Battle of The Bulge PG Trilogy:

[JayTownsend]

Battle of The Bulge PG Trilogy: (Battle of The Bulge), (Battle of The Bulge 2: Elsenborn Ridge) and (Winter Soldiers).

A folder for one of my favorite WWII battles.

Way back when the first PG Battle of The Bugle games came out, it became my favorite in the series, even lacking many things I wanted in a Bugle but then came the long promised Elsenborn Ridge and it became my favorite, with the long promised Tiger II's, Nebelwerfers & P-47s and then the Winter Soldiers scenario supplement to add more Bulge fun.

I remember finding an image at the last hour of the Nebelwerfers, so Mike would include them in the Elsenborn game as a counter. I bugged him for weeks to put one in and finally I found an image AP could use to make a counter with or we might not have this cool counter today. Just a little behind the scenes interesting background for you.

With the three PG Bulge products, we have a lot good fun come December or anytime of the year for that matter.

Does anybody else have a fixation with Bulge games? A favorite scenario from one of the three mentioned above?

My favorite scenario played from the Trilogy so far was #22 from Elsenborn Ridge: St. Vith: The Fall. It had everything you could hope for in a Battle of the Bulge battle!

[Shad]

I dunno Jay... with a 2.7 rating for Bulge you might be classified as a hater. ;-)

I like the Bulge maps a lot, old though they be. It suffers from some poorly defined victory conditions, but if you solo or don't worry too much about the outcome the battles are generally enjoyable.

[JayTownsend]

Andrew the Trilogy includes all three games and the Elsenborn Ridge one is a gem!

[vince hughes]

Jay,

I enjoy the complete Bulge Trilogy but strangely have played few from BotB or ER. That is not because I have avoided it but merely due to the 'random' dice system Wayne and I use to employ scenario picks. When I have played them, they have overall been enjoyable.

It would be nice if AP could update the Bulge scenario book in two ways.

Bring in the new rules that ER & WS employ (infantry AT and other SSR's) and

Have somebody comb through the VC's and SR's and then either issue them online as 'official changes and errata' or update and print a new scenario book. The printing of the book would be too expensive a course I'm guessing.(or is it a matter of simply changing the template ?) Thing is though, the BotB set does need some serious editing due to a good few anamolies in VC's. In other words, I'm suggesting that the scenarios they already have could be improved by just changing some VC's rather than complete scenarrio re-writes.

I see the 'Bulge Three' perhaps a bit differently to you. I have them as the finale to the Westwall/Siegried/Hurtgen battles that the 5 x downloads or IoG book covers. This is my particular German v US baby. Therefore, rather than just a trilogy, I see the First Book in 5 chapters as the IoG followed by the Wacht Am Rhein offensive (Bulge) as book 2 in 3 chapters :-)

I guess the final part of this whole series will be a number of books or sets on the campaigns of the Western allies covering Jan-May 1945. Operation Varsity and Plunder for example. Even then in March, there were still some very stiff battles with some of Varsity's airborne casualties being of a higher percentage than Market Garden.

[Matt W]

I, too find the BoB scenarios dated. They certainly show more "flash" than the original PG scenarios but they lack the crisp presentation and development of the scenarios that followed. It would be great to have them updated as happened for Edelweiss/Arctic Front/PG, however we may want to consider that, at 116 scenarios this battle has been covered at an intensity virtually unseen anywhere else in PG (with the exception of the GD trilogy, perhaps).

The nature of the terrain lends itself to scenario development by making even the largest action somewhat contained but there are so many places to go with the system that haven't been touched I would rather spend the resources going to new places or feshing out areas which have only been touched (e.g. the rest of Kursk, including the 9th Army offensive and the rest of the South Flank (4th Pzr and Army Detachment Kempf), perhaps Metz, Market-Garden, Varsity/Plunder, etc. Then there is mainland Italy and Sicily/Tunisia, the actions of the Free French in France, Greece/Crete and goodness anything of substance beyond Power of the East on the Asian mainland. Battles of the Japanese expansion in the South, Lae, etc, etc, etc)

[Poor Yorek]

Would still like to see the BoB map revised to current art standard and winterized to match the EB set. I actually thought it would be useful as a marketing tool to sell BoB/ER/WS along with the combined winterized maps as a "set."

:hrugs::

[campsawyer]

I would agree BotB is a good game, but as Vince and Poor Yorek point out, it needs some updating.

[tlangston28]

Having started with Elsenborn Ridge and the Winter Maps, I am probably partial to that one as it included US, German and SS units, sort of giving a good jump off point for getting into the system. I have played 3 of the ER scenarios and 1 winter soliders and will be starting a second one shortly. To select a favorite now would be short-changing the scenarios I haven't played, but of those, probably Tri-le-Chesling is a favorite, as it was a tense short battle that came down to the last turn.

[vince hughes]

Having started with Elsenborn Ridge and the Winter Maps, I am probably partial to that one as it included US, German and SS units, sort of giving a good jump off point for getting into the system. I have played 3 of the ER scenarios and 1 winter soliders and will be starting a second one shortly. To select a favorite now would be short-changing the scenarios I haven't played, but of those, probably Tri-le-Chesling is a favorite, as it was a tense short battle that came down to the last turn.

STYMIED from WS = Classic !