A MILLION MILES FROM
HOME:
Dennis Sustare is well traveled.
He's lived in New York, California,
Texas, Wisconsin and many points
in between. A t times he even views
the U.S. from a neutral fringe since
he has lived in the Bahamas for a
while.
If tra ve l experience is n 't
enough, Dennis has experience in
many types of jobs. He has worked
for the Navy, RCA, Pan Am (at its
Atlantic Missile Range installation),
the W isconsin State A tto rn e y
General, and recently at Clarkson
University, where he taught biology.
He is currently begining a job with
Coleco Industries, Inc., where he will
be a real asset in the design
department.
Still not enough? Well, Dennis
has a Ph.D. from the University of
Wisconsin, and a collection of
published papers and articles in the
field of biology to prove it. So what
does all this mean, beyond being
merely impressive? It just goes to
show that Dennis does everything to
the hilt. When he travels, he does so
extensively. When he goes for a
degree, he goes for the top of the
line. And when he designs a game,
he goes all out to create the best
possible game.
Dennis has designed tw o games
for TASK FORCE; INTRUDER, and
the featured game of this issue,
HEROES OF OLYMPUS. INTRUDER
is still, after tw o years, one of the
com pany's best selling Pocket
Games, and HEROES is nothing
short of a magnum opus. HEROES
OF OLYMPUS is that rarest of com­
modities in the role playing genre:
the truly original design. The player
characters are more like real people,
since they have flaws as well
strengths, and even the gods seem
particularly human.
The best policy is to let the
designer speak for himself, and so
we will:
"The games I prefer to play are
simple and fast-moving boardgames
(especially at the strategic level),
fantasy role-playing games, play-by-
mail Diplomacy, and the best game
of all, the Japanese game of GO.
When I'm designing games, it is
most important that I have design
freedom, rather than trying to tailor
a game to the publisher's demands;
an understanding and talented
editor is a real delight. W ith role-
by Mike Joslyn
Back on Earth, the leaves were
falling. On the moon, there were no
leaves to fall, even had there been
there was no wind to push them
across the pockmarked and forbid­
ding surface of the Moon's southern
hemisphere. On both the Earth and
the Moon, the year was drawing to
close on the fateful Monday of
October 28, 1996.
It had been a brutal year. The
collapse of South Africa's regime
and the resultant gold crisis of July
had brought the world powers to the
brink of war. Luckily, Premier Alex­
androv backed down, and the Soviet
Union had ceased dump to gold on
the world market. Even though the
Mexican civil war raged on (with the
constant threat of American in­
tervention) the strategic situation
was relatively quiet, or so it seem­
ed to the 23,000 inhabitants of
Moon Base One at Clavius Crater, or
Moon Base Clavius as it had come
to be called.
Unfortunately, Premier Alexan­
drov required a success against
"W estern Imperialism" in order to
save face w ith the Central Commit­
tee. His solution was to covertly
reinforce the Soviet forces on the
Moon. Then, while the Americans
were looking toward Mexico, the
Savyetskaya Lunaya Armia would
strike at Clavius Base, 250,000
miles from Washington and beyond
immediate help.
Between July and September,
tw o battalions and one heavy
weapons company were smuggled
into Lenin Station disguised as scien­
tists. They joined the three bat­
talions and reinforced headquarters
company which were already in
place.
playing games, my greatest concern
is internal consistency in the game
"w o rld ", even if this tends to some­
what increase the complexity at the
expense of playability. W ith board­
games, I enjoy the challenge of cap­
turing the flavor of the situation with
simple, playable rules. I like the no­
tion of designing every game w ith a
solitaire option, but I've found this
to be more difficult than I have
expected."
Doubtless, Dennis w ill conquer
that barrier, as well. ★
Why the American Air Force
ground units were taken by almost
total surprise is still a mystery. When
the Russian attack fell on them, the
results were very much like Pearl
Harbor 55 years earlier. The front
line units disintegrated in confusion,
while their reinforcements spent
almost an hour paralyzed by indeci­
sion. It was not to be an epic chapter
in American military history. But, as
is well known, the American gar­
rison managed to hold out for three
days, until the Russians were routed
when they in turn were surprised by
the arrival of American Marines.
We know now w hat direction
the Russian attack on Clavius Base
came from. The original commander
had no idea which route the Rus­
sians would choose, or even that
they were coming at all. In order to
better simulate the confusion and
uncertainty of the American postion,
the following rules should be used:
15.1 (2) or 15.4 (2) Modified
Deployment: This rule modifies Rus­
sian initial entry. The American set­
up restrictions remain the same.
Before the American player sets
up his units, the Soviet player
secretly writes down his entry zone.
There are four entry zones, cor­
responding to the four map edges.
They are:
Entry Zone A — Hexes 2901 to
2934
В - 0134 to 2934
С - 0101 to 0134
D - 0101 to 2901
All Russian units must come on­
to the board from the same entry
zone.
In the first few hours of the
assault, American forces were
disoriented, and tended to remain
static, the following rule simulates
the almost fatal paralysis suffered by
the American Air Force Command.
15.1 (5) /or 15.4 (7) Russian
Tactical Surprise Turn: Preceeding
game turn one, there is a special
Russian Tactical Surprise turn
(hereafter refered to as the RTS
turn). It consists solely of a Russian
movement phase. All Russian units
may move onto the board and use
full movement allowance. Only Rus­
sian units may move. Once the
29
Russian player has completed move­
ment, players proceed to game turn
one and the standard sequence of
play (beginning w ith the Russian
Combat Phase).
Nuclear weapons are more than
just so many thousands tons of
dynamite. Their lethal combination
of heat and radioactivity, not to
mention their explosive effect,
makes them weapons of awesome
destruction. Even in the one kiloton
range, troops caught in the open
within a mile of ground zero will suf­
fer casulaties. Granted, the hexes in
Moon Base Clavius equal a distance
of over 16 miles (a distance which
could only be saturated by a 200
kiloton weapon); but the size of
hexes notwithstanding, the nature
of the weapons used in Clavius
(rifles, submachine guns, laser rifles,
etc.) means that the tactics would
be similar to those in use for over a
century. Rifles, and especially sub­
machine guns, are weapons of
relatively short range. In the case of
rifles, there would need to be many
of them together in order to acheive
the necessary effect. In any event,
concentration would be required for
both troop attack and defense to
some extent, and even the loosest
concentration of troops will suffer if
a one-half to tw o kiloton nuclear
warhead is hurled in their direction
every half an hour or so. The follow ­
ing rule is meant to simulate the ef­
fect of saturating a defensive posi­
tion w ith nuclear weapons:
9.6 Nuclear Mortar Effectiveness:
For each nuclear mortar engaged in
the same attack, reduce the combat
die roll by one. Example: A 12
strength-point attack which consists
of one infrantry unit and three
nuclear mortar units is brought
against an enemy unit in the crater
plain. A die roll of five or less is need­
ed to eliminate the unit. The attacker
rolls an eight. Since there are three
nuclear mortars involved, three is
x
tSl
t—
it i Г
subtracted from the die roll, which
yields a five (8-3 = 5), and the unit
is destroyed.
The Soviet Lunar Army was in
reality little more than a division and
consitsted of tw o brigades. Normal­
ly, one brigade garrissoned Lenin
Station, while the other remained on
Earth. Every six m onths, the
brigades were rotated.
The soldiers were drawn from
the Russian paratroops: traditionally
the m ost independent-m inded
troops in the Russian Army. They
were also the most capable of
operating a quarter of a million miles
from reinforcements.
The chart below shows the
organization of the Soviet Lunar
Army on the day of assault.
1
IS Rifle Company
Sub-Machfne Gun Company

GD Nuclear Mortar Platoon

(5<3 Rifle Battalion

О О
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