[Lee Brimmicombe-Wood]

Does anyone else have a copy of this S&T game? It's a recent Joe Miranda jobbie and therefore suspect. However, it's based on an older game, back when Joe was good, and is a subject that's hard to screw up. It might be worth a punt.

Components are a bit blah, from what I can see. Grotty Joe Youst graphics. But the game chassis looks sound on a first readthrough.

[Elias Nordling]

I think Joe is good nowadays too, but I understand what you mean. Decision Games has put a cap of 16 pages of rules for the games (probably something to do with weight and postage), which makes for simpler games. Probably not what you're out after.

There is an interesting discussion on Chosin on Consimworld, where a player first finds a perfect strategy for the UN player, then one for the Chinese, and the beautiful thing is that to counter the Chinese perfect strategy, you have to abandon the perfect UN strategy.

[Lee Brimmicombe-Wood]

I think Joe is good nowadays too, but I understand what you mean.

I think Joe is suffering a combination of laziness and burnout from turning over so much stuff. He's also gone a little crazy in recent years. I'm not prepared to listen to another misogynistic rant.

I like Joe and get on with him. But I can't help thinking that someone so fecund and original has been dulled and blunted by the need to turn out such quantities of stuff. He has descended into hackery. Some of his recent stuff is like unto a thing made entirely out of poo.

Old S&T had a stable of guys making stuff. Currently, the lion's share of magazine work is Joe and Ty. That ain't healthy.

[Elias Nordling]

He's also gone a little crazy in recent years. I'm not prepared to listen to another misogynistic rant.

Fortunately I've missed those. I've been Bomba'd often enough, though. I like his work most of the time, but I've got a feeling he is suffering from clinical paranoia.

Some of his recent stuff is like unto a thing made entirely out of poo.

On the other hand, I thought Caesar XL and Zulus on the Ramparts from Victory Point Games were really good, and I also quite liked Twilight of the Ottomans ant the They Died With Their Boots On games, to name a few.

Old S&T had a stable of guys making stuff. Currently, the lion's share of magazine work is Joe and Ty. That ain't healthy.

That's definitely true, though it seems they are trying hard to find others that can deliver reliable games too.

[Snowfox]

Chosin is based on the system used in the game Gauntlet from S&T 190. We played it a few times in my old gaminggroup at work and I remember it as a good game that allowed competetive play for two players. It also received good reviews when it arrived. Chosin sits in my huge stack of game that has arrived here during this summer. (I definitely bought more games than I have time to play this summer).

>I like Joe and get on with him. But I can't help thinking that someone so fecund and original has been dulled and blunted by the need to turn out such quantities of stuff. He has descended into hackery. Some of his recent stuff is like unto a thing made entirely out of poo.

This is the general trend I have noticed too when viewing the quality of his output from when he started making games at Decision Games (was it second half of the 1980s or early 1990s?) up to now, however, he is still able to shine from time to time, it just not happen as often today as in the 90s.

>Old S&T had a stable of guys making stuff

Careful with reflections of ages past, dont underestimate the sentimental influence on what we percieve as the good old days. I am not sure S&T has had a period when they only released good games, the output was fairly uneven at least from issue 65 when I first started to buy it until SPI folded.  The following period when the format was squeezed to 100 counters and a halfmap was pretty bland too. In my book S&T was reinvigorated when Miranda arrived.

>Decision Games has put a cap of 16 pages of rules for the games (probably something to do with weight and postage)

I think they use it as the standard size but if you look at the Chosin game the rules uses 29 pages so the standard istn set in stone. One thing that looks odd in the blurbs for next games in S&T, is that they have started to measure rules in number of words and then translate that to estimated time to play the game (for example Battle for China will have 11000 words which gives an estimated time to finish the game of 4 to 5 hours), I suspect that how much time you need to complete a game is more of a driver for the 16 page standard than actual postage costs as that could be taken care of by adjusting the number of pages for articles in the magazine.

[Lee Brimmicombe-Wood]

Careful with reflections of ages past, dont underestimate the sentimental influence on what we percieve as the good old days. I am not sure S&T has had a period when they only released good games, the output was fairly uneven at least from issue 65 when I first started to buy it until SPI folded.  The following period when the format was squeezed to 100 counters and a halfmap was pretty bland too.

I think you're right. I remember S&T being of variable quality. However, here we have a trifecta of pain: tough deadlines, two game magazine titles (with WaW) and one guy shouldering a huge portion of the burden.

[Elias Nordling]

The latest Mega-feedback for S&T contains a noticeable shift in that a minority of the suggested games are designed by Ty&Joe. Some interesting and ambitious stuff in there.

[Snowfox]

>I think you're right. I remember S&T being of variable quality. However, here we have a trifecta of pain: tough deadlines, two game magazine titles (with WaW) and one guy shouldering a huge portion of the burden.

Yes, launching WaW seemed to be quite overambitious with the no increase in staff numbers.

[Elias Nordling]

Since Lee asked about this one, I'll write this one in English.

I've tried the game now, and can't quite make up my mind about it. Reports on Consimworld talk about unbeatable tactics for both sides, which suggests either a tightly balanced game that could go either way, or a wildly unstable game that will be decided in the first few turns. My impression is the latter.

It is a big map and many turns, but it seems the game will be decided in just a few turns in a few hexes. This is actually pretty historical, the epic of the retreat of the Marines is dampered a bit by the fact that they had already beaten the snot out of the Chinese before retreating, so they were no longer in a position to hinder it. But it suggests that the scale that worked well in Gauntlet might be less suitable for this game.

I quickly stumbled upon one of the "perfect strategies" for the Chinese as I started playing. I had no trouble setting up a 2-1 attack on Hagaru-Ri on turn 1, that had a 50/50 chance of anihilating the defenders, even when aided by air supply and defensive air support. And so they were. The two Army batallions east of Chosin were also easily wiped out. Two Marine regiments were left west of Chosin, extremely isolated, and their prospectts looked extremely bleak.

Maybe something clever can be done with the UN setup allowing them to survive turn 1, but I can't see it right away.

The perfect UN strategy involves wiping out the Chinese HQs with airstrikes, putting them permanently out of supply. That one should be easier to fix with a house rule, though.

The system itself is nice, a fairly typical operational system with a moderate level of chrome. Fairly nice looking too. I just don't see how the historical outcome is supposed to happen. Perhaps if the UN were allowed to setup entrenched. The big problem, however, is still that everything is decided by a few die-rolls right away.

I took this image before I realized the Chinese setup put everyone out of supply: