I hauled out a small game I've had for a long time that looked like it had promise. Strange Defeat about the German invasion of France in 1940.
Mostly it is a corps-level game with some divisions and even battalions, with step losses and a roll-to-hit combat system rather than odds chart.
There was a map printing error. But thank God I had set-up errata in the box. The game set-up even survived a cat intrusion overnight without too much damage. Thankfully I had the above photo to restore the armies.
Just seven turns long, this seemed pretty interesting. The map is way too big, in my opinion. It could lose the sections on the right and put the information in sea hexes or the southeast part of the map. If fighting is taking place there by week 7, there is no doubt who is winning.
I jumped in and started playing the German turn. Hmm. Using the two German paratrooper battalions requires a die roll for each. They can die, lose a step, or land just fine. The battalions have no step losses. So essentially they are almost sure to die. Both did.
Oh well! I began moving, and the ability to somewhat nullify zones of control was neat. I pushed west and with good luck knocked out 4 Allied corps and reduced one. Exploitation was nice but I could see how the Allies could exploit that if the Germans are reckless.
But then I realized I'd forgotten about air power. Darn! That would have opened up more attack options had I used them. Well I'll use them on turn two, I thought. How do I get them? The rules say the turn record track indicates German and Allied air power points.
The turn record track does not, in fact, indicate home many air points each side gets. Hmm.
Ten minutes of searching online did not get me any errata on that issue. Or the paratrooper issue, for that matter.
The only hint was a search screen result about a game replay that noted the Allies got two air points on some unspecified turn which the Allies used to counter-attack. What turn? Don't know.
And the game manufacturer site did not match the search screen fragment. And seemed kind of sketchy in a "please don't give me a computer virus" sort of way.
So it all went back in the box. At some point I should make up my own air power track numbers and deal with the paratrooper issue. Because hey, I at least have the set-up errata. Which is nice.
I'm thankful I didn't haul this out for guests. And this really should have been a drinking evening to make it worth my time.
It was a strange gaming defeat, for sure.
UPDATE: Hey! I finally found image of a more up-to-date errata than came with my game (https://boardgamegeek.com/image/160006/strange-defeat-fall-france-1940). And it includes air point chart!
I will try this again sometime. It's nice not to have a worthless game. I was thinking of making my own air points chart based on my France 1940 game air allocation.
