Case Yellow

In the curtain boardgaming circle that AWB mix with, we have recently been working our way through Ted Racier's 'Case Yellow' by GMT Games.
Yes, it was published some time ago, and yes, cough, we are only playing it for the first time now, but we plead the case of 'real life' interfering with our gaming hours. If you want to spend eight months of Wednesdays playing Battle for Normandy then something has to give after all.
Anyway, so what do we get in the box?
Pretty much a chance to invade German, crush France and force the English to flee across the Channel like the tea drinking swine that they are. Hexes are 7miles, units are mostly Corps and Divsions, stacking is approximately one corps per hex and turns, which include several chit driven sub phases for each side, are a couple of days long. You are given four scenarios to play with, the first being the straight historical, the fourth being a mini map tuturoial game where you attempt to crush Holland and the middle two are 'What If?' variations where the Anglo/French player actually gets allowed something to do. More of that later.
What I do rather like about the game is the engine used. Units are given a combat factor, movement - further divided into 'leg' and 'motorised' - nothing new so far - and a Tactical Rating. This TR factor is possibly the most important and is used within the combat results and for calculating ZOCs.
In this system most units project ZOCs provided they are phyiscally large enough and there are not major terrain features involved. If a motorised unit - in most cases here, the Panzer Division - has a higher TR then an enemy unit, then that ZOC is ignore and the Panzer race off towards the coast.
While no doubt frustrating to be on the receiving end of these breakthroughs, the system neatly captures the realatively static non motorised divisions and corps of this period physically lacked the control and weapons to react in time against aggressively handled motorised units.
The second main thing the TR is used for is in the combat results. Combat is 1D6 with no DRM. Calculate raw odds, column shift back and forward for terrain, air support and tanks and roll the one dice. Where the TR comes in is a sort of tie breaker on many of the results, where if the attacker has a higher TR, the result is shifted up to one better then was actually rolled. The practical effect, and this is something that we here at AWB have always moaned about in other combat systems, is that it means that operationally the attacker has the advantage because he controls the tempo of the combat. Effectively the more skilled units are beginning their attacks, realising things are slightly harder then they expected, and then cancelling the attack before they get drawn into a casuality intensive meat grinder.
Well, AWB likes the system anyway.
So, the rest of the game as a whole? Is that fun?
Ummm... sort of.
The game does play smoothly enough. Each turn is broken into several action phases that are controlled by chit draws. For the Allies in the historical scenerios at least this means either 'Move' or 'Combat' chits which do pretty much what they say on the cover, while the German side, to represent the fact their command staff in this period had a MUCH faster decision cycle, are given a 'wild card' type chit they can, within guildlines, play as either Move or Combat as they choose. Hence the turns have a nice bit of randomness that helps with solo play. Since stacking is generally one Corps per hex there isn't a huge amount of thinking required during movement and it all flows along rather quickly.
However, are we having fun yet? Well as the German player it is rather tricky. Getting Holland to surrender on a decent time frame is slightly tricker then it looks meaning units you would much rather wash down against the Belgium sand castle can be delayed. The random chit draw means your leg units - which the vast majority of the German forces still actually consists of (and rather average some of them are as well thank you very much), may struggle to be brought to bear leaving you to risk your powerful by fragile Panzer divisions for most of the attacking. Making a gap is tricky as is successfully exploiting it to reach the Channel. All and all a rather challenging series of choices to make.
For the German. For the Allied player your milage may vary. In the 'What If?' scens many of the restrictions are lifted, but for the pure historical Scen 1 a lot of the moves are scripted. Not much is allowed to move on turn 1, and that which can is forced to march into Belgium and then stay there for most of turn 2 while watching their flank disappear. Then on turn 3 you get the option to call in the evacuation and try and grab as many VP as you can for getting units out of the ports.
So a chance to do something clever? Not really. After the evacuation and the pause for the Panzer refit you are allowed complete freedom to attempt to defend Paris but by that stage most of your better units are dead and you get the satisfaction of lining up waiting for the German player to punch you again.
We at AWB have not as yet played Scen 2 or 3, which we expect may be a lot more fun for the Allies, but our French victim in our current Scen 1 game has, and witih a lot of justification, expressed a minor lack of satisfaction in his gaming experience so far. Having said that, the challenge for the German player is definately there and with the chit system and largely scripted Allied moves, Scen 1 would most likely play very well solo.
In summary, very good clean game engine, usual high standard GMT build quality, historically sound but probably lacking a bit in replayability.