From: "Paul O'Connor" Subject: SPI's ARNHEM I've been working too many hours lately, so on Saturday I made myself sit down and do some wargaming. Without a ready opponent I had to settle for something solitaire. I wanted something quick, something I hadn't played before, and something that could fit on my desk next to my computer. I quickly settled on ARNHEM, part of SPI's 1976 WEST WALL QUAD. I don't know how this game found its way into my collection, but there it was -- unpunched, even. It was strange to trim the counters, realizing as I did so that this game is over twenty years old. Where have the years gone? ARNHEM is an operational simulation of the Market-Garden operation of September, 1944. The 22" x 17" map is bounded by Eindhoven and Venray in the south, and the Neder Rijn river plus some room to maneuver in the north. The units are mostly battalions, with separate colors for British, American, and Polish units on the Allied side. The WESTWALL system uses an Igo-Hugo turn sequence. Zones of control are locking. There is no stacking. Combat uses differentials rather than odds, with the defender's terrain type determining the column used on the CRT. So, a +1 attack on a defender in the open uses a column three to the right of the same attack on a defender in rough. The CRT is retreat-oriented. Both players have artillery that can add to the attack and defense strength of their units, provided it is within range of the battle and not otherwise engaged. In ARNHEM, the Allies also have air power, which works like artillery, and can only be used within three hexes of an Allied non-airborne unit (no airstrikes for the beleaguered paratroopers in Arnhem). In all, a familiar and clean system that you can hold in your head after reviewing the rules for ten or fifteen minutes. There are no supply rules, but the ARNHEM exclusive rules provide victory points to the Germans if the non-Polish Allies do not maintain a "Line of Communications." This would prove to be the game's most critical rule, something I overlooked at first. Also included in ARNHEM are special rules for city hexes (which modify retreat rules), canal and rail bridge demolition, Allied engineers (who can rebuild canal bridges and assist in river crossing and assault), and weather. I set up the historical scenario. Set-up was reasonably quick, but would have been made quicker by including set-up coordinates on the units. Most of the units in this game enter as reinforcements, so a turn of entry notation would have been useful, too. To win, the Allies must use their glider and airborne units to seize bridgeheads across several rivers and canals that dominate the mapboard, then push the bulk of his ground troops across the Waal River. The Allies get one VP for each German unit they destroy, but the majority of their VP come from holding territory on the north end of the map at game's end. The Germans get 5 VP for destroying Allied units, and three points each turn for any Allied unit that cannot trace a line of communications. Allied units begin in three clumps. The 101st Airborne begins near their drop zone south of Veghel, and reinforcing ground units appear a few hexes to the south, near Eindhoven. The 82nd Airborne lands in the rough terrain south of Nijmegen. The British 1st Airborne lands north of the Neder Rijn river, a couple hexes from Oosterbeek and Arnhem. I sent three battalions of the 101st racing north to grab the bridge over the Maas at Grave. The remaining six battalions were used to secure approaches to the the Zuid Willems Canal, which would be the first of many rivers the reinforcing Allied ground forces must cross. Most of the 82nd spread out to advance on Nijmegen. The British 1st slid toward Arnhem and prepared for the siege. It was only after moving all the Allied units that I remembered that I failed to check for bridge demolition crossing the Zuid Willems Canal -- there's only one chance in three of it happening, so I called it a wash and resolved to remember it next time. I can see how bridge demolition rolls could radically alter the outcome of the game, adding to replayability. The German battalion in Nijmegen was destroyed when forced into a poor-column counterattack on the German turn, but near Arnhem, things went better for the defenders. The British drop zone was overrun and the lone British battalion to make it into Arnhem found itself surrounded by vastly superior units, with the bulk of the British units clustered around Oosterbeek, not involved in the fighting. At the end of the first of ten turns, the Germans led 23 - 1 in VP, largely because the British 1st could no longer trace to their drop zone. Turn two saw the British counterattacking to reclaim their drop zone (heavily aided by the edge of the map, which helped eliminate German units thus made unable to retreat), and fighting to hold their ground in Arnhem, already reinforced by units of the 82nd, who rapidly advanced north from Nijmegen. The special rules for city hexes allow units to reduce retreat results by two hexes, so even though the British 1/1 battalion in Arnhem was forced to attack on the worst column, it faced only one chance in six of outright elimination, being able to ignore the five retreat results in the same column. On the German turn, I moved two reinforcing mechanized battalions toward Grave, with an eye toward cutting off the Allied advance in the center of the map. All the firepower in the world wasn't going to dislodge the British from Arnhem on this CRT (the Germans would have to attack on one of the top three column and roll low to force a retreat or elimination), so stalemate looked like the order of the day there, and there weren't sufficient German units on the map to do more than put pressure on the reclaimed British DZ. Turn two VPs: 26 - 4, German, with only one British battalion now out of communications (but ably supported by American units south of the Neder Rijn). This situation was peculiar ... the highway was Allied controlled from Arnhem to Eindhoven, but the British in Arnhem still suffered because they couldn't trace to their drop zone. It was at this point that a careful reading of the Line of Communications rule revealed that ALL airborne units are basically restricted to operating within seven hexes of their drop zone, meaning the units of the 101st and 82nd that I'd aggressively run north were subject to the "out of communications" VP penalty, boosting the German lead to 47 - 4. Poor weather on turn three pushed back Allied airborne reinforcements for the 101st and the 82nd, and grounded any air support available against German reinforcements trickling onto the map. I also had to run my airborne units back toward their DZs to stop the flood of penalty VPs the Germans were piling up. I think this rule would be clearer if airborne could never move more than seven hexes from their DZ, while at the same time suffering VP penalties if they couldn't trace a path to the DZ ... instead, the Allied player has the option of abandoning his drop zone to race ahead and hold territory while paying a heavy cost in victory points, which I'm not sure is historical. After all, the whole idea was to secure and hold bridgeheads for the reinforcing armored column; why penalize the Allies for doing just that? The rule, however awkward, does have the effect of creating a more historical-looking situation, serving to pin the 101st and 82nd more-or-less in place, despite the absence of German resistance on the main highway. The blood-less CRT proved to be anything but as a "6" result on the -1 column wiped out three critical British battalions around Oosterbeck, and allowed the Germans to well and truly seal off Arnhem. The Germans followed-up on their half of the turn by using overwhelming force to score a "De" against the British in Arnhem, and completed their decapitation of the Allied offensive by grabbing the bridge at Grave. Killing five Allied units and putting four more out of communications ballooned the German lead to 84 - 5. If the intent of the design is to have a numerically superior Allied player be hamstrung by his own mistakes, then the game was functioning wonderfully. More poor weather on turn 4 boded ill for the Allies, further delaying airborne reinforcements and robbing the armored column of its air support. The Allies were still too much for the Germans at Grave, killing the two battalions there with contemptuous ease ... I was beginning to realize how vulnerable units were to attack when surrounded and their retreat is cut off. Despite their losses at Grave, with Arnhem secure, the Germans were able to screen what was left of the British 1st to the west of Arnhem with three infantry battalions, then advance with the bulk of their mechanized and artillery units to hold the critical bridge across the Waal at Nijmegen. With the Allies trailing 84 - 8, I was tempted to pack it in, but decided to see what another turn would bring. Fair weather brought in some much-needed airborne relief for the Allies. Two Polish battalions landed in the broken terrain between Arnhem and Nijmegen, with an eye toward flanking the German defense of the Waal, while reinforcements for the 101st and the 82nd encouraged me to go on the offensive against the scant German units near my southern drop zones. Killing Germans would award a couple VPs and help secure my flanks for what promised to be a difficult push against the defenders on the northern part of the map. The VP gap "narrowed" to 84 - 10, as the Germans were content to consolidate their position, and begin another, more organized push toward Grave to threaten the main Allied line of communications. More poor weather added to the Allies' woes, but I was able to sneak some Poles in behind the German position near Nijmegen to nearly force a crossing of the Waal. Maybe I was subconsciously creating German blunders to make up for my early poor play as the Allies. Any such ambitions were dashed on the German half of the turn, when mechanized units pulled off a sweeping hook across undefended bridges over the Waal-Maas canal to not only capture Grave from the west (thus cutting the Allied offensive yet again), but also to hopelessly flank the Allied units designated with the defense of the Maas river line. With another eight Allied battalions thus isolated, and little chance of throwing any meaningful Allied force across the Neder Rijn in the four turns that remained, I decided that my Allies had indeed tried to go a bridge too far, and folded the game. This one requires skillful play by the Allies. A hole in your lines can isolate half your army and lose the game in a turn. The Germans must always be looking for ways to cut the Allied line of communications without allowing themselves to be pulled out of position. The victory point schedule encourages a "stay-at-home" defense for the majority of the Allied airborne troops while loading the burden of the offensive on a few mechanized battalions in the relieving force. Overall, a good game that I'd like to play again against a real opponent, using the experience I gained as the Allies to avoid my botched play in the critical opening moves. Does anyone know if the other games in the series (Hurtgen Forest, Bastogne, Remagen) are worth playing? I own only the folio edition of Arnhem. Any plans by Decision to reprint this one? -- Paul O'Connor paul@oddworld.com