LA BATAILLE DE LA MARNE, 1914; by Jean-Jacques Petit. From Jeux Descartes. For price information, write to 1 rue du Col Pierre Avia, 75015 Paris. FAX 1-46-48-48-25

This game, with rules entirely in French (but easily understandable for those with about two years High School français and a basic knowledge of wargaming), is no spring chicken; it's at least a decade old. It does, though, have some rather interesting systems that were far ahead of the State of the Art of the time. Nothing special visually; the map is bordering on awful, although nowhere near as grotesquely unplayable as some of Jeux Descartes' 1970's items. They've come a long way in the last few years, producing the industry's finest, overall magazine, Casus Belli.

This is a fun game. I must add, that it was fun because I added a new Play Sequence, one similar to that used in Across 5 Aprils, et al. This made each player's Armies (they have about 6 each) move randomly - and separately. This not only better reflected actuality, but it eliminated much of the predictability of WWI warfare. and allowed players to make - and exploit - some interesting break-throughs.

Most of the units - and there are a fair amount of them - are divisions and artillery groups. Scale is about 2.5 miles per hex. Aside from the fact that each country (France/Germany/Britain) has its own CRT, there are two interesting aspects of play. The first is the Initiative/Orders system. At the beginning of each turn, players give one of four Orders to each of their Armies: Attack, Defend, Strategic Movement or Retreat. Each has its own pros and cons, and you can give different orders to individual corps within those armies. The orders are "secret", until revealed by necessity. When you add this to my random, chit-driven play sequence, some massively bad play decisions can occur. Even better is that initiative - who gets to move one of his armies first - is based on the number of Initiative Points those Orders produce! With points ranging from 4 for Attack, to 0 for Retreat, the more "aggressive" player gets to get in the first punch. Neat stuff.

The other interesting area is the use of artillery. There are pure artillery units, plus many of the divisions have integral artillery. Use of artillery is very important in this game, and the artillery can be used in a variety of ways - such as Bombardment or Support - those ways often restricted by the Orders chosen. Without getting into details, suffice to say the artillery system works quite well.

To be honest, Marne is not top-flight design work. There are HQ's and Leaders, but these rules miss the boat for what could have been some creative differentiation among the individual personalities. The game also starts with the French counter-attack, which means the German right wing is in the middle of nowhere. The race to capture Paris is also nowhere in sight. However, these can be overlooked - if you read French - because it's the only game presently available on the subject. And it's not bad, to boot.

A note for interested parties. Jeux Descartes makes - and distributes - lots of stuff - such as games on Alesia, Friedland, Solferino, etc. - much of it their own. (See additional review below). They do have a Canadian outlet store in Montreal (514-499-9970). We suggest either writing to Paris for complete product information, or giving "Le Valet de Coeur", the Canadian store, a call. And if you can read any French, by all means subscribe to "Casus Belli".