At ORCCON 19 (February 17-18, 1996), Joe Youst gave us a guided tour of his "Spires of the Kremlin" game. He enthusiastically spent several hours discussing design elements, examples of play, and ran some learning scenarios for us to play. This article describes my impressions of the game along with some comparisons to Typhoon. The history of this game deserves some mention. A few years back, Vance von Borries did the game "Blitzkrieg in the South" (BitS) for 3W (which covers the southern part of Barbarossa). While doing the design for Spires, there was a falling out between Vance and Keith Poulter. Exactly what happened depends on who you talk to. Anyway, Vance's game came out in the summer of 1995 under the GMT label with the name "Typhoon!". Gene Billingsley and Tony Curtiss did the development of this version. Joe Youst was called in to continue the Spires project at 3W. Spires was just recently released in January 1996. Ironically, the Typhoon cover includes a picture of the Kremlin spires, while the Spires game does not. Given this history, comparisons between Spires and Typhoon are inevitable. I must admit up front that my experience with both is limited. I only know about Spires from the convention. I have read the rules and looked at the components of Typhoon, but I have not yet played it. I know nothing of their common ancestor BitS except what I have read in game reviews. Spires is about "Operation Typhoon", the German offensive to capture Moscow in October to December 1941. The twin armored pincers, mud, tight supply, Russian Winter, Soviet desperation and the Soviet counterattack make for an interesting situation. At the German high water-mark, a recon unit got so close to Moscow, they reported seeing the "spires of the Kremlin". Scale is about 5mi/hex with 2 day turns. Most units are division or regiment with the usual assortment of non-divisional assets thrown in. There are three 22"x34" maps. Spires has 1040 counters done by Jeff Tibbetts. Symbology is NATO, though German HQs have German symbology. (Also, check the "dog bone" unit symbol in the system rules for Soviet mine dogs.) There are also several pages of charts and tables. With all that map and counters, this is a big game (though there are small scenarios). As far as components are concerned, Typhoon has similar stuff. The maps for both games were done by Joe Youst and both look nice. The Typhoon maps are further North and get into the Valdai Hills. Like a lot of things, whether this is good, or not depends on who you talk to. It may allow additional options or it may be this should be a strictly Army Group Center affair. The Spires maps are at a different angle and are designed to fit with other maps in the game series. Typhoon has 1080 counters done by John Kranz and Roger MacGowen. The main difference is they are more colorful. The style looks similar to "Ring of Fire". Also, the counters color code various elements. The charts and tables in Typhoon are all on cardstock. On the other hand, Typhoon doesn't have any chart which tells you about historical corps/army organizations. Spires has a 48 page system rule booklet (to be shared by all games in the series) and a second booklet containing the exclusive rules and 16 scenarios. I got the impression from talking to Joe that the resemblance to BitS is now quite distant. Victory conditions are based on historical objectives and not necessarily on competitive balance. Unfortunately, it seems 3W managed to muck things up a bit. When we talked to him at the con, Joe was in the process of writing up the final errata. Typhoon rules are simpler and shorter (24 pages). A second 24 page booklet contains the five scenarios, designer's notes and examples of play. Typhoon has a few pages of errata which is available from GMT or Web-Grognards. Spires is definitely the more detailed game. On the other hand, Typhoon probably plays faster. I suspect this is probably the main tradeoff between the two designs. Which one you will want to play, probably depends on your current preference and mood. Joe told me I should own both. One example of the difference between the two is in the stacking rules. Typhoon has a fixed universal stacking point limit per hex. In Spires, some types of terrain have different stacking limits than clear terrain. Some unit types count more in restrictive terrain (e.g., armor stacking points doubled in swamp). These limits also count against the attacker on a hexside basis when attacking restrictive terrain. Also, certain units stack for free if divisional integrity is respected. Spires adds similar subtleties in other areas as well: ZOC (small units will exert ZOC according to unit type and terrain, can be negated by weather), Overruns (possible at any odds, can call air, doubled move costs for multi-division overruns), Strategic Movement (possible in enemy territory given an air supremacy umbrella), Infiltration Movement (certain units can have reduced costs) and city attacks (partial advance, coup de main surprise). The CRT in Spires is odds based, but has differential columns around 1:1. Armor unit attack strengths vary from half to double the printed value depending on defending terrain. CRT results are in step losses for the attacker. The defender, though, may freely mix retreats and step losses to satisfy the result. However, the attacker gets to choose how every third loss will be satisfied. (In Typhoon, losses and retreats are separate types of results, though there are some limited options to convert between them.) When forces are massive enough, a second die roll must be made for the possibility of increased losses to your side. When the attacker gets good results at high odds, a followup attack is possible. Also, there are limits on far a unit can retreat, depending on unit type. How far you retreat also determines how far the attacker may advance. Spires introduces unit proficiency levels to reflect troop quality differences. Proficiency impacts a whole host of things. A proficiency advantage over the enemy allows such things as DRMs in combat and choosing of the first hex of the enemy's retreat. Low proficiency units (i.e., most Soviet units) can't move and attack the same turn. HQs can temporarily mitigate this effect. Typhoon doesn't use proficiencies. Instead, the Soviet turn has the mech and normal move phases swapped to make attack coordination difficult. Soviet HQs play a similar role, though, in reducing the command difficulties. (Typhoon does not represent the German HQs.) In the Spires air system, each air group has a base (HQ) counter and a mission area counter. (In Typhoon, there is completely different system, where you not keep track of actual base location.) The mission area counter is placed at the beginning of the turn. Air superiority levels between opposing forces is determined. When an air mission is flown, the base strength is calculated from the air group's display which tracks how many air points of fighters, bombers and attack aircraft it has. The strength is modified by distance from mission area and a roll on a table indexed by air superiority level. For CAS missions, the strength is added directly to attack or defense strength. There also seems to be some difference in the player roles too. In Spires, your role includes that of supreme warlord. You decide how to tradeoff rail capacity between supply, rail movement and bringing in discretionary reinforcements. In Typhoon, you are strictly a military commander and thus are subject to the vagaries of your respective dictator. The German must contend with victory condition changes from above. The Soviet have to deal with mandated attacks and have to roll to see if certain reinforcements will be released to them. Our demo game had Guderian racing for Orel in the first few days of the campaign. Despite the complexities of Spires, I found it to play pretty smoothly in our learning scenario, and we had a lot of fun. Admittedly, elements such as supply were omitted and air was simplified by the particular scenario chosen. I am sure, though, I failed to notice all subtleties the system. Also, I have no experience in the grand strategic aspects of managing the campaign as a whole. Spires is meant to be one of 11 games in a series covering the entire eastern front (sort of the Europa of the East). Spires is billed as the second game in the "East Front" series starting with BitS. I think it more accurate to say that Spires is the real start of the series. Joe mentioned a handful of people who are designing the other games in the series. The next two will be a Leningrad game ("Baltic Storm") and Army Group Center during the initial invasion ("Panzer Legions"). BitS will be redone as an add-on to another game which uses the same real estate. The series will be supported by a newsletter, which will cover variants, errata, other scenarios, etc. Also, the system is supposed to go west front too, starting with "Home Before Christmas" (9-12/1944). Typhoon is also supposed to be a series, but I haven't heard anything but rumors (new version of BitS). -ted Ted Kim Email: tek@ficus.cs.ucla.edu UCLA Computer Science Dept. WWW: http://www.cs.ucla.edu/ficus-members/tek/ 3564F Boelter Hall Phone: (310) 825-7307 Los Angeles, CA 90095 FAX: (310) 825-2273