From: Skip Franklin Subject: COBRA (SPI-TSR) A Comparative Review COBRA: Patton's 1944 Summer Offensive in France Published: 1977 by SPI in S&T #65, 1985 by TSR Designer: Brad E. Hessel Expansion: David James Ritchie Developer: Dave Werden Expansion: David James Ritchie Graphics: Redmond Simonson Expansion Ivor Janci If you want a well designed game of medium complexity buy either edition of Cobra. The TSR edition has the complete SPI components and has an expansion to start the game on June 6th. Here is SPI's tease for Cobra on the flatpack coversheet. -- COBRA Patton's 1944 Summer Offensive in France * Effects of Allies Air Superiority * Divisional Integrity and German Corps HQs * Inhibiting Effects of the Bocage Country In the wake of the dramatic cross-Channel attack of 6 June 1944, most of the world was prepared for a swift and devastating advance by the invading Allied armies. More prudently, the Allied High Command was anticipating a methodical and steady progress, which would see Paris captured by the end of July, and a gradual advance from there to the Siegfried Line. In fact, however mid-July found the Allies still solidly bottled up in the Cotentin Peninsula, engaged in a battle of attrition. Cobra is an operational-level simulation of the post D-Day campaign in Normandy. One Player controls the outnumbered German forces, and he must use the excellent defensive terrain of the region to the utmost advantage and deploy his scant but powerful Panzers with great care to balance the most threatening of the Allied attacks. The other Player controls the American, British, and Canadian forces, and he must use his advantages in quality and mobility to smash at the weak points in the German line until eventually it cracks. historically, the Allies were caught off-guard when a limited American attack developed into a major breakthrough and to their own astonishment, succeeded in snaring some 200,000 Germans in the Falaise Pocket. Cobra begins at the height of the attrition battles before Caen and St. Lo, and while the Allied Player strives to replicate the success of General Patton in the Operation Cobra attack, the German Player attempts to contain the Allied attacks and execute a fighting withdrawal to the east, keeping his army intact. Acceptability Rating: 7.1 Complexity Rating: 6.0 Playing Time (hrs): 4.5 (S&T #89, Nov/Dec 81 Games Rating Chart still had Cobra as #32 in World War II with Acceptability of 6.7, 38% played, 6.2 Complexity, 8 hours playing time and 6.9 Solitaire) -- Cobra comes with 200 counters, the expansion has an additional 200 (even though some are duplicates and not used). The map is a multi-color 22"x32" (or 22"x33 or 22"x34" depending on where you read) map with Terrain Key, Terrain Effect Chart, Combat Results Table, Turn Record Track, Sequence of Play, Weather Table and US and British Supply Points Track taking 1/5th of the map on one end. The SPI edition has an 8-page rules folder and the TSR version is twice that size with the front page having contents only. THE COUNTERS: The Cobra counters are the same in both editions with 213 counters being German mechanized, panzer and infantry regiments, static infantry regiments and divisions, Tiger battalions and Headquarters. There are 46 American infantry divisions, armored and armored infantry regiments, armored brigades, armored cav regiments, 3 truck counters and 3rd Army (Lt Gen Patton). The British have 24 infantry divisions and brigades and armour and armored infantry brigades. The Canadians have 5 counters. Finishing out the counter sheet are the Game Turn, US Supply, BrCan Supply counters and six Allied infantry division reduction counters, (6 and 3 strength). The Expansion counter sheet is for setting up the 6 June battle with all the units on map and any reinforcements that arrive prior to the regular Cobra game period (16-18 July to 12-23 August). Unfortunately 32 Allied counters are duplicated from Cobra and are not needed. You do receive some German and Allied units not present in the original Cobra game. The Allied Player have British Commandos and American Paratroops that must be exited later in the game or lose Victory Points. The infantry units stationed around Cherbourg are included as well as a couple of units that were chewed up prior to Cobra (243, 709, 716 infantry division, 6FJ/91 Fj regt, FJT regt and 30 Mobile brg). Also in the counter sheet are 9 Supply Head markers, 6 German Delay units, two Victory Point markers and 8 blanks. THE MAPS: The Cobra map area has a large swath of bocage running from the NW to the SE creating quite a problem for the Allied Player. The Bocage gives defenders a column shift and restrict advance after combat to one hex. When added with City, Town, hill and river terrain the defender can hold out longer than their strength normally warrants. The toughest hex on the map is Mortain with 6 shifts, 2 each for City, Heavy Woods and Hills, (remember the German attempt to cut off the American breakout at Mortain?). Add all that with a German defensive bonus from a HQ and a 10-1 Allied attack becomes 3-1 with at least a 66% chance for both sides to take a step loss. The Expansion adds a lot of paper and a little bit of map area. Most of the additional mapsheet includes bigger than necessary, flawed Reinforcement Tracks and other game aids. But what else was there to do with the extra space? What is included is the Peninsula that Cherbourg is on and the beaches. THE RULES: The Cobra rules are clean and straight forward with just a dash of chrome. Panzer, Panzergrenadier, Armor, and mechanized American divisions (stacked with one of the three trucks) are doubled in combat. All Mechanized units, including British and Canadian infantry divisions, have a movement phase after combat. The best part of the rules IMO is the Rules Summary at the end. If you have played this game before or games with a similar system (I.E. Panzergruppe Guderian), you can read the summary and start playing quickly. The chrome rules are Allied Carpet Bombing, German Tiger battalions and headquarters The TSR edition has the original rules with a few extra words thrown in for clarification (I.E. under How To Play is "A brief overview of all steps in the game is given here."). However the formatting of the rules are strange with rules stretching across two adjoining pages. An example wouldn't begin to explain it well. THE PLAY: Cobra gives the Allied Player the burden of attack with excellent units and the German Player the advantage of defense with lots of well-led cannon fodder. The Allies must breakout in the west or east then surround the Germans for elimination or POW camp. Every bit of German cannon fodder, I mean infantry, can be lost in this game and the German can still win if he can keep the Allied player from exiting his three divisions off the west map edge early and gets all of his mechanized units off the east map edge. A nice tough fight with fun for both players. It's neat when one player is kicking butt and still loses and the other player wins while in full rout. When playing the TSR Expansion the Allies have the intelligence advantage of knowing where the Germans aren't and can breakout of the beaches well ahead of schedule. David tried to slow them down with the German Delay units but it just doesn't work. Skip Franklin skip@ionet.net Asst Webmaster: Web-Grognards http://grognard.com