| Game | Bitter Woods | Complexity | Medium |
| Company | Avalon Hill | Time | 3-6 |
| Setting | WWII | Solitaire | Medium |
| Type | Operational | Rating | 8 |
Bitter Woods is a mid-complexity wargame on the last great German offensive in Dec 1944, commonly known as the "Battle of the Bulge". The map depicts the area of operations, the Ardennes area at the borders of Germany, France, Belgium, and Luxemberg. Prominent features like roads, rivers and cities are depicted. A hexagonal grid is superimposed over the map to regulate game play. Each hexagon is 2 miles across, unit size is brigade and regiments. Each turn represents 12 hours of real time.
Game features include morale, prominent leaders, blitzkrieg tactics, German army boundaries, initial surprise, Allied air power and much more.
Game components include one 22 x 32" unmounted map, 320 counters including markers, 16-page rulebook.
The game was originally published by Avalon Hill. The second edition is published by Multi-Man Publishing.
When I first read about this title, I had the impression that this will be an updated version of Bulge '81. Boy, was I wrong! This game is totally different from the older game, and has nothing in common except the topic and unit scale. Suffice to say that the entire system was reworked to include things like troop quality that were ommitted in Bulge '81.
Despite the completely new game system, the component rules fall into place nicely, with little awkward quirks.
I was left wondering, however at the decision to use silhouettes instead of the normal NATO symbols for armoured. Of course, tank silhouettes definitely more cool, but they have little functional use. I would have thought that for normal armour units, the normal NATO symbols could be used, and teh silhouettes be used only for the heavy tank regiments that cannot cross rivers.
Another quibble. The map was printed on unmounted mapsheets, not unlike many of the later products from Avalon Hill. This game definitely deserves a mounted mapboard. Unfortunately this was not done. Whether the reason was because the game needed to be published before Avalon Hill was sold off to Hasbro, I'll never know. But this is the one major flaw in a masterpiece.
Despite all these, Bitter Woods is a wonderful game that deserves a place in any wargamer's cupboard.