[Consim-l] CBI Games?

[Markus Stumptner]

On Wed, 1 Nov 2006, Mike NotSpecified wrote:
> Operation Cannibal from Avalanche Press.  Almost universally panned.  The 
> consim folder consists of 34 messages, roughly half from a guy who really 
> liked it, the rest more or less off-topic....  This game may have contributed 
> to the dubious reputation Avalanche enjoys.  I guess they even blew out their 
> last copies at $2 apiece.
>
> Yet, for all that, I think I'd be willing to give this a try in that one of 
> the main criticisms seems to be how long and hard it is to build the Ledo 
> road,

Not the Ledo road actually, just the coastal road down to Akyab.  The Ledo
road started in the interior (at Ledo IIRC - heh), a couple of hundred
miles to the northeast and went across the mountains to China.

> which sounds right according to the book.  It may not be a good game, 
> but as a companion to the history book it's probably worth the shipping to 
> me...

I think "companion to the book" is pretty much the only purpose for this
game.  It's part of an interesting series that has a rather bloody CRT in
the sense that some attrition is guaranteed. Not necessarily in the sense
that many units die, but in this series many games have low unit density
resulting in low stacking.  I've found that in those games the outcomes of
the first couple of fights could actually determine the game.  In Op 
Cannibal, what happens is that you laboriously build your road, get down 
south just before the Japanese reinforcements arrive, and then you have 
one assault on Akyab.  If you're lucky you win and get to try and hold on, 
if you're unlucky you start falling back and it's a long retreat hounded 
by the Japanese on your flanks.  I'd buy it for $2 and play it once or 
twice but that's it.  

(The only game in the series that I think has enough units to make the
combat results "even out" is the Leyte game, although the second Finnish
game [Winter Fury, I believe] might also qualify.)

I vaguely recall that O:C also has the strange property (I'd call it an
almost-flaw) that one side can decide to go for a decisive or a marginal
victory, but the the flow of the game essentially rules out that you can
switch between the two as the game goes on. It's either the set you chose,
or defeat. I've forgotten the details but remember a message from Brian
Knipple that this was intentional.

> The other game is the The Gamer's "Burma", part of the OCS series.  Decidely 
> mixed opinions on this one.  Some say OCS just does not work in this theater, 
> others say not only does it work pretty well but this title is also a decent 
> introduction to the whole series, being smaller than some of the other titles. 
>  The game is on the re-print pre-order list at MMP and I gather existing 
> editions are expensive, but I might pursue it anyway.  I have in the back of 
> my mind the idea that I should probably give OCS a try one of these days (and 
> I also fear I'm going to find it more complex than I'm willing to put up 
> with...)

This one actually has the Ledo road in it.

It's a very unusual OCS (virtually no mechanised forces on the side of the
attackers) but much liked by many.  My old group in Vienna plays this
frequently.  I was a bit put off by the fact that the Chindits fight in
the east (while rather important for the course of the game as a whole)  
is quite luck dependent due to the low number of units. I was even more
put off by the discussion on the Gamers list about whether one could use
reserve movement (1/4MP) to "hop" over mountains. A mountain hex costs
your whole movement phase.  Players would crawl over the mountains using 
all of that (1/4) reserve move, then "pop" the reserve marker and move 
full distance. Or perhaps it was the other way around.  Anyway, this was 
decried as being totally gamey (essentially you are moving your full move 
plus one hex that supposedly costs your full move) but then the 
playtesters turned up saying that they had used this throughout testing 
and would not guarantee balance if it was prohibited. Sigh.

Always found it fascinating that some design notes in the rules berate
Stilwell for leaning so hard on Merrill's Marauders when this is the game
(and system) that best shows why he did it - if you have to spearhead an
offensive where a couple of battalions are AR 5, they are the ones you
will use until they're gone.  No way around it.

There is a game from the Spanish magazine Alea that I have and that covers
both 1942 and 1944. I have never tried it though since the review that I
read (in Paper Wars, I think) was pretty devastating: bland and
ahistorical.

Then there's the Command game, When Tigers Fight.  Covers the 1944
offensives of the Japanese both in Burma and southern China, so fairly
large scale.  Very simplistic supply treatment put many people off.  
(AFAIR, the effect in Burma was that after turn 1, all Japanese units were
reduced by 1 on the attack, so that the typical odds ratio dropped below
1:1, or something similar.  That was it. Arguably effective but just felt
wrong.)

There's the old GDW Burma game which also only covers part of the
campaign, probably 1944 (I've forgotten).  Generally considered OK.

There's Chennault's First Fight from Against the Odds Magazine. This is a
very clever game focusing on the air combat, where you basically fly
multiple missions Fantastic graphics.  Has some historical problems (e.g.,
the Japanese not infrequently end up in central or northern Burma when
historically in the time covered they just managed to reach Rangoon, even
with the Sittang disaster), and some strange terrain decisions, some due
to the large ground scale. The historical invasion avenues to the north
along the river valleys are easy to defend since the map hexes are so
large that each hex is both valley and mountain.  Conversely, the region
around Akyab (which blocked any offensive for most of the war, see road
construction above) is a ready-made invasion route for armor units that
can't otherwise run in the interior.  That said, apart from those issues
I've found it a fascinating approach to the topic and a very enjoyable
game with very evocative graphics.

Then there's Hobby Japan's Malaya/Burma. Again, that's 1942 only. I have
that on the table right now but haven't had time to move it forward. It
does not have the flash and tactical resolution of Chennault's First
Fight, but I have reasonable hopes for it - it does cover the air part of
the campaign in detail (with air units, such as the Lysander scouting
units, that CFF glosses over), but its ground module is a straightforward
operational game, unlike the rather more abstract module used in CFF. I've
only started the Malaya bit so far but I have hopes that it's superior to
the old S&T Singapore game.

The only game that treats CBI as a whole (actually, it doesn't go as far
into China as When Tigers Fight, so it's properly more of a CB game than a
CBI game) is Vinegar Joe's War from Strategy & Tactics.  This deals with
the SE Asian theatre (Malaya, Burma, India) in seasonal turns.  Deals with
the invasion routes through Burma better than CFF.  Its supply system is
very clever but ultimately derails it. You spend Depot units, of which
there is a limited supply, to activate your combat units within range of a
HQ. This nicely permits showing that late in the war, the Allies get lots
of supply while the Japanese have to survive on a shoesting. But halt- the
HQs have different ranges and the range of late-war HQs is much longer.
That means that a fully motorised Allied army on the advance is vastly
more efficient in using those supplies that it gets than the Japanese they
are facing. This double indemnity means that the Japanese will most likely
be vaporised in the endgame, but is hidden in such a way that I suspect
most people (if they get to the point) will not notice, especially since
people are unfamiliar with the campaign.  If the destruction of Army Group
Center happens in 1943 rather than 1944, people would notice. But Burma?

The other problem is the air system - I think it is too easy to make
airpower have a decisive impact on combat given the atrocious terrain.  
In fact one could argue that the game makes northern Burma look more
civilised than it is.  But it's not a bad rendition of the campaign, worth
a try if you are willing to accept that the Japanese collapse will have to
be much faster than historical.

Having had a VJW game where the Japanese actually broke out into northern
India, we also noticed that (contrary to expectations in other games), the
going for them in the Indian floodplains is actually tougher than in the
hills because the game has very strong terrain effects depending on unit
type. In the hills, the mechanised/armoured Commonwealth units are badly
off, in the plains they suddenly become formidable. That's not quite the
experience the British made in Malaya, but OK, this has to be a broad
brush treatment.  But if you get the chance as the Japanese to grab an
armor unit reinforcement, use it.

Among the strategic games, SPI's War in the Pacific, TSR's WWII:PTO, and
VG's Pacific War are of a scale that they could sort of recreate the Burma
campaigns as scenarios. I haven't looked at the Burma scenarios of the
first two, but have played the Burma invasion in Pacific War fairly often.
There was a scenario in the GENERAL covering the 1944 offensives in China
and Burma, similar to the scope of the Command game. And from looking at
the setup one could argue that it should be better. But I have never
gotten around to trying it.  Still want to, one day.

Markus

Last 3 games played: Ligny (NLC), Eagles of the Empire: Borodino, Air Cav
--------------- http://www.dbai.tuwien.ac.at/user/mst/games/ ---------------
"Bakayaro! Bakayaro!"  ("Stupid Bastards!  Stupid Bastards!") -- Admiral 
Aritomo Goto's last words to his staff, October 11, 1942