This is the third edition of the game. The original game covered only the 1941 campaign. There was talk of an expansion kit to take in 1940. Instead the designer has chosen to overhaul the game and issue a complete game covering the whole of the campaign in Egypt and Libya during 1940 to 1942. The map is clean, well done and easy to read. One of the better maps I've come across. Units are excellent in my opinion. Armoured units have a tank symbol. This reflects the predominant class of tank used by the formation at that time. As the British units are upgraded the tank symbol changes accordingly. Other units use standard NATO symbols. All in all the counters are easy to read, uncluttered and attractive. Mark Simonitch has done an excellent job here and packed an awful lot into some very simple rules. It is one of the reasons I regard him so highly as a designer. Legend always was a very innovative game in my opinion. The third edition has refined many of those ideas to and improved an already excellent system. The various systems within the game are excellent. The game is easy to play, the systems are very straightforward but highly effective. It clearly demonstrate that good design does not mean that you have to sacrifice realism for playability. The game captures most of the key features of the desert war. The unpredictable turn sequence is extremely effective, the supply rules work very well and the rules for battle loss recoveries, replacements, convoys are all good. No game that I have played on North Africa has captured the Axis problems with supply so effectively and yet so simply. All in all it gives a good feel for desert warfare. I should know, as I've tried just about every game on the subject! Having said all that there is a down side to the game in my opinion. Some of the rules could have been done a lot better. The biggest problem is play balance. We found the scenarios and system heavily favoured the British. (CHV: This is a rarity, not a problem!). Each turn consists of 7 Operations cycles. Each Operation cycle in turn consist of three sub parts; Movement, Combat and Supply. In addition in a Primary cycle you can perform further actions, of which more later. One of the key appeals of the game is the unpredictable nature of the Operations cycles. You can never be sure in Legend who is going to move next or by how much. The alternate movement system of most games has always be open to manipulation by clever players ie leaving a gap you know the enemy can't exploit before you can block it. In Legend each side has 4 Operation cycle chits, 2 Primary, 1 Secondary and 1 Tertiary. In a Primary cycle units can move their full movement allowance. In a Secondary impulse they can move two thirds and in a Tertiary impulse one third of their movement allowance. In a Primary cycle a player can also carry out a number of additional actions ie strategic relocation of empty trucks, sea movement, build fortifications and repair ports. All 8 chits are put into a cup at the start of the turn and pulled at random. Whatever chit is drawn the owning player gets to move their units that far. They then do combat and judge supply. After that another chit is draw. There are a couple of tricks to this. In a turn you only draw 7 chits. Thus somebody is going to lose an Operations cycle. Secondly each side can only have 2 cycles in a row (this applies between turns as well). If the third chit is for the same player then you redraw until the other sides chit is drawn. The result is that movement is hard to predict. This uncertainty certainly helps captures the feel of mobile warfare. It also stops the great scheming and planning that so often happens in rigid turn sequences. Here you have to form a general plan and adapt as you go along, reacting to unexpected turns of events. Supply is handled very well. You need supply for movement and combat although generally only attacking actually burns up supply units. Each side has a only limited number of supply units. They start with some and each turn both sides get additional supply units. In the case of the Axis though these have to be shipped across the Mediterranean and can be lost. The British on the other hand have fairly generous supply. Even they in the heat of a hard fought campaign do have to carefully watch their supply level and make sure its in the right place. In order to be in supply for movement a unit must be able to trace a line of communication of a limited length to a supply unit. Terrain costs and the presence of an Army HQ effect the length of this supply line. If a unit is out of supply then it suffers limitations in terms of movement and combat defence. If it is also isolated then it can lose steps to attrition. Tracing a supply to a supply unit does not automatically use that supply unit up. If the supply unit can trace a line of communication to an ultimate supply source then it stays on the map. It is only where the supply unit is isolated that it gets used up. There is also the opportunity to trace sea supply through ports. This all makes things like the siege of Tobruk quite realistic. The British can be isolated in there with 2 or 3 supply units and hold out for ages relying on sea supply backed up by the supply units. Supply is vital for attacks and becomes a real limitation, particularly for the Axis. You can really only fight a major battle if you use attack supply. One supply counter can provide attack supply to all attacks within its range. Unfortunately you have to remove that supply unit from the map after use. The rules are extremely simple but really mean both sides have to really think about the placement of supply units and what attacks they do. The Axis are really struggling and have to plan their attacks very carefully. I have frequently seen an Axis offensive grind to a halt on the verge of a crushing victory simply because they ran out of supply. Axis Supply As mentioned, Axis supply has to come across the Mediterranean Sea. This also applies to their reinforcements. All these arriving units first go to Tripoli. Then they can either slowly move over land or a limited number can move to friendly ports. All this sea movement is subject to interception and damage. The risk of both the latter depends on the number of airfields both sides control and the port the units are going to. The Axis have the bigger problem with shipping as their reinforcements all have to come across the Med. The British can move units by sea as well and these too are subject to interception and damage. Generally however this is not so crucial for the British. Both sides can do things to influence the problems of shipping. These include modifiers for extra naval activity, convoy escorts and attacking Malta. Combat is a straightforward odds ratio system based on attack and defence strength. There are numerous modifiers to strength; terrain, supply, disruption, isolated Italians and air power. Armour superiority provides column shifts. There are some unusual features when it comes to rolling for the results. Many games do not reflect the difference between a small battle with only a few units and a major clash between several divisions. Casualties will be the same regardless of the scale of forces involved. In Legend you role one or more (white) dice and add the result together too get the total loss. The number of dice rolled depends on the number of defending steps. The casualty dice roll does not determine who won the battle. A further (coloured) dice is rolled at the same time. The result this gives determines who won or lost and how far the winner can advance. Air rules are optional but so easy you may as well play them. Each side has a number of air units. These fall into two groups, fighters and bombers, with a few duel purpose units. They are graded for air to air combat strength, ground combat strength points. and range. It is clear that each counter represents a particular class of plane but the class is not identified. It would have been a nice touch if the counters were identified by class. Air units are somewhat abstract and the system has been simplified a bit too much. Planes are not actually based on the map although they can only fly missions to targets within range of friendly airfields. This does lead to the silly situation of them jumping around from airfield to airfield every turn with no need for a formal rebase mission. We had a case of British planes taking off from Benghazi to interdict the Axis advance. The airfield was captured but the planes in the next turn flew from El Adem which is well out of range. We felt it would have been better to base air units actually on the map and have a transfer mission to rebase them. Again there are other factors involved in the air system. Each side has airbases which can be deployed on the map to supplement the printed airfields, there is system for bringing back damaged units and the value of ground support varies depending on what type of movement chit has been drawn. Armored Units Armoured units are given an Armour effectiveness rating. In combat the side with the highest Armour effectiveness rating gets column shifts in their favour. This is a pretty effective representation of the value of armour. Both sides armoured units are poor to start with. Reinforcements have better ratings and initially the Germans have an advantage here. Gradually the British ratings get up to a comparable level. This rule is actually an important factor in the game and one of the big German advantages Both sides have anti tank guns and the German 88mm units are extremely deadly, but only in defence. The Germans used them spread out in small formations attached to individual battalions and regiments. In the game there are only a few of these units and they can only support one or two stacks. The British soon works out where those nasty little units are and keeps clear of them. Their effect is not as significant as it should be. There are two types of ZOC, each with different effects:- Limited - exerted by leg infantry Cannot trace Line of Communication through an unnegated ZOC Costs 2 movement points to exit Can move direct from limited ZOC to limited ZOC and can keep moving Active - which is exerted by Armoured, Motorised units and a few others. As per Limited ZOCs Units in an Active enemy ZOC must attack those units. Units must stop when entering an Active ZOC Can move from Active ZOC to Active ZOC & stop. There are a few permanent fortifications on the map. In addition non armoured units can build field works. These come in two levels, improved positions and fortifications. Basically units in them are doubled and tripled respectively. The exception are armoured units defending in Field Works which are halved. Fortifications have other benefits as well. Improved positions are fairly easy to build, simply don't move or attack for an impulse. Upgrading to fortifications requires a bit more effort. One big advantage of field works is that units in them do not need to attack adjacent units with an active ZOC. Artillery Both sides have a limited number of corp artillery units. These can provide defensive fire support to adjacent unit. One really crucial bonus though is that they can be used to provide column shifts when attacking Field Works. Unfortunately this costs one supply point for each column shift. Its a good reflection of the historical need to stockpile ammo and prepare for a major prepared assault against some key position. An important feature of the desert war was the opportunity of both sides to recover damaged and broken down tank units. The person who controlled the battle field had the advantage in this respect. This is neatly handled in the recovery rules. There are separate recovery counters for infantry and armour losses. I assume the infantry recovery reflects units that become disorganised and detached during combat. After any battle both sides accumulate recovered steps based on the level of their losses. The Germans and Italians recover 2/3rds of a step if they win the battle and 1/3rd if the lose the battle. The British on the other hand gain 1/2 & 1/4 respectively. This reflects the superiority of German battlefield recovery. Arguably the Italians should not recover as much but I think they were ranked the same as the Germans for simplicity. When a side accumulates enough recovered steps they can rebuild a lost step of a unit on the map or rebuild a unit from the dead pool. Each side gets reinforcements during the game. In addition they get replacements that can rebuild reduced or destroyed units. The level of replacements each turn varies according to a die roll. There are replacements for each nationality and the rate of arrival goes up in 1942. There are also lots of nice little rules covering such things as; Italian units collapsing, anti tank guns, German tactical superiority, truck units, British railways, destroying/capturing supply units, destroying/rebuilding ports, reconnaissance screens and the effect of desert hexes. The rules are not well laid out and its difficult trying to find specific rules. It was a concern of mine with the second edition that it was very difficult to find many of the rules. It was hard to pull together all the rules that you needed. I found it helpful to write my own very detailed sequence of play As a basis for my own review I wrote to Terran Games with a number of design queries and rules questions. Disappointingly they have not bothered to reply. There are a few discrepancies we noticed in the reinforcement chart with units arriving as reinforcements when they are in the scenario set up. Field Works The rules on Field Works don't quite seem right to us. There are a number of concerns. Armour is not at any disadvantage attacking Field Works. Surely they should be halved and/or have the Armour Effectiveness halved. Units in Field Works are still effected by retreat results. Surely units dug in to such Field Works are less likely to retreat. To an extent this is reflected in the strength multiplier effect of the Field Work. Nevertheless it seems to me that there should still be less chance of the units retreating. Perhaps only Overrun results should apply. That may mean you have to perhaps reduce the strength multiplier of Field Works. Improved Positions seem far too effective. Simply not moving for a turn doubles your strength. Basically all the units are doing is digging in and setting up a co-ordinated defence. It does not incorporate any major minefields etc. This seems a bit too much to me, a 50% increase sounds more likely. We disagree with the comment in the designers notes that it is not worth putting tanks in Field Works. We found it a very useful tactic. One of the biggest advantages of Field Works is the fact that units in them don't need to attack adjacent Active ZOC units, yet you can attack out. This really came home to me when we played the Gazala scenario. The British flung up a line in the south of Improved positions garrisoned by infantry brigades. This was interspersed with tank units. It was too big to screen or outflank. Any Axis attacks against it could only come from 1 or 2 hexes and/or had to attack the British tank stacks as well. The Axis were then subjected to counter attacks by all the adjacent British units. The Axis were quickly ground down to an ineffective force with no hope of victory. Artillery can guarantee you a successful attack on a field works. Great against Tobruk! Get 1.5 : 1 odds, add in Shore Bombardment and 3 artillery shifts and your on the 5 : 1 combat column - which guarantees a victory. This seems excessive. At those kinds of odds (1.5 : 1) there should still be some element of uncertainty. The artillery shifts are too effective, even bearing in mind the Supply Points you need. In our games the British invariably had plenty of supply to spare and surprisingly enough the Axis could manage to accumulate enough after a lull to crack open Tobruk's defences. Why are losses doubled when attacking Fortifications? On this question of Field Works, Scenario 2 has Sidi Barrani as a Fortification. This I find hard to accept. The British 16th Brigade, plus support units, destroyed the Italian division in the Sidi Barrani box in one day Air power as a whole seems too powerful. Units strengths are quite high, in a Primary segment most bombers are as effective as a full strength infantry regiment. My understanding was that air power was generally effective only in well prepared assaults, particularly against fixed positions. Radio and co-ordination was so poor that there was little close ground support of battles in that mobile warfare. In addition air combat led to an odd situation. We were putting up escorted bombers and interceptors. What happened repeatedly was that fighters tended to be abort with the bombers getting through undisturbed as a result. Often there would be a round of fighter casualties in one combat phase followed in the next by both sides being able to put in bomber support with no fighter opposition. The result was continual losses in fighters and the bombers invariably getting through. British armour strength is too good. In terms of numbers the ratio of Axis tank steps to British is about right for each battle. That's comparing actual tank strength to the number of steps they have in the game. What this leaves out is the superior quality of the German forces. OK we do have the armour effectiveness but this is I believe the game rates the British far too well. The British tanks were generally inferior to the Germans, low power and short ranged guns being perhaps their biggest problems. More importantly their tactical doctrine was hopeless. The first British tank with a decent gun was the Grant and even this was inferior to the Panzer III. In the game these are rated equal to the German panzers. Thus the British simply spread these units around their tank formations and can take on the Germans at equal armour effectiveness. One way to correct this may be to increase the armour effectiveness of Germans tanks on defence by +1. In addition the British tank units seem too powerful any way. The average strength per step of the British tank unit in is 3.04 ie 82 strength points divided by 27 steps. The Germans on the other hand are only worth 3 strength points per step. Given the superiority of German armour this doesn't appear to be consistent. Problem with Replacement Rate One problem we decided lay in the replacement rates. They appear to be unbalanced. I did an analysis of the chances of replacement units arriving. The following calculations assume average dice rolls over a number of turns. On this basis the Germans (in 1941) receive .19 of a tank unit per turn. This is based on the fact that they have a 7 in 36 chance of getting a tank replacement. The British however get .75 of a tank unit. This is significantly out of proportion to the respective tank strengths. Other replacement rates also seem out of proportion. Axis infantry is only half that of the British. That's a fairly significant advantage for the British, especially when you bear in mind that the Axis replacements have to survive the convoys. Does the replacement rate take into account likely losses from convoys for the Axis? Attrition rates do seem high. The Axis are in the dilemma that they can't escort every convoy but at the same time the Axis forces are so scare they can't afford to delay replacements. I couldn't find any summary figures on overall tank losses for the various battles. Every account though invariably talks about noticeably higher British tank losses in most battles with the Germans. In the game though they are usually trading losses on a much more even basis. The British can afford to take those losses and just grind the German armour down. Something doesn't seem right somewhere. Our reaction was that all British replacement rates were too high and that all Axis replacement rates were too low. Except for rule 48 they also fail to incorporate any kind of adjustment for success or failure ie the need to shore up an army after a major defeat. The recovery rates are OK but we thought the Germans should be able to recover 2/3 of tank losses after an engaged battle. Their tank recovery was vastly superior to the British, even when the battlefield was still contested. Some of the British reinforcements should come on reduced. This would represent their lack of acclimatisation, poor equipment and absence of battle experience. Many British units performed poorly until they had been out there a few months. This applied particularly to the tanks who often spent months in the workshops being adapted for desert conditions. On this score for example the Crusader scenario has the 1st South Africans at full strength. According to my source the South Africans were considered undertrained and lacking experience. They were under considerable pressure to commit the division. The 2nd South Africans were even worse and were left as garrison troops in the rear and didn't move. In the scenario they are at full strength and push up to the front as quickly as possible. Stacking Favoritism The stacking rules considerably favour the British. The Germans 2 Panzer divisions stacked in one hex represent 14 stacking points and can have about 60 attack factors. By contrast the British can put 2 full armoured divisions in one hex for only 6 stacking points. That stack actually can consist of 20 stacking points of individual units. It can also be worth perhaps 100 attack factors. This is a pretty devastating force and quite against prevailing British practice. One of the major mistakes of British tactics was in continually fielding Brigade sized formations. Until El Alamein they rarely massed their armour into a single division formation. Its an interesting question as to how far you go in allowing players to correct things like this. Rommel knew British tactics and expected them to throw their armour away on poor attacks. He planned accordingly. If the British had shown more tactical sense then perhaps Rommel wouldn't have been so aggressive. Secondly this stacking ability gives the British a considerable advantage which is acting to distort the game balance and make it very hard for the Axis. You cannot recover steps lost due to retreating through an enemy ZOC. Surely such losses are far more likely to be recovered than losses in combat. I would have thought that the retreat rule reflects not so much losses but the chaos and disorganisation of a retreating unit. There were numerous cases of units retreating in chaos right past enemy formations and regrouping. The rules for Italians in the attack don't seem right. Surely it was a case that the formations didn't move or didn't go where they were wanted. Here they actually move into position and then don't attack. I think a better rule would be to have the Italians forced to do a die roll if they try to enter an empty active ZOC. One aspect of this we didn't like was when the Italians failed to do an attack which in turn forced the Germans to split their forces to attack that British stack as well. This is a contradiction. If the Italians by themselves move up to attack a British stack and fail to do so then nothing happens, even if it is an active ZOC. If the Italians are committed to an attack but fail to make the odds then this should not require other forces to be committed to make up the minimum odds. The mere act of commitment or the half strength attack should be sufficient penalty. Italian and German co-operation got much better as the campaign went on and this should be reflected in the existing table. Perhaps you should add 1 to all dice rolls after Jan I 1942 when the Germans are involved. Isolated Italian units defend at half strength. Certainly at the start their formations did disintegrate quickly. Later on though they did perform pretty well even without the Germans being present. After say June 1941 I believe they should defend at 3/4 strength when isolated. Starters My opponent and I tried several scenarios as starters and then went into the campaign game. Unfortunately more and more reservations about play balance came up. In the end, our campaign game collapsed in mid 1941 when the Axis were simply ground down around Tobruk and the remnants cut off when they tried to retreat. We are both experienced players and discussed best courses of action, tactics etc during the game. Our conclusion was that while the Axis made a few errors overall they were simply outgunned and stood little chance. The game allows the British to avoid most of the strategic mistakes they did make and prepare for the counterattacks they know are coming. They are not limited by the same level of tactical errors and do not suffer the appalling leadership that bedevilled them so often. Once the British start to win then its very difficult for the Axis to recover. The recovery of units is critical and if the British start winning battles the Axis recovery rate quickly plummets. The Germans lost too much in the drive to push back the British. There was a pause to regroup and rebuild units. The trouble was the Germans bought back very little while the British managed to build back to two full strength armoured divisions, plus numerous infantry formations. When the British counterattacked the Axis fought hard but were simply ground down to a point of total collapse. Unfortunately its rather difficult to cut and run in this game, especially for the Axis. Their slow moving infantry is just left to die in vast numbers. We did have a problem with the victory conditions in the earlier scenarios. Couldn't see how on earth the Italians could win scenario 1. Scenario 2 is pretty viable for the British but they have to move fast. Even then it is unlikely that they can ever do as well as their historical counterparts. Thought there needed to be more restrictions on the Italians in this one We tried the several of the pro Axis scenarios but they didn't seem to have much hope of victory, let alone achieving their historical objectives. Provided the British play cautiously then they can grind the Axis down. You invariably take tank steps as the first casualties so the German tank strength starts to decline. Whenever the opportunity arises the British can counterattack with their superiority in tank numbers. Even losing a few battles isn't a problem. The scenarios are easily playable in an evening. The campaign game is a bit of a monster though. The box suggests 30 hours playing time. We'd say its more like 40 hours based on our experience. Sure, we could speed that up a bit but I suspect most players will be at a roughly similar pace. Legend is a brilliant game. Easy to play, very authentic, fast moving, and unpredictable. It has a number of weaknesses in my opinion that are very disappointing It could have been a much better game. As it is, the rules on Field Works, air units & Italians when attacking need to be significantly improved. Additionally the factors giving rise to the dreadful play balance problems need to be addressed. Overall though it is such a good game I would still recommend it to any North African enthusiast. Back to Perfidious Albion #92 Table of Contents Back to Perfidious Albion List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1996 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