Daniel Brown - Feb 2, 2007 5:58 pm (#17050 Total: 17114) Where many were, how few remain Of old Familiar things! But seeing to mind again, the lost and absent brings. - A Lincoln Latest Magazine from "Against the Odds" "Golden Horde: Kulikovo". I just finished playing my first game of this (solitaire, as uaual, but what are you gonna do? I'll try at the Local Games Shoppe this weekend and see if there is any open gaming going on....sometimes it happens...) and I absolutely love this game. It is a great system from Richard H Berg, from his "Rough and Ready"/"Men of Iron"/Sulieman the Magnificent" games. I had a great time playing it, even solo, and really 'got into it'. They system is fairly simple and easy with the activation system meaning that you activate a command of 5-10 units and battle with them. The enemy is also in the activation by means of 'Reaction Fire' for bow and crossbow troops and 'Counter-Charge' by Medium and Heavy Cavalry. The Combat results are Disordered, Retired and Eliminated. A Unit starts out normal, a bad result will "Disorder' it -flip it over to it's worse side and then really bad things happen to "Disordered' units that suffer another bad result. "Retired" means the unit flees to the "Standard" in the rear of the army and is useless until 'rallied' to 'Disordered'. A 'Disordered' unit rallies to normal by just simply no doing anything while not in an enemy ZOC for one activation. And an Eliminated unit is eliminated. The action in the game is fast and the initiative swings make for a very interesting and Never Boring 'ambiance'. I have one game under my belt and even though I love the game I still KLNOW I dont really know how to play it. Even though the mechanics of the game are simple and relatively easy, the interplay and tactical nuances are tremendously complex. Take the Mongol Light Cavalry with Bow Firing ability. Now, you can move the Cav unit and fire as well (firing costs 1 Movement Point, leaving a ZOC costs +1MP as well) and thereby recreat the histoical Mongol tactic of shooting and running away. .And that would be an awesome and really annoying ability if it werent for the ability of Medium and Heavy Cavalry to "Counter-Charge" if they are shot at. If you roll a 3 or less, you can "Counter-CHARGE" (Emphasis on "CHARGE") which means you can attack the Bow Light Cav on the CHARGE CRT. Which is a pretty good chance of not just disordering the Lt Cav but also getting a "Continued Shock' Result. And I had it happen in my game. As a Mongol I thought "Heh-Heh, I think I'll just go a plink away at the big horsies with arrows"...yep, Okay, sure!...but then the big damn horsies countercharged...got ehe continued shock, slammed into the now-disordered Lt Cav, got even MORE favorable DRMs, "CONTINUED SHOCK" MORE and slammed into some disordered units behind the lines...and...well....the annoying little tactic back-fired in a major way. BUT, I was having a GREAT TIME!!! Because this sort of thing happened all over the place, to both sides at numerous times -giving me the feel of a wild battle with the Mongol Hordes and Medieval cavalry 'Hack N Slash' butchery!!! There are alot of little niggling rules that, as I was reading the rules, made me think, "How Fiddly! I'm sure NOT going to remember these little fiddly bits!" . But in play, the rules flowed logically, wonderfully and excitingly. The back and forth flow of battle was exciting. And because at any one point, I was only playing with 5 or 6 units, the system was not overwhelming, you could concentrate and the rules were NOT fiddly, but logical extensions of the situation. I could say to myself: "Hmmm... THIS should happen" or "I would like to do this..." and BINGO, yes the rules did say go ahead. And at no point did I think the game was playing me, but rather that the game Worked!! One major thing that will be interesting me (and holding my interest) is in trying to come up with optimum tactics. In Addition to trying different strategies. I basically played the historical battle and ended up with the historical results -a Russian win, but with even the winner suffering massive losses. Now, I have to: 1) try and find a way to use my infantry in more effective way; 2)discover the needed 'balance' of Light Cavalry and Heavy or Medium Cavalry 3) the proper sequence of shoot and scoot; and 4) how to maintain implementing a plan as opposed to opportunistic spasms of slaughter. At one point in my game, I thought "WOW! I'm winning with the Mongols!!" and three activations later, "Oh *&%$, No, nope, uh-uh, NOT a good thing" It looked good as it was happening but as far as actually doing anything good or furthering my objectives? Nope, Just over-extending myself and setting myself up for a bloody beating. I definitely Love this game.