Game: Ardennes
Publisher: The Gamers, Incorporated
List Price: USD 32
Theme: Battle of the Bulge
Scale: battalion and regiment level
Rating: A
Ardennes is the latest release from The Gamers, using their Standard Combat Series rules. The rules are in their third edition, and now supercede and can be used by their two previous releases (Stalingrad Pocket and Afrika).
The German player starts behind the Our River, and can choose between three objectives to win the game. This keeps the American player guessing as to what to defend the most. The objectives are Paris (exiting a number of troops from the map); Antwerp, the Germans' historical objective (exiting a number of troops, also); and Liège, which is on the map (must occupy all of the city hexes). Unfortunately, these victory conditions fall short of their intended goal of keeping the American player in the dark. Liège and Antwerp are both in the same general area, and Paris is totally on the opposite side, so the American player probably can guess the German player's objective correctly about 67% of the time. Since the German player sets up predominantly towards Liège, the American player would most assuredly know if Paris were the objective just by the way that the German player would move most of his units towards Bastogne. Keeping this in perspective, it is only a minor detraction from the game, as the German player has his work cut out for him, regardless of which objective he chooses.
The main series system rules are about four pages, and the actual rules for the game are another four pages - easily consumable in one sitting, and easy to teach in under 30 minutes. One of the major rules changes is the way in which casualties are removed. In the past, when a loss was required, the owner had the choice of which unit would suffer; now it is the highest raw attack strength (if attacker), or the highest raw defense strength (if defender) which must be chosen. This may seem logical until you attempt a 15 to 1 overrun (9 to 1 being the maximum on the combat chart), take a two column shift for terrain, and roll an A1D1 result (both attacker and defender removing one step), with the attacker losing an eight factor panzer battalion, and the defender losing a two factor (garbage) infantry unit. My opinion is that there should be a point when the odds should result in an automatic overrun, and not leave to chance such a critical loss to the attacker. Even at maximum odds, there is the chance of losing a good step, even when you pile in everything to assure success. Keep in mind that maximum odds are rarely achieved, because the terrain (mostly forests and rivers) keeps shifting you down columns to at least the 6 to 1 odds table. As explained in the rules, the Ardennes are very poor tank country, and wouldn't you know, that is just what the Germans have a lot of!
As special forces, the German player has Greif units (Germans in American MP uniforms who speak English) that can be used to redirect the Allied troop traffic, although 50% of the time they are detected and destroyed. They also have the 150th Panzer, which doesn't pay for ZOC's (because they were using captured American equipment), and the von der Heydte airborne unit, which can be dropped on the first turn and doesn't worry about supply rules.
The American player can blow up or repair bridges as long as they are in total control of both hexes; the German player has engineer units which build pontoon bridges to allow the Germans to continue the assault. Starting weather is Soup (really foggy) at start, and depending on a weather roll at the beginning of each turn, can change as much as two levels. Weather is used only to determine how many Allied air points can be allocated for the turn, and this too is decided by an air roll. Allied air is very deadly; one air point is equivalent to five bombardment points or one column shift on any supporting attack. The air points can also be piled on to help maximize the bombardment table, or even to make a 6 to 1 attack turn into a 1 to 1 attack!
Supply is the most critical part of the game! The German player gets six mobile supply depots which move with the offensive. Units must trace supply back to a depot which is no more than 10 movement points away. Once again, this may seem very easy, but the MP's are calculated using the Mech terrain costs. For every unit on a road, one is added to the MP cost, and on turns one and two there are automatic road traffic jams all along the front. The American player has static supply depots that can't be blown up, and they must be defended at all costs to keep the German player from capturing them and getting to their objective. Three of the American depots are dummies, that when revealed are removed from the game, but while unrevealed act as a source of supply for the American player.
If the German player doesn't reach his objective (Paris, Antwerp, or Liège), then he still can pull out a minor victory by capturing VP's in the form of towns on the map. These are clearly listed on the map, and of course Bastogne is worth a whopping 5 VP's. To counter this, the American player gets constant reinforcements, and at some time in the game can start his own counter-offensive to retake captured areas.
The map and counters are once again top-notch, and the rules are very complete. Aside from the minor complaints with some of the rules, this is once again a quality game and worth every cent of the USD 32 list price.