Burma (1999)

Game number 6 in The Gamer's popular OCS series (see http://www.gamersarchive.net/theGamers/archive/ for more details on the series and this game), this game covers the campaigns in Burma in 1944, beinging with the Japanese U-Go offensive and ending up as what would be know as Imphal-Kohima, the most dramatic defeat ever inflicted on a Japanese army. While mainly a British and Indian show, the campaign would end up involving US (Galahad) and Chinese troops as well. Burma is the most markedly different of the OCS games, with a wide variety of unit types and qualities, the extremely dense terrain and lack of roads creating a challenging supply situation for both sides, and a more balanced situation as both sides have opportunities to attack and defend. There is more of the "cool stuff" too, with Galahad, Chindits, Gurkhas, lots of air supply and transport options creating some interesting situations, and the ever-enigmatic and unusual Japanese Army. Imphal-Kohima is by far the most interesting ground campaign of the PTO (from an operational perspective), and it's conversion to OCS is remarkably smooth, with a fairly modest set of game-specific rules.

Unlike some other OCS games, Burma has an excellent range of scenarios, from a couple very short scenarios (1-2 hrs) through to a good selection of longer (6hr) scenarios and on up to 3 monster campaign games (30-60 hrs).

Winner of the 1999 Charles S. Roberts award for best WW2 boardgame.

Originally published by The Gamers in 1999, this title was reprinted by Multiman Publishing in 2008.

Microbadge for The Gamer's Operational Combat Series

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