From: "Skip Franklin" Subject: Decision in France Review Decision in France Designer: Mark Simonitch Developer: Joseph Youst Graphics: Mark? Publisher: Rhino Game Company, 1994 Each hex equals 12 kilometers, most units are division with independent brigades, regiments and battalions. ALLIED PLAYER TURN A. Allies Initial Phase 1. Remove all Allied movement, Reserve and Truck Markers 2. Choose the units (or additional Truck Points) Build-Up will provide. Place units on an appropriate Entry Hex(es) and adjust the Truck Point Marker if additional Truck Points arrived. 3. Distribute Petrol to Allied units. 4. Move the Allied Supply Heads. 5. Purchase Trucks if any Truck Points are left over from numbers 3 and 4 above. B. Allied Movement Phase 1. Roll for weather. 2. Move some, none or all Allied units that are not Disrupted. This includes Naval Movement and Airborne Assaults. Place Movement Markers per rules. If any Allied unit starts or moves adjacent to a German unit in Reserve, immediately replace the Reserve Marker with a Movement Marker. C. Allied Combat Phase 1. Resolve combats. 2. Conduct Mobile Assaults for each Advance After Combat before preceding to the next combat. 3. Place Disrupted Markers on all units that retreated more than one hex. D. Allied Supply Phase 1. General Supply is checked for all friendly units. Place Out of Supply Markers and remove those Out of Supply Markers on units which did not receive Petrol but are in General Supply. 2. Conduct Attrition for all units out of General Supply. 3. Units may receive Replacements. 4. All Disrupted Markers are removed from all Allied units and replaced with a Movement Marker. The German turn is identical to the Allied Phases (substituting the work Allied with German), except there is no Initial Phase and weather is not rolled for. There had been a copy of Decision in France (DiF) at the local game shop for over a year. The map printed on the back of the rule book looked pretty good, the sample counters looked nice and the drawing on the front, well… that wasn't so good. The game sat and one day disappeared and I didn't miss it. At least a year later a Consim-L mailing list post brought this game up and several gamers said it was good. Early in 1997 someone had this game for sale and now it is in The Inventory. Having that inner-child feeling the package that arrived didn't stay closed long and over a week some of the rules were ingested during trips to the "library." Since Web-Grognards didn't have a review on this game yet and this game has rules I've never seen before, this review was necessary. I was pleasantly surprised with this game and hope you are too. The Map is not over-done nor one that screams for color. There are major and minor cities as well as towns. Paris is a 7-hex metropolis near the center of the map, woods are the well-known rub-on pattern and there are two types of rivers. There are also rough woods, marsh, bocage fortresses and red roads. This map style is my favorite combining functionality, color and information without clutter. The counters come in several colors with dark green Americans, tan British, light green Canadians, red Polish, Belgian and Dutch units and yellow Red Ball express. The Germans come in the ubiquitous black SS, feld gray Wehrmacht, gray Coastal and blue Luftwaffee units. DiF has some very interesting rules that I've never seen before. There are some humorous misspellings like determing and Canadain. Movement: When a unit moves a Movement Marker (an arrow) is placed on the unit. Any unit without a movement marker is doubled in defense. The only other game I've seen with a similar rule was GDW's Red Army where you flipped the unit over to a weaker side. An exception is if a unit only moves one hex and doesn't end up next to an enemy unit. Now everybody knows that it takes time to build up for an offensive and moving a distance like 8.5 miles before attacking spreads your forces out reducing your effectiveness. If you move your units at all you may use Tactical or Operational Movement. Tactical Movement allows you to move two hexes even if it were to exceed its normal movement allowance and ignore enemy zones of control. Major Rivers only allow one hex when crossing. Operational Movement allows a unit to increase its movement by two if non-motorized or double if motorized. A unit may not attack after moving operationally and a disrupted marker is placed on the unit. While not stated a unit can move and not use Tactical or Operational Movement. A movement example show a unit moving three hexes and being able to attack. This movement was neither Tactical nor Operational. Enemy Zones of Control are negated by friendly units allowing movement through a normally strong line with the attendant movement penalties: +2 for motorized units and +1 for non-motorized. An interesting not is that a unit may exit the map, never returning but doesn't count as destroyed. If you get a trapped unit, here is a way to save your bacon Herr General. Stacking: The map has large hexes allowing the 2.5 divisions per hex stacking without crowding problems. Non-divisional units count as ˝ division and there are some units with silhouettes (Tiger tanks, Flak, Nebelwerfers and AVRE) which don't count in stacks of three or less. Limited Intelligence: Units may be placed on the Corps Headquarters display and hidden from sight of your enemy. For the desperate player, Corps HQs may be used as units with its ZOC and 1 defense strength. Any units under movement markers likewise may not be looked at by your opponent. Memory not like it used to be? The combat rules have many new ideas and options. When a player distributes losses there are priorities. German Flak regiments cause extra tank losses for the Allies. There are combat modifiers for Bocage, Rivers, Marsh, Woods and Rough Woods, Cities, Fortresses, Prepared Assault, Prepared Defense, Elite Units, Allied Air and Artillery Support, Allied Naval Gun Support, Armor Superiority, Heavy Tank Bonus, AVRE (Armored Vehicles, Royal Engineers) bonus against fortresses and a shift if the French armor division is used in an attack against Paris. Retreating through Enemy ZOCs cause extra step losses but only if it is interlocking. Interlocking is when two units exert a ZOC in the same hex. During an advance after combat a unit may Mobile Assault at a loss of one hex of retreat. This sounds more like a real overrun. Reserves are used in this game. I consider reserves more of a tactical requirement. Strategically reserves are units to be used in your turn. In DiF the Reserves are used as advance after combat units or reinforce the hex defensive reserves. The Rules are rounded out with rules familiar to most gamers. Overruns are a separate rule when you outnumber the opponent 10-1 during movement. Supply is used in this game and you have Truck Points, Petrol and Supply Heads to use. The Red Ball Express is a play aid to help count Truck Points needed to project supply beyond a Supply Head. Air Power can Interdict, Carpet Bomb and Strafe. The Allied player can exit units to Brittany to stop German reinforcements coming from that direction and the 15th Army cannot move till the Allies breakout of Normandy shown by a line on the map. Both side receive Replacement Steps segregated by armor, infantry and parachute steps. 6 French Partisan and 14 German Ad Hoc units are placed in a cup. When Allied units moves adjacent to a city a random unit is drawn. It could be an Allied reinforcement partisan or a German Ad Hoc unit. That about covers it except for Paris special rules, Patton's rule, sea evacuation rules and the Optional Rules. The Optional Rules include Airborne Assaults, Allied Army Group Boundaries, German Naval Movement, Traffic jams, German coastal ferries , British Manpower limits, Variable 15th Army release and Hitler's Will. Mark Simonitch has put a lot of thought into his game coming up with innovative rules, new insights to real problems not previously shown in other games and still fit the rules in 20 pages or less. Skip Franklin wargamer@swbell.net