RED CHRISTMAS, by David Chapel. From Thunderhaven Games, POB 60954, Phoenix AZ 85082. $30 boxed; $24 Ziplock.

Guest Review from DAVID FOX

Remember the good old days of light-hearted science-fiction games, such as The Creature That Ate Sheboygan, Those Awful Green Things, and everything that Metagaming (remember them?) produced. I do… mostly because, in an effort to take a break from the umpteenth assault on Smolensk and the eleventy-hundredth charge up Cemetery Hill, I bought every one.

So, return with us to the days of yesteryear with Red Christmas, wherein the evil Russkies are trying to capture the Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Command Center in Colorado - no, not by airdropping Barbra Streisand - in the year 2023. In a sort of "Red Dawn" meets "Battle Beneath the Earth", the Russians attack a lightly-defended base on Christmas with a strong mechanized force - and exactly how such a group got to Colorado is nowhere mentioned; perhaps they were hiding in the Coors Powdered Beer trucks á la the Trojan Horse … hey Ulysski, this Bud's for you! - while Spetsnatz troops infiltrate into the mountain stronghold with … and are you ready for this … nuclear-powered drill vehicles. The challenge is for the Reds (are they still "reds"??) to capture the command complex inside the mountain before American reinforcements, including their own nuclear moles, can arrive. If you buy the Commie Redux premise, sounds reasonable to me.

Pick up the game and you'll immediately see why the only way Thunderhaven is ever gonna sell one of these is through word-of-mouth and/or reviews. The box art is disturbingly and glaringly phallic, remarkably crude, devoid of perspective, and so lacking in even the basics of art talent that it is far and away, hands-down, From Here to Eternity, the butt-ugliest PIECE OF TRASH. Lesson #1: never let your friend - and, as one of BROG's rare good deeds, that miscreant shall remain unidentified - do the box cover. This is a shame, because the interior components are first-rate, even striking! Colorful map, large (5/8"), readable and well-done counters, nice rules book and decent random events cards make this a package many "professional" companies would kill to come up with.

Unfortunately, as far as that rules book is concerned, I've read calculus texts more interesting. It's logically organized but overly dense, as one can see from, "The defender's Defensive value (DV) is equal to the highest Defense Factor (DF) participating + the defender's FRM +2x the # of additional FS units + the # of additional LS units participating in the attack." If you say so. This type of inelegant design and ponderous writing is one of the game's big problems. This is ridiculous, cartoon stuff; why not treat it as such? Lighten up, guys.

The play sequence uses initiative chits, much like The Legend Begins or Flashpoint: Golan. This system generator is rapidly becoming the industry standard for simulating the randomness and chaos of combat. Movement is quite abstract; inside the command center it is point-to-point, while the outside uses area movement. The moles have their own, separate tracks to help keep their destinations secret - which, along with decoys and the combat system, make solitaire unfeasible. The combat system is diceless, a design element with which I have never been comfortable. Firstly, you need rules like the example given above to resolve it - a cumbersome method at best - and such a mechanic eliminates entirely the tension inherent in the uncertainty of battle. A poor design decision, handled awkwardly. Other rules cover American artillery, helicopters, fighter-bombers, radiation, exhaust system infiltration and random events (on cards).

The Russians have 18 turns to get inside and capture the center. A strong Russian armored force seals off the mountain while the Spetsnatz Moles (finished 3rd last year but had a good draft) attempt to break into the (initially) weakly-defended complex. The Americans eventually get heavy reinforcements, which can prove decisive in trying to break through that outer circle of red tanks. And, in case you were mulling over what the best strategy was to do any of this, fear not, oh untrustworthy peasant. The designer's notes tell all. This is the passive-aggressive method of making sure you idiots out there play the game exactly the way the designer wants you to. The heart of the game is the balance between Russian outside defenders and inside penetrators (imagery concurrent with the boxcover, to be sure). Since the notes tell you how to do it, why bother?

Despite excellent component graphics and some interesting mechanics, designer Chapel misses the point here. Casual rules, some variable CRT's, a few goofy pieces of chrome … they would have all done wonders. Instead, we get a system heavy of foot, with minimal variation that is further stripped of interest by a Here's How To Do It - Don't Trust The Player mentality. Plus that god-awful box cover. Unfortunately, that's not much to like.