Red Dragon Rising (RDR), is a strategic-level investigation, with operational undertones, of the possibilities inherent in the first 30-or-so days of a hypothetical war between the Peoples Republic of China and a US-led counter-alliance. The timeframe is the not-too-distant future, roughly between now and the end of 2014. On the Chinese side, the viewpoint of the player is that of Peking's top-rung national leadership. On the US side, the opposing player represents the top-rung military commander in the Western Pacific theater. The game is easily adaptable for solitaire play.
The system - given we're dealing with events that haven't happened and therefore can't be studied in detail after the fact - has been crafted to present the war as a unitary vision rather than a strictly sequenced process.
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Forgotten Napoleonic Campaigns (FNC) uses a single operational-level system to examine two of the more obscure, though nonetheless interesting, campaigns fought during the Napoleonic Wars. The designer is S&T Editor Joseph Miranda. The two complete games included in this issue are: The Russo-Swedish War (RSW), which covers the 1808 invasion of Finland, and The Egyptian Campaign (EC), which deals with Napoleon's invasion of the Middle East. Both games are two-player contests of low-to-intermediate complexity, meaning experienced players can master the rules and finish a match in one session of three to five hours.
Each hex on both maps represents 12.4 miles (20 kilometers) from side to opposite side. Each game turn in both games generally represents one calendar month. In RSW, however, winter turns each represent two months; while in EC summer turns each represent two months. The individual units of maneuver represent brigades, regiments and battalions, formations varying in size from a few hundred to a few thousand men. Naval power is represented abstractly with markers used to denote the firepower of whole fleets or flotillas.
First Blood: Second Marne, 15 July 1918 (FB), is a two-player wargame of low-to-intermediate complexity that simulates the final day on World War I's western front during which it was the Germans who held the strategic initiative. After that day, the German high command, though they didn't yet understand they were soon to be fully and finally defeated, knew an offensive solution to the war was no longer available to them. The German player is generally on the offensive, trying to cross the Marne River and exit units southward off the map through the Surmelin valley. The game has been designed by Ty Bomba. MORE INFO
Holy Roman Empire: Wars of the Reformation, 1524-38 (HRE) is a wargame of intermediate complexity intended for play by four, three or two, and was designed by S&T Editor Joseph Miranda. The era it covers - from the Peasants Revolt to the Truce of Nice - was one that proved decisive in shaping what has since come to be known as ‘modernity.’ On one side was the Holy Roman Empire, the (theoretically) Europe-wide polity under control of the Hapsburgs. Contending against them were the Kingdom of France, the Ottoman Empire and miscellaneous minor states, as well as the rising tide of Protestantism.
Manila '45: Stalingrad of the Pacific (M'45), is a two-player, low-to-intermediate complexity wargame that simulates the American liberation of the capital of the Philippines in World War II, which took place from 3 February to 4 March 1945. To control complexity and present an overall-force-commander's-view of the battle, the game uses a tactically scaled map and units of maneuver coupled with an operationally scaled game turn length. The American player is generally on the offensive, trying to clear the entire Japanese defending force from the city prior to the end of the game.
The Triple Alliance War (TAW) is a two -player, low-to-intermediate complexity, strategic-level simulation of the second-largest war ever fought in the New World (the largest having been the American Civil War). The Paraguayan player is attempting to hold off the onslaught of three allied nations: Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. The Allied player is generally on the offensive, attempting to win the game by invading Paraguay and seizing key areas on map within that country. The Paraguayan player is primarily on the defensive, but the situation also allows for his prosecution of offensives, particularly in the early stage of the war.
Road to Ruin 2, Operation Typhoon, Autumn 1941
After an absence of many years, large-size, "mini-monsters" will begin making annual reappearances in S&T magazine. This is the first entry in that new series of larger games.
Drive on Moscow: Road to Ruin 2, Operation Typhoon, Autumn 1941 (DoM) is a two-player, low-to-intermediate complexity, strategic-level simulation of the final German attempt to capture the capital city of the Soviet Union late in 1941. The German player is generally on the offensive, attempting to win the game by isolating or capturing Moscow, or by seizing all the other key cities on map. The Soviet player is primarily on the defensive, but the situation also requires that he prosecute local counterattacks.
Full Title: They Died With Their Boots On 2: Pershing & Mad Anthony
They Died With Their Boots On 2 (Boots 2, for short), presents a wargame system that simulates two campaigns of the US Army from the late 18th and early 20th centuries.
The rules present sub-systems that show the wild fluctuations of fortune that historically affected the forces of both sides, from heroic fights to blunders that led to some of the more infamous military actions of those times.
Boots 2 uses an interactive game turn in which both players command an overall force made up of several sub-commands. During each turn, players alternate picking "command markers," which designate the sub-command within their force they may then use to conduct operations. The player then moves units of that sub-command and, at the completion of its movement, may conduct attacks with the units of that same sub-command. Play then passes to the other player, who similarly picks a marker and moves and fights. That procedure continues until all command markers have been picked. Additionally, certain events cause players to pick "heroism markers" at random, which may generate anything from mad, impetuous charges to abject surrenders.
Twilight of the Ottomans: World War I in the Middle East (TOTO for short), is an intermediate-complexity simulation of the Ottoman Empire's campaigns, and those campaigns waged against that realm, during World War I.
One player controls the Ottoman forces along with other Central Power units. The other player controls the various Allied contingents. TOTO has been designed by Joseph Miranda.
The concept and exploitation of victory points is central to play of the game. Players begin with a designated number of victory points, which they may keep, or expend them to gain reinforcements and execute other actions. Players gain new victory points as a result of achieving their strategic objectives. Players lose victory points when they suffer losses in combat. To win, you must have more victory points than your opponent; so play becomes a competitive balancing act between attaining new objectives without spending too many of your previously earned victory points to do it.
Each player has a range of unit types available: infantry, cavalry, expeditionary combined arms forces, early mechanized units, air and naval, as well as guerrillas and the major personalities of the era, such as Lawrence of Arabia. Logistics are also critical, as players utilize supply units to enhance their movement and combat capabilities.
The 34x22" large-hex map covers from Mecca and Medina north through Mesopotamia to the Caucasus, west to the Nile Delta, east to Persia, and northwest to Adrianople, at 87 miles per hex. Each game turn equals a quarter of a year.
There are 280 half-inch, NATO-style (and some iconic), unit-counters. Units of maneuver are primarily divisions, but numerous corps, brigades, regiments and battalions are also included in the orders of battle.
There are two short scenarios, one early war and one late war, along with a full campaign game. The rules run to approximately 15,000 words; so two experienced players can finish the campaign game in about six hours.
Winged Horse: Campaigns in Vietnam, 1965-66, is a simulation of the critical fighting that marked the first months after massive conventional US intervention into the Second Indochina War.
This is a two player wargame of intermediate complexity designed by Joseph Miranda. One player controls the Communists, the other the Free World Forces. Each game turn equals one week, and each hexagon represents 25 miles. The units of maneuver for both sides range from battalions up through regiments, brigades and full divisions. The game includes one full-size (34x22") large-hex map and 280 half-inch, NATO-style, counters. All of South Vietnam, plus the border regions of Cambodia, Laos and North Vietnam are on the map, and the orders of battle include all the units of both sides that participated historically.
There are two scenarios: one short, with only five game turns in the autumn of 1965, and the other long, covering the entire period of the early American war with a full 20 game turns. The rules contain approximately 16,000 words, which works out to two experienced players being able to get through the campaign game in one long session of about six to eight hours.
The period under consideration was one of intense conventional warfare, as guerrilla and counter-insurgency operations temporarily moved into the background. Both sides rushed to plot major offensive operations because their high commands sensed there was the possibility to decide the entire war. For their part, the North Vietnamese sought to test the mettle of the arriving Americans, to see if a knockout blow could be struck against the new enemy. On the other side, the American high command planned to use its army's premier division, the newly "airmobile" 1st Cavalry, to carry the war into the enemy's infiltration routes and supply centers. The resultant clashes in the A-Shau and Ia Drang valleys, and elsewhere across the region, have become legendary
Lest Darkness Fall: Rome in Crisis, A.D. 235-285 (LDF), is a low- to intermediate-complexity, two-player, strategic-level wargame covering the third century crisis that beset the Mediterranean region and its environs. One player leads the Roman Empire and its client states, while the other commands an amalgamation of that realm's enemies: barbarian Germanic tribes, Parthia, Palmyra, and rebel forces from within the Roman world itself. That second player is generally on the offensive, trying to invade, loot and occupy core Roman territory, or perhaps reach the city of Rome itself, in order to win.
The Roman player wins by finally maintaining the territorial integrity of the empire against the invaders. Despite that being the general situation, however, over the course of a typical match both players will have many opportunities to both attack and defend as they maneuver to achieve their goals.
Each game turn of LDF represents the passage of 10 years. Each hex on the map measures 100 miles (162 km) from side to opposite side. The units in the game represent the Roman emperor and his court, his co-emperor (if one is in play) or rebel claimants to the throne, legion bases and vexillations (mobile elements), garrisons and fortifications, Germanic tribes, Parthian gund (corps), and Palmyran legion-equivalents. The individual units therefore represent everything from an individual and a few courtiers up to 10,000 or so soldiers and their camp followers.
Magazine/game by Decision Games.
