Flagship - The Independent Magazine for Gamers

I first found out about these boardgames in the late 60s, and bought the WW2 game The Battle of the Bulge, which I thought was good, simple but not simplistic for its time. I never managed to achieve the breakthrough and even considered trying to computerise the game to run it many times using different tactics. But even in those days it was far beyond my limited abilities to computerise.

Later the boardgames seemed to get more complex, so much as to be virtually unplayable in my view (like Anzio, the Italian campaign), vast numbers of fiddly little counters. The last game I bought was much better, Panzerblitz, being made up of a number of small scenarios dealing with different situations.

I see they have a later version of The Battle of the Bulge and a three-part article on aspects of the game, but I've lost touch with developments in boardgames as I moved on to pbm/pbem. Hopefully, its increased complexity doesn't make it unplayable. Anyone tried it?

Greybeard Wrote:I first found out about these boardgames in the late 60s, and bought the WW2 game The Battle of the Bulge, which I thought was good, simple but not simplistic for its time. I never managed to achieve the breakthrough and even considered trying to computerise the game to run it many times using different tactics. But even in those days it was far beyond my limited abilities to computerise.

Later the boardgames seemed to get more complex, so much as to be virtually unplayable in my view (like Anzio, the Italian campaign), vast numbers of fiddly little counters. The last game I bought was much better, Panzerblitz, being made up of a number of small scenarios dealing with different situations.

I see they have a later version of The Battle of the Bulge and a three-part article on aspects of the game, but I've lost touch with developments in boardgames as I moved on to pbm/pbem. Hopefully, its increased complexity doesn't make it unplayable. Anyone tried it?

Your comments have reminded me of a most enjoyable DOS version of Avalon Hill's Stalingrad. A good old fashioned computerized boardgame no gimmics, plain and simple counters, a turnbased hotseat game. The aerial war over Stalingrad was handled beautifully. Do other such games exist ?