Clervaux (Battles of the Ardennes Quad)
Danny Parker
"Undistinguished. It seems to suffer badly from "edge of the world"
syndrome with respect to the north map edge. The BftA scenario linking
it to St. Vith cures this and makes for more enjoyable play." DSB
"By itself, this was just ok. As another poster mentioned, it suffered from
"edge of the world" problems. At that time, I thought this was a good use
of the slightly upgunned Napoleon at War system, and I had fun with it. Now, I
doubt that that I would play it again." JB
"Not as good as a stand-alone. Better as part of the whole." MP
"Why bother when you can play the campaign. Battles for the Ardennes ia
a great multi-player game by e-mail with a ref." SF
Cobra
Brad E. Hessel
"This game is often found on lists of "all time classics. A
good game on a good situation, using the Panzer Group Guderian
system." DAV
"Sister to PGG. A GREAT game! I've won (and lost) as both sides. I
remember it as easy to learn, fun and fast to play." TES
"Not a bad game, but not something I would go back to. I thought there
was a definite play imbalance in fvor of the Americans, but it coud be
me." RM
"I'd like to call this a worthy successor to PanzerGruppe Guderian, but
in my experience (both solo and FTF) an optimum German strategy
stereotypes play. The Germans defend stubbornly until reaching the time
limit for the Allies to enter Brittany, then all the mechanized units race
to exit the east map edge leaving behind the infantry as sacrificial
speedbumps. Since weather affected the German movement factors, the only
question was which side the weather die rolls favored." DSB
"I have always enjoyed Cobra. The TSR beach add-on doesn't seem to work
well at all." MP
"Cobra has held my attention from the day it arrived in the little Post Office in the
Schnee-Eifel (German Ardennes) and location of the USAF Pruem Air
Station. This game has lots of what good wargames are supposed to have.
There is plenty of movement with the Armor, Armour and Panzer divisions.
NOTE: the British participated with their fine and highly mobile army.
Surprises abound. When the weather is good the Allies have a plethora
of air power but when the weather goes bad, road interdiction falls and
the Germans get free rein of the road net. The Bocage has two roles in
the game, a defensive benefit and the attacker can only advance one hex.
I'm not sure who has the game review article in SPI REVIVAL EZINE #3 but
don't miss it. I'll take anybody on playing either side and even serve
dinner if they do a single thing. Drop into Oklahoma City. If I was
stuck in a small room (like a jail cell or student apartment with
roommate) and had desk space for one map sheet, it would either be Cobra
or Panzergruppe Guderian. Personally, I'd say that Cobra has more
replay value. PGG is harder to pull off a good Soviet win but either
side can win with Cobra if you play your best punch at the right time
and right manner." SF
"This always seemed like a pretty good game to me - until I got utterly
clobbered as the Germans during a tournament. The guy I was playing had a
written-up first couple of Allied turns, and seemed insulted by the fact
that I didn't have a written, prepared defense. Kinda colored my judgement
since then. Still, I think this is a game a competent German CAN win, but
it ain't easy. I think it would be fun against a civil opponant." JB
"The magazine scenario. Great game. Had a lot of fun with it but it was
a long time ago. All this talk about it being the feature in the 3rd
ezine issue makes we want to dust if off and try it out again." AB
Combat Command
James F. Dunnigan
"This was an attempt to move Panzerblitz to the West, early in
the days of tactical board wargaming. I didn't like it. The
one thing I remember most was that American infantry could never
recover from disruption (or whatever it was called)." DAV
"One of the first SPI games I ever played, mostly because it was designed
as West Front PanzerBlitz (which had been recently published by AH to
great acclaim). Remarkably, the experience did not cause me to shun SPI
forever. It's one of the worst titles ever published by SPI. For
starters, the scale was expanded from 250 m/hex to 750; German counters
had the same numbers as in _PB_ except for range, which typically ran from
2 to 4 hexes. So, not only did you have to stand toe-to-toe to slug it
out with the enemy, in addition units had a zone of control that permitted
unlimited opportunity fire for moving through. On top of that, units in
towns/woods could be spotted *only in the same hex*. So a powerful unit
could blast potential spotters crossing its ZOC all day long. In short, a
design best forgotten." DSB
Combined Arms
James F. Dunnigan
"Dunnigan in his "systems building" mode trying to simulate
combined arms tactics from WWI to (what was then) the present.
I played this a lot and liked it at the time. It _was_ very
generic, with armor counters labeled just "L" and "H" for heavy
and light. This isn't something I would buy again, given what's
available now." DAV
"A valiant effort in making a generic game system for WWII to modern
era battles. Ultimately convoluted and BORING." TES
"Yet another SPI generic tactical game, tofu is more interesting." SG
"The definition of "dog"." MP
"One of the first games I ever got with my S&T sub. I remember really
wanting to like it, but it just seemed too "generic". I took it out a few
times and played it (solitare), but just couldn't quite warm up to it." JB
Commando
Eric Goldberg
"An attempt to combine role playing and wargaming. I liked the
idea but never did much with the game." DAV
"RPG game. Wasn't quite memorable." TES
"Okay attempt at role-playing. I had one funny experience with this
where we played a scenario and I was gamemastering with two guys who
really didn't like each other were trying to work together and their
feelings quickly got the better of them as they opened up on each
other. Never had another game of this that lived up to that." RM
"A weird attempt at combining role-playing with wargaming. Neither quite
worked right. The wargame side was a bit too convoluted for the scale
(man-to-man tactical combat) while being oddly generic considering the
detail level (it was ostensibly about WWII, but coulda been just about
anywhere at anytime in this century). The role-playing side had an
almost complete lack of "character" stuff apart from combat- and
mission-related skills; aside from some short bits on between-mission
events, there was absolutely nothing in the RPG that didn't take place
on the battlefield. The components were the weirdest bit: no counters,
the maps were tiny square grid mission sheets. The players were supposed
to pencil in the locations and movements of each man as the game
progressed, and "lightly erase" the old pencil marks. Uh huh.
This falls into the "unplayable as written" category, and is my
nomination for the Valiant Failure discussion going on over on VWHQ.
Having said all that, my game group and I played this game a *lot* over
a ten-year period. I came up with a batch of replacement charts for the
combat system, photoenlarged the maps so the squares were half-inch or
so, made counters (soon after replaced with 20mm miniatures mounted on
pennies), and it turned into a game that we had a lot of fun with. I was
so pleased with the results that I used some of the core ideas in the
skirmish (man-to-man) level part of Tankbase, and it shows in parts of
Generic Legions as well." DF
Conflicts in American History: The Civil War Vol 1
Antietam, Cemetary Hill w/Teacher's aids
Conquerors, The (Incl. The Macedonians, The Romans)
Richard Berg
"A giant errata festival, never could get thru a game.I think there was a really
good game in there. Had seperate strat & tac systems." SG
"Okay game, but the battle boards while interesting in the abstract
were not very convincing in practive." RM
"The Macedonians is completely one-sided for Alexander. The Romans can
be a lot of fun. We used to use the Prestags as the tactical system
because the one with the game was not very good." MP
"Interesting game, although we only played The Romans. The tactical system is
a total failure, use the abstract one or do your own.: MS
"I bought this one because I loved the maps. I'm a sucker for a great
map. But I have never seriously played it and probably should auction it
off (its seems to go for a good price). I must admit to not being an
ancients player. ...but I did buy it a long time ago (15+ years?)." AB
"Love it, Love it, Love it! So much so I just bought two copies of it
at Origins. I have always like Ancient history and especially the
campaigns, which few games cover, most games being about individual
battles. The tactical system is interesting too, allowing a stylised
battle to take place, or just add them all up and roll dice to work
out combat (Battlefleet Mars used the same idea) I would love to play
this again, maybe using DBM to fight the battles, although I think
life is too short." KB
Conquistador
Richard Berg
"An excellent game of exploration, colonization, and conquest in
the New World. This was later reissued by AH. It suffered a
bit from the "point of view" problem in that the players knew
what the map looked like and where to discover things right from
the start. The magazine version didn't have enough counters for
a really involved campaign game." DAV
"One of my all-time favorites and a game you can try on unsuspecting
non-wargamers. Spain, France and England explore, conquer, and
colonize the New World. Add in the optional rules (found in Moves
and/or The General) for a Portuguese player and German bankers. A
hoot." TES
"Excellent, loads of fun. Kind of a multiplayer solitaire game." SG
"One of my all time favoritie games. Sure it has almost no relation to
history after the first few turns but it is the best three player game
I have ever played. I am currently on copy number three, having worn
out the first two." RM
"I agree. The boys and I really liked it. It is somewhat like Monopoly for the Western Hemisphere. I got the S&T magazine version. It had the Portuguese and bankers
optional rules right in it. I still have it, including a pack of bank notes to be
foreclosed when we start it up again. YESSS, you vill pay - und NOW!" JM
"Like the majority of the other posters, I found this to be a very intersting
and fun game. Some of the other posters have implied or stated that they
played it solitaire (as did I), and that's interesting too, because on the
face of it, this would seem to be a game that would not do well as a
solitaire exercise. Berg defended its solitairability (it's fun to make up
words) in his designer's notest saying that it could be played solitaire if
"care" was taken. In my experience, I found that the Americas were big
enough that the various "colonial" powers could pursue their respective
policies without really bumping heads too much with any of the other powers.
This may have helped solitairability, because playing this was really almost
like running three separate "stories" in terms of POV--this was particularly
true (imo) for the English and the Spanish whose objectives in the New World
seemed very different from each other (or at least, I think this was what
the game was trying to teach me). About a week or so ago, we were talking
about graphic campaign simulators (or something like that). Berg did
something like this for the time period covered by this game (about 100
years, if I recall). It was interesting to realize that, in game terms,
very little seemed to occur. On another issue that's been raised, my
understanding is that the AH version essentially simplified some aspects of
the game (like, instead of paying for "bounds" of sea travel, there was some
simpler mechanism)." JB
"This always seemed like a bookeeping drill." MP
"Definately a fun game - sail uncharted seas, meet new people,
convert/enslave them, steal their gold - what more could you ask for? I'm
still hoping (now that I've found my games again) to get a multi-player game
going (maybe as the evil German banker - what a great rule!)." JB
"I remember this one as a fun game. Been ages since I played it. I think it was the basis for SSG's computer game "Gold of the Americas" which I spent a lot of time
playtesting on the Macintosh and I did the conversion to the Apple IIGS.
Back when I had more time..." AB
Creature That Ate New York, The
(w/Tower of Azann, Nap at Waterloo)
Redmond Simonsen
"Mindless fun for one player. Very limited (it was designed as an
introductory game) and little replay value after the first couple of
plays." TES
"Interesting little introductory game that came bundled in a single mag
with Napoleon at Waterloo and some highly forgettable
programmed-paragraph fantasy adventure ("Temple of Bob" or somesuch). At
first glance it looks to be derived from The Creature That Ate
Sheboygan, but TCTANY is so boiled down to fit into the space available
that the resemblance is mostly superficial. Unfortunately, so is the
game.
Looks kinda interesting, worth hunting down if you're an SPI micro fan
or TCTAS fan, but doesn't have the long-term potential fun factor that
TCTAS has." DF
Creature That Ate Sheboygan, The
Greg Costikyan
"A nice little silly game, intended as such and successful at
what it was." DAV
"Again, a favorite and worth packing in your travel bag. Rampage
through Sheboygan with Godzilla, King Kong, Mothra, the Giant Spider,
etc. or their equivalents. Capability points allow the monster
player to build his own creature. Fight back with the National
Guard, Police and Fire Dept. Interesting area/block map. A fun, fun
game. Check out the "urban unrest" variant in Moves." TES
"A gem, who ever was talking about using toys as minis could use this
for a great convention game." SG
"We played this a lot in undergrad days, as you could fit a game in
between classes. Not only was the game fun, it also inspired a Great
Moment in Gaming.
One of the guys in the dorm who was only casually involved in gaming
wandered by the table and asked, "What's that?" He was informed that
it was a game about a monster that crawled out of Lake Michigan, and
was attempting to destroy Sheyboygan.
"That's right by my home town, Manitowoc," he said. That's when we
read him the copy from the back of the game, about how the Creature
had already trashed Manitowoc.
He stood there for a few seconds, then said, "That's really sick, you
guys," and walked out of the lounge." DJ
"Hoot, First Class." DF
"Fun little game, needs certain of the advanced options for the
monster to be a real problem, otherwise keeping civilians safe
and killing the monster is easy." MS
Crimean War Quadrigame
Alma, Balaklava, Inkerman,Tchemaya
Enzer, Gould, Goldberg, Ross
"I wrote a review of this for Paper Wars, which someday might see
the light of day. I'll try to be brief. This was a game trying
to use "classic" mechanics to model a war where soft factors,
such as morale and command control, were paramount. It was a
game try, I thought. In what other game do you have Sardinian
troops? The Alma game lacked cavalry, forcing the players to
act like their historical counterparts. The Inkerman game has
tons of "idiot" rules where a later game would have command
control. I thought Balaclava was the most fun. I would love to
see a really good treatment of this war using modern wargaming
techniques. The one attempt was Rob Markham's Alma, and it got
caught in the 3W sausage machine.
(This is probably the game I paid the most for. I lost a series
of close auctions on GEnie, usually to Mike Dean. I was very
pleased when I finally got the upper hand.)" DAV
"An interesting quad, with good period flavor." SG
"The only one really worth repeated play in this package is Balaklava.
Inkerman was especially a disappointment." RM
"I had a couple but didn't think much of them. They just weren't
exciting." MP
Crusader (North Africa Quad)
David Isby
"Like other SPI quad games, characterized by a simple, single set 'o rules
with chrome per individ. game, I enjoyed this one as a beer 'n pretzels
game rather than any sort of "serious" sim, mostly because I found it
impossible to reproduce the historical strategy / outcome." DM
"Fun and easy. Still have trouble with the idea of locking ZOCs in the
desert." MP
Crusades, The
Richard Berg
"I haven't gotten around to the game, but the accompanying article in S&T
is one of the best summary articles on the period that I've seen." DF
"I loved this game, flawed as it is with a pile of errata and the bane 'o my
existence: a tracking sheet, simply because there is no other game on
this topic." DM
"I remember liking it. Interesting attrition of strength by movement.
Each hex passed through had an attrition rating which forced you to
choose your line of march carefully or expect big losses." TES
"This one came in two flavors; a multiplayer 1st Crusade and a more straight
forward two player 3rd Crusade. Bought the game when I was a kid and
admired Richard the Lion-Heart (before realizing he was something of a
slug). Can't comment on the multi-player aspects but the 3rd Crusade was a
rousing good time, vaguely reminded my an upgunned Frederick the Great." WS
"Never could figure this one out. Let it go years ago." MP
"Excellent game, strongly attrition- and siege-driven. Never
played the multiplayer scenario though." MS
