Avalanche Press Games That Are Not PG

[larry marak]

John Prado's Third Reich and its Pacific evil step brother are both good games. The combat sistem is Avalanche's patented bucket of dice system and works quite well. Both have gone through reprinting and 3R is currently waiting, and waiting, and waiting for reprinting. Makes quite an interesting comparison with Advanced Third Reich and Rising Sun.

[Shad]

Ahh geez, how did I forget that I owned both JPTR and GPW? Those are great!

[Matt W]

The additiions to JPTR and GPW that came through the Player's Guide and Rumors of War add a lot to the experience as well. Lots of fun chrome without major disruptions to the underlying systems. There are also plenty of fun variants on the AVP website including the resurrection of the Byzantine Empire.

[Hugmenot]

I purchased Alsace 1945, Defiant Russia, Red Vengeance, and Strange Defeat at a very good price from a collector and now I am curious what PG players think of these games.

Has anyone here played these games?

[campsawyer]

I have play some of those games. They are operational much like the old AH D-Day. They are much quicker that PG, butvstill fun. I believe Red Vengeance is referenced in Red Warriors. Just too many games and not enough time.

[Hugmenot]

I wanted easy WW2 games on a different scale than PG so hopefully they will a good diversion from time to time. At the cost at $28.50 (including shipping) for all four, I think it will be a huge win for me even if I like only two of the games.

[joe_oppenheimer]

I enjoyed Red Vengeance. It's not a particularly deep game, but it's very easy to get into.

[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.

[Hugmenot]

Thanks for the feedback, Peter.

The package arrived yesterday; all games were still in shrinkwrap.

[Diocletian]

I have Red God of War and Tiger of Malaya. Both are good games.

I like the game system of Tiger of Malaya and think it plays very well. The background is interesting and it is easy to play. Too bad it is not in print.