AT LONG LAST, LOVE

TAKE THE HIGH GROUND, by WALTER DRURY

from Crown Tactics, Inc.

One 19" x 19" mounted gameboard, 36 playing pieces, 184 plastic pegs, 4 sheets of flag stickers, 8 Attack cards, Rule books, Example Book, Rule Folder, a few ads, a few testimonials, Charts & Tables cards, dice; boxed. Crown Tactics, 493 S. Main St, Canandaigua NY 14424. Call 716-394-9280 for info. $35.

Mini Review by RICHARD H. BERG

Ya got this twelve-year old nephew. He keeps buggin' ya' about all those cardboard pieces you tell him to stop touching, but you know he's interested. You've tried every Introductory Game ever produced, from NAW to Basra. No luck. Stratego is a bore, and he figured out Risk three turns into the game. You've got the fish on the hook; how do you reel him in? Walt Drury's Take the High Ground would provide just the bait.

Everyone has seen High Ground; there are the omnipresent ads in the two magazines, and anyone at the Milwaukee Origins this year could hardly fail to notice the large number of (young) people playing the thing. Many of us tend to sneer at this sort of product, the "…oh sure, some more plastic Battleship junk," type of remark. Now, High Ground is not exactly CNA, but it is not intended to be. It is an extremely well produced game that provides high play interest, a good level of decision-making, along with enough historical insight to make it the Ideal Introductory Game. There, I've said … and now you've read it.

The components are all excellent, even if the map is a bit garish and rather unrealistic. It is colorful, and the game pieces are all high-quality plastic: mostly base pieces to hold the myriad pegs which represent "manpower". The best part of the game is the rules. This is a fairly simple game that is easy to learn, especially if you just tell someone how to play. But Mr. Drury - a fascinating individual, by the way, with a rather interesting, Horatio Alger-type history - leaves nothing to speculation. Not only is there a separate Rules & Hints folder, but there is a book filled with a complete, illustrated game as an example of play. Well thought out … and well done.

The game itself is - and I say "surprisingly", because I'm not a devotée of the Risk-type stuff - involving. The rules may be simple, but there are plenty of decisions to make. Basically, each side gets infantry, cavalry and artillery "pieces" - plastic bases in which you place the pegs, which are removed when the unit takes "losses". Each combat type has special abilities along with some drawbacks, and each of these abilities reflects, in a rather generic sense, warfare in the Frederickian-Napoleonic period, roughly, to be sure. For example, the artillery pieces do not move too well, but they can fire over distances … and artillery is best used at the beginning of the game, to soften up enemy positions. Basic stuff, but well done.

Now, no wargame aficionado is going to think High Ground is the height of historical research or insight. Far from it. But it is a rarity in that the sophistication of play belies the simplicity of the rules. Bottom line, it's a damn sight more fun than much of the stuff I review. Probably more accurate, too.

CAPSULE COMMENTS: This is easily the best game to introduce anyone to the hobby. It has good production, it has period color, it has simplicity and it has sophistication. For tournament play, it's a natural, as it plays in less than an hour. A game for gamers.