From: Roberto Chiavini Subject: One review Crete 1941 (Vae Victis) This is a game by the fantastic potential (astonishing graphics, perhaps one of the better to have appeared on the French magazine - and normally the graphics of these games are the principal value of them -, interesting situation, with German paratroopers and a plethora of different Commonwealth units), but by a wretched execution, that definitely fails to give me the extra input I've been waiting before reading the rules and setting up the game. Not expressely designed for solitaire play, but with a few cumbersome special rules hurriedly applied in a second time to a system that borrows heavily from Avalon Hill's Thunder at Cassino and similar games, Crete 1941 it's too long, too boring, too static to give the player the will to take it to conclusion. The Germans are weaker than they should (or than I thought of, as you will), while the passive Commonwealth defense it's still solid enough to bar the conquest of at least a couple of the airfields in the first few turns (5/6 turns, in my experience), making the arrival of German reinforcements a real descent in hell, with several of the arrived unit already semi-destroyed when they land, making the campaign an operational nightmare (it probably was, but as the player you don't like the situation and especially the way it's controlled by the dumb system: it's better to play solitaire with the normal rules, without the added encumbrance of those rules - a few paragraphs, anyway). For the ones who don't know how the Thunder at Cassino system works, here is a rapid explanation: area map, with different kinds of terrain (important both for movement than for combat), units rated for attack - defense - movement, a initiative counter that the player with the initiative may use as a re-roll or a bonus movement (but using it you pass the initiative marker to the opponent), combat based on the roll of 2 dice for both sides with several differential, the winner normally reducing one enemy unit and moving it away (but not affecting other units in the area - and this make conquering a zone really painful and exceptionally long and boring), plus other rules for HQ artillery and so on. Special rules for the game take in account Luftwaffe's superiority (the German player has 4 air units that may use once every three turns to effectuate bombardments) and most of all the dispersion and damaging of the paradropped units. These rules, certainly historical, are probably too harsh against the German player, however, and makes his life terrible if he has a little unluck in rolling the landing dice (I think that the entire game could be severely damaged by two or three particularly unlucky die rolls in the first two turns of the game; yes, the German player has the initiative marker to use for re-rolling, but it still doesn't seem enough). So, you have a strange mix with this game, an unparticularly well-made adaptation of a well-known design, but a really fascinating scenario and exciting set-up map to look at. Nothing more (and it's not enough, alas). I rate this game 5 1/2 in a 1-10 scale.