I undertook a New Year's Resolution to write in this blog once a week. My resolution is clearly in tatters, but am I a quitter? If I fail, do I throw my hands in the air and curl into a ball? No!!! That is for the likes of Puti and The Chump. I grit my teeth so my tears do not impact my gasps and press on. Here is my February post!
World at War is a Strategy and Tactics offshoot that focuses solely on World War 2. Perhaps a bit boring at times, I took up the subscription last year after a stressful work project, it does contain a few gems.
Operation Typhoon is solitaire game of the final German advance on Moscow in 1941. As you advance towards Moscow, you roll a die to find our what is in each hex. The forest and clear hexes are easy with never more than two rifle divisions in a hex, but the cities and the fortresses are nasty.
The game requires you to form pockets and eat the Soviet army in bites. This was the dominant German doctrine at the time. You can see a pocket forming above. Stalin required all soviet units to break out of pockets. So when this pocket formed, the German 2nd Army faced a break out of 8 rifle divisions, 3 brigades and a Katusha rocket launcher. My units took some damage but held on. Closer to Moscow this is going to get nasty!
The counters are quite simple. All German units have the same movement according to their type. Soviet units just appear when the game system opts to hold a hex. Here are the best units on the map.
I am a quarter way across the map on my first turn. The Fuehrer will be pleased. What could go wrong?
Combat is simple. Each point gets a die roll, so the big Panzer division roll 7 dice each combat, and cause mayhem. I have found four die but I need to find more. While the sheer number of die rolls means you do not have Brendan Mahoney moments, it does make the game very noisy.
I'll have to finish the game quickly. Given what The Chump is up to, I might need to get the Iran solitaire game out quickly!
February (3). March (4). April (4). May (4). June (4).
Actually, the game looks pretty good. Solitaire is good too. Some of your friends don't get past the setting up the map phase.
Posted by: Paul | Monday, 01 July 2019 at 08:58 AM