[Consim-l] CBI Games?

Thu Nov 9 11:34:30 EST 2006

Wow, great reponse Markus!  Thank you.  I just found this in my "Probably 
SPAM" folder, no idea why it didn't make it through.  And just lucky I checked 
before deleting the whole thing.

I appreciate these "surveys".  Got to find a way to get you published more 
widely.  It would be neat to have this kind of learned commentary on a 
particualr topic stored somewhere.

On Tue, 7 Nov 2006 19:11:49 +1030 (CST)
  Markus Stumptner <mst at cs.unisa.edu.au> wrote:
> 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
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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