www.grognard.com. On the Internet, you can find easy and attractive order pages for just about every wargame company. Happy hunting.

Of course, even this rosy picture has a downside. It appears that this year the industry has undergone yet another shake-up, in the wake of the sale of Avalon Hill to Hasbro. Clash of Arms games has reverted to almost exclusively direct order only business (something which might not be possible if not for the internet). They join The Gamers and Avalanche Press in this practice, which serves the veteran gamer quite well, but for obvious reasons it is probably bad for the new gamer (and bad for the long-term sustainability of the hobby). Command Magazine and STRATEGY & TACTICS both continue to show erratic publication rates, due mostly to erratic payments from distributors, who themselves are no doubt hindered by Internet sales.

Rising paper prices mean that, according to my crude calculations, wargame prices have risen faster than any reasonable economic index. On average, the types of games I buy have doubled in price over the last 10 years; my salary has not! This too is a bad sign because paper wargames now routinely cost as much as computer games. Many new boxed games sell for between $45 and $80. Even a $45 game is roughly 8x the minimum wage, whereas my first wargame purchase (The Russian Campaign in 1978) cost me $6, or about 3x the minimum wage I made cleaning golf carts. Direct order means many of us are now paying shipping charges instead of sales tax, although this may soon change depending upon the next elections.

Overall, the wargame "glut" of 1995-96 (if it was real) has been mitigated by the Internet. Profit margins are a bit higher by direct order, which allows companies to publish more games and hold a bit more inventory than before. There exists now an incredibly diverse set of titles, almost all of which are very high quality. Consumers chased away the pretenders in the mid 1990's (FGA and 3W), and we are left with some outstanding companies (GMT, The Gamers, XTR, DG, COA, CH/MiH, AP, MMP, Columbia, etc.). With the demise of Origins, Doncon has emerged, and in the LA area near me Strategicon is thriving. While I am happy with the state of the hobby right now, I believe that it can improve by looking overseas to emulate the physical quality of European games.

The two most recent wargames of note here in America are Cataphract and River of Death, both by GMT Games. Both are large, graphically well done and continuations of earlier systems. In other words, safe bets, although a little pricey. I hope to relay my experiences playing River of Death in the next issue.

I've spent much of my recent gaming time playing Iron Dream by XTR. This game is a real chess match, due mostly to the extremely low counter density, definitely a move away from the trend of more and more counters in most games. The game depicts the east front of WWII at corps/army scale, with an interesting twist: it begins in October of 1941, not in June as is usual. The Russians begin the game with Leningrad isolated, but the German Army Group North is weak, and so both players begin the game with a quandary there. The Russians receive replacements at an alarmingly high rate, the Germans do not. Victory conditions are variable, so players do not know ahead of time if taking a major city (Moscow, Stalingrad or Leningrad) will win the game for the Germans. This game is easily set up and played in two sittings, and I highly recommend it as a strategy game that is still very true to the period.

I prefer ID strongly to the vastly overpriced (but beautifully done) War Without Mercy by Clash of Arms. That game is very inelegant and over-wrought compared to ID, and it too quickly becomes a war of attrition and odds calculations. Imagine a game about WWII on the east front with no blitzkrieg, and you might be picturing WWM. I had originally written a 1,000 word review for WWM, but I panned the game so badly that I thought it wasn't worth printing. My advice is to stay away from it entirely, sorry to say, but there are just too many very good east front games to waste time with WWM. Play Iron Dream, Proud Monster, EastFront, ARMY GROUP SOUTH or ARMY GROUP CENTER, or Ring of Fire instead.

Peter McCord (Graduate Student, American History, UC Riverside) 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.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF DISKWARS
Mojo Shen Po

Currently you will find DISKWARS available in two sets: Revised (which is the third, and current, printing of the basic set) and the first expansion, Moon Over Thelgrim.

Now, with this in mind, on to your army choices:

(1) KNIGHTS. A "good" army that got the relatively short end in the basic set. However, the Knights army got the most improvements in Moon Over Thelgrim and is now a kick-arse force to be reckoned with. My suggestion—buy Knights only if you buy one of Revised and one of Moon Over Thelgrim.

(2) UNDEAD. An "evil" army that rocks with the best. It’s, also, an army that gets much better with the special characters on the random flats. Definitely, and quietly, trade for all the crawling limbs that you need (5-8). Moon Over Thelgrim brought in many interesting characters for the random flats and good basic troops. My suggestion: hold off until you’re sure you want to get deeper into the game. Then you will find the Undead among the best armies out there.

(3) DWARVES. Hey, play what you like, but these half-pints are the toughest troops in the game. In revised I could defeat them with an Undead army, using crawling limbs. With a Moon Over Thelgrim booster army... I’m not sure they can be defeated anymore. Dwarves are the only neutral army and are good for maximizing your investment, since all of your disks should be useful.

Bottom Line: If you’re most interested in variety, get one pack of Knights and one of Undead. If you’re into a good flavorable army, get the Knights with a MOT expansion. If you’re going for the long haul, do Undead. And, if you want the best kickin’ army, go Dwarves.

Thanks to Mojo Shen Po for letting us reprint his post to the RBG newsgroup.

ISI
a review by Dave Bernazzani

The world has no shortage of good 2-player games. Having tried many of these games over the years, I can honestly say that very few new 2-player games distinguish themselves and leave me wanting to continue playing them in favor of, say, Chess or Cribbage. There have been some clever 2-player games of late - Kahuna, Lost Cities, Caesar and Cleopatra and Settlers card game all come to mind. Each of these has found a following and they do deserve the praise they are getting. So, do we need another 2-player game? After trying Isi, I would say - YES!

Isi is a clever 2-player abstract game designed by Corne van Moorsel and produced by Cwali in the Netherlands. The game sold well in small quantities at the '99 Essen fair and Cwali has produced 200 numbered "first-run" copies. These copies have been making their way into the US through various high-quality retailers and I've even seen a couple people selling them outright on the Internet. Typical prices range from US$40 to US$50 but I grabbed my copy from Boulder Games at their regular price of US$29.80 - a steal as far as I was concerned. When the game arrived, I was pleasantly surprised to see the nice packaging - a foot-high round cylinder dust-painted in several soft colors with the name ISI in large bold letters across the front. The cylinder "pops" open at the top and bears a sticker indicating that my copy was #70 of the first 200 printed (and a fine number it is!). Inside the components are equally attractive - lots of gorgeous wooden pieces and reasonably thick card-stock tiles plus a set of comprehensive rules (in English). After sorting through the components, I sat down to read the rules which I found well organized. I was eager to give it a try...

Isi takes a bit of getting used to but soon we found it easy to play. A full game can be finished in less than 20 minutes. The game consists of 33 colored tiles which are laid out in a random matrix that forms the land of Isi. These represent the "board" which both players interact with. The tiles come in 5 colors (5 each of red, green, blue, yellow and orange) known as landsorts plus 8 gray city tiles. At the start of the game, two small wooden blocks are placed on each tile to match its color. The city tiles remain empty at the start of the game. Each player places a pawn on one of the tiles and takes one of the like-colored cubes found there. For the rest of the game, each player moves their pawn to an adjacent tile - if the player moves to a tile with at least one cube remaining they may take the cube. Using combinations of retrieved cubes, the players can lay trade-routes (represented by thin wooden sticks in each of the player's colors). New trade-routes can only be connected to/from the various cities or to existing trade-routes owned by that player. Furthermore, new routes can only be placed on tiles if the player "spends" a like-colored cube which they have previously retrieved. The trade-routes for each player form interconnected paths from city to city across the land of Isi. The city that has the most trade-routes to other cities becomes the capital city of Isi (and this can and will change during the game). At the end of the game, the player who has the most trade-routes from this capital city to other cities is the winner. The game ends when one player takes the last cube of a particular color from the board.

On my initial play of this game, my partner and I came to grips with the somewhat odd method of determining the capital city and it took us a bit of figuring to find the winner of the game. By the third or fourth game we had this down to a science and we could concentrate on the many wonderful intricacies found in the game. You must always be aware of the current capital city and look for ways to either expand your network of trade-routes to this city or else try to change the capital to a new city square which is better suited for your trade-routes. In addition both players are seeking valuable colored cubes to expand their trade-routes and there is often contention over the limited cube resources on the board. The turns move very quickly

as each player tries to take key routes away from the other in their quest to dominate Isi.

Although the tiles represent different land types (water, forest, etc) it's fairly obvious that the theme is thinly painted on. Be forewarned, this game is very abstract. This was hardly a problem for us - we tend to enjoy abstract games. If you need a theme to hook you, Isi will likely not do the trick. However, if you are a fan of abstract games or the lack of a theme does not bother you, Isi is an outstanding game with some truly unique gameplay.

A four player version (called Morisi) is rumored to be in the works and with Isi getting some good press it is very likely that Isi and/or Morisi will be picked up by a large publisher for release in greater quantity. Nothing, however, is certain so I can only urge those of you looking for a wonderful 2-player abstract game that plays well in 20-30 minutes to pick up your copy of Isi today.

Dave Bernazzani lives in Massachusetts and heads up the South Shore Gamers Association (SSGA) which is a small but dedicated band of board and card game enthusiasts. He enjoys all types of games - especially board games, traditional card games and Role-Playing games.

Lurking in the catalog
by Frank Branham

Occasionally, I have to remind myself to go searching through the entire Boulder Games catalog (and every other game catalog on the planet) in order to find the really obscure games that fill my collection. What I intend to do periodically (when Jim reminds me) is dredge through the catalog, and find those games that no one on the planet has ever heard of, or talks about on the usual outlets. Today's topic is Kids games, specifically the Ravensburger and FX Schmid games.

At the top of the list, are A-maze-ing Labyrinth, Secret Labyrinth, and Master Labyrinth. These three games center around a similar mechanism of sliding tiles to change a maze. In each game you make one move, then you may move your piece as far as it is allowed to move. Moving tiles is tricky, you take one tile from the end, and slide it to the opposite end-shifting an entire row. A-maze-ing Labyrinth is the first and probably best. Master Labyrinth adds better graphics, and a Rotation Pool format. Secret Labyrinth should actually be avoided, but does have an interesting circular maze format. (It also adds a horrible rock, scissors, paper battle system to the game.) These games have good simple rules, and require quite a bit of thought to play well. A 2 player game requires far more thought than the packaging would imply.

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