Test of Battle: Operation Market-Garden — Review
Command Decision, Test of Battle: Operation Market-Garden is a campaign book for Test of Battle Games’ Test of Battle WW2 miniature rules system. The book is a softcover 8 1/2″ x 11″ format. The cover is heavy cardstock in full color. Operation Market-Garden is 54 black and white pages long.
The product is designed for use with the Test of Battle rules but can be easily adapted for almost any WW2 battalion level system. Unlike earlier expansions, such as Stars and Stripes Forever, Market-Garden is a campaign book not an army book and includes a short, seven page, introduction to the historical Market-Garden campaign. The rest of the book is dedicated to the included ten battles (scenarios) that cover the actions of Market-Garden. At the end of the book is a complete set of vehicle and weapon data charts for all included forces (these are also available as PDFs on the ToB site). Lastly is a short bibliography on Operation Market-Garden.
For each included battle there is a historical description, a detailed map, force organization charts for the forces involved and various game and historical notes. The battles cover all of the major actions of the Market-Garden campaign from the opening attack to the end. The included battles are all on the large side with multiple battalions or even multiple regiments per side and usually assume five or more players (the one exception is ‘A Drop Too Far From The Bridge’ that is for 2-4 players). Most of the battles use the standard 6’x8′ table but ‘The Beginning of the End’ uses a 5’x10′ table.
Sprinkled throughout the book are some excellent photos of games in progress using 15mm figures. In some cases the photos have been altered to remove game stands to make them appear almost like photos of actual actions. These combined with the full-color photos on the front and back cover give some nice inspiration for terrain making and table setup.
If you are interested in Operation Market-Garden then this is almost a must get product. The included maps and forces can also be used to develop various smaller homemade scenarios as well, and thus the book is useful for anyone interested in Market-Garden using any miniature rules system. Hopefully we will see more campaign supplements from Test of Battle Games.
The View from the Turret 