Duel for Kharkov: A complex design, based on a clean up of the basic ideas in Kirovograd that your buddy Keith published in his charmingly incompetent manner (the development was actually quite good, with intensive playtesting and a constant communication of Q and As going back and forth between the developer and I that was quite productive and guaranteed clarity-an effect that was somewhat spoiled when the Wargamer published a truncated scenario that because of its length required an all out frontal assault to have any hope of a Soviet victory, when the game system was designed with manoeuvre and deception foremost in mind...never mind the dummy counter that was backprinted in negative; a white silhouette, which made it rather less deceptive).
I do hope that some day you get to try it or Kirovograd which design-wise I think of as some of my best work. They do not work very well solitaire though, one game feature has all the mobile units of each side represented by flipped counters with only a tank silhouette visible. This may represent anything from a dummy, to an army HQ, to a recon battalion, to an entire SS Panzer Division or reinforced Soviet tank corps (sub units held off map in a holding box). There are about seven procedures that can give you a clue as to what is there, the least cautious one is attempting to overrun the hex. This can have spectacular effects if it turns out to be "loaded". I have also seen several hundred plane raids upon the heads of inoffensive dummies.
One of the effects that I have sought for in game design is the ability to fuck with the minds of the gamers. A few examples. In Gazala each unit was played flipped and showed only a dust cloud. There were something like six 88mm batteries in the entire Afrika Korps at the time. As British player, most gamers felt sure that there were always at least two or three 88 batteries wherever it was they wanted to attack.
In Aachen I playtested it against Jack Green and my friend and comrade Prof. Conn (Ringo) Hallinan. They were the able with slick use of dummies and by feinting one way and driving another to catch me wrong footed and crash through both fortified lines as I desperately shifted my few reserves to face what appeared to be their point of attack. Roles reversed, with myself leading the Americans, I discovered that my design cleverness worked even against myself. In the game all unspotted units are played face down, and in the city of Aachen, where the defender gets all kinds of help in combat results, the German units are kept in an off map display, and you (American) have to decide to attack or move into each hex of the city without knowing if it is occupied. God help you if you try to move into a well defended hex.
Mind you most German units are trash and there may not be any in the city at all...but. The US command, desperately short of infantry replacements at this point in the war, was deathly afraid of casualties and thus avoided storming the city at the point at which it was hardly defended, and later had to fight like hell to root out a volksgrenadier division that had moved in. As US player I looked at that vacant city map and was so worried about what it might contain, even though as designer I knew the order of battle down to the last counter, that I went around it, smack into what forces the German could muster and all of which he had concentrated in the Schill Line, leaving the city vacant!
This is an approach that requires dummies and their rules peculiarities, off board displays and their space requirements as well as their peculiarities, overrun rules, and all of that stuff. But it produces an effect that I am fond of in gaming and that I believe better reflects reality than the usual inspect each other's piles and do your combat accounting approach.
Degrade Gracefully?
Another thing that I do not like in most wargames is units that cannot degrade gracefully. I am not referring to PA reviews here, I mean units that go into combat and do not have the choice of coming out dead or in pristine condition. The usual effect, barring some great discrepancy in equipment, morale, discipline, or luck, is that both sides take losses. This requires either replacement counters (Anzio, 1914 ) which are expensive and potentially confusing to the simple souls among us, or Pollard markers, which I have used extensively but that even Pollard's mother must admit are a nuisance to manipulate and also cost money, or roster sheets which are another pain in the ass to use and make it hard in a big game to figure out what a unit's current strength is. I tried another option, namely loss markers and flipped counters in Bold Stroke and I am not certain that it works to complete satisfaction. Computers of course allow for this to be done nicely. Finally you can just have full strength, flip to reduced strength and eliminate, but that is not entirely satisfactory for WWII operational level stuff at the level of detail I want.
One other pet peeve with hex and dice games as we know them is the problems with the hex grid. Stacking, ability to stretch out to hold a fortified line or concentrate to attack, with the subsequent effects on casualties, tends to be poorly illustrated. The old push-one-of-em-back-advance-into-their-hex-and-now-push-their-buddy-back-into-our-ZOC-and-watch-them-die stuff just does not do it for me. At Kiev the big units could go into combat and in a day or two lose enough tanks to make up two or three of the weak units, and yet the weak units could continue to fight and maintain their place in the line and take only small losses in the same period of time. Units could seemingly get surrounded, but the enemy would discover that when they combed out the bag there was nothing in it but some wounded soldiers, dead horses, and broken equipment.
Yet if you let people go diddy bopping right through ZOCs in a game, they will do it offensively and gobble up the enemy in big bites. Maybe my life would be easier if I though like Dick Mountain and did not really care about history as long as the game is fun.
Why all this rant? Trying to make history fit into a hex and dice format can cause serious headaches for the designer who cares, and that can be reflected in new concepts that some people find difficult to palate either because they are new or because they simply are a difficult fit to our medium.
Your memory of Kirovograd is essentially correct, proving that you did play it (CHV: my memory being what my memory is Jack and I work out if I have played a game by me rehearsing a few details and him guessing the game!). The system, slightly polished up for Duel for Kharkov, requires the expenditure of supply points to give orders to groups of units as well as to fire artillery. There is a lot of artillery in K and the initial stack of supply points dwindles rapidly, while in DFK the points are hard to come by (for the Soviets especially). In the one case you had built up a wad of supply and spent a lot to breakthrough (or stem breakthroughs) early on, leaving one with interesting choices in the mid and end games, while in DFK you had one side conducting an offensive on a shoe string. In both cases the most effective attack mode (order) cost double the number of points.
Lack of Balance
The problem with Kharkov is the inherent lack of balance in the situation. The Soviets romp early, better now in the second edition where they arrive on the board considerably faster thanks to Col. David Glantz's Don to Dnepr book which became available just after the first edition of the game was published. An interesting story hangs on this.(see next paragraph). Later in the game the Germans are overwhelming, assuming that they are used half intelligently. It is possible for the Soviets, if played timidly or sloppily, to be stymied early, and it is possible for the Germans to play badly and not take advantage of superior strength, airpower, and skill and not mop the board with my friends in red in the later innings, but with competent play it should go pretty historically in outcome at least.
To construct my first order of arrival for the Soviets, I consulted every Soviet source I could find in English, and had some of Moskalenko and Kuznetsov's books translated. My basic OB source, though, was German situation maps. Any unit that showed up consistently on the German maps was put in. Later information showed that at least as far as tank, cavalry, and rifle brigades, divisions, and corps go, that was correct. Then I searched the maps until I found each unit's first appearance. Then assuming that it took the Germans a few days to identify them, and calculating how long it would take the unit to march from the game board edge to the place on the map where it first was identified, and adding a day or two fudge factor, I guesstimated an arrival date and location. Given the data I had it was probably about as good as could be done.
Then along comes David James Ritchie. He does a Kharkov game (not as good a system) on the same period, same map scale. Of course, he needs a Soviet order of appearance. For some reason he never contacts me (I would be happy to share with anyone, I like to be credited and love to be paid but will share knowledge with anyone for free if need be - do not quote this line please) but...without crediting my game, he somehow comes up the identical order of appearance as I constructed. I do not mind being stolen from, highest form of flattery and all that, but gee, couldn't he say thank you? (After that he does an Aachen game, same battle same scale. Who is this guy David Ritchie and why is he following me around?)
As it turns out, the Soviets were even faster into action than I had calculated, and I was able to put that in the second edition. That is about the only improvement in the second edition (CoSi Duel bei Charkow).
Is Ring of Steel (wasn't that Ring of Fire, as in Johnny Cash?) (CHV: Dash, got me again I am giving this game up) the German game with the tape recording inside on how to play it? About the Soviet Kharkov offensive after Kursk? If so you made a good decision to put it away. It had no pretensions of being historical but even so was really silly. If those rules had been in effect at Kursk the Germans would have made it to Moscow in '43. The tape recording should have been a real good idea, except that it is two, ah, gentlemen discussing a game that they are playing, hex by hex, a strength total and die roll at a time, without a printed example-of-play map so you can follow the action!!! Clang. What a waste.
Or perhaps Ring of Steel is something else? The German guys who did Ring of Fire are certainly nice folks (volks), good politics too.
State of the Hobby
What is your comment on the state of our hobby? With GDW a'moulderin in the grave, it seems not inappropriate to ask for whom the bell tolls. It may just toll for all of us. Consider. We are all getting older, and while that may translate in some cases to more disposable income and the kids moved out, it also means poorer eyesight and perhaps a diminished capacity to absorb new rules. Death is also stalking us, reducing our numbers slowly but surely. The young who were to replace us are doing something else. The stores that sustained our growth in the 80s have mostly either closed, or turned the shelf space over to something that sells faster. The distributors that seemed the gateway to if not riches then at least sustainability have dropped their orders and their sales personnel that knew anything about wargames.
The new trend seems to be get back to the roots, i.e. direct mail a la SPI when it was young and tender. Computers finally getting smart enough to do the job would seem not only the way out but the way to a better tomorrow, and certainly they sell much better, like ten to a hundred times better, cost little to manufacture, but...they cost an absurd amount to produce. Consequently those with the quarter million to million required can think of something more profitable to spend it on than a war game which will never compete with the latest sci fi shoot 'em up or fantasy slash 'em up. Of course after Magic ™ everybody went for cards in a big way. Someone described it as looking like a herd of buffalo headed over a cliff. Lots of games, lots of money to buy in, big ole pile of dead bison at the bottom of the cliff and a few winners getting the shelf space. The winners will collect many $200s and get to pass go again, the losers will be eaten by the coyotes and the zopilotes. Our friends at Chaosium have done very nicely indeed with their Mythos game, more power to them.
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© Copyright 1996 by Charles and Teresa Vasey.
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