Chinese units?

[Hugmenot]

At a much higher level than PG-HQ but it may be of interest to some forum users.

The Battle of Changsha is a game that was published earlier this year in an issue of Strategy & Tactics. The two main scenarios are operational and cover the 2nd and 3rd battles of Changsha., Bill Xuan is the designer and he had access and can read Chinese documents.

I was a beta playtester for this game and I liked the battles being first a fighting withdrawals with of counterattacks later in the game. The two main scenarios are long (8+ hours) but represent the system well. The introductory scenario is short (60 - 90 minutes) and well-balanced but its a local fight for a summit so not illustrative of the battles as a whole.

The counters are 1/2" (required for the map covering the needed area) and their formation number is hard to read for my limited vision. I ended coloring the side of the counters, one color per formation, and that worked well for me. There are some asymmetries in the game (supply rules, stacking limit, and retreats immediately comes to mind) and the command rule has a twist (a unit has to be in command range to be activated and in command range to conduct combat) and that helps make the game different.

I would give it a 7.5 on BGG but I took half a point off for the difficult to read formation numbers (I suggested they use color bands but component changes can only be made after alpha testing, not beta testing). I think players who enjoyed A Victory Lost (MMP) or Konisberg (Revolution Games) will enjoy this one.

Unrelated to the Sino-Chinese conflict but I was also a playtester for the S&T Moscow game and enjoyed that game a lot. Very simple system with untried units, and it plays in roughly 4 hours. I found it hard to win as the Germans but there are enough play in there to try multiple German setups and approaches.