Storm Over Arnhem AAR

 

STARTEX

Storm Over Arnhem was one of the first games I bought when I started the PhD - its area based layout just seemed spot-on for urban to me. When I set Christmas in Hell up at COW someone immediately said it reminded them of Storm over Arnhem, and everyone seems to view the game fondly. Having played it I can see why - and the heritage is certainly clear in Christmas in Hell- several mechanics are the same, but CiH adds the rubble and solo mode - of which more later.

Mid-game

The game played pretty well and quickly, about 3 hrs I think for a first run. mechanics were soon picked up, but as ever point density ruled, with a 10+3 unit limit per area there were some quite big numbers. Firing was based on attacker - defender scores and difference taken as retreats or losses. Best/worse AV/DV were used, plus +1 for supporting units.  Close combat was D6+AV > 6, so both very similar to CiH. Arty was nice and simple.

In the end the Brits put up a stiff resistance and still held most of the VP areas at the end.

ENDEX9

My big issue with the game was that apart from the map I had no feeling of being in Arnhem or even a town. If you'd replaced the map with a nice green field network it would have felt and worked exactly the same. I think there were two main reasons for this:

• First, it drops you straight into the action late in the day - so there is no sense of the initial landings, the fight through the town to the bridge, and the fighting on the bridge - so most of the real signature events of Arnhem weren't there. When I first saw the board I thought that was where my para's would land and then I'd have some sort of break-in battle, but no, they are mainly for German reinforcements. I think to get a sense of "Arnhem" you probably need to play a larger scale game (must find one to test - suggestions?), or extend those outer zones to include those other parts of the battle.
• Second the rules pay no attention to the urban what so ever - its doesn't matter if you're on a building square or a park square everything is the same. This is where I think CiH really shines - the rubble really gives you the sense of a town falling to bits as you fight through it, and where I think CiH v1.5 shines even further with different protective values for each area and tanks being limited as to where they can go.

So nice to see the heritage and a few bits I might re-steal (arty for instance), but otherwise I think that my CiH v1.5 is a better evolution of the model for an urban game.

My "academic" review is at http://taunoyen.com/wiki/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=wargaming:phd:aar:aarstormoverarnhemah.pdf