"OPERATION OVERLORD", OVERVIEW.
3W was a company more well known for wargames such as 'Light Division', but shortly before its demise in the early 1990's it obtained a license to produce adventures for three of GDWs role playing lines, 'Twilight: 2000’, 'Space: 1889’ & '2300AD'.
"Operation Overlord", was the adventure for 2300AD, it was written by Claire W Hess, a regular contributor to GDWs house magazine 'Challenge'.
In this adventure, set after the events of the "Invasion" campaign book, the players are part of the 7th Marine Interface Brigade, assigned to recapture the planet Dunkelheim from the Kafers.
Following a contested assault landing the players squad must penetrate the planets spaceport, now the main Kafer stronghold, and take out the defenses to allow reinforcements to land.
"OPERATION OVERLORD", COMMENTS.
Upon initial inspection the cover of the book is almost indistinguishable from that of its GDW cousins, aside that is from the 3W logo and the impressive cover picture by SF/Astronomy artist Don Dixon.
Indeed this cover, which shows an American scouting party near the Kafer fortress, is so good it raises the question of why GDW didn't ask Don Dixon to do the covers for their books.
Two artists, Malcolm Hee and Columbia Games regular, Eric Hotz, supplied the interior artwork. The interior artwork is unsigned, but I think Eric Hotz is responsible for the picture of the two marines on the index page, while Malcolm Hee provided the 'anime' style artwork that makes up the bulk of the interior artwork.
Good use is made of sidebars to cover NPCs/vehicles, leaving the main text free to describe the adventure. One very good feature of this book is that all information needed to run the adventure can be found within the pages of the book, which means that the GM only needs this book and the '2300AD' main rules to play.
Following the adventure are two appendices, the first provides a 'snapshot' of the Human/Kafer war, two years after the events of 'Invasion', and the second contains advice on how to create Marine characters.
"OPERATION OVERLORD", VERDICT.
Despite its problems, "Operation Overlord" is along with "Ranger" and "Mission Arcturus" one of the best adventures published for '23OOAD'.
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