Tide of Iron (ToI) and Conflict of Heroes (CoH) both have good components and are easy to learn. I have both games and I thought they are both great games to buy. I bought ToI this year and like the components but I was a little bit of disappointed with the playing time. I bought the CoH in Oct because of the faster playing time.

Here is just my personal opinion.

First of all, I thought it is better to provide new war gamers some comparisons between these two games, since I am also a new war gamers.

Mechanics:
ToI: Movement points and Rolling 1-14 dice
CoH: Action and Command action points and Rolling 2 dice
Component: ToI 216 unit miniatures, CoH 96 units counters
Card: ToI 110, CoH 56
Map board: ToI 12 boards, CoH 5 boards
Rule book pages: ToI 48, CoH 12
Setup time: ToI 30 mins, CoH 5 mins
Battle time: ToI 1 to 4 hours, CoH 1/2 to 2 hours
Official Scenarios: ToI 11, CoH 12
Scenario Balance: CoH is better (personal suggestion)

Secondly, my suggestion for learning experience is that ToI is easier to learn, but the rule book is a mess. If you are a new war gamer like me, you probably need some time to figure it out. On the coutrary, CoH is hard to learn at first because of the special action points system. But the rule book is wonderful and you can progress your battles step by step.

Thirdly, the merits for ToI are the wonderful miniatures and sturdy mounted board which can produce a lot of maps and there is a scenario editor on line for you to design your own battles. However, the balance of the scenarios is the main issue right now. But FFG still strives to produce better scenarios and there two more expensions of this game in the future. Maybe the balance of scenario will not be a bit problem at all.

Fouthly, the main drawback for ToI is the long setup and playing time. You need to reset your miniatures in the base and it cost you at least 30 minutes to finish it. The other drawbacks for ToI is that you need to roll a lot of dice and keep check the reference chart for make sure the movement points, range and firepower if you are not familiar with this game.

To sum up, according to my experience, you can learn ToI faster than CoH in the beginning but spend more time in setup and battles in the future. So the answer is if you like miniatures and light to moderate war game without caring the time, choose ToI. If you consider the playing time and moderate complexitiy war game within 1-2 hours, choose CoH.