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S&T Magazine Mini-Reviews From Consim-L

- Compiled by Danny D. Holte

Issues 30-39


· S&T #30 Combat Command
· S&T #31 Flying Circus
· S&T #32 Borodino
· S&T #33 Winter War
· S&T #34 Armageddon
· S&T #35 Year of the Rat
· S&T #36 Destruction of Army Group Center
· S&T #37 Scrimmage
· S&T #38 CA
· S&T #39 Fall of Rome



S&T #30 - Combat Command
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"Bland, generic, nondescript. Pretty much covers it." JBB

"Blech." DDH


S&T #31 - Flying Circus
-----------------------
"I liked this better than Richthofen's War, though I think I was one of the few. It was simple and playable (though not too realistic)" WEF

"I enjoyed this when it first came out, but I don't know how it stands up over time." TMB

"I have it, but the likelihood that I'll ever play it is small. Can you buy a WWI flight simulator for your pc? (I really don't know). If you can, would anybody prefer pushing cardboard markers around on a simulated instrument panel to actually "flying" a plane on a computer? Well, I guess there's always that "opponent" factor that I don't consider." JB

"A wonderful beer-and-pretzels game. I remember lots of sessions in which three or four of my friends would just shuffle the deck of control sheets and have a free-for-all, keeping score by awarding Oreos." DAV

"One of a bunch of rather poor attempts by SPI to simulate aerial warfare. Distantly related to Spitfire and Air War. A dog even though it was well received at the time." JBB


S&T #32 - Borodino
------------------
"One of S&T's outstanding efforts. This is an enlarged version of advanced NAW. Good play value. Game first, history second." JBB

"Excellent, a must have." DDH

"Of the games mentioned, I really like Borodino. It's a classic SPI type wargame along the lines of their original Napoleon at War Quad, and Waterloo. It's not very colorful, nor particularly striking, but none-the-less pretty nice looking. It is a good game to use as an introductory game for some newbies, although I use other things." HSD


S&T #33 - Winter War
--------------------
"Winter War is a true classic of the bunch in my mind. I'm still regularly playing it: very simple mechanics, low counter and rule density which accurately hamstrung both players.." TES

"A great game. I played this one over and over." JBB

"One of the best S&T Games." DDH

"Winter War is one of my all time favorite games on the Russo-Finnish War. Simple, yet it works well. A good game for showing people the advantages of maneuver over brute force." HSD


S&T #34 Armageddon
--------------------
"I liked it. I did like the pluses and minuses for unit type when attacking or defending against a different unit type." TES

"A rather blah tactical game." TMB

"One of the precursors to the Prestags series. Except this one had some features that might make it pretty cool. I have it, and the likelihood that I will play it someday is at least decent." JB

"Played this one a lot. It has a lot of guess work in it since accurate sources for the OoB's or even numbers of combatants present at battles of this period are virtually non-existent. If memory serves some of the scenarios were based on biblical passages from the Old Testament. This was subsequently reworked and reissued as Chariot, part of PRESTAGS" JBB

"Near the end of the first ancients surge. Fun, but not the eye-opener that their first two were." DAV


S&T #35 - Year of the Rat
-------------------------
"I played, and didn't like it." JBB

"Mixed opinion (John Prados design, he loved it)" DDH

"I really like this one, but no one else did in my circle of gamers. (back in the 70's)" HSD


S&T #36 - Destruction of Army Group Center
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"Not much fun, not much of a simulation, not much of anything. One of the weaker efforts in the Kursk series of games which gave us WitE 1 and 2 and WiE." JBB

"Pretty Good, but there are better on the subject available" DDH

"Pretty good, but I prefer many other East Front titles." HSD


S&T #37 - Scrimmage
-------------------
"Ha..." JBB

"Not as bad as they say, but get Statis Pro or Strat-O-Matic" DDH

"Howls at the moon." HSD


S&T #38 - CA
------------
"Played, didn't like it, don't remember much about it." JBB

"Too much chrome, but innovative." DDH


S&T #39 - The Fall of Rome
--------------------------
"My first S&T. Almost drove me from the hobby." MP

"Remember it as a good game in a really bad presentation with much errata needed to make it playable." TES

"Lots of rules problems originally. Had highly anticipated it, but as Spock said (and I paraphrase) "sometimes having is not as good a thing as wanting."" TMB

"I played this a lot, but it was crippled by errors." DAV

"Played it. Liked it. Can't remember much about it any more. When I got the new edition in S&T I found myself unable to recall a single detail about the original game. Sigh. Old age...." JBB


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