From: Lglasttn@aol.com
Subject: For Whom The Bell Tolls

A short review of For Whom The Bell Tolls:

     Some addtional coments on the review you have printed:

    I bought FWBT because of a thirst its subject matter that has not been
slaked by the scanty game output on the Spanish Civil War.  Now I've always
had  misgivings about the Europa system.   It's Igo-ugo movement system has
been superceded in many a better game system; and it's  AE/EX/DE laden CRT
table gives no reward for any tactical finesse other than pushing one stack of
units toward another.   Unfortunately, the threadbare system doesn't work any
better here.  There is a detailed replacement schedule for the various
subparties on one of  its numerous cards; but since casualties tend to be
sporatic and low, in actual FWBT play the replacements just accumulate up on
both sides.
     I find that  the air and naval subsystems  of the Europa system are
strictly of an early '80s literal, no-abstraction-ever design.   I feel they
do the impossible:  they make aerial combat--and sea battles--boring.        
     Despite my misgivings, my long facination with "The Passionate War" made
me plunk down  $50+ dollars for "For Whom The Bell Tolls".  At first I was
pleased.  You get a nice map of Spain, and many of the subgroups that made the
SCW interesting:  Moors, POUM,  Catalans, the Internationals etc.  (At least
Europa does not portray Gibraltar as the mega-fortress of the Europe). But the
game gives you no idea about what made the units special made these units
special.  For instance, while the fast-moving Moors were lethal against trade
unionist militia in the countryside,   things became very different once the
fighting shifted to the worker's home terrain in Madrid.   But nothing in the
rules, other than the usual doubling bonus for urban hexes,  reflects this.
The lengthy set up procedure of numerous units also masks the fact that the
metropolitan Spanish Army in 1936 was as decrepit as the ships sent out
against the Americans in 1898.   What point is served by putting down endless
garrison regiments and artillery batteries?

   It would have been better if the designer of FWBT had put their time into a
subsystem reflecting the political challenges of the two sides.  It is of note
that at the start of the War, the Republic had pretty much all of the
industry, the mines, the currency reserves, the rolling stock and the
allegence of perhaps 70% of the people.  Many outsiders thought the military
putch had failed completely.  Yet three years later the rebels were
victorious.  Why?   If it was because of the foreign intervention and the fact
most of the experienced officers were on the the other side, remember that
roughly the same strategic picture for the 1936 Republic existed for the Reds
in 1918 Russia.  There should be a challenge to a gamer: be the Republic's
Lenin/Trotsky.  The options should be numerous:  Try to get support from
France, or endanger the government by raising as many worker's militia units
as possible from the outset?   Or please Stalin by uniting your army under
Communist control?   Buy T-28s with your gold reserves, or use it to buy bread
and improve civilian morale?  Can you hold out until WW II starts, which would
have put the struggle into a whole new light for the West?  For the
Nationalists, can you do what Franco did--unite disparate groups,  encourage
German/Italian intervention without promising too much, and move slowly so
that security units can shoot every potential troublemaker once you take a
town?  The ultimate SCW game might even start with the bloody  Right-Left
jockeying in Spain before the war.  

   In short, I can't say I got my money's worth from FWBT.       
                                                                             
Thomas Niksa
                                                                              
Burlington, VT