David Hughes - Jul 14, 2009 8:58 pm (#29737 Total: 29829) She's homely, and she's cranky, and her hair's in a net. And I'm lonely, but I ain't that lonely yet. On the Table - The Hell of Stalingrad (2) Dave Longworth and I played our first game last night. Dave had not read the rules, but picked it up after a 15 minute pre-dinner introduction (and pre-reading descriptions of play on BGG.) So, the first plus is - remarkably easy to learn. We played the advance game, kicking off around 7.30. Dave caught the 11.00 ferry, so there's the second plus - easily playable in an evening. The dice gave me the Red Army. The initial building draw was: A: The Grain Elevator - extremely tough building for the Germans, but he only needs to take this one to shut down the area B: The Nail Factory - I like this as the Soviets, because it sucks in at least one high quality German unit, or his rate of progress could be slow C: The Power Station - I'd rate this as a 50/50, standard piece of urban hell D: Rynock Village - I plan to make a token defence here, keeping forces in reserve for tougher fights on better terrain. The initial campaign card helped - some extra formations, and even better it moved the clock forward to turn 2! Dave decided to bypass the grain elevator in the first (now second) turn. He took Rynock village, but in the more industrial terrain the Soviets stood firm, enjoying the benefit of a couple of extra break test dice in both cases. Dave's reward in Zone D was a Volga card at the start of turn three - 1 area down, 3 to go... In turn three, fighting spread to the grain elevator, where for the first time the Germans won the initiative - creating a fort for me! Even with a raging inferno and some heroic dice, the Soviets held out for now. Elsewhere, the nail factory fell, thanks to German pyromania, but the power station again proved too tough. Turn 4 disappeared thanks to the campaign card, and at the start of turn 5 Dave discovered he'd broken through to the river in zone B. At this point, I'd won initiative 5 out of 6 times, Dave had cleared two areas by winning two battles, we'd lost half the game to campaign cards, and every battle had gone with the dice... Turn 5 was very tough on the Germans - two hard buildings to clear, and despite heroic struggles in both, neither fell. So it all came down to the last turn. The campaign card was another hourglass, which we ignored, as I'd half remembered a Q&A from designer Steven Cunliffe to that effect. The Germans made their first thrust at the nail factory, pounded the Soviets into the dust, and force a break test with a 2 dice advantage (5-3.) I rolled first - best die was 4, Dave rolled next 1,2,2,3,3 - and extended his hand. General (soon Marshall) Lopatin and his battered troops had stood firm, and Stalingrad was held. So here we have the third plus - both of us had a good time, the game was in the balance right till the end, and all through the game I swung from wild optimism to the depths of despair, often on the basis of a single card play. I'm still unclear about the game; sure, we had a good time, but was it as good as say Twilight Struggle or 1960, both of which we could have played in the same time? I am certain that there is way too much game here to grok in a single playing. My impression of chaos and randomness was reinforced. The order in which campaign, building and combat cards are drawn seems to make a huge difference, and as Steven says, the break test die can play an enormous role in determining who wins. On the flip side, this at least ensures that no two games will be the same. The components are fine, and very functional, but not much to my taste. I don't find them especially evocative of anything, but to be truthful, I don't care about that. For me, THoS stands or falls as a game. I have read Steven's design notes on the geek, and while I understand what he's saying, I found very little in play to put me in the shoes of the commanders. My thinking was all about counting break dice, hoarding intercepts until the moment of greatest danger, card flow and hand management, ensuring there was enough patriotism in a building to allow combat cards to be played, calculating the benefits of hold vs refresh, etc - in short, playing the game. So, again for me, the acid test for THoS will be whether there is enough game play depth. At this stage, I'm still uncertain, so I will play it again to find out. David Longworth - Jul 14, 2009 9:22 pm (#29738 Total: 29829) BookmarkEmail to Friend The fleet of Jagreen Lern bore towards them and, in its wake, the boiling stuff of Chaos hovered. Dave Hughes has succinctly outlined the flow of our game, but I thought I might input some of my own thoughts. The game was certainly simple enough to pick up - after one turn I 'got' it more or less. Playing time was not too bad, although in practice I think it could be longer as our game featured two zones shut down after the first building was captured, so only seven (IIRC) battles in total. With four areas and six turns it could be up to twice as long I suspect, so probably 2-4 hours all up with familiarity. Graphics - to my taste a bit overdone. I often felt that the play data on the cards (symbols and numbers) was often subsumed into the graphics and I often needed to concentrate to find the symbols. It got better as the game went on but I suspect a substantial amount of play would be needed to develop the quality of 'boardsight' for this puppy. History wise there was enough evocation there for a card game with no map - it certainly gave the feel of Russians grimly digging in, buildings burning and so forth. Enough flavour there for the format. The main thing I was unsure of was the resolution thing. Each battle comes down to competing "cups o' dice" and the idea is to make your cup bigger. Given that both sides will usually have the same number of formations and similar cards, the size of the bucket pretty much comes down to defensive terrain and heroes (who are randomly drawn). It felt like the whole involved battle process was simply a card-fishing expedition to try and wheedle out an extra die or two here or there. In the end the game came down to seven "cups o' dice" contests dressing up as a card managememnt game. In the end it was unclear how much point the whole battle sequence had on the outcome. As the German, it seemed that playing CCs was not always of benefit, since the Russian could slam down more cards, play snipers to eliminate the leaders, play heroes to do bad things, and build up more units and forts. I thought afterwards that it might have been simpler to simply do holds, hope for a depletion or two from the holds to give a formation edge, and hope for dice...but that would defeat the point of the game. in the end it is what it is - a simple fun card game with some historical flavour. Verdict: Uncertain.