MGPRP: Strategy & Tactics pocket reviews
Issues 100-109
· S&T #100: Superpowers at War
· S&T #101: Marston Moor
· S&T #102: Monty's D-Day
· S&T #103: Road to Vicksburg
· S&T #104: 13: Colonies in Revolt
· S&T #105: Ruweisat Ridge
· S&T #106: Pleasant Hill
· S&T #107: Warsaw Rising
· S&T #108: Remember the Maine
· S&T #109: Target: Libya
S&T #100: Superpowers at War
------------------------------
"Worst of the 'TSR' S&T's." WS
"Double game. Didn't play it much. The scenario near the Rhine
seemed unrealistic because everybody was still at full strength
even after the frontier battles." MJP
"Don't know what William disliked about it, but I
thought it was fun. I don't remember it as being an exceptional game, but I do recall
liking it. I wouldn't put it in either extreme category. Overall,
in the 100s decade, I have this game in second place." JB
S&T #101: Cromwell's Victory: Marston Moor
------------------------------
"I played this one solitaire several times. I thought it was a
simple, fun game that was as easy to play as my schedule allows.
Possibly unbalanced against the Royalists, but still a gem to me." GS
"Fun to play once or twice. Uses the 30 Years War system but isn't
one of the best." RM
"Gem. 30 Years War Quad system (that was what England was doing at
the time.)" MJP
"Played it once long ago, but don't remember much now. I do like the
rule that later in the game both sides will be hampered by reduced
visibility due to battlefield smoke and the approach of night. I
wasn't interested in anything before WW2 back then (I bought it for
the expansion rules for Central Command), but the game piqued my
interest on ECW which lasted to this day. BTW the title of the
game is Cromwell's Victory." EH
S&T #102: Monty's D-Day
------------------------------
"I loved this when it came out, but recently played it ftf and found
it okay. Hasn't aged well." RM
"Too tactical for me." MJP
"I like this one. A land combat game that uses 2 hour turns,
company/battalion sized units is certainly unique, not to mention
the CRT. The victory condition (the British must have a path of hex
clear of German units and ZOCS from the beach to any hex of Caen)
was kind of silly, though. I played with a house rule that requires
this path of hex must be a road." EH
"Looking at the 100s decade of games, my sense of the overall
pattern is that, at this point in its development, whoever was at
the helm of the magazine definitely know how to get at least a decent
game out in every issue. And that's how I feel about M's D-Day.
It's not a great game, imo; nor is it a buzzard. It's a competently
designed (John Prados, I think), workmanlike effort from which you
might learn something about the British effort at Normandy, and you
might have some fun too." JB
S&T #103: Road to Vicksburg
------------------------------
"Good game. Falls into the middle of the Blue & Gray series. Good
game for beginners." RM
"Pretty good game. Champion Hill, Blue & Gray quad system." MJP
S&T #104: 13: Colonies in Revolt
------------------------------
"Very disappointed with this game. It suffered from being an issue
game. System had some interesting points but it didn't play well."
RM
"Not a big Amer. Rev. fan." MJP
"Good intentioned game, with clever combat system, that didn't have
enough markers (because of magazine format limitations) and had too
many die rolls too often -- every militia unit had to be diced for
every three (or so, it's been a while) turns." DT
"The game is broken. Since militia returns and regulars do not, and
since the CRT is highly variable, the American just throws
everything at the British regulars at any odds. They last a turn or
two... One day Berg will get a great low level conflict game out.
Incidentally Manchu, despite its hideous 3W production (I mean, it
is just not that difficult to recognize an upside down character
even if you know nothing about Chinese...) is a real pearl
underneath the pig slop." JGi
"Wanted to like it, but it just didn't spark my interest. I wouldn't
call it a dud--there were some problems with rules clarity as I
recall, but nothing that couldn't be figured out." JB
S&T #105: Ruweisat Ridge
------------------------------
"Too tactical. Even less of a North Africa fan." MJP
"First Battle of El Alamein, July 1942. This was one of my first
S&T's (and is the only one of the 100s that I've not just dabbled
with). Both map and countersheet are quite small, but very
nice-looking. It plays a bit slower than one would expect from the
size (but perhaps that was mostly our inexperience back then), but
it also has a lot of details. Rudimentary command control rules,
minefields and boxes, separate assault and fire combat with different
result tables for firing at different units - armor is not pinned
but killed more often, infantry is mostly just pinned, and Italian
units are virtually impossible to kill by fire because they are
immediately pinned and go for cover. I really liked it." MS
"I played it a little bit, and it just never really lit my fire.
It's gotten some positive comments from others, and I'm not
disagreeing with their assessment. I think it's probably a good
game, just one that I didn't get into." JB
“A straight-forward game about the battle of El-Alamien. I like how the German's have to allocate operation
points to maintain momentum. (Of course, German operations inevitably slacken, giving the British lots of opportunities).
I also enjoyed how the game encouraged a combined arms approach (to include air-operations), and with a little German help,
Italian formations can make a good contribution to the battle. B” KD
S&T #106: Pleasant Hill
------------------------------
"Close to a gem. Plays great and encourages replay. I've played
it a good 8 to 10 times." RM
"And, rapidly bottoming out, definitely not a GBACW system fan.
Have you noticed how original TSR was in this set?" MJP
"I had a lot of fun with it. Fixed setup and Confederate surprise
rules make a great solitaire game. Gem." DT
“GBACW system, map is good, counters good and the rules are sound. Not much errata and the situation is interesting
for both sides. Another case of a smaller force attacking a larger one. The special rules help balance it out and it plays
quickly enough for its size. The last GBACW using the simpler rules before things started to get more complex,
and not sure why they had to go that way. Rating B” CH
S&T #107: Warsaw Rising
------------------------------
"Could've been fun like Berlin '85 but it was cumbersome." MJP
"It's gotten some negative evaluations from others, and maybe they were
looking for a brutal, protracted Stalingrad type scenario. Again, while I
can't say that I thought it was great, I definitely had some fun with it." JB
“A very unique game. I was surprised at the research that went into it. it's a lot of fun playing the Poles and the Germans,
due to the back-and-forth action in the game. A true gem!” BB
“( 8 )- A very nice game from John Prados on the 1944 Polish rebellion in the capital against German occupation before final
continental liberation of WW2. German police and militia is used to suppress the armed Polish civilians. Very interesting topic
and game design. The blue city blocks on the map with the German police chasing the Polish here and there makes this game
a real different treat...a genuine low intensity conflict.” LH
S&T #108: Remember the Maine
------------------------------
"Punched it, read the article, maybe even set it up a couple of
times. id not like the level of detail in the naval module that
much; that's why I didn't play it solitaire. Not a gem, not
necessarily a dud either. GS
"Gem! My favorite Vance von Borries design and the only one of its
kind out there." RM
"I've heard a lot of people liked this. I found rules holes that
you could drive a truck through. I really wanted to like it." MJP
"Interesting game, in that it covers strategic naval movement,
operational land combat, and tactical naval battles in something
like 12(!) pages of rules. But the innovative design is torpedoed
by the tactical combat system, which won't produce historical
results without Hot Dice From Hell for the Americans." DT
"OK, for me, this was the clear winner in the 100s, and I would say
the only gem in the bunch. Yeah, there were problems with that
little quasi-tactical naval game. But I gotta tell ya, I just loved
it. All this is subjective, but I thought it had just enough detail
to enable me to clearly visualize what was going on at the
"squadron" level, but not so much that it just turned into another
"die-rolling contest". And then there was the problem of getting
the actual land troops "in theatre". All you guys are hip enough
to know who the designer was for this one, and I think we can agree
that this design was quite a stretch for him compared to his usual
stuff. And I think that's cool too. I mean this is a guy who's done
an s-load of games over the years, but not one other naval game to
the best of my knowledge. And he belts one over the fence on his
only try." JB
"This one has always seemed pretty cool to me. A complete war in one
single (relatively small) game, from the strategic übergame down to
a tactical subsystem for resolving ship combat. Unfortunately, I've
still never gotten around to playing this, but it's near the top of
my "hope to get to someday" list. I will probably substitute
miniatures rules for the tactical ship system (I'm one of those few
souls who actually *enjoys* gaming the Span-Am War with naval
miniatures) but otherwise I'm looking forward to seeing how this
plays out. I thought the overall system might provide some great
ideas for a naval campaign game system for other periods (using
either miniatures or boardgame, take your pick) and wonder if anyone
else has tried this yet." DLF
“As much as I like this game, I would have to give it only a B since it's a prime example of a game that cries out for a bigger treatment
outside the confines of the magazine format. S&T's of this era were an interesting mixture of old games left over from the SPI collapse
and new designs. RTM is as printed a good game on a (then and now) seldom done topic, but oh, I wish someone would redesign and refit!” SBG
S&T #109: Target: Libya
------------------------------
"Can anyone think of a good reason for this game? I played it and I
still can't. Is that dogs I hear barking? No, it's just the game." RM
"I disagree with many in that I liked this game." MJP
"And for me, the clear dud in the bunch. I'll admit that the game
was something of an experiment. That is, it could be seen as attempt
to show air-land-sea interactions in the simplest possible terms--a
laudable goal. But the reality was that the "aero-naval table" just
didn't cut it." JB
"Perhaps the first S&T game I bought. Played it once and sold it on. It seemed a bit too much effort at the
time for the subject matter. I would probably like it better today." EN
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