by Design Depot Before you cry foul at me for reviewing a baseball board game, let us remember that this has nothing to do with the fact that Satan is the commissioner of baseball and that he has conspired with his earthly minions, Greedier and Greediest, to take away the Great American Pastime, crushing the only hope I had that my Los Angeles Dodgers would win the National League Pennant. Dynasty League Baseball is the freshman endeavor by Design Depot, but this game is the second work by Michael Cieslinski, who happens to be the creator of Pursue The Pennant. A lot of fans have been playing Pursue The Pennant for years in fictitious leagues around the country. It used to be the best and most accurate baseball simulation game - that is, until DLB came along. If you're looking for a baseball game that does not lack for detail and ease of play then this is no doubt the game for you. The level of detail is tremendous. Everything is taken into account in this game, from weather effects in the stadiums during certain parts of the season, to how long a pitcher can last before you have to relieve him. Each player card is rated for stats from fielding (A - F, A being best) to base running to his skill at stealing bases. Suffice it to say that this game is complete. The box itself comes with all of the necessary charts and tables (including the nifty Bizarre Events table), stats for all of the major league stadiums, three ten-sided dice, and stat cards for 846 individual major league players. One of the best things about this game is that it only has twelve pages of rules (eleven if you discount the designer's notes). All of this game is played in the charts and the player cards. An average game goes something like this: the Managers select what field they are playing at, which will in turn dictate who is the home team, and then proceed to choose their starting lineups. These are then registered on the score sheet. Be forewarned, if you don't already know how to keep score for a real baseball game then you could run into some trouble, because you'll need someone to teach you: the rules do not explain how to do so. Once this is done, the Managers swap starting pitcher cards and they're ready for the first batter. The die scale for this game is 0 - 999, hence the three included dice. The dice are rolled and the result is cross referenced on one of the cards (results of 0 - 499 are on the batter's card and 500 - 999 are on the pitcher's card). The results are individually tailored to the real life probable results for each of the two players. For example, if Orel Hershiser of the Los Angeles Dodgers were pitching to Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants and I had rolled 252, I would look on the right hand side of Barry's card, because Orel is a right handed pitcher, and see that he was walked (incidentally, I would mark a BB on the score sheet to indicate a Base On Balls). If I had rolled 647, then I would look on the left side of Orel's card, because Barry is a left handed batter, to see that Barry hit a ground single to center field, and that if there were a runner on second he would automatically score. Furthermore, if a runner were on first base he could make an attempt to go for third as it is a given that he makes it to second base. Neither of the results required me to look at any of the extra charts; all of these results were listed on the player cards. I know, this sounds like a lot to think about, but once you get used to it, this doesn't take long at all. A complete nine inning game can be played in about an hour. That's about three hours shorter than a real baseball game, and you won't have to worry about some cheesy comedi- an grabbing themselves and spitting on home plate after disgracefully singing the national anthem. Board Walk Board Game Reviews by Marcelo A. Figueroa Dispatch From HQ News Dynasty League Baseball Sports Game Review Mare Nostrum Trireme Ship Game Review Back to Shadis #17 Table of Contents Back to Shadis List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master List of Magazines © Copyright 1995 by Alderac Entertainment Group 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