Against the Odds magazine provides a view of military history from different perspectives. Each issue contains articles from game designers and other historical writers that take a broad view of the events surrounding historical battles. Each magazine also includes a professional printed full game.

Two years after the last US troops left Vietnam, People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) General Van Tien Dung launched Operation 275, a limited offensive designed to set up an attack on the provincial capital of Pleiko. Rapid collapse of South Vietnamese (ARVN) forces caused a change in plan, with PAVN forces quickly taking one city after another, pausing only before an attack on Saigon itself. Based on previous performance, when three full PAVN divisions, supported by tanks and ample artillery, attacked one depleted ARVN division at Xuan Loc, Dung expected a cake walk. What he got was a Meatgrinder instead.

For two bloody weeks, a division regarded as unreliable held back everything the PAVN could throw against them, inflicting heavy losses. No one, on either side, expected such heavy fighting. And hardly anyone thought that this would actually be the last battle of a 30 year conflict. It was.

Now, Against the Odds lets you refight this key moment in history, with Meatgrinder: Battle for Xuan Loc, 1975. The design uses a variable initiative system that keeps both sides uncertain, and features all the weapon systems that made this battle, and this period, so distinctive. The ARVN player employs cluster bombs, daisy cutters, M-48 tanks, and helicopters against seemingly overwhelming numbers of PAVN troops, artillery, and T-54 tanks. Leadership, close assaults, and airborne operations are also included...all the tools for attack and defense that made this a classic confrontation.