Test play of the game Eindekker
This game at first seems fairly comprehensive for its size and price. It comes with twenty or so colored counters and a sixteen page rule book .Ii is a solo game which portrays the missions flown by the German Air force over the western front. There are three turns then equaling a day, the idea being to fly various missions ranging from combat patrol over friendly lines to trench support over enemy trenches. The idea of the game is interesting as at first glance the sequence is simple consisting of events,movement,and victory point .I did a cursory run through choosing combat patrols. The first turns involved uneventful patrols where the only action was my being fired upon by my own AA. The third turn illuminated a flaw in the rules I half suspected.The events turn caused me to roll for fighters. There was only one.Now came a great deal of dice rolling. I had to roll for victor of a dog fight by adding combat numbers and then again adding to combat numbers.I had to roll for initiative, gunner status, note what 'weapons 'were in used which as far as I knew for this game did not exist. All of this entailed flipping back and forth through the rules six or seven times making me forget my dice rolls and then the applicable information.
The sequence is given in short terse sentences with instructions to see other paragraphs not listed in any particular order which in turn instruct the player to again see other paragraphs. I have a feeling the Bob Flood wrote the rules in such away as to portray the odds applicable to various actions with no thought of how the player was going to accomplish this. Mind you the game is a good game and its a pity the rules were written in the way they are.
My advice to Minden games is to rewrite the rules so as to explain everything the player has to do in a single sequence comprehensively ,not refer him to some where else in the rules,. Nothing interferes more in gaming enjoyment than to have to work like a Trojan to play a game that is supposed to be fun. For example the events rule states that some events apply to certain missions some to certain circumstances and that events should be self explanatory ,in other words if you cant understand the rules you are an idiot.
I would put the random events table at the front of the rules with the sequence of play eliminating the need to look at the back and front of the rule book and then in between each time an event is rolled . The random events rule should be written as in the first instance as general overview, the second a break down on which random events actually occur, the third the events listed in sub sections detailing everything that needs to be done.There is nothing so frustrating to playing a game as to be treated as an employee who should just put his head to the grindstone and bear with it.
Too bad this game is spoiled by the rule layout as I quite like the idea behind the game to such an extent that I have thoughts of one day rewriting the events phase so as to make the game more playable as the way it is at present is a mess.
