Crete 1941 (Franck YEGHICHEYAN) - VV n°22
On the 20th of May 1941, after the capture of the Greece mainland in a memorable Blitzkrieg, the Germans launch a vast airborne operation to seize Crete, a marvellous carrier in the eastern Mediterranean. In 15 days, the Commonwealth troops are defeated and forced to evacuate the island to return in Egypt.
Vae Victis offers us to live again this epic with a small solo game at battalion scale. Each day has three turns, two for daylight and one for night (24 turns for the full game). The map, like all games on the same subject, is cut in three parts: Maleme-La Cannee for the western part, Rethymnon in the centre, and Heraklion for the eastern part; a small strategic map links everything. The sector maps and the strategic map are divided in areas, not in hexagons. Each of these areas displays a prominent terrain type and is drawn to follow the local topography, which is not possible with hexagons. All is clean, colourful and functional as ever with VV.
The rules are drawn from area games of Avalon Hill (Storm Over Arnhem, Turning Point Stalingrad). Stack activations are made by area, with the possibility of movement and fire or assault. For combat, a laborious arithmetical process with a throw of 2D6 by player, gives the winner, the losses and the retreats. To be accurate, you take the attack or defence factor of the best unit, each other units of the stack adds one, after you add artillery, HQ bonus and terrain for the defence.
At the end of the calculation, with a 2D6 throw, you notice that you need very good units to balance the luck of the dice; the fate of the combat is everywhere...
Some special rules deal with to the para drops, the Axis convoys of reinforcements and their interception by the Royal Navy. Lastly, an interesting initiative rule gives to one side the opportunity to throw the dice again or reactivate an area. The use of this advantage gives it to the other player.
Only one scenario is given: you must, for the Germans, grab the airfields and the main cities; fortunately all losses are free. The need to take the airfield is double, first for victory and second to get reinforcements. The German must capture the Maleme airfield quickly with a big stack composed with the survivors of the Sturm regiment and some of those dropped near Galatas. The last part of the other regiment will move to Platanias to block an Allied counter-attack.
As soon as airfield is captured, mountain jaegers can come to the fair. Then, para survivors will make one stack and mountain troops another stack, this will give two attacks each turn to kill a maximum of tea drinkers. If luck is at the rendez-vous, the victory will be possible but limited. The two other paradrops at Rethymnon and Heraklion, will be very hard. You can hope to take perhaps one objective and hold it, but no more with the powerful foes and their counter-attacks. The pace of the game is fast, but a little boring and cursed by randomness.
A last word: in spite of the title, Creta 1941, is not especially a solo game. It can be played alone, like 90% of the wargames, but it doesn't have serious special rules to run the English boys, what's a pity!
More Vae Victus Game Reviews
Back to Perfidious Albion #99 Table of Contents
Back to Perfidious Albion List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1999 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