J.U.M.P. After Action Wrap-Up

Well, as promised, here is the post game review of the new Evil Polish
Brothers game J.U.M.P.:Into the Unknown.

We started the game at about 4:30pm. We had a full house, 4 players. Overall,
we were pleased with the mechanics. It took a few turns to get a handle on the
routine.

The diplomacy rules result in some interesting situations. Red player had a
run of bad luck and found nothing but hostiles to fight with. The four players
basically paired off Silver(me) vs. Blue on one side and Red vs.

Green on the other. When a player explores a new planet, the player to his
right rolls dice to generate that planets political leanings (lawful,savage or
selfish), production and tech level. The political part determines how easy it
will be for an empire to convince it to ally up (if the planet's

alignment matches the empires, its easier) or get lost. The production level
determines how many build points the planet will generate if it becomes part
of an empire. The tech level determines the quality of the

units it will be able to produce. When a planet joins your empire, you get its
military added to your own. If it decides that it doesn't like you, you might
end up fighting its forces.

The combat mechanic is by all accounts pretty cool. First, players fire any
units they have that can do long-range bombardment.  They only get one
shot. Then, both sides have the option of launching fighters. The fighters
duke it out by themselves until one or both sides is destroyed. Then the REAL
combat begins with the remaining fleet units. The surviving fighters can
choose their targets, but any other hits are decided by the defending player.

By turn 5, most of the planets on the board had been allied or subjegated. I
had three fleets on blue's border and he seemed to be tied up in polishing off
the last of a neutral's military. I jumped at the chance to "liberate" one of
his border worlds. The resulting combat was disastrous. His fighters killed
off 5 of mine for every 1 of his I shot down. Then, I realized that I had
failed to recall that he had built several orbital forts and had moved 2
rather large fleets in to counter mine. I lost 2 fleets and was forced to go
on the defensive. The next turn, I withrew my remaining forces to my most
valuable border world and dug in. He grabbed one of my lesser border worlds,
and prepared for an assault on my homeworld by blocking my fleet from
reinforcing it. The following turn, I built 10 surface forts on the homeworld
and I took a big chance and sent 3 fleets

through a black hole in the hopes that they would make it home in time to
mount a last-ditch defence.  It would have worked but I rolled two sixes
and
a five-- resulting in the loss of two large fleets and the decimation of
the third. Blue player wasted no time in polishing off the remaining fleet and
landing several star grunts and armored assault vehicles and cruching my

homeworld. Oh well, another thousand years of tyranny and oppression.

I must admit, the game was a great deal more fun than I expected. The
diplomacy rules and the fog of war provided by the fleet counters gave the
game a real tension that is missing in many games of this genre. The
"king-maker" problem and the "gang-up on the leader" issue (the downfall
of
many games of this type-IMHO) never really surfaced.  I believe that the

secrecy in the system make it difficult to determine who IS the leader and it
makes it hard for players to ally with one another because the disposition of
fleets is not readily apparent by looking at the board. The playing time on
the box is listed at 30mins to 2 hours. Our game wrapped up at 9:30pm making
it a total playing time of 5 hours. And we really didn't technically FINISH
the game. The red player and I were basicaly out of it and the other two
decided that the galaxy was big enough for the two of them. However, this was
our FIRST game and an allowance must be made for that.

I fully expect to play J.U.M.P. again soon. Overall a very enjoyable night of
gaming.

K.P.R.

Sounds similar in a few of its ideas to one of the FT campaigns I am in at the
moment. Any idea where it's available from in the UK?

I don't know -- oftentimes that IS how a protracted conflict ends up!

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