Arab Israeli Wars first look

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I have an opponent for plyaing this game in the future, so I'm going through the first scenario solo to learn the basic rules.

Situation B-1 (B for Basic) models a clash of armor as the Israeli 7th Armored Brigade is intercepted by the Egyptian 1st Armored Brigade.

The scenario as written is felt to be unbalanced in favor of the Israelis, at 15 turns with the given victory conditions. The Israelis definitely have much better armor on average, with longer range, better guns, and better ability to fire in hull-down positions. The Egyptians have more tanks.

Over the first 6 turns, the Egyptians seem to be all 5s and 6s at 3:1 and 4:1 odds. They just cannot get a break against the Israeli armor, which is systemically dismantling them.

This continued through the next several turns, where the Egyptians continued to roll 5 and 6s. They did, however, manage to score 1 direct fire kill, and another kill on an already dispersed Israeli unit with a roll of 5, yielding a DD.

Final scoring:

  • Israeli: 4 kills for 8 points + 4 units exited = 12.
  • Egyptian: 2 kills for 4 points, 6 Israelis on the board = 10.

Israeli win, no surprise, and the margin would increase had the next 6 turns played out, modulo stupendous bad luck on Israeli rolls, coupled with stupendous good luck on Egyptian rolls.

AAR

I called this game at Turn 9, in part because I could see there really wasn't possibility of an Egyptian win under the original scenario victory conditions.

Another reason I called it was other players recommend playing B-1 8 turns, and scoring Egyptian VPs as 3 points per Israeli unit eliminated. I wanted to score it up and see how it worked. In this case, it would have been a tie game. Given the ridiculously bad Egyptian rolls, it looks like it would be challenging for the Israelis to win in 8 turns. Which brings Situation B-1 right back into balance.

Overall, I really like this game. The tank on tank action in the open feels a lot more like Ogre than like PanzerBlitz, where there are always line of sight and slope issues to contend with. And that damnable Russian infantry, none here.

Blunders

Learning a new game always results in blunders as rules are overlooked, ignored or forgotten.

  • Not subtracting 1 from die rolled against already dispersed opponents. This probably benefitted the Israelis at least once. As it turns out, I always forget about this in PanzerBlitz as well.

Probably more, but I'll have to play again after another rules reread.

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What to play next?

Deciding what to play next is always a tough call when faced with a closet full of games, all of which were purchased with intent to play. Here's one I'm dealing with the decision.

  • Something New: this means both something new to me and a game which has been published recently, within the last two or three years.
  • Something Classic: I've acquired a number of games properly considered "classic" which haven't yet been played. The current example would be PanzerGruppe Guderian.
  • Something Again: mastery requires constant practice, which means playing games many, many times to allow nuance to appear.
  • Something Vietnam: as I'm on a Vietnam binge. I don't have all the Vietnam games ever published, but I can say that I have a lot of them, and probably more than most people.
  • Something Obscure: as it's fun to poke around in the dustier corners of game design.
  • Something Different: break away from the same old publishers and try a game from one of the new kids on the block. Or, conversely, dip into legacy with a classic tried and true.
  • Something Light: once in a while it's nice to actually finish a game all the way through in one sitting, in an hour or two.
  • Something Heavy: if possible, it's nice to set up something big and complicated which can be left out for days or weeks or even months, for a leisurely stroll through a very large or long game.

There are surely many more ways to choose, but the above method keeps me busy enough, helps me get both breadth and depth into my play, and provides me with a sense of progress.

The odd man out

When there is an odd man out:

  • Have a solo game ready to play.
  • Keep score or advise on a game in progress.
  • Referee a game in progress.