Old Dominion Game Works Http://www.odgw.com/ P.O. Box 1456 Winchester, VA 22604 I recently purchased a copy of these rules at Warfair in Atlanta. I have seen these rules frequently at HMGS East conventions over the last few years and have always been impressed with the support they give their rules. The continuous walk-up games for their patrons at the conventions designed to increase interest in the rules. They recently have supplements on WWII and the Korean War as well. The system is termed by the writer, Jonathan *ulter, as the Drop In System. It is designed at its core to be a tank vs. tank set. The test scenario, Crusade at Rezegh, is all tank and anti-tank weapons. Due to the emphasis on armor, I was initially hesitant to buy it. However, upon closer examination, this is not really the case. They simply start you out with the basic rules concepts for tank vs. tank and then expound upon them. You simply "drop in" other rules variants. You can play a game without them, but in my opinion, you don't capture the flavor of WWII fighting without two of the "drop in" modules. These are the "Command and Morale" and the "Infantry" drop in modules. They are simple and fun. I have played now three different scenarios with these rules. I started with British versus Germans in 1942 western desert. My friend Ron Merriman took the Germans and I took the British. After cycling though three turns, which took us a couple of hours, we got the hang of the rules and finished in about half a day. After closer examination after Ron's departure, I re-read the sequence of play and found I had made errors. The following weekend I started western desert game with my friend Mitchell Bates. He took the British and I a group of Italians. This took about three hours of solid gaming interspersed with many sarcastic comments (these actually took longer than the game, and were far more colorful) which will be addressed in a future article. The game follows an interesting twist on phasing from the old SPI systems. Each player selects units which are platoons at a one to one level. Each base of infantry represents a half squad e basing is for micro armor and is adaptable to the popular 15mm. I used micros since I have so much of them--my stand count now exceeds 1,500. My stands are already based for Spearhead on 1 1/4" by 1" bases. I have a free plug here for one of our members. I bought 1,000 bases from Bill Ballinger after seeing his product at a con. They are superior and reasonably priced. You can e-mail me for his contact information. I will never rebase these figures and in my opinion, it isn't necessary for these rules. Consistency is the only thing of importance. It is recommended that you mount five figures to a base. I use four. There is no difference in the rules. One to one works as well. The number of units or platoons actually drives the sequence of play. The side with less has many activations there are. Each player activates by platoon and then moves, fires, hides etc. by stand. Actions alternate. However, if one player has more units, he will activate two in a given phase vs. one by his opponents phase. Each stand may use one action and a bonus move. It is possible to move and fire in the same action, either order or split. There is a maximum of ten activation phases per turn. I don't recommend you have more than three units per side in your first scenario or you will quickly lose control. Infantry is treated with combat values for four range bands. The weapons vary in rate of fire. One thing a really neat is the increased rate of fire for US infantry (2 vs. 1) to take into account the high percentage of automatic weapons in the ranks. US infantry can be pretty hard to beat if they are veteran or elite as in US airborne, Rangers, or Marines. This is an element I like given the results of WWII. Nations included are US, Soviet, Italian, German, British, Japanese and French. Republic of Korea, Chinese and Korean Peoples Army are in the Korean War as basic organizations are in the Nationalities book. Unfortunately, this does not include any Wehrmacht infantry formations. Only Panzer divisions (39-40 and 44-45) are included in the German section. At this level however, you can build these fairly easily. Combat is resolved with one die roll for infantry. You hit, you kill. I like simplicity and games move quickly. Reconnaissance troops are treated differently and have some special capabilities which tend to make you deploy them more authentically. Artillery is fairly simple as well. There are printed blast radii and drift templates. It can be very effective. I had a battery of three Italian 81 mm mortars that took out three British infantry stands on a hill in of our games. Two more were killed by Italian light machine guns. Vehicles have offensive values and modifiers which work in connection with a troop quality number to produce a combat value. First to determine if a vehicle is hit. You then refer to the kill table with a similar roll to determine damage. Since I have played beyond 1942 era, most vehicles I have used only take one damage point. You can inflict more with a good roll. However, 1943-45 has many better damage values, I have made some observations that disturb me involving vehicle defensive values. Here are examples: Vehicle: Front defensive value T-34 D 8 T-34 A 7 Semovente 1942 8 Matilda II 8 I think these are either misprints or research was poor. I don't know about you, but I would much rather see combat in a T-34D than in the Semovente 1942. Despite the frontal defensive value of the Semovente, I still managed to lose all five while my friends Matildas to while losing only two of their own. The Semoventes were also hull-down. The real difference was our troop quality. Mine were regular Italians with a basic rating of 11 and Mickey's were veteran Tommies with a base of 15! He also benefited from a series of good rolls. The game uses D-20s for combat resolution. They occasionally use D-4s and D-8s as well as some specially made artillery fire dice. There are a multitude of game counters which depict the various actions. Other than the above defensive values, I can find no real problems with these rules other than frequent misprints in the text. Perhaps values are such misprints. My friend Mickey also printed some errata and additional vehicle combat values from the company website. I recommend you do so as well if you buy these rules. Missing in the initial Soviet tables are most of the SU series assault s. These are a significant oversight if you are into east front gaming. The Korean War book was a must for me and drove my in in this rules set. The Korean War was a long series of small unit actions save for a few notable exceptions. Once I read these rules in this booklet, I knew I had found my rules for Korea. I recently purchased and painted some M-24s, M-26s and Corsairs so I car rt gaining this unique period. There is also a nice Poland 1939 Drop In with some interesting scenarios. The company has published WWII scenario book and has another on the way. The books are not necessary to play the game. Other "drop in" modules inch the rules are as follows: Engineering, Structures, Amphibious and Naval Operations, and Air Support. My initial hesitance in gaming with this rules set was unfounded. I am glad I bought them and will use them frequently in the future recommend you try them at Historicon if you attend and then decide for yourself. Old Dominion Game Works will release an ACW set using the Drop In concept. It is called American Battle Lines and covers most of the 19th century. I look forward to seeing it and will probably purchase them as well. Back to Rebel Yell No. 16 Table of Contents Back to Rebel Yell List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 by HMGS South 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