(NOTE: The comments on my first draught prompted me to rewrite and resubmit this as a separate item)

Larry and I only played the first scenario (and actually flubbed it a bit by forgetting a Savyet unit). He read the rules and walked me through it. Here are my initial remarks and impressions.

Components

The counters are thick, precut with rounded corners and easy to read



and the five geomorphic maps are hard-mounted.



There is a severely mispaginated colourful folio (I hesitate to say book) of rules and another for the scenarios. I have written to Academy Games to send me a new one and Uwe has made me an offer I can't refuse.

Mechanics

The scenarios are designed to be played by 2 and sometimes 4 players. The game is fairly easy to play solitaire.

Scenario 1 moved along quickly (with six counters to a side it bloody well should ). All scenarios consist of five turns (at least in this game, don't know about others in the pipeline) and each unit is activated individually (or as part of a group) following an initiative (goes first) roll. Combat is fairly simple, and the combat system does not rely on a CRT. A hit is counted when a modified die roll equals or exceeds a modified defense number and a random draw of a hit counter modifies all, some or none of a unit's abilities. In this game, there is quite a range of damage possibilities on units, which is a fairly novel idea. However I note, perhaps to reflect the effect of Hitler and Stalin orders, that retreat is not available as a result of combat



For example, a unit fires at another. It is firing with a basic value of 3. The defender has a flank value of 10, plus 2 points for terrain. The attacker uses up CAPs to increase his fire value from 3 to 5. If he rolls a 6 or less, he fails to match or surpass the 12. If he rolls a 7 or more, the unit is damaged, and the player draws a hit counter. If the attacker fires again and hits, the unit is destroyed (second hit is ELIM), no matter how serious or trivial the first result was. One disadvantage to this system is that there are limits to the number of times a type of hit can occur whereas in "real life" (tm applied for) twenty units along the front can all suffer the exact same result, just as easily as not.

That being said, the drawn hit counter can do many things, such as increase the defense factor (cowering) or cancel ALL abilities, or reduce one or some by 1 or 2 or whatever, making the use of these abilities more costly. Units have a rally cost which must be satisfied before they can be brought back to full strength. Units are always able to return to full strength unless they are destroyed. Units which have acted using APs are flipped to their used side (marked with a stripe). They can still perform actions when using cards or CAPs. At the end of the turn (when both players pass), all counters are flipped to their unused side but damage counters remain. This is the easier aspect of the game.

A mechanism common to many tactical games (ASL, Combat Commander, et alia) is Line of Sight (LOS). To facilitate establishing whether LOS exists in CoH, each map hex has a *very* small circle in the exact centre (I hadn't noticed them upon first examination). As a tool, we used a retractable badge holder I bought from L2 Design and which gave us a perfect straight line. Here is a picture, in case some of you don't know what they are.

http://www.lanyardsupply.com/ly1/durable-steel-wire-retracta...

Activation of units

I found CAPs a bit difficult to comprehend at first and to be honest, I'm still not sure I fully understand them (some reading necessary here). APs are individual unit action points, each unit has 7 (at least in scenario 1). Almost everything you do (move, fire, change facing) costs APs. CAPs are points which all units can use and they can be used to make units with no APs take actions but at a prohibitive cost sometimes, or to modify firepower, etc.

Overall

Scenario 1 does not call for cards so I can't say how that goes, but I will bring it to our next regular club function in two weeks.

I liked it, but I need to play it a few more times before I can decide if it is going to be a star in my collection, or just another box gathering dust. One thing they claim that was not accurate in our experience is the line about teaching it in five minutes. You might be able to do that if: a. you have played umpteen games, b. you write your text, time it and rehearse for weeks in front of a mirror to avoid untimely pauses and stammering, AND c. you do it all in one single breath (because breathing will slow you down).

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Comparisons re tactical wargaming:

There are aspects of others games in this one, being mostly ASL, Up Front and Combat Commander.

1. Rally is not automatic but requires the expense of a type of resource (card, points) as opposed to a die roll against an officer's value.

2. Additional units only add 1 to the combat value of the principal unit (as in Combat Commander).

3. You can create firegroups (as in ASL and Combat Commander).

Contrary to current tactical games (ASL, Up Front, Panzergrenadier, Combat Commander), there are no officer counters in this one, so no one to modify the rally roll (unless cards do so...I haven't looked there yet).

Also this game has vehicles which Combat Commander does not have (and will never have).

Last edited on 2008-09-23 07:14:09 CST (Total Number of Edits: 4)