• James Shelter

Last night I came home late after a midnight session in a roomful of data archivists. The topic was alcohol and dirty jokes. Well, I got home later than I should of and there, on the kitchen table, was the latest edition of Critical Hit (v.5:no.1). If this short review is a little rough around the edges well, so am I.

This issue of Critical Hit weighs in at 50 pages. The focus of the issue is river crossings with an article by Chris Maloney entitled "Row well and live". Two new scenarios feature river crossings: 'CH91 Long Minutes' and 'CH94 The Ulla Crossing'.. Speaking of rivers, last night began on the Connecticut River on the good ship "Camelot" with the data archivists. Hmmm...

The first featured article is "Preparing for battle" by Dan LePore. Dan is billed as CH's "Canadian Army soldier" and gives a soldier's spin on tactics and ASL. You know, Canadians tell some great dirty jokes. The ones I heard last night were delivered by Canada's "Data Liberation Army". Hmmm... again.

Michael Klautky returns in this issue with 'Kampfschweine', a new scenario with designer's notes. 'Kampfschweine' is a late war German/Russian combined arms slugfest. By the way, my mother (a native erliner) used to use the term "Drekschweine" a lot, and assured me it was reserved for the lowest of the low. That worm in the tequila bottle last night sure was laying low, but I digress.

Also included in this edition is an updated Winter War battle for Platoon Leader, 'Frozen Hell' by Jim Torkelson. Platoon Leader version 2.12 is enclosed as well. By the way, the vodka circulating last night was the courtesy of the Nordic contingent (Danes and Norwegians) who also provided some great filthy jokes. I just can't seem to remember any of them right now.

There are some other goodies as well in this issue, like a new SASL mission for the DTW map, articles, book reviews, etc. Personally, I like what I see in this edition so far, and at first glance I see ony ASL content. Other than that, well, I'll look at it some more later.