Finally, I have spent a good chunk of my summer wargaming time (less than usual unfortunately) playing BACK TO IRAQ 2 and THE FIRE NEXT TIME by XTR. These are excellent games! BACK TO IRAQ 2 is a hypothetical game on a resurgent conflict in the gulf, and it allows the Iraqi player the option of trying to hold Basra to convince the Iranians to join the fight, or to spread out and force the Coalition to pursue them widely over the map, either choice results in an interesting middle game, especially if the Iranians join, then you get the mother of all battles in the middle east, and even the elite 24th mechanized division starts to feel a little overwhelmed with targets.
     The FIRE NEXT TIME is a hypothetical game on a possible Pakistani-Indian war which may result in nuclear exchange, with the slight problem that missiles in this part of the world aren't very accurate. The game is small and takes at most 15 turns, a good single evening chess match. Many games will play out to a WWI like stalemate around key cities, with one side or the other possibly earning a minor victory through superior attrition rates. Other games will explode into wild mobile battles in the desert that may end after any turn. All of this with just a few simple rules and units. The game comes with two scenarios, and if either side starts to lose too badly, you can sometimes salvage a win with some hot "nuke" dice.
     The big summer release was, of course, GMT's PATHS OF GLORY, designed by the esteemed Ted Raicer. It features area movement and the action is card driven, essentially WE THE PEOPLE meets the Great War, although the combat system is more wargame-standard and not based on card play. The graphics are outstanding, although some have complained of a thin mapsheet. Play is also precarious for beginners, the game is easy to lose in the early turns if you are not careful. The release of this game signals GMT's dive into the AH marketplace, word is they are planning a series of "AH-type" games, which is surely a good thing.
     Another big summer release for me was THE DAMNED DIE HARD by GR/D. This is part of their "Glory" series, essentially Europa goes pacific theatre, this particular game features a combined land/air/naval system for the 1941 campaign, with a special inset map for Bataan. This game has a bit more personal meaning to me than most, as my father took part in every major U.S. naval action in the Philippines, and there are very few games on this topic.
     Well, that's it for my first installment of Boulder Games' wargamers player's notes. All in all, this has been an excellent summer of games!

Peter McCord has been playing wargames for 20 years. Some of his favorite games are STORM OVER ARNHEM, BARBAROSSA: ARMY GROUP SOUTH, TUNISIA, A RAGING STORM and PROUD MONSTER.

TORRES REVIEW
by Frank Branham

(The following is based on a single play of a pre-production version of the game.)

     My collection is chock full of attempts to make a decent game where players move in 3D space. Very few of them are interesting. The exceptions being AXIOM (Seventh Seal), and STAGE 5 (Milton Bradley).
     One of the failures is a highly abstract game called TERRA TURRIUM, designed by Wolfgang Kramer. The game involves placing blocks, and moving pawns in order to have your pawns located on each of 6 vertical levels. The game is very dry, and seems to devolve quickly into uninteresting back and forth battles.
     It looks like Wolfgang Kramer and Richard Ulrich (the team that created TIKAL, and coughed up DIE HANDLER.) return to the 3D game with an F.X. Schmid release called TORRES. The bits are nice. Lots of plastic castle pieces, pawns, and action cards. The artwork is very to my taste, with Picasso-like angular towers, and text that looks cut and pasted letter by letter from a magazine.
     This time, the object of the game is to gain points by getting your knights to the top of large castles. During each of the scoring rounds, you get points consisting of your knight’s vertical height times the ground area covered by the particular castle. Instead of a single "King of the Hill" game that many of these 3D games revolve around, TORRES has its area broken up into 8 castles. The rules require that they never touch, but instead grow in such a way as to crowd each other out.
     The basic turn is very clever, and reminds one of TIKAL. You receive so many action points which you can use to bring new knights on the board, move knights, place blocks, and draw Action Cards. The Action Cards in particular are interesting, as they allow you to perform very unusual moves.
     Another oddity is movement. As in most of the 3D games, knights may move up or down a level when they move one step. But TORRES knights may also enter the doors in the sides of the castles to emerge at another point entirely on the castle. This gives the game a fluidity of movement that is often missing from other 3D games.
     The downside of all of these possibilities is that it takes awhile for our brains to ponder the possibilities. Thus, each player turn can take several minutes, which give the game a 90-120 minute playing time. And the pace can be molasses slow, slower even than TIKAL, because the action cards can change the boards dramatically on a player turn. Downside #2 is that the board starts to lock down on the last few turns, so there is very little you can do without an Action Card.

     All of which are complaints that could be filed against TIKAL. Personally, I think TORRES is a wonderful game, requiring a lot of thought and planning. And I’ve been frothing at the bit for the English version. (While the game has been available since early June in Germany, there is a lot of text on the Action Cards themselves. )

Frank Branham is an avid collector and player of German, dexterity, and family games.

[The following is a reprint of Bill Krasner’s contribution to ‘96 Boulder Games Catalog & Game Notes — that he will probably try to charge me for again.]

BAD WARGAME MEMORIES (PART DEUX)
by Bill Krasner

Part 1 was printed in the previous issue of GAME NOTES. If you read it, you have too much spare time on your hands.

Story #5

DIPLOMACY (Avalon Hill) — I really love this game. I have been playing DIPLOMACY since the late 60’s. I prefer face to face games, but I have been known to indulge in PBM DIPLOMACY from time to time. I even refereed a PBM game once in about 1980. (And if any of you guys are reading this, the Spring 1906 moves are in the mail. Really. No, this time I mean it, I swear.) Anyway, this is the story: I had just moved in with this woman in the summer of 1981. Looking back on it, it was a monumentally stupid idea. At the time, it only seemed to just be ill-advised. I had been playing a postal DIPLOMACY game for about three months prior to this, and had planned to continue. I hadn’t reckoned on the mental instability of my new companion. It seems she was opening my mail and came upon a letter that read: "Army in Silesia to Munich, supported by Army in Bohemia. Counting on you to keep the British from interfering." It was signed, unfortunately, "Your Russian friend."
     It seemed that my girlfriend had read this and was convinced that I was up to no good. I hadn’t moved my games in, and as you all know, there is really no good way to tell a loved one that you are a wargamer. So she had no way of knowing what that cryptic message was about. I found out, after we had split up (some 5 weeks later—a record of short term live-in relationships, even by my standards) that she had called the FBI (They weren’t interested.), my superiors at the Police Department (They figured that since I couldn’t even direct traffic properly, I was no danger to the free world) and even my mother who, of course, confirmed that I was indeed a card-carrying communist and well-known subversive. Thanks, Ma.
     I SWEAR that the above story is true (except for the part about my mother, which, of course, I made up. She never called me a subversive. To may face. As far as I know.)

Story #6

BAR-LEV (Conflict Games) — Probably the best three player game ever invented. For those of you who don’t know the premise of this game, here is an overview: 1973: The Yom Kippur War, Syria and Egypt attack Israel. The game is pretty well balanced, with a slight edge given to the Arabs. Israel must protect both the Suez and Golan front by judicious use of it’s reinforcements, superior air power, and not a minimum amount of luck. I have never won as the Israeli player, but once, just once, I almost did. Here is that story: I was the Israeli, "Mr. Lucky" (see "Bad Wargame Memories, Part 1") was the Egyptian, and a fellow whom we shall call "The Doofus" (for reasons which will become apparent) was the Syrian. It was about five turns into the game, and I was doing amazingly well (for an Israeli player). I had slowed the Egyptian advance in the Sinai and had forced the Syrian offensive to halt in the Golan. I had just gained air superiority and it looked like I would be able to go on the offensive and regain some badly needed terrain (as well as some self-respect). I was really crowing about what I had accomplished so far, and was rubbing their collective noses in what was going to be, not only my first Israeli victory in that game, but one of the really rare times I was going to be able to best "Mr. Lucky".
     It was at this point that it happened. It will forever be replayed in my memory like some slow motion scene from a Sam Peckinpaw movie. "The Doofus" leans over the map as if to get a closer look at the tactical situation. As he does this, the baseball cap which has been perched precariously on his empty skull for the last five and one-half hours separates from the top of his head and begins its fatal plunge toward the Golan Heights. Before anyone can react, a moth-eaten New York Yankees ball cap is lying upside-down in the middle of the map, with cardboard counters flying all over the place (two Syrian T-55s eventually landing in the bean dip...serves them right!) After the initial shock wore off, these two yokels are laughing hysterically. I am frantically running around gathering up counters and trying to convince those two hyenas that the game can be saved. I plead and cajole, but to no avail. I insist that we can remember where the pieces were, but they are already headed for the door. "I would have won!" I yell at them, as they are leaving. "Too bad we’ll never know," said Hyena #1 as they left.
     The controversy still remains. I say the hat fell at a pretty convenient time. Too convenient, if you know what I mean. To this day, I don’t allow any of my opponents to wear hats.

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