Below is the second in a series of articles about the “Dark” System from Ted Raicer. Part one can be found here. Enjoy! -Rachel

As previously noted, the heart of my “Dark” designs is found in the chit-pull activation system. This involves not just the chit-pull mechanism, but also the changing mix of activation chits available to each side. Rather as with multiple-use cards in a CDG, the chits become a method not just of randomizing the turn sequence, but introducing variable factors (weather, logistics, generalship, intelligence, other theaters etc. ) with a single mechanism, greatly reducing rules overhead.

In terms of game series, let’s define adaptation as rules changes made to fit a particular historical circumstance, and evolution as changes with implications for future games in the series. The changes in the chit-pull system between The Dark Valley and The Dark Sands, mandated by the differences between the Russian Front and the North Africa in WWII, were more about adaptation than evolution. To a large extent that is true for The Dark Summer: Normandy 1944 as well: Normandy was not the Western Desert, even if Monty and Rommel were facing off again once more.  But in this third game in The Dark series, I’ve made a couple of evolutionary changes with potential consequences for future titles in the series. So let’s dive into The Dark Summer activation chits, and see what’s what.

In TDV and The Dark Sands, the number of chits available each turn was set. In TDV the German war machine, increasingly pressed on multiple fronts and increasingly pushed beyond its limits, gradually devolves over the four years of the campaign, while also affected by the climate in the Soviet Union (winter bad, summer better). The Soviets meanwhile gradually gain not only in experience but in arms and supplies (those lend-lease trucks a vital component of the Deep Battle chits later in the war). In The Dark Sands the changing priorities of the North African theater are built into the chit mix. In The Dark Summer, in contrast, the exact chit mix each turn may vary as a result of a single factor: the weather.

Why the change? Given the greater length of the turns and the much greater geographic areas of the campaigns, weather in the two previous Dark games was more accurately thought of as climate. At the scale of those designs, it was reasonable to view weather as something that could be predictably factored in (winter cold in Russia, fall and spring muddy). In Normandy 1944, climate becomes weather: you know summer along the Channel in France will be sunny some days, cloudy others, and sometimes downright stormy, but the exact mix is unknown. So in The Dark Summer you first pull a Weather chit to determine that turn’s Activation chits.

Weather determines the chit mix here because weather was a dominant element of the Normandy campaign. It was dominant because of Allied air supremacy, something that only nature and not the Luftwaffe could counter, and because of the Allied need to keep men and supplies flowing across the Channel, something that heavy storms could render very difficult. So before you know what your capabilities are for the turn, you have to see what the skies have to say.

Why Weather chits, and not a die roll? Given how important rain or shine is to the game, the use of chits allowed me to keep the variable weather effects within certain bounds. It isn’t going to rain ALL summer, nor are the clouds going to gather every day. In effect, climate returns to keep weather within credible limits, and also keep the game from being decided by something neither player can control.

Depending on the Weather the Allies will get a mix of Move Rounds and Combat Rounds for the British, and Move or Combat chits for the Americans. (Why the difference, which clearly favors the Americans over the Commonwealth? More on that later.) The Germans get a mix of Movement or Combat chits and Reaction chits. And with German Reaction we come to the second evolutionary element in the design.

In The Dark Valley, with some exceptions (Initiative, Stavka, Manstein/Model) the chit sequence is entirely random. What you pull is what you get. In The Dark Sands I was forced to limit this randomness because the limited forces involved were too brittle to allow luck alone to determine the order of activation: if one side drew all its chits in a row, the other side might not survive to respond. But while that was a necessary change for North Africa, it wasn’t one I was entirely happy with. More randomness is more Fog of War and Friction after all.

Normandy 1944 was not a four-year campaign with multiple army groups over a vast area, but as Allied and German reinforcements streamed in, the forces in The Dark Summer became considerably larger (and less easily cracked) than the armies of the Western Desert. So I could indulge my taste for random chit draw, up to a point. The first exception needed was the actual D-Day Invasion, which takes up the initial part of Turn 1 (each turn in The Dark Summer is a quarter-month). I needed a set order of events there to show the effects of Allied planning and the initially sluggish German reaction. (I did add a different kind of variability to D-Day by introducing unknown strength units for German strong-points and Ost battalions, taking my cue from Mark Simonitch’s excellent Holland ’44.)

The second exception led to the German Reaction chits. Without them, especially in Fair weather, an improbably lucky of run of Allied chit draws, which is bound to happen sometimes, could leave the German line torn beyond repair far earlier than was historically likely. Although, given the congested terrain in Normandy, the Germans didn’t need to move everything to limit an Allied breakthrough to something less than fatal. So depending on the weather the Germans get one to four Reaction chits, which he can use, one each, at the end of any Allied activation, to move either one stack or one formation (basically one division). In addition, German mechanized forces have a limited attack ability at the end of Reaction movement.  By carefully choosing when and where to use his Reaction chits, the German player can limit Allied gains, at least until attrition has stripped him of mechanized reserves. This is a twist in the Dark chit-pull system that I expect to see used again: design evolution in action.

One other twist in the Activation Chits: the Allied player may treat one British and one US Move or Combat Activation as a combined Move/Combat Round instead. In a Move/Combat Activation the Allied units are limited to moving one hex (two on roads) and suffer an attack penalty (a one-Left shift on the CRT) but this prevents the Germans from running out the clock in what is only a ten-turn game by constantly backing up a hex or two.

What about the question I raised earlier? Why does the chit mix give the US more operational flexibility than the Brits? Well, the reason is…oh, we’ve run out time? Then to be continued…

Articles in this Series: Part One  Part Two  Part Three

Author: Ted Raicer