Very nice indeed it was too despite the lack of British in initial release (German, French and johnny come lately Yanks are featured).
Same essential card based system as original Combat Commander but with a number of additions, such as units (re-branded as Formations) are now Platoons rather than Squads, several new terrain types including, of course, shellholes, trenches, nasty gas barrages and such like.
Lots of new actions and orders including the ability of a leader to activate sub-ordinates within his command range which combined with a new order such as Offensive can generate a sort of human wave (but with shooting) very WW1 in feel.
Artillery is handled slightly differently with each side having a 'free' FAO (if combined with a Telephone) on map edge in addition to using leaders and these can be standing (fire markers remain) or creeping (markers move 1 hex) barrages and any terrain can be changed to Shellholes if attack total is 18+.
Also a new mini-deck of 9 Strategy Cards per side with some one off actions or fire supplementing.
One change I struggled to remember is that at the end of each players turn you check unit Cohesion and any units out of command (barring one or two exceptions) are marked as Suppressed.
Air power is included (a variation of the CC Pacfic system) being able to strafe or bomb along a hex row.
Tanks are also now 'proper' pieces with several specific rules.
The maps and counters are excellent with the maps being more colourful than standard CC types (French flair) but marginally less clear on occasion.
All in all an excellent game (by Hexasim) that I look forward to trying in anger.
for my money, those maps a re massive step forward and having proper armour rules is the icing on the cake.
ReplyDeleteHi Norm yes maps are lovely but little harder to differentiate some terrain for my auld eyes. Tanks are nice addition though we are not talking Tigers or Panthers here :-)
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