Another PhD game. I came across the Battle for Ortona in several urban warfare sources. It was an "epic" Canadian battle of WW2 in Italy (1943) but little known in the UK. I hunted for a game about it and came across this one from High Flying Dice Games, in Canada of course. Paul Rohrbaugh (HFD MD) and I looked at various options at short notice for me to pick it up during my trip to Canada in April, but in the end it was easier just to get him to ship it over.
It's a solitaire game with an AI/blinds mechanic similar to Hue/Ramadi, but which I think works much better - it felt far less of a slog. I loved that it uses areas not hexes for movement and combat - but unfortunately is then let down by a dreadful map (lots of that green above was about a 60 degree slope and not fought over!). The real star though is the way that is manages rubble. I had a whole load of questions about the rules (which as other reviewers have noted are not as clear as they could be) but Paul was very patient in answering them all - although I'm still left with a few niggles about the combat and reinforcement systems. Again reflecting other reviews I think there's a great little game there that's struggling to get out.
I decided a few weeks ago to run Christmas in Hell as my first COW game in July, so I'm busy working up a 1.1 version to take there with a better map and some streamlined rules - we'll see how it plays.
My full academic review for the game is at http://taunoyen.com/wiki/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=wargaming:phd:aar:aarchristmasinhell.pdf.
Just search on YouTube for Battle of Ortona and you'll find lots of videos about the battle, including a UK MOD training/documentary film and original war reporter footage from CBC reporters at the battle.
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