From: Stig Olsen <"Stig Pilgaard.OLSEN"@SDT.CEC.BE>
Subject:      Vae Victis ? 9

I picked up Vae Victis # 9 at my local supermarket yesterday (yep, you
arrogant Yanks, that's how we buy war games here in Yurrup! :-)) and here is
a brief look at the contents:

This issue features "Champs de Bataille - Soissons 486 et Poitiers 732", so
you actually get two games, both about decisive battles in early French
history. The first covers a battle between the Franks and the Gallo-Romans;
the second the battle between the Franks and the Arabs in 732 which halted a
Moslem conquest of Western Europe. Not much is actually known about either
battle, though. The rules are generic and stated to make it possible "to
fight all battles from Antiquity to the Middle Ages and recreate the armies
of this vast period", so there'll probably be more games using this system in
the future.

The map is nothing special, basically a green field with a couple of rough
areas, but the counters are very pretty as usual. You get 384 of them,
including of course infantry, cavalry and leaders, but also elephants and
camels. They are unmounted, and this time without a reverse side which makes
for easier mounting (as an aside, I REALLY dislike unmounted counters, and in
general I simply avoid buying games where I have to fiddle with cardboard and
glue before I get to play. Unmounted counters are an abomination unto God!).
As for the rules, I can't really say, as I haven't read them yet, but they
are based on a set of miniature rules called DBM (sorry if I sound uninformed
here; my knowledge of miniatures is very limited), so some of you will
probably have an idea about how it plays.

There is also an ASL scenario in this issue (Rjev, USSR, September 15 1942),
an article about the American military strategy in Vietnam and all the usual
reviews and miniatures stuff, including a reference to a new e-zine about
1/72 miniatures:

        http://www.inpetho.net/miniatures/english/html

...and I can't help mentioning that there is now a club in San Marino! I bet
half of you guys can't find it on a map (gee, I AM offensive today, even
though the weather here in Brussels is fairly cool!).

Stig