LORDS OF THE SIERRA MADRE, by Phil Eklund. From The Sierra Madre Game Company, 3262 W. Avenida Mañana, Tucson AZ 85746. $30, + $8 for Manifest Destiny Expansion Kit.

I saved this one for last because it is one of the more impressive items I have delved into in years, especially in the area of research. Lords has been around for about five years now. I think it's sold about 25 copies, or some such dismal figure - mostly because no one knows about it. It is also not on the most consumer-oriented of subjects: a massive, multi-scenario, multi-level (economic, political and military) recreation of the history of Northern Mexico. It can be played solitaire or by up to a dozen, although the tactical-level games are two-player. It's also graphically computer-generated and, while it's pretty good in that area - greatly helped by Eklund's keen sense of what looks good - it's not exactly an eye-catcher. But Lords is meaty stuff, the kind of game that many of us got into the hobby for. You can really immerse yourself in an era - and a remarkably interesting era at that - experience the whys (not just the whats), and emerge with not only a good time, but a better of understanding of where you've been.

LSM is not an easy nut to crack, as Mr Eklund, who, I believe, is in the aerospace industry, has the organizational and rules-writing skills of a Befuddled Academic. The result is that a really simple game is not initially, easily comprehended. You have to slog through the rules and then play one of the tactical scenarios, and then, eureka!, it all comes almost instantly clear. And for those willing to spend a little time in preparation, the rewards are great.

Northern Mexico is one of the most intriguingly inhospitable places on the continent. Just ask Fred C. Dobbs. Anyway, this grueling, forbidding, dangerous … and rather minerally rewarding terrain is the heart of LSM. You can either try to make it work for you, in the densely rich, essentially multi-player "tournament" (operational level) scenarios which cover the hacendado era of the turn of the century (Porforistas, Wm.Randolph Hearst, Texas John Slaughter, Germans, mountain bandits, gold trains, and more greed than B. Travers ever dreamed of), or the sprawling Manifest Destiny game, covering 1848-1868 (Juarez, the ACW, Emperor Maximillian, Cochise, the whole shebang of convoluted Mexican politics). Or you can try to stop the land from working against you - almost literally - in the shorter, but just as interesting, tactical games, of which LSM provides 16, ranging from Coronado going after the Seven Cities of Cibola, through all sorts of nasty Apaches and Yaquis trying to out-vicious the local federales and dragoons, several neat Geronimo games, even a 1910 auto race and some modern drug smuggling.

We chose the 1916 American expedition to punish Pancho Villa, and a good choice it was. The Villa player gets four "regiments" of hard-riding bandidos and some vicious Yaquis in the south. The American gets a bunch of repeater-armed cavalry, three troops of volunteers in flimsy trucks, a couple of machine guns, some mule-drawn cannon, a wackily unreliable aeroplane, and George Patton in a convertible Dodge. He also starts with the help of some Carranzista federales, but that's liable to change the instant the gringos overstay their welcome (about three minutes, as far as most of Mexico is concerned). I mention how these folks are transported, because transport is almost as- if not more - important as what kind of firepower you have, as we shall see.

There is no sequence of play; at least not a written one. For that you have to sort of follow the rules flow. As the rules to the tac game are, if garbled, rather short (about 3-4 pages), a turn or two of play clarifies all - except the many questions of play that arise for which you instantly make House Rules. No problemmo, señor; it's part of the seat-of-your-pants fun. Anyway, the one major rule that you quickly see as the heart of the game is, that every time you move a unit or stack, you consult what is easily the most deliciously detailed and wackily-event filled Random Events Table yet devised. After two turns we immediately dubbed it The Yellow Brick Road Table, because of all the lions and tigers and bears it contained (literally). Travel in Northern New Mexico is no easy task, believe me. Villa's Yaquis were doing fine until they tried to cut through the Sierra Madre range only to have half their horses eaten by grizzlies. Pershing's potentially devastating biplane - the best way to bring Villa to ground - takes off on a whim, can't find much and then, to my dismay, ran out of gas and pitched into the prairie ten miles from Villa, himself, who promptly despatched it. Two cavalry regiments got totally Lost (which happens to almost anyone who wanders off the roads and trails), wandering around for a few turns, dehydrated, until I mercifully refused to move them. Patton spent most of the game trying to catch up to his own forces in a Dodge that broke down almost as much as … well, as a Dodge. He did catch up to General de Lopez and hammered him into oblivion, and Villa got a little too feisty and lost a third of his men to a well-timed American assault … one of the few times I ventured away from water and survived! But then the Carranzistas got the word from Mexico City and transferred allegiance, throwing those two federales troops into the path of the dirt-weary Yankees. Gringo firepower was far too much, but its use diverted half of Pershing's attack column. And when the truck-driven troopers ran out of gas, literally, just north of Ciudad Chihuahua, Villa, who had been flitting in and out of the dangerous mountains, just escaping a rurales lynch mob (I ain't kidding!!), grabbed the open road south and just managed to escape off the board. This all took, maybe, two hours of play, and it was Major Fun. It was also exceptionally historical in both feel and result.

I revert again to the remarkable Yellow Brick Road table to show you just a few of the gloriously insane things that can happen: troops decimated by heatstroke in a swamp; horses hobbled by prairie dog holes; men jailed overnight for being drunk in town; crossing rivers and losing men to crocodiles or mosquito-activated encephalitis; seeking treatment in a settlement for something like the latter, only to have the effect worsened by a quack doctor (and ain't that Mexico to a "T"); replenishing depleted troops on supplies of squash and beans; going snowblind in the Sierra Madre in the winter; and getting robbed by a variety of Indians, thieves, bandidos and red-flaggers. And they don't recognize any stinkin' badges!

In short, for those willing to overlook some quizzical rules and quintessential - but well done; it does have over 300 cards! - Third World production values, this is a Major game and simulation Find.

By the way, Eklund also has a really nifty - even scary - game called Insecta - a clever design of warfare and mutation, in which players "construct" their own bugs from real - and rated - parts! If this guy could write rules, he would be dangerous - and wealthier. He's already most entertaining.