From: Roberto Chiavini Subject: Three Reviews Defiance (Swedish Game Production) A friend of mine borrowed me this little forgotten title form the early Eighties (I think: I haven't found any date on the box or on the rules), designed by Perry Moore, on the battle of Xuan Loc, a late fight of the Vietnam War (April 1975). The game comes in a small box, with a light green cover. Inside you find a small 11"x17" map that covers the ground where the battle was fought (almost two thirds of the map are woods, swamp or rough hexes, with a few roads, villages and rivers on it) and 130 counters, representing infantry, aircraft, artillery, ranger, airborne, armor units, plus leaders and various markers. The overall quality of the components is not particularly good, and I evaluate it as drab even for its times. You may consider it a not very flashy DTP design of today, but with die-cut counters. Each land combat unit is rated for combat and movement, while artillery units have a range of 11 hexes. The rules (with several errata and clarifications already in the box) are 21 pages long with tables and historical summary of the situation. The system is interesting, but not particularly remarkable: sequence of play sees a NVA First artillery barrage phase (NVA player has on board and off board artillery units avalaible, the latter only to bombard airbases - the results may be distrupted units or ARVN aircraft points reduced); NVA close assault phase (a man to man fight inside the same hex on a special CRT where units of both players may be disrupted or eliminated); ARVN desertion test phase (surrounded or leaderless ARVN units check for desertion); NVA movement phase (units that had close assaulted may not move); NVA ground attack phase (the normal attack phase with the same old rules valid for most wargames); NVA second artillery barrage phase (a second chance for the NVA player to wreak havoc); NVA disruption removal phase; ARVN bombing phase (ARVN player may use aircraft unit and cluster bombs - which are limited); ARVN movement phase; ARVN ground attack phase (with a different CRT, more proned to DE results); ARVN second movement phase; ARVN disruption removal phase. Game proceeds in this way for 14 turns, then victory is evaluated based on territorial objectives for the NVA player and unit elimination for the ARVN player. There is nothing remarkable in this game, as I said earlier, but it's a good design, on a very particular subject, with a small map, not too many pieces, fast to play (I evaluate less than 3 hours in my tests).I'm working on a Cyberboard gamebox of this game, but I don't know when it will be ready. I rate this game 6 out of 10.