Notes

Change Notes

The minor changes from v4.0 to v4.3 are important. Here is a short summary:

Air Drops. Now a planned air drop (the ones carrying combat units) can only be done during the Movement Phase. Units dropped are also automatically in trace supply on the drop turn.

Air Mission Phasing. There is no longer an “add aircraft to the mission” step in the sequence, so you can no longer have what essentially begins as a Sweep evolve into a Barrage. The procedure was simplified: rather than fly from one base at a time, mission planes arrive together.

√Anti-Raider Rules. These optionals were eliminated, essentially having been replaced with the Supply Cache rule.

Breakdowns. Both a breakdown and its parent must have the same marker/mode status when created/absorbed.

Breakout. In initial breakout situations, breakout success is increased and there are fewer restrictions.

Here is where units return in the older games (it isn’t always obvious):

Baltic Gap — Soviets at Entry A-C and Germans at Entry G. Handle Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians per 1.9a.

The Blitzkrieg Legend — Per 1.9d.

Burma — Japanese at Mandalay; Allies at Ledo or Silchar.

Case Blue — Per 1.8.

DAK and DAK II — Commonwealth at Alexandria; Axis at Tripoli.

Enemy at the Gates — Per 1.6a & 1.6b.

Guderian’s Blitzkrieg II — Per 1.4c & 1.7.

Hube’s Pocket — Per 2.1 and 3.1.

Korea — Communists per 2.4; UN at Pusan or Seoul.

Reluctant Enemies — CW at Entry A, B, or C; Vichy at Entry 1, 2, or 3.

Sicily — Any supply sources.

Tunisia — Any supply sources.

Divisional Lines. This optional rule has been eliminated. Players with a copy of the old rules and markers can, of course, continue to use it.

Engineering and Repair. The rule that says “an HQ ignores DG Mode when engineering” was extended to include Rail Repair and non-HQ engineers.

Enhanced Construction Options. A grab-bag of new options related to port repair and hedgehog construction.

√Enhanced Transport Options. These new options relate to air transport, sea cap, and Strat Mode. In v4.3, a new DRM for Air Drops was added. (Note also the new table looks different, but is functionally the same as before.)

√Independents. The “fuel expenses” part of this option has been deleted (it rated very low in the voting).

√Flak and Interception. These have been split into two separate rules sections so that Interception, which is a mission type, can have its own section. But no real changes (aside from an official way to randomize loss in 4-plane missions, per charts). In v4.3, Fighters are once again able to intecept multiple missions in the same phase (assuming they keep winning). This is an important change back to the way it used to be.

Fueled HQs. An HQ that has a fuel marker can now only throw fuel from a single hex in a given phase. So if an HQ with a fuel marker is moving, it must now choose to throw the “free” fuel from either its starting or ending hex.

Hedgehogs. An Engineer can now build hogs within its 2-hex radius.

Hip Shoots. Must always have a spotter.

√Landing Craft. Play of Sicily II led to a heightened focus on rules related to ALT, and some aspects were found to be in need of clarification. Look carefully at the marked sections! Railroad Conversion. Conversion is now done when a RR unit moves into the hex (not when it leaves).

√Railroad Control. In v4.3, 13.3h is changed due to anomolies that cropped up when applying the older wording. Revised Rebuilds. This radical option is probably best for long campaigns where the Repl rates often seem insufficient to recreate history.

√Retreats. The wording of section 9.12 has been polished. Pay attention to the marked sections! Stacking. It is specified that a Fighter must now be the top air unit (to make PZ obvious).

Supply Cache Markers. These replace the Anti-Raider rules (giving HQs some emergency supply) and provide a bit of special artillery ammo.

New games in the series will include notes on Supply Cache use. To backfit these to older games, players will need to roll an extra die in each Reinforcement Phase. If the roll is less than or equal to the number below, a Supply Cache marker is received. The number also determines how many of the markers each side holds initially. (Note these numbers should perhaps be reduced if playing a scenario that isn’t full-sized; make your own judgement.)

‘1’ Tunisia, Sicily, Korea, Relucant Enemies, Burma, and DAK

‘2’ The Blitzkrieg Legend, Baltic Gap, Hube’s Pocket, and Enemy at the Gates.

‘4’ Beyond the Rhine .

‘?’ Guderian’s Blitzkrieg II and Case Blue . The number is based on mapsets in play. ‘3’ for GBII, ‘2’ for EatG, and ‘1’ for CB and/or if the Schwerpunkt is present.

Example: In Beyond the Rhine, each side starts the game with four markers and gets another marker during every Reinforcement Phase on a roll of 1-4.

Voluntary Aborts. This is now always an option (before it couldn’t be done during Interception combats).

ZOCs and Ports. Negation is no longer allowed for literal shipping into a port. DAK still has its special exception.

Designer Notes

Where to begin?

OCS v4.0 grew out of necessity. Due to a number of reasons not important enough to go into, I had only the v3.0 rules on hand (I never had the actual files for the v3.1 rules). So, OCS v4.0 started as an innocent effort to take the v3.0 rules and incorporate the known errata (in other words, rebuild v3.1 and leave out some of the things that were done there that I did not agree with… I called the effort v3.2).

John Kisner volunteered to help with the project, to which we then added an effort to make sure that answers were provided, in the rules, to all the questions we could find over the years on various discussion forums, plus to preempt additional questions by addressing any passages that guys tended to find confusing. During this process, he began a painstaking look at every rule checking wording, identifying conflicts, standardizing terminology and in general making the rules tighter and cleaner. His efforts cannot be overstated. Somewhere in that process, I decided it was time to address all known system abuses (and things guys didn’t consider abuses, but were play not in the spirit I intended). The idea was to deal with them once and for all… as a result, discussions, sometimes heated, raged for months on items small and large that explored alternatives simple and extreme for dealing with each. Many worked into the rules, while others where the fix was deemed worse than the disease ended up in the optionals.

Suggestions came from all over, Elias Nordling single-handedly suggested the revised method of doing air strikes, which was basically the way we had been playing for years and is now the “rules as written” way as well.

Subject to a six month or so discussion/ argument was the Flak System. I have no memory of how many different ways were tried to cook that particular egg. I do know I threw my hands up in frustration a number of times (apologies to those subject to my wrath… especially poor John who took the brunt of it) as no system seemed to have all the desired items. Finally, Andrew Fischer said something to the effect of “Why don’t you just do it this way?” and at the drop of a hat fixed the whole bloody mess. With only minor modifications, Andrew’s method remains the one in the final rules. Thank you, Andrew.

As the project grew in scope, leaving no stone unturned as it were, the decision was made to rename it v4.0 instead of v3.2. Volunteers from all over played the older OCS games using the ever changing v4.0 rules to give informed opinions. Every effort was made to make sure we were fixing known issues in the old games, not creating new ones. Noteworthy among the volunteer testers were Stephen Poitinger and E.R. Bickford. Mr. Bickford is of special note in particular as he played the entire DAKII campaign using every variation of the v4.0 rules. That way lies madness.

At one point along the way, locked in a hotel room for a week for other reasons, I went through the entire rule- book looking to kill words, sentences, and rules. The former just to shorten the reading length of the rules (many thousands of words were eliminated by rephrasing sentences). I eliminated jargon where I could. Most importantly, I eliminated numerous niggling little rules that had crept into the rulebook over the years while we tried to legis- late numerous things that just weren’t important enough to worry about. Besides, getting older I always forgot those rules when I played. I’ll venture to say many others did, too.

So, What’s Different?

I’ll only cover a few highlights here. I’ll answer two questions right off the bat: 1) Whatever alternative you might be thinking of, we probably tried it along the way, and it was found wanting for reasons I probably can’t remember off-hand and 2) Yes, there was a reason (possibly many) for every change. Remember this is the end of a six year intensive effort.

Making it so that only Combat Mode units give ZOC effects made for some more interesting tactical puzzles and put a higher premium on “pre-located” units as opposed to “just in time” Move Mode ones coming in from far away. It also helped address what we were calling “Raider” issues as a unit might have to wait a turn before it could influence something else with its ZOC.

Making HQs suffer DG (like any other unit) and allowing each artillery unit to be 1 strength in defense eliminates some special rules cases and (at times) gamey tactics. No longer will a city with several DG-proof HQs form a “good” defense.

I simplified the daylights out of the air system mechanically, air combat, flak, and special rules. Losses were bumped up a touch as v3.1 was showing to be too docile (these went back to older system values). I eliminated Advantage from Air Combat as it was very rules heavy and represented a kind of double-dipping on the part of more numerous fighter forces. I reduced the Both Abort zone on the Air Combat roll to make for fewer indecisive air combats. The new flak system is, well, the result of months of blood, sweat, and tears to come up with a system that did a large number of jobs, where the various effects we were after were shown and in the simplest manner possible.

The Barrage Table was modified a little so that “gunning for blood” was less productive than before, while smaller barrage values still gave decent bang- for-the-buck in creating DG results for ground units to use.

Changes to the handling of dumps, trucks and extenders (elimination of the Barrage vs Dump/Truck Table and handling of extenders with respect to enemy units entering their hex) exist to eliminate play techniques based on either eye-balling enemy stacks or memorization of set up data. Some have incorrectly ascribed this to a change in the “guard your extenders or else” theory that has been a keystone of OCS since the very beginning. Not so as I’m sure you’ll find out.

Over the last six years working on these rules, we have looked and looked again at all manner of alternatives. Concepts came, were examined, and put away when found to be not the best. Only the cleanest and most robust survived. Some will be happy to find their pet peeve addressed and (possibly) changed to their liking, others will not recognize that their issue was addressed and found to be not worth the change, out of scale, or otherwise not a positive inclusion. I’m sure there will be those who feel their idea couldn’t possibly have been examined. It (or something just like it) was, I can assure you.

No stone was left unturned. The effort drove many around me to wonder why I was looking at this or that yet again. It was done so I could set aside these rules as the pinnacle of OCS development and I could move on to new design projects. They are and I am.

Player Notes

Warning: this game system takes time to play. Game turns take longer to get through than you think (and much longer than it seems, since time seems to fly). It is not designed for beginners. The best bet in larger games in this series is to play sessions when you can and let the game stand between them. Suffice it to say, you’ll need your “A” game in this arena.

I hope to give you a few pointers here to stave off catastrophe long enough for most players to get used to the system. Some of the things here are “tricks of the trade” learned over the years, others are critically important “do them if you want to live” things. To help let you know which is which, I have annotated each one as “Technique” or “Critical” as appropriate.

1) Rear Area Security (Critical). Garrison everything you hold dear: SP, important railheads, air bases, HQs. Failure to do so will (with the limited ZOC effects) cause you to lose themand lack of supply dooms armies in this game. Solid combat units should be stacked with each of these important items. This should also make it clear that you need to keep them organized and consolidated so your whole army isn’t off defending your rear services. Beware of allowing enemy columns to rove freely in your rear. You have a large number of units (usually) whose job for you will be rear area security (Police and, of course, Security units, for example). If you find yourself making use of them in the frontlines, be careful: You are inviting a disaster someplace where you least expect it. Usually a step or two of such units is plenty to garrison a node in your supply network (major replacement centers and supply hubs will have lots of units floating about to add to the defense in a pinch), so there is no reason to think you need to send combat infantry divisions to do this job—the only goal is to make sure the hex cannot be taken on the fly by minimal forces (not to stave off an attack by an Armored Corps!).

2) Use of Reserves (Technique). The proper employment of reserves is vital to the efficient use of your resources in this game. On the attack, reserve mode can be used to get a little extra movement out of units during the Movement Phase and full use of the Exploitation Phase after you have made a breach in the Movement and Combat Phases. In the defense, reserves can be used to disrupt enemy attacks during the Reaction Phase using overruns (or by rein- forcing defensive hexes), and provide Barrages. Beware of the localized nature of reserve use in the Reaction Phase and the rewards the system gives for being the active player (the one who generates situations) instead of the reactive player (the one who waits for things to happen). Layering your attacks so that you have waves designated to create a breach and others to exploit (literally) it afterward can multiply the effectiveness of your offensive (even more so if your Action Ratings are high and you can Hip Shoot with your air force—then you’ll be in a prime position to see what an Expanding Torrent really looks like.

3) Armor in the Defense (Technique). The Terrain Effects on Combat mods are designed to give pure armor units an advantage in the attack, but not in the defense. I feel the proper role of armor in defensive operations is the limited counterattack against the attacking enemy units. In other words, when used correctly, armor in the defense should be in Reserve Mode ready to attack in the Reaction Phase. Targets? I would aim at weak links in the enemy attack. Depending on the way an enemy attack is organized, you may very well be able to substantially reduce its effectiveness if not derail it entirely. You’ll know by the muttering your opponent emits which one you got.

4) Combined Arms (Technique). The comments above bring up combined arms as it is shown in OCS. Traditional wargames give a magical “combined arms benefit” for units of different types which stack together, regardless of terrain. I don’t agree with that assessment at all. So in this game, a combined arms unit (such as a German Panzer Division) has the ability to make use of differing terrain types because each of its component parts will be able to take full advantage of each terrain type in turn. Tanks in bad tank country are limited, period. Giving infantry to the tanks allows them to be more protected from ambush, but in no way makes the tanks more powerful. Suffice to say that combined arms works in this game because these units will be able to function better overall in differing terrain than could units of only one arm.

5) Surprise and Set-Piece Battle (Technique). The surprise rule (one of my favorites) is designed to favor surprise in Overrun situations. Good troops vs. bad troops in an Overrun have the best chance of achieving surprise. Bad troops attempting an Overrun against good ones will most likely screw up and suffer defender surprise. Set-piece battles (those in a Combat Segment) have a much smaller surprise component. Poor troops, given time to prepare, will be able to pull off a credible show. Good troops which take their own sweet time in getting ready will have a bigger chance of getting compromised and losing attacking surprise. As a result, surprise plays a much greater role in Overruns. In set-piece actions surprise is much harder to obtain and plays a smaller role. To make a long story short, if you have good troops, attack using Overruns. If you have poor troops, attack in the Combat Segments. Make these selections and you’ll maximize the abilities of the army you have been dealt. Choose poorly and you’ll at best waste advantages or at worst get crushed.

6) Disorganize and then Destroy(Technique). A successful barrage has a dramatic effect on a subsequent attack. DG Mode confers four disadvantages on the defender. First, it halves the stack’s Combat Strength, which means a 4:1 attack jumps to an 8:1. Second, it lowers the stack’s AR by 1, which alters both the surprise chances and the combat roll. Third, a stack that is already DG will lose a step when it retreats (on an option result) into a ZOC. Fourth, DG Mode halves MA, so during the enemy player’s next Movement Phase it’s that much harder to reform a shattered line. Air barrages are usually the cheapest method (in terms of supply cost), but don’t discount the big guns and their increased chance for inflicting losses.

7) Supply Organization (Critical). Unless you own stock in an aspirin company, keep your supply system organized, neat, and under control. The supply rules are not difficult to use, but they do require players to both plan ahead and keep their forces organized. If you let them get out of control, it will be a while before you get them straight again, and in the meantime the enemy will be dancing on your head. Set up a few, well-developed supply lines. Build up enough of a stockpile at the front to make up for any interruptions that might occur—be prepared, it will save you much grief if your lines get cut for a turn or two. Keep multi-unit formations together so they draw from only one source. Remember: You will never have all the SP you think you need, so use what you get wisely.

Honcho Notes

My practical instincts for playing OCS are famously lacking: I send in those last reserves when hindsight reveals it would have been smarter to hold them back, and too often I let my opponent dictate the overall flow of events. But I am nonetheless able to grasp the theoretical implications (and importance) of time management in these games.

The game’s clock is measured in player turns following a banal move-combat-exploit sequence, with defensive reaction tossed in before combat to give the non-phasing player a chance to make limited responses to developing threats. Nothing too earth-shaking, with the possible exception of allowing only a limited number of designated “reserves” to operate in the special reaction and exploitation phases.

Reserve is one of the options a player has for which “mode” to assign a unit as it begins its movement phase. There is just a handful of reserve markers available, so it often comes down to a toss between Move or Combat. I think of the latter as being a unit’s normal mode; what changes in Move Mode is the speed goes up and the combat goes down, both by roughly a factor of two. Modes cannot be switched until your next movement phase, so a unit remains in a weakened state during the enemy turn if it chooses Move Mode. There’s the rub. Your inner Hamlet will have a tough time deciding whether ’tis nobler to choose agility or power, prudence or audacity. Conscience makes cowards of us all.

Time can be warped by a few mechanics that shift the normal order of events. An overrun is combat moved forward in time. It can clear an enemy-held hex to allow units to immediately penetrate a defensive line and attack from the flank or rear. A time-shift also happens when a player creates a Reserve Mode stack, in that he can essentially “save” its normal movement and combat opportunity for later. Within a turn some fairly complicated time-shifts are available, and their various possible combinations represent the advantages of maneuver speed.

The system’s highest-level clock is ruled by an initiative system that determines which player goes first in the player-turn sequence. This can change from one turn to the next. Going first has obvious situational advantages, like to save your bacon when one of your HQs is about to be fried. It’s when going second that things really start to sizzle, because you’re setting up the possibility of going twice in a row. Ideally, you open a new offensive when going second, use all those time-shifting tricks I mentioned above to create a massive breakthrough, and then start the next turn knowing you might get another one of those complex moves in before your poor opponent can respond. A player cannot really control this high-level time management, since the “who gets choice” initiative rolls are random things. But he can use the threat of a double turn to hamstring the enemy, and make him constantly feel like he needs to “go first” to avoid disaster.

Dean Essig tailored the system to present a unified thesis bringing to tabletops the essential elements of maneuver warfare. In OCS a unit can be put into several modes (combat, move, reserve, strat) because these are useful as a shorthand “orders system” and they express the trade-off between speed and concentration. Supply points are physically moved around the map because in a modern war logistics strain to keep pace with a blitzkrieg; if they don’t the moving columns crash to a halt. There is also a modest degree of “fog of war” because, with very little muss or fuss, the simple prohibition against peeking at enemy stacks produces blunders and surprises like those filling our history books.

Appreciating OCS as a great simulation is part of the intellectual fun, of course, but I am mostly impressed that Dean’s been mindful that the mechanics must create a great playing experience. This is doubly important given that these games take a great deal of time to complete, making the time well spent.