We played a few games on Tuesday night, and I’ll provide the highlights of games One & Two here. I’ll try to keep rules explanations to a minimum – the rules are online if you don’t own the game yet, and I’m sure someone will review them in excruciating detail sometime soon.
SET-UP
Needless to say, we were excited. I enjoy lots of bits with my games – they tend to provide me with the happy illusion that it’s worth spending that much money on toys. “But look, honey – you get so much stuff in it!”
I didn’t feel that TOI has quite as many bits in it as the other FFG “big box” games do. TI3 had more stuff, and WOW had to be the emperor of chrome – but then, a lot of WOW’s bits were annoyingly extraneous. It’s better to get the right amount of useful pieces, I think, than tons of needless fluff and fill. The majority of the physical weight of the game has to be in the boards, which, well, you’ll understand when you open your copy. You’ll grin like the happy kid that you know you are. Quality of cards, counters, etc, is as you’d expect – games are mostly all of such high quality these days that a discussion of components is really only warranted if they’re noticeably sub-standard. So, ticking that box and moving on. The infantry figures are nice, if a little blandly generic. The vehicles are great. They’re chunky, solid, altogether satisfying little pieces of plastic.
TOI is a scenario-driven game, with fixed terrain and units for each scenario. We played scenario 1 twice before moving on to scenario 2. (Both of these scenarios use 9 of the 12 total double-sided boards.)
Setup is kinda lengthy. Arranging the boards and tiles is okay, but the assembling of units may test the patience of some. For those who don’t now, you can customize your own squads thusly: each base has four slots. Single infantry, officers and elite infantry all take up one slot, while MGs/mortars take up two. You can construct your squads any way you choose, using the figures provided by the scenario. For our first game, we did what seemed logical, splitting the MGs up over different squads, keeping the elites together, adding officers to regular squads, etc. I’m sure there are many other tactical possibilities, but our initial force deployment seemed to work fine, and it stayed pretty much the same over all the games we played.
There are also specialist tokens that can be added to squads by sticking them onto a little plastic hook on the back of the base. Specialisations are: medics (increased protection against offensive fire, chance of regenerating dead men), engineers (can dig trenches and destroy razor wire), flamethrowers (super deadly at close range and neutralise most types of enemy cover bonuses), and anti-tank (gives infantry a chance against armor).
And so…. by the time we’d been through all of this setup, we must have been at it for an hour. Some of that is because of the learning curve and constant rules cross-referencing to make sure that the choices we were making weren’t either illegal or stupid, but this game does have a heavy front end.
And it’s here that I’m gonna digress for a little rant:
The whole concept of adding and removing figures from the bases, and interchanging weapon teams/officers/elite troops is such a wonderful thing in concept, and was one of the things I really loved from the first time I read about it on the official web site, but at this point I’ve gotta express my doubts about the practicality of it. There’s just a little too much fidgeting for my liking – and I’m a person who doesn’t mind a good fidget. I’m also extremely careful with all of my toys, and I have very delicate girlie digits, but I still despair for the longevity of the pieces. I predict with great confidence that at some point in the near future I’m going to be beating one of my friends to death with a tire iron because they snapped the feet off of one of my GI’s. I think there’s a delicate tension between the thrill of customization, and the inevitable frustration that comes with things that are too fiddly; I’m not sure which side’s gonna win out in regards to TOI. I think I’ll be able to deliver the final verdict on that when the novelty has worn off.
Rant over, and game one about to begin.
GAME ONE
We got off to a slow start, as you can imagine. My group is more likely to spend extra time in deliberation than jump right in and learn from trial and error. My best bud and I shared the US forces, which are deployed in defensive positions in Scenario 1. To win, we had to prevent the Germans from ending a turn with three units inside our defensive perimeter before turn eight. This suited us fine, as we’re both cautious, defensive players (read: boring).
The Germans seemed to have their work cut out for them in this one; our troops were all in cover, had more heavy weapons, as well as a continuous line of entrenchments and razor wire around our position. We also had access to medics and the reinforcement deck, which was a major factor, because we could replenish losses and buy new units, whereas the German player could not. Reinforcement deck rules!
(Pause for rules/mechanics: there are around 10 different decks of cards, each with a different theme; reinforcements, artillery, morale, air support, ground support, etc. The scenario book dictates which decks each side gets in each battle. You get a certain number of cards at the beginning, and receive a new random one from your deck each turn. Cards have various effects, some one-shot and others semi-permanent, which must be paid for with command points that you earn for holding certain objectives at turn’s end.)
So, we just dug in and started shooting. Mortars and MGs chewed up some German units before they really even got into range to return fire. It became very evident, very early in the game, that COVER IS IMPORTANT. I mean, duh, this is WWII squad-based combat, but we were all a little stunned by the ease at which units in the open just melted. The Germans took cover in a tree line that ran parallel to our entrenchments and began to return fire. Their shooting was initially not so effective, because they were advancing to take up positions and firing on the move (in TOI your unit’s movement is reduced by one hex and your overall firepower – that is, number of attack dice rolled – is halved when you move AND shoot in the same action).
The Germans regrouped under fire and tried to implement a pincer strategy. Unfortunately for them, the front wasn’t quite wide enough for it to be viable, and one of the US flanks is kind of denied by sheer virtue of the board edge. On our left flank we had a clear fire zone of two to three hexes, and the Germans were just too afraid to try crossing it. We had zoned-in mortars pounding them along the tree line, and two MGs constantly raking back and forth, and the two units that did try to break cover (including an elite engineer unit) were both wiped out. The Panzer IV wasted a bit of time moving between flanks, and the German player seemed a little afraid to expose it to fire by moving to a better firing position. You know how it is – you often value your best unit so much that you only tentatively commit it. Of course, he didn’t make the same mistake twice, as you’re about to see.
By the time he gave up the assault on the right flank, having sustained heavy casualties whilst trying to destroy the razor wire protecting my entrenchments, it was all but over. Turn 7 began, and it was clear that there wasn’t enough time for him to get three units into my lines by the end of turn 8. We called it (all of us believe that throwing men into a meat grinder as a last ditch effort is totally dishonorable), and decided to play the same scenario again straight away.
GAME TWO
There were a few things we didn’t really understand the value of in the first game. For example: suppressive fire. It just didn’t seem all that effective, and actually concentrating fire to kill men seemed to be the best strategy. Pinned units recovered automatically at the end of the turn, and officers sped up the recovery process just with their presence in the hex. To actually rout a unit with suppressive fire required doing just as many hits as it would take to eliminate them with good old-fashioned direct fire, and if you were reducing their numbers while doing so, then so much the better, right? Plus, the Germans had quite a lot of elite troops, and they provided even more bonuses towards resisting suppression. My co-commander was scratching his head and saying “why would you bother? We must be missing something.” Turns out we were. Big time. We also hadn’t been using op fire (overwatch) at all. And we also discovered that we were handling the strategy cards rules incorrectly. First time blues. Nobody likes to be a virgin.
So, with a much better idea of the rules and mechanics, we started up again.
The Germans, damn their black hides, didn’t conveniently line up and let us shoot them down in the open this time. They presented basically no targets for us for the first two turns as they maneuvered for position. It looked like they were going to try a similar two-pronged assault to the previous game, but this time with much better timing and organisation. We hunkered down and waited.
Something cunning that the German player did over these two turns, and we stupidly never really cottoned on to what he was planning, was to build up a massive initiative superiority.
(Pause again for rules/mechanics: those “command points” that you earn every turn, the ones you use to buy/activate strategy cards, can also be put into an “initiative pool”. They stay there permanently. Whoever has the most tokens in their initiative pool gets to go first each turn.)
None of us really paid much attention to this in the first game, and in game two we Americans again ignored it, being too busy building up an arsenal of – in hindsight, largely unhelpful – strategy cards. Before we realised what was happening, the German player had seven tokens in his initiative pool, and this ended up being integral to his strategy.
On turn three, the Germans had built a solid line across the entire front. Of course, we could see what was coming, and had set a few units on op fire in anticipation, including most of the MGs in our centre. We thought it was going to be like WWI trench warfare. Mass assault, machine guns mowing them down…. you can see it, right? But here’s where all of those little details I’d been missing before rose up and slapped me in the face. The Germans, with their lock on initiative, got to go first….
Spotters called in long range mortars on our MGs – suppressive fire. We had two MGs in one hex, covering a choke point, and mortars have area effect, which hits everything in the hex they’re targeting. This attack successfully removed their op fire tokens and pinned them (and in one case, caused a disruption). Then, German MG42s (which, incidentally, have better firepower ratings than American MG crews) opened up and pinned infantry units on either side of the pinned MG crews. That was just for starters.
We returned fire on the flanks, hoping to dissuade the Germans out wide from exposing themselves. I was very concerned for our right flank, which had only a one hex safety buffer between our lines and a thick wood. There were several German units massing at the tree line, including two engineers, and it wouldn’t take them much to breach the defenses and leapfrog a couple of squads right into our lines.
The Germans, acting again, convinced me that I was right, and poured heavy fire into this flank. For the next few turns, a fierce firefight ensued, but with both sides in cover casualties were low. We also shifted some of our centre reserves out of position, in order to reinforce the right flank. At this point, our left flank was held by really only two squads – a regular squad with an officer and a medic, and a mortar team.
Then the Panzer IV trundled out of the woods opposite our centre and put a round into our HQ building. Grinning, the German player pointed out a special rule that we’d never noticed – tanks have “concussive firepower”, which in the Panzer IV’s case, boosts its firepower from 6 to 9 against targets in buildings. Boom. One squad of GIs plus officer reduced from four to one man in a single hit. My co-commander may have actually urinated down his trouser leg at this point. To make it worse, a squad of Wehrmacht troopers then killed the sole remaining officer where he stood.
Hmm. Turn over. We bought reinforcements – two squads – and ignored the initiative pool. Probably shouldn’t have. But we figured that getting into an initiative arms race with the Germans was pointless – they were already six ahead. Oops.
Turn four. The Germans repeated the tactics of the previous turn. Three of our four MG teams ended up pinned or disrupted before we could do anything. Realising that suppressive fire was actually really really useful, we replied in kind, but the German centre was heavily stocked with elite troops who can shake off suppression like a duck shakes off water.
At this point we started to worry.
Those same elite troops who were dodging our bullets so effectively then broke cover en masse. And here they REALLY came into their own. On the move, they were still firing with the same dice as a static regular unit. So they moved straight towards our centre, pinning units as they came, engineers in their midst.
We continued to worry.
We had very little left in the centre that wasn’t pinned or disrupted or lying dead under the smoldering ruins of a building, so we opened up on the right flank again. They were still threatening there, and a brief exchange of fire from both sides of the wire left several men dead and a couple of units pinned. The German player used a strategy card that removed all pinned/disrupted tokens in one hex (it was from the morale deck – “Niiiice!”), and suddenly had two fresh squads sitting right across the wire from all of our fatigued GIs. We shifted the fresh reinforcements in that direction, but as they were firing on the move they had no effect. The Germans in turn disrupted another unit.
And just to rub salt into the wound, some long range shooting from Wehrmacht in the centre managed to push two separate MG crews from disrupted to routed – they were removed from the table!
We began to panic.
Turn five. German mortars silenced our machine guns. German MG42s pinned the centre of our line. German engineers sitting right outside the wire. Unwilling to retake CP, as Panzer IV sits just outside the dining room windows.
We refused to give up. Reserves moved to reinforce the centre and plug the gaps made by the dying MG crews. Troops on the right flank did okay, taking out an enemy squad and damaging another. We crossed fingers and prayed that we’d be able to hold on another three turns.
But then the Germans in the centre abruptly turned right and charged our weaker left flank. There was a one hex gap in the wire, and with the units we’d set to guard it lying dead in the ruins of the chateau, the Germans easily charged through. We hadn’t tried the close assault rules up until this point – hell, nobody had ever been close enough to the enemy to do so – and it was a huge gamble for the Germans. Of course, being elite troops versus our regulars, and with us suffering lessened firepower due to the fact that mortars can’t contribute to an assault, the combat went their way. The GIs retreated, the mortars were destroyed, and nothing stood between the Germans and our central CP.
Turn six and seven. Having now perfected their “infantry blitzkrieg” tactics, the Germans proceeded to roll us up. Going first, the mortars and MGs pinned everything they could, the regs plinked away at the pinned units and occasionally disrupted or routed, and the elite units continued their relentless advance, firing as they moved. The central CP fell on turn six, meaning we would score zero command points from then on. The Panzer rolled closer and pounded away at our green reinforcements at short range. The Germans on the right flank, deployed as a mere diversion (we realised way too late, alas), added insult to injury by eliminating another GI squad. On turn seven, it was all academic. The Germans already had two units behind our lines – in our CP, dammit! – and at least four others poised to move in and be the third required to win. A last minute rally by the sole surviving American officer, who led an assault on the enemy-held CP, was doomed to failure, and the SS troops inside not only repelled the assault but also managed to kill over 50% of the three full squads sent against them.
GAME OVER, MAN, GAME OVER
TOI got a big thumbs up from all involved. It was fun, exciting and satisfyingly detailed. We all loved the way the strategy decks worked, and it’s easy to see these decks as infinitely expandable (kind of like the expansion packs for Runebound). There’s some real tactical depth to the game too, particularly in terms of squad construction, command point expenditure, and fire-and-maneuver options.
Also worth mentioning is the fact that TOI is a true two player game (expandable, of course). This is especially welcome in my house, where everything we love seems to need at least three, but really plays better with five plus.
We did feel that the fiddliness of unit construction/hit allocation would maybe wear thin. In fact, towards the end of game two, when everything was tense and we were eager to resolve the next attack, we started just placing dice next to squads to indicate losses, instead of actually removing figures. And I reiterate my earlier comments about the inevitability of broken bits.
But still, it’s easy to be excited about the future of this game. As long as new scenarios keep coming, it’ll keep my interest.
We're going to play a lot more over the coming week, and if I think I have something more of value to say, I'll post a review with more detailed rules analyses, and with a discussion of the inevitable comparisons that will be made to Axis & Allies miniatures, Memoir 44, etc.
Thanks for reading, if you indeed got this far (or even if you skipped the middle bit and just landed here).
Signing off.
Last edited on 2007-05-28 09:56:15 CST (Total Number of Edits: 1)
Posted Wed May 16,2007 04:49 pm
