From: Minion@Hell-Labs.com (Kaufmann, Arius) Subject: June 6 by GMT review I should start by stating the "The Longest Day" by Avalon Hill is one of my all-time favourite games (despite its imperfections), and therefore much of my experience with June 6 was spending time making comparisons 'tween the two. That having been said, the two games are quite different, and aside from the names on the maps and the unit id's, there's very little to tell you that the two games are covering the same operation. Physical Components: The components are pretty standard these days. The map is nice, but so is everyone else's. The counters are nice, but then again, so are everyone else's. There is essentially nothing to make one say that this is an unusually pretty or ugly game. The map has a small flaw, though. While the terrain is easy to see and easy to distinguish, the hex numbers are sometimes obscured by it. That is hardly a game-breaker, but it can be a petty annoyance. The counters are pretty easy to read, with no more fancy colourings than need be, but neither are they drab. While I think the tank icons are nice and interesting to see which tanks the units are made up of, people who find NATO symbology The One True Symbology may not appreciate it as much. How this differs from TLD: The maps in TLD are not any less easy to read, but they do look a little more cluttered and not as pretty. In addition, though it has the hard-mounted maps, they do not line up very well. The counters in TLD had problems with registration and colouring, depending on which set you happened to get, and the German Symbology simply drove some people insane, despite the fact that it was only used for information in one case (you needed to know a rhombus was a tank). I liked the German symbology for its historical flavour. Set-up: The game sets up in roughly a half-hour. The hex number annoyance is prevalent here, which is a bad time to have a problem with the game. However, it sets up quickly, so that's a big plus. How this differs from TLD: TLD takes about six hours for two people who've never played the game to set up. There is no easy way to find where all the German units go. While having hex numbers would not really speed the process up much (German starting positions are printed on-map) it would probably have been better since that way there would have been a manifest. As it is, you're left with counters with no place on the map or on the strategic charts, and there's no way to tell if you got them all or not. Rules: The rules are not very long, 19 pages plus a detailed turn -sequence. They're easy to read, but lack an index, which would be helpful. There's errata, and q&a's, and at least one confusing rule: in combat, there is a +2 modifier if the unit is surrounded by uncontested ZOC's. At Origins, the good folks at GMT said that this effectively means the attacked unit has to have no ZOC or be completely surrounded. The example in the rules (but not the rule itself) sets up a situation where uncontested ZOC means a unit OTHER than the one attacked has to contest the ZOC. Also, impassable terrain helps here, though it doesn't state so in the rules but implies it in the example. As you can imagine, this can be a pretty important concept to get right. There are a couple of other questions I have, so the rules could have been a little more complete. Nevertheless, they are relatively simple by today's standards. Central America it ain't. How this differs from TLD: The rules are programmed learning, but if you remove graphics and stuff that since has been put on charts, it boils down to about nine pages of rules. Very simple. However, there's a lot of errata and clarifications. Then again, it's also been out a long time. June 6 will have almost as many, if not more, in the long run. Invasion turn: Much of the actualy hitting the beaches is abstracted. Rather than go through a complicated rigermarol of massive exceptions and special rules to model a very special situation, GMT opted for rolling a die for each unit to see what happened to it while coming ashore. The die roll is modified by a number based on which beach the unit is landing at, with Omaha being (of course) the worst. The exceptions to the rules during this phase are mostly omissions in planning and logistics, and therefore makes this turn one of the easiest to play. However, I found that only slight changes in dice luck can have massive effects on the success or failure of your landing. The Brit average roll was 7, while Omaha's was 3. (Ten sider). This resulted in fewer losses on Omaha (which has no immediate objectives worth VP's aside from Isigny and Bayeux, and Bayeux is easier to take with the Brits anyway) and an abyssmal landing for the Brits. In fact, so abyssmal, that two beaches were in immediate danger of being destroyed by the 21st Panzer. (They decided discretion was the better part of valour. I would have gone for the kill on Sword.) Additionally, this kind of landing dooms the 6th airborne, and significantly eases pressure on the Germans. One problem with TLD: it is nearly impossible (like a 3% chance) to get all the beach heads. I'm not sure what the fix is, but there should be one. In June 6, you get them all all the time. How this differs from TLD: Lots of rules additions. TLD has coastal artillery positions which come into play here by firing on any allied landing box in range. That, combined with fortification counters, gives you a pretty clear view of why Omaha was such a bloodbath in comparison to Utah. It also gives you something to fight towards: you need to silecne those guns, and I mean yesterday. The result is a pretty interesting simulation of how the allied units moved on the first few days. In June 6, Omaha immediately drove a spearhead towards St. Lo (it didn't get very far in the two turns we played), and Isigny was largely ignored. In TLD, there are CA batteries by Isigny, so while you're at it you might as well do the linkup. While the invasion turn of TLD is the longest and most complex, I think it adds quite a bit. For a monster game like TLD, this was quite appropriate. June7/8: Really, really, really bad luck. The Germans rolled a 9, which gave them a 70% chance of getting initiative (they did) and, worse yet, a storm. This is a game-breaker for the allies. Thie results in 14 activations to the allied 6, no air or naval support, and +2 mp's to German movement. Historically, it was Light Overcast. With all that, the Germans could roll the panzers around the 6th airborne, and set up forward defenses that would prevent the Brits from accomplishing anything East of Bayeux. Combined with a bad invasion turn, they'd be lucky to keep all the beaches. Other than that, it's spent mopping up weak German resistance. The Brits took Bayeux, but they were well on the way to losing the 6th Airborne, and there were serious concerns for two of the Brit beach heads. The game mechanics involve choosing which divisions you want to activate, throwing their respective marker into a cup, and drawing one at a time, getting either a German or Allied division which gets to move. Then you move the division and attack with it. This has two distinct side-effects: no inter-division cooperation of any kind, and weird turn-order possibilities. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that over an igo-ugo system. I'm not sure it really gains you anything. Combat strength ratio, skill differences, terrain, and support all modify a die roll. You then take that modified number and apply it to one of four tables depending on whether you're attacker, defender, and what attack/defense mode you chose. If a unit chooses to retreat, and it's fresh, you can have a 10-1+ with Armour, artillery, navy, and infantry against a weak and unskilled OST brigade, and you won't hurt it much. How this differs from TLD: It's impossible to have a storm on June 7, and really hard to have one on June 8. This gives the allies some breathing room. Also, it's possible for the allies to get as far as they did historically, yet be beaten back as they were historically. (A Brit unit was in Villers on June 7, but was kicked all the way back to roughly Bayeux by the end of the day. You can't get anywhere near Villers on June 7 in June 6 with the Brits and certainly you can't be kicked back. You can in TLD.) TLD's June 7 and 8 are spent on four main goals: Establishing a good line for the Brits, pushing with the Brits and Americans up the center towards Caumont and St. Lo, linking the two American Beaches, and cutting off the Cotentin penninsula. The game mechanics are igo-ugo with a sort of reaction movement after the other player's movement along with defensive fire. No unit except in forts and on hills have ZOCs. Add up the combat strengths, add terrain effects and combine-arms modifiers, roll on a CRT. That's the game in a nutshell. Skill is reflected in the combat strength, but it gets it wrong or not right enough. (Though the 82nd was a far more effective unit, and the 90th infantry was an abyssmal unit, bottom of the barrel, in TLD the 82nd has a 3 attack and the 90th a 4.) June 6 does a much better job at showing a unit's relative effectiveness. Overall: The game plays well. While in TLD, the Germans spend most of the first turn feeling like spectators (sequence of events do a bunch of allied stuff, Germans roll CA. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.) and most of the next ten turns just trying to get units thrown in front of the allied juggernaut, in June 6 it appears as if the Germans do have some decent amount of decision-making and cardboard-pushing to do. This makes it more fun for the Germans to be sure. On the other hand, the hex scale of TLD makes it possible for both sides to do sweeping maneuvers and gain (or lose) lots of ground. In June6, you usually slog ahead one hex at a time, and you really have a hard time actually losing units. In TLD, both sides lose dozens of counters. This gives a feeling of accomplishment even if you're doing badly. June 6 can be set up and played on a relatively small table, something only a little wider than a typical cafeteria talbe but not as long. TLD requires more space than most people have. There's a good reason I hadn't played it between high school and this year (11 years.) I'd give June 6 a solid B. It gets marks off for not being TLD, which despite its flaws is, I think, an extremely fun game, but gets plusses for including more realistic skill effects, being quick (I imagine it could be played in five evenings), and being intelligently designed. I like TLD better, but I forsee playing June 6 more. Arius -- "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." -9th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States From: Minion@Hell-Labs.com (Kaufmann, Arius) Subject: Re: June 6 by GMT review > I'd give June 6 a solid B. It gets marks off for not being TLD, which > despite its flaws is, I think, an extremely fun game, but gets plusses > for including more realistic skill effects, being quick (I imagine it > could be played in five evenings), and being intelligently designed. I > like TLD better, but I forsee playing June 6 more. FWIW, I give TLD a B+. It woudl be almost perfect were it not for really bad production quality. The flawed counters, flawed map, and arduous setup hurt it in my grading scheme. The rules are truly elegant and simple, except for the invasion turn. Arius