"Review of "Achtung Gringo" Mexican Revolution rules" Topic

I recently purchased the above rules set and, while I say up front I have not had a chance yet to play the rules, I figure I can at least give those few folks interested in this niche historic event an overview of the rulebook.

It comes in a nice booklet form, shiny pages, good sized print for those whose eyes might not be the best, some pics of figures within (all in black and white)plus a sturdy Reference Sheet (two sided) with all you should need on it to play the game and set the book aside except for consulting when you have questions. Oh and two more sturdy sheets of Events Cards you need to cut up to make your deck.

Onto the rules themselves:

You can use any size figs, their figures are 20mm and single mounted but they say you can use multifigure stands and it shouldn't affect anything. The game uses two kinds of dice: D10s and D6s.

They give you suggested unit organizations which given their morale rules you may want to stick pretty close to I am guessing. Quality levels range from Veteran to Raw. It's a UgoIgo system though it does include Opportunity Fire.

There is Observation, suggested initial unit orders written down at least briefly (example: Federal battalion take that village). Movement are set not rolled for distances and units can double move. Weapon ranges include up to 24" for rifles to 72" for on board field guns. You can on occasion have offboard artillery for long range barrages, not sure that is gonna happen much in the Revolution.

Small arms fire, your shooters count as points so you total up everybody firing in a unit then check modifiers and roll a D10 then go to the table for hits. One thing I winced at was there are like 20 some modifiers to go thru, something I personally am not excited about. Same with Close Quarters Combat (melee). Ah yes, and testing morale has 21 modifiers.

The rules try hard to cover a lot of the sort of stuff which the MexRev was known for, there are special rules for trains, dynamiteros, Yaquis, cavalry charges, and aircraft.
Then too it offers possibilities of the Germans landing troops to help the Mexicans had they accepted the Zimmerman Telegram offer for a what-if campaign. So the Germans have stormtroopers and even tanks. Myself I am not interested in that part but why not have it in there I guess.

In the back they have brief descriptions of the major factions of this complex wars and try to help you figure out troop numbers, quality, etc. Definitely helpful to newbies I believe.

Overall I think it's a well done rules set, it doesn't look hard to learn (except the modifiers), and may well give a fun game of the Revolution. I have my own set of rules our group uses but next time we play I will be sure to give this one a try. Who knows, we may change over to this set?

Hope this has been somewhat helpful! Viva Mexico!

Nice review, thanks, seems you wrote it specifically to answer my questions about the interesting Achtung Gringo Rules.

Thanks for the review, mgh.

As I feared it would be from reviews of previous CtK rulesets, AG is old fashioned and mechanically clunky, and therefore no improvement on CLA.

I'll stick with CLA I think, but I might still buy it for the army lists and to see if some of the concepts are transferrable.

I do find it annoying that no one in the hobby seems able to approach the Mexican Revolution on its own terms, though; it's always overshadowed by the peripheral US interventions or European hypotheticals.

I suppose this has at least got the ball rolling, and might encourage others to produce a state-of-the-art dedicated Mex Rev rule set.

I just reread this thread.

Regarding those off-board artillery barrages mgh, I suspect they're there to allow for the numerous occasions when, during battles over ports, the federales were supported by fire from gunboats.