Omaha Beach (Rand) 1974 Review: M.Boone This game covers the stuggles of the US landings at Omaha Beach during D-Day, June 6, 1944. The game includes a 14x14" map, 56 counters, 7p of rules including solitaire rules and historical notes. The scale is 500yd per square sector, each turn represents 20 minutes, and all units are companies. The map is a 12x16 square grid of the Omaha Beach area. Numbers on the grid lines and intersections represent the number of movement points it costs to move from one sector to another. This helps speed the movement of units since no movement chart needs to be referenced nor the terrain of sector be determined. The counters have the typical Rand rounded corners (easy to punch out, plus no dog-ears). They mainly represent the US 15th & 16th regiments (pale green) and the German 726, 914, and 916 regiments (grey). Unit types are: infantry, tank, engineer, anit-tank, heavy weapons, artillery, and HQ. Tanks have 16 move points, all other units 8. All units have an assualt strength and a fire/defense strength. Fire can be either direct (small arms, tank, hvy weapons) or indirect (artillery, mortar). The sequence of play is: US - landing phase, move, fire/assault, German assault completion. German - move, fire/assault, US assault completion. The things that stand out are: the assault movement, use of engineers, and the landing phase. The assault strength of a unit represents its ability to move while under enemy fire. A unit must stop moving when it is in direct fire range of an enemy unit. This usually means that there is little normal movement on the beach, since most of it is under enemy fire. Things may free up a bit once into the bocage. So, the only way to move forward while under fire is via assault. To assault, a unit must first pass a 'morale' check. Most units have a 1 or 2 rating giving them a 50 or 60% of success. Tanks, rated 6, always assault when ordered. Also, all units within one sector of its HQ will always assault. Units passing their assault check are then placed on the grid line connecting their sector and the one being assaulted. There they sit, while the opponent moves and gets a chance to fire at them. Assaulting units do not benefit from any terrain modifiers, thus they are easier targets. At the end of the opponents turn, any remaining assaulting units then move into the target sector. If there are any enemy units in the sector, then a melee combat ensues. This process felt a little wierd at first, assaulting empty sectors in order to move forward; but seemed very natural when used to assault enemy occupied sectors. Another interesting aspect is the use of engineers. Their use is critical to the success of the US landings at Omaha. First, they can be used to clear beach obstacles. This is needed so that future waves of landings will have a clear path to the beach, otherwise there is only a 50% chance of successfully reaching the beach. Unfortunately, clearing of these obstacles can only be attempted on turn 1 and is not possible later due to rising tides. The engineers will also be needed to clear the minefields in the valleys exiting the beach. Moving through an uncleared minefield is dangerous: 60% of being eliminated. Also, the much needed US tanks will need a cleared valley road in order to exit the beach. So, the engineers will have a big impact on the success of the US effort. This means that they will often be at the front 'clearing the way' and are choice targets for the Germans to pick off. Finally, the landing phase was interesting though not complex. After assinging target landing sectors for the current wave of units, each unit is rolled for to determine the number of sectors it drifts off target. Tanks only have a 50% chance of landing successfully. Add to this the rising tide, beach obstacles, and a stubburn German defense and you tend to get a very clutterd beach with stacks of units trying to assault off the beach. All this, along with rules for direct fire, strongpoints, naval gunfire, German tanks, artillery, etc. means there is a lot stuff going on. But this is a small game and the rules suffer trying to cover all of these aspects. There a many times during the game where things will pop up that the rules do not cover or are in conflict with info given on the combat tables. Most of the times, these can be handled with some common sense or best guess. Still, it occurs often enough to be fairly distracting when first learning the game. After a couple of games and some house rules, things move along better. One area of question is the handling of disrupted units. In combat, units are either eliminated or disrupted (turn over). A disrupted unit cannot move or fire and melees with penalties. Of question is when do disrupted units recover? The CRT mentions they are flipped back up after the fire phase. But this means no unit will ever be disrupted by the time the oppenent gets to assault them, for which the rules specify certain modifiers. If they recover at the end of the turn, what about units disrupted from the previous assault phase? This is an example of good intent by the designer but does not mesh well with the overall rules. BTW, the backs of all counters are white, so it can get confusing which are US or German. Another thing that was missing was the German unit setup. Does this mean they can be freely placed anywhere? This enables the German player to mass at the beach front and man all the strongpoints. I chose to use the German setup as given in the solitaire rules, since this gave the US more of a fighting chance. This game is not a cake-walk for the US player. They will have a difficult time just moving off the beach. Success is measured 1 sector at a time, as units assult forward and deepen the beachhead. German strongpoints have a high fire power that will punish any exposed unit on the beach and are very hard to knock out. The 50% chance of loss for minefields and beach obstacles, plus any German generated losses, can generate high US casualties of much needed manpower. In the game, the US player must clear some safe paths to the beach or later waves of units are doomed. Trying to minimize losses on the beach, you must assault forward, trying to clear any of the beach exits. Once a foothold is gained off the beach, you should be able to advance and widen the area fairly steadily. Just getting to this point will be a big accomplishment. For the German player, a strong forward defense seems to work best. It allows you to generate a lot of casualties on the beach and makes it very tough to assult off of the beach. Early arrival of your tank units will help stem any holes the US player may generate. Keep as much of the US force under direct fire, since this forces them to assault in order to keep moving and thus makes them easier to pick off. Overall, I think the game does a good job in generating the feel of the gruelling combat that took place on Omaha. Unfortunately, I don't think it fits too well in the small game format. The 5p of standard rules just can't cover it all and all the interactions that may occur. There is a good game there, but it seems to need a little more development to make all the rules work together nicely. If you don't mind doing a little extra work, Omaha Beach is a nice game worth picking up.