Review – The Mighty Endeavor

The Campaign in France

The Mighty Endeavor covers he campaign in France and Rhineland from the D-Day invasion to the collapse of German resistance in April 1945. It is at a division level with each turn covering a two week period

The Standard Combat System (SCS ) hallmarks are force reduction and a simpler supply and combat rules than is found in other series from the Gamers.

Components:
The unmounted map covers most of France, the Low countries and the Rhineland. Exceptions are Brittany, with unplayable terrain for Italy and Baden across the Rhine. The reasons for the map exceptions are covered in the designer notes.
The counters represent divisions with an attack, defense strength and movement. They are double sided - representing full and reduced strength units. The Allies are Green/Blue and Tan. The Germans wore grey (sounds like a line from Casablanca).

Gameplay:
Each players turn consist of standard Move, fight, mechanized movement sequence.
Turns can also include allied naval invasion (6 are allowed during the game) and airdrops (12 are allowed).

Coastal hexes are marked with number 0-3 which represent the number of troops the allies can bring in during the invasion turns. The value looks to be a factor of the quality of the beach and the amount of German defenses. Surprisingly the Pas-de-Calais looks to be bad for invasion regardless of the number of German troops. Invasions are resolved based on the terrain on the beachhead, the German defenders don't matter as long, As long as the allied assault divisions survive and the Germans retreat the allies come ashore. A bit odd but the rational is explained in the designer notes.

Supply is determined at the end of your turn. If out of supply future movement and combat is halved. As a special rule until they retreat to Germany, the German units disintegrate if out of supply for 2 turns. The German units can't trace supply through allied zone of control, while the allies can. Allied supply originates at ports and beachheads with a limited number of truck units to extend the supply lines.
Air combat/support is abstracted where the Allies get between 2 and 8 aircraft missions which they can use to dominate an area which restricts German movement, or to provide combat shifts on attack or defense.

Comments:

The net result of the supply rules is the Germans must keep a continuous line and the Allies can leverage them out of strong points. Much of the early game revolves around the Allies trying to cut off German units and the Germans doing a fighting withdrawal to preserve as much force as possible. As the Allies get to Germany the terrain is more difficult and it is more difficult to punch the hole in the German lines Also due to the limited number of ports available the allies very limited on the number of attacks they can perform in a turn.

The extra invasion possibilities and locations allow you for alternative strategy and provides the capability of an end run as was used in Italy to bypass strong German defenses, it at least gives the German player a pause he cannot strip his coastal defenses until several turns into the game.

The game is long - to win the allies have to capture most (if not all of the map). However, since the game does go to April '45 that was happened. While there are some shorter scenarios starting in September, it would have been nice to have a landing/breakout scenario as well.

All in all The Mighty Endeavor plays very well and looks to be one of the better SCS games developed.