Bob Hurst set out his GDW game-in-a-box troops. GDW had provided a field of 2-inch hexes, lots of little plastic forts and towns and ships and troops, lots of tokens, and a thick booklet of rules. This was a campaign game, and we laid out the hex field and commenced to destroy each other's forces.
Many, many charts... too many for yours truly. Bob Hurst acted as game host, and he was the poor fellow forced to wade through all the pages. For example, when your forces moved from hex to hex, there was an immediate dicing on the 'scouting chart', to find out what was in the hex. There were different charts, depending upon the type of terrain... lowland, mountain, coastal, etc. One chart wasn't enough, however, and there were a couple of other charts to 'flesh out' the discovery. Many charts for combat and so on.
When, in our wanderings, we came across a hostile fortress, we discovered the best thing to do was to leave it alone. I attacked one such fortress, and discovered... after referring to a chart or so... that my 500 point army was slightly outnumbered by the garrison... 1500 points to 500.
In all, however, it was a very enjoyable campaign. GDW had done its homework, creating a chart for every possible situation to be encountered.
One item in particular that I didn't like was that the game designer had laid out rivers and ridges and mountains so that they cut across the center of the hex. It became difficult at times, to tell which side of the hex you were on. If I had my druthers, I would have drawn in the terrain obstacles along the side of the hex, instead of down the middle.
Another anomaly was that forces within a town or fortress, received no additional defensive factor if a combat occurred. The built-up areas only factored in when a siege occurred.
More Buncha Games
-
Introduction
Bridge Crossing
Haubilization Game
Crossfires and Pop-Ups
Command Control
American Civil War
Mighty Fortress
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© Copyright 1998 Wally Simon
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