No worries. October War was very popular in its time. As I stated before, I much prefer Suez to Golan from Mech War2 (horrid “orzo” maps aside….) But this could certainly give AH’s The Arab-Israeli Wars game a run for its money….
Great discussion – so true about interest level of an old SPI game: so much of the modern stuff takes a long time to learn and gives very little enjoyment in return.
What A/H’s ARAB-ISRAELI wars provided in its breadth/diversity and improvements to the venerable PANZERBLITZ/PANZER LEADER system was perhaps not quite as innovative to what we see here with OCTOBER WAR, even though it only covered the 1973 war. But as Ke points out, it sadly came to a “dead end” in terms of a continuation of this system.
I played SUEZ TO GOLAN a good bit but felt the MECH WAR 2 system was a fair amount of sheer labor to play. It wasn’t nearly as elegant as OCTOBER WAR, even though I think it can be well argued that it was more realistic. The “cookie cutter” OOBs remained, however. And–sure– the Golan map was a bit of a graphical mess but it was functional in play. There’s really no other tactical treatment as comprehensive as that. But one wonders what OCTOBER WAR could have become had it gotten more attention/a “deluxe” treatment. Maybe it will see a revision someday that makes it a worthy redesign/reissue.
This is a great game. I remember when it first showed up in the mail, my 15 year old self could hardly wait to play it as the 73 October War was still a fresh memory. I played it recently again at CONSIM Dallas and in my book it still holds up as a balance between playability and realism. For the first time in early tactical games, when you killed a tank, it stayed dead (no disruption!)
I wonder if this could be compared to the Deluxe version of Bar-Lev that Compass just pushed out in terms of giving you both the Suez and Golan in one package (allowingf for differences in scale, etc…)?
No worries. October War was very popular in its time. As I stated before, I much prefer Suez to Golan from Mech War2 (horrid “orzo” maps aside….) But this could certainly give AH’s The Arab-Israeli Wars game a run for its money….
Great discussion – so true about interest level of an old SPI game: so much of the modern stuff takes a long time to learn and gives very little enjoyment in return.
What A/H’s ARAB-ISRAELI wars provided in its breadth/diversity and improvements to the venerable PANZERBLITZ/PANZER LEADER system was perhaps not quite as innovative to what we see here with OCTOBER WAR, even though it only covered the 1973 war. But as Ke points out, it sadly came to a “dead end” in terms of a continuation of this system.
I played SUEZ TO GOLAN a good bit but felt the MECH WAR 2 system was a fair amount of sheer labor to play. It wasn’t nearly as elegant as OCTOBER WAR, even though I think it can be well argued that it was more realistic. The “cookie cutter” OOBs remained, however. And–sure– the Golan map was a bit of a graphical mess but it was functional in play. There’s really no other tactical treatment as comprehensive as that. But one wonders what OCTOBER WAR could have become had it gotten more attention/a “deluxe” treatment. Maybe it will see a revision someday that makes it a worthy redesign/reissue.
This is a great game. I remember when it first showed up in the mail, my 15 year old self could hardly wait to play it as the 73 October War was still a fresh memory. I played it recently again at CONSIM Dallas and in my book it still holds up as a balance between playability and realism. For the first time in early tactical games, when you killed a tank, it stayed dead (no disruption!)
I wonder if this could be compared to the Deluxe version of Bar-Lev that Compass just pushed out in terms of giving you both the Suez and Golan in one package (allowingf for differences in scale, etc…)?
not really