Dav Vandenbroucke Again - 12:42pm Jun 13, 2000 PST (#5016 of 5035) Currently playing Jutland (XTR) & Master of Magic Somebody asked me by email for a summary of my views on XTR's Jutland. I thought I might as well post them in case anyone else is interested. It's a quick-playing game, although a bit heavy on the wristage. It appears to be pretty good as a technical simulation (although I'm no expert), but less so in terms of command control and historical objectives. Quick playing: There are only a hundred counters. Every squadron counter has a corresponding targeting counter, and capital ships have two (heavy and secondary guns). Thus, there aren't many counters to push around. The rules are about four pages, and the sequence of play is easy to pick up. Wristage: To hit something you usually have to roll a six. If you're lucky, you'll be able to roll four dice for a squadron. Depending on facing and range, that may be as low as one. If you hit, you have to roll the difference between gun caliber and armor thickness in order to "penetrate," which destroys a ship (sunk or disabled, in this game it doesn't matter which). With ships of the same class, that usually means rolling another low number. Thus, whole combat phases will go by with lots of firing and no results. Technical Simulation: The capital ships _were_ hard to damage in reality, and so the results above are not unhistorical. It's hard for battleships to hit light units with their main guns, which is also historical. You have about the right speeds. I assume the gun and armor ratings are correct. They seem about right. Command control: there aren't any rules for this. Thus, units can maneuver at will. The game uses some fog of war, concealing the identity of ships beyond visual range, but you can still see where they are and make a pretty good guess at what they are. Thus, all the signalling and intelligence problems that were featured in the historical battle disappear. You can maneuver against an enemy column before it is sighted, and your ships never misunderstand your signals. There aren't even any formation effects. History: The victory conditions are based on sinking the other guy. It's sort of a deathmatch. This makes for a good game, but it is quite different from the outlook of the historical commanders. In particular, the Germans were trying to catch the British Battlecruiser Fleet away from the Grand Fleet. As soon as they realized the GF was there too, the High Seas Fleet did a battle turn-away and headed for home. In the game, the Germans will be as eager to mix it up as the British. --Dav