ME - Constructive Feedback.....I hope!

[Boisforas]

Boisforas here, adding my humble opinions to those of Steves. I see the same problems with ME in the Avalon Hill game Arab Israeli Wars: lopsided scenarios. To me this was due to lack of proper playtesting, not that the play testers were bad players as much that they were not as imaginative as the best player in the game. Case(or two) in point: Jason mentions bridge blowing in the Quagmire scenario as a way to channel the Israeli attacks away from the best routes forward, but the Israelis are supplied with bridge building units which, if used properly would negate the Egyptians bridge blowing. Indeed, when I started my assaults on the bridges & found their defenses very tough, I began looking for the best bridging sites. But by that time(7 turns in)I had eroded the Egyptian forces to as point where they could no longer defend the huge expanse of open terrain along the main river barrier. Another glitch myself & another opponent found early  playing ME was the ease in which Israeli Sherman tanks burned when going toe to toe with almost any Arab tank in the 50 & 60s(not to mention AMX 13s). Now this should force an Israeli player to be very discerning with his armor dispositions but there comes a time in every battle against an aggressive player where one has to be able to go toe to toe, or at least at a distance advantage which against Centurions, T-62s & even SU-100s that isn't there. Yet in reality, Israeli Shermans almost always beat up their Arab opponents(Egyptian, Syrian & Jordanian). I agree that the game system, the design lay out of the boards & the detailed OOBs are superb but the scenarios almost all need to be restructured as to VPs, objectives & in some cases, unit abilities up grade. I hope the above is taken in a good light as I really like playing ME as I think its a quantitative leap over AV's Arab Israeli Wars, I game I really like for its potential. I just don't like to swim the English channel in an iron lung. Eric