when I had forgotten to bring Aspern-Essling. Surprisingly flavourful for a game that's always been touted as close to the AH classics. Using the advanced rules from the Kadesh issue are recommended. Ah, the halcyon days of early Command...

MacArthur's Return from Avalanche: this is a very good rendition of the campaign, with the Japanese on the defence but not bored, and them US side kept on its toes by the unpredictability of the chitpull system. The earlier game from that series, Blood in the Snow, was not bad in theory but since it is a meeting engagement with very low counter density, the first combats will often decide the final outcome. MacArthur's Return has enough units to keep this effect from happening.

Ironbottom Sound II: Surprisingly quick given how much detail it has; it's now my favourite among the more detailed naval games.

Perfidious Albion: Quite bland, didn't feel like Napoleonics to me, although it always ends in a climactic battle. A similar blandness prize goes to Yarmuk (the game where in the evening troops fall asleep where they stand to start again in the morning at the same spot) and Byzantium.

Risorgimento: Played only the first scenario so far. It was good like the rest of the series. Interesting to see some of the rebel armies (without a solid logistics system in place) struggling along disrupted half the time.

War Galley: Nice graphics, lots of tables, heaps of markers. Strategy seems to work OK, but tactics don't. A strange mix of squadron-level and individual ship-style play, map and time scale do not fit in several places as a result. Lots of weird manoeuvring because you want to be the first to make contact and from as large a distance as possible, too. Ultimately made me long for the simultaneous movement of Trireme...

The Damned Die Hard: Europa in the Pacific, like its predecessor War of Resistance (which I didn't play since I wanted to start with something smaller) it is proof that even Europa style maps can look great if you just have interesting terrain. Lots of alternate history scenarios that give the Americans a chance in the Philippines in 41/42. Being interested in history I tried the small historical scenario. I found that it was virtually impossible to repeat the historical Japanese performance. I was told by other players to ignore the specified disruption results in the setup, but even so getting to Manila in time seemed to require miraculous dice. At one point I then lost myself in the quest where the three different abstract types of supply points come from and lost interest as a result. Summary: In terms of the scenarios, American wish fulfillment, heavy to digest. I hope the others in the series work better.

Air & Armor (West End): Another oldie. I had this game for seven years, knew it had good reviews, but never got around to it. This year I finally tried it, and the results were convincing. This is among the best two or three modern-era games I've ever seen. The system is focused on bringing out differences between NATO and Warsaw Pact doctrine, and the way to victory is effective use of your command structure so as to get within the other side's decision cycle. NATO can pick and choose units but the effort rises as you pick more, while the Warsaw Pact has to decide on its missions at the start of each turn, but can move regiments in unison at bargain prices. Not unreasonably complex, most scenarios playable in an evening, and unceasing tension that keeps you glued to your seat - there are constant decisions to make, not artificial but of the most basic kinds - do I send those guys over there or retain them here, and all may be crucial since a bad move may doom you. Brilliant design.

Suffren (Vae Victis): The only Vae Victis game I got around to since Crete (although I have a couple more mounted and ready to go). I like the idea and the size meant that mounting the counters was trivial and quickly done, but in execution we noted that the land game seems to be accelerated, both with regard to the naval game and to the reinforcement schedule. By the time the major British reinforcements arrived, virtually all of India was in French hands. Not quite the way it happened.

More Tales from the Vienna Woods

Back to Perfidious Albion #102 Table of Contents
Back to Perfidious Albion List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 2001 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