The Reichstag Stands...

Mike and I finished our our game of Red Storm Over the Reich last night, and the Reichstag was not taken over by Soviet soldiers, so the picture here is a little misleading! After playing out 7 of the 8 turns, we determined that it would be impossible for Mike's Soviets to clear the hex in Berlin containing the bunker, so that being the case, we cleaned up and decided to start something new next week. Perhaps Red Dragon Rising, the latest Strategy & Tactics (S&T) game about a hypothetical Chinese invasion of Taiwan and/or Korea, Japan, The Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia. The game uses a variant of the War at Sea system, so it should be easy and fun. Other possibilites abound, though, so we'll have to see. We even talked about playing Richard Berg's game of Japanese Balloon warfare on the West Coast of the U.S. in WWII. Mike subscribes to Against the Odds (ATO), I don't.

Both S&T and ATO have been huge disappointments to me over the years. The games are often half-baked, full of errata, and not fun to play -- and the graphics for the latter have included some of the most mind-numbing, ridiculous pieces of "art gone bad" I've ever witnessed in this hobby. So I'll go into either not expecting much, though Red Dragon Rising is designed by Bruce Costello, an online friend from CSW who often comes up with interesting takes on how to design games.

Jumping all over the place today, I'd like to get back to Red Storm Over the Reich. We had fun playing, but after several games (including one Soviet auto victory when Mike and I were just learning the system and he pulled his Germans back too quickly) we have come to the conclusion that it's near impossible for the Soviets to win. The Germans just have too many good defensive lines, and with only 8 combat phases in the entire game (plus 8 phases with overruns possible, though much of the terrain the Germans will be defending on prohibits these), there just isn't enough time. The Germans can win the game by having a reduced strength Berlin garrison unit (representing "The Bunker") remaining and nothing else -- so in the "endgame," the Germans can sacrifice units as need be, not worry about making mandated offensives, and build up a "defense in depth" around Berlin. This will, inevitably, run out the clock.

Now, the game was decent enough fun (of course, playing with a friend makes the game itself less important), though it was conceded that we'd, most likely, never play again. In the end, it was a lot of effort for a game that seems awfully tough for one side to win.

The Bunker