Avalanche Press Games That Are Not PG

[plloyd1010]

Dan, the only game on your list that I have is Strange Defeat. When I think of it, it is often in relation to France 1940, the Jim Dunnigan game from S&T/Avalon Hill.

SD is a fairly simple game. Unit density is low. Combat is rather simplistic. Movement & logistics are not complicated, but are adequate to the game. Victory or defeat is weird.

I think the unit density is low for 2 reasons. The bucket-o-dice combat resolution can produce peculiar results, but mostly high body counts. This would be worse if large stack combat became the norm, as it does in Fr40. Second reason is that it creates a breakthrough opportunity. Since the Allies need to be spread out before the German intentions are clear, the Allied window for containment is very brief.

This brings us to the victory conditions. Firstly there is only one scenario. In Fr40, it's referred to as the idiot's game. It pits the second strongest OOB against the weakest Allied OOB, and imposes restrictions. SD sort of does this too, but then the weird part comes in, Allies don't win by stopping the Germans, and pretty mush they can't anyway. Victory is determined by world political sympathy. When you play the Allied, understand the Germans are going beat you like a dirty rug, the trick is making them lose face while doing it.

Alan, the game red Warriors references is Red God of War. I think as an operational simulation it works better than SD or Fr40.