From: petraska@my-dejanews.com
Subject: PanzerZug by Winsome - A Description

In response to popular demand, here's a quick-look summary of PanzerZug by
Winsome Games.	I saw this game at Origins for the first time and bought a
copy for myself.  I have yet to do anything but look at the card sheets and
read the rules, so I can't comment on how well it plays.  Maybe later...

PanzerZug:  US & British airpower attacking the Reich's Railroads
Published by Winsome Games, 1998
$15, ziplocked

PanzerZug is a non-collectable card game in which 2-6 players each fly one
type of Allied fighter-bomber and cruise the skies looking to shoot up German
trains and rail yards.	The game includes 4 pages (two loose-leaf sheets) of
rules, 15 yellow Action Card sheets, 4 blue Zug Card sheets, (I presume Zug
is German for 'train', and that 'panzerzug' translates to 'armored train'), 6
aircraft display card sheets (2 P-51s, 2 P-47s, and 2 Typhoon 1Bs), and the
front and back papers that constitute the "box covers" of the ziplock
package. Get your scissors sharpened, guys, because you have to cut out all
19 sheets' worth of cards yourself, and there are 8 cards per sheet.  The
cards are all printed in black ink, with the fanciest graphics being
digitized halftone photos of actual German military trains.  If you're
looking for a pretty card game like Atlantic Storm or even Down in Flames,
then you'd better keep looking 'cause this ain't it. The best comparison
would be to Winsome's other military card game, Damn the Torpedoes.  A
6-sided die is also required, but not included.

The game begins with each player selecting a type of airplane to fly and
loading it with fuel, gun ammo, bombs, and/or rockets as desired.  As you
might expect, each type of plane has different loadout capabilities.  The
P-51 can carry the most fuel, the P-47 can carry the most bombs, and the
Typhoon's capabilities lie somewhere in between (plus it has cannons instead
of machine guns).  Each player also gets 6 cards from the Action Deck, which
consists mostly of additional fuel and ordnance but may also contain cards
that can be played during the turn to protect oneself or harass your
opponents.

In a nutshell, on each turn a player decides to either take off and look for
targets or stay on the ground and refit his plane by drawing cards from the
Action Deck and using them to load up his plane for a later turn.  Assuming
the player decides to take off, he expends one fuel card from his airplane
and flips over the top card in the Zug deck.  This is the first target he
gets to attack, and it can be either a train or a train yard.  Trains require
various amounts of damage to destroy depending upon the type of train it is
(box car freight train, armored troop train, etc.).  If the target is a train
yard, it can only be destroyed by an Explosion and not by accumulated damage.
 Once the Zug card is revealed, opposing players may play Action cards in
attempts to foil the player's attack.  You may find a German fighter on your
tail, or a train may round a hill or enter a tunnel, or clouds and fog might
move in on you.

Assuming you get past these hurdles you attack the target with a selected
ordnance of your choice.  Bombs always cause Explosions if they hit, and
Explosions always destroy any target.  Rockets and strafing usually inflict
damage points which only affect trains, not yards, but both have a chance of
causing a target-rending Explosion as well.  If you cause an Explosion, or
you inflict the necessary damage points, the target is destroyed and you keep
the Zug card and get the number of Victory Points indicated on the card. 
Assuming you have fuel and ammo remaining, you then flip the next card in the
Zug deck, expend another fuel card, and repeat the process.  If the target
survives your attack you can keep attacking it until you have no more fuel or
ammunition, at which point your turn ends.  An undestroyed train yard stays
in play and becomes the next player's target, while undestroyed trains escape
and are set aside until the next round starts.

Some Zug cards include anti-aircraft defenses that may shoot down your plane
after it makes an attack run.  If you destroyed the target during the attack
you still get the card and the victory points.	However, whenever your plane
is shot down you must clear your aircraft sheet of all fuel and ammo cards
and start again on your next turn with, literally, a blank sheet of paper. 
While you spend the next turn or two refitting your plane, your opponents may
be destroying targets and building up victory points.  I was surprised to
find that there is no victory point penalty for having your plane shot down. 
You just lose time relative to your opponents.

The game continues until the Zug deck is exhausted, which ends of the round.
Players tally up their victory points and, if someone has more than 150 VPs,
the highest scoring player wins.  If not, another round is played.  In the
second and successive rounds, however, every player starts with an empty
airplane instead of a fully loaded one.

This game definitely looks easy and fun, and I'm looking forward to playing
it.  It is certainly not a simulation, although it presents a more
"realistic" theme than Atlantic Storm in that you fly a plane and try to
accomplish a mission. It's realism level is probably comparable to Modern
Naval Battles, or perhaps Down in Flames, but is less complicated than either
of them.  And nowadays it's hard to beat the price, even for a ziplocked
game.

Winsome Games has a web page at http://www.fyi.net/~winsome, but as of July 8
there was no information to be found there about PanzerZug.

Brought to you as a public service by me,

Jeff Petraska


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