Wednesday, November 16, 2022

Storm Over Normandy - a solo play

As mate unavailable again this week for usual game, I set up a quick solo board wargame as its been awhile since I have 'fondled' any cardboard warriors.

On a whim I decided to give an outing to Storm Over Normandy a low complexity quick playing 'magazine' game that I always remember I enjoyed playing.

And so it transpired again as with its short rules and low unit count this is an easy game to set up and play.

The 'action' cards included in game are a tad difficult to solo but nonetheless this was an excellent game to revisit.

Tough old task for the Allies as they must better their historical progress in the 8 turns allowed (first 8 days of campaign).

My D-Day landings were ok with only Utah being less than stellar, but US airborne suffered in the Cotentin and overall US performance was sluggish (maybe my card play favoured the Brits a tad)

British were slow getting to Caen but had some good dice rolls and card combos allowing them to invest the 2 city VP locations by turn 6 after surviving a scare around Sword beach from SS units.

But they failed to get to the German reinforcement zones by end of game which hurt their VP tally and so a German win.

Great wee game this no idea if balanced but it sure is fun.










 


4 comments:

  1. Neat looking game! I recently had MMP’s Raphia out on the table for a little solo action. Good fun!

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    1. Its a fun game. Some of the cards can be brutal (like Bocage for Germans or Allied Airpower) but add nice chrome

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  2. This tempts me to pull my copy down, which is still unpunched. My friend has played it solo and I seem to recall that he thought the opening turn (landings) played a little awkwardly, I can’t remember why, but I do like the ‘Storm Over’ series, so I should at least try it. I recall this title languished forever on MMP’s P500, even after they combined it with another ‘Storm over’ title, looks like the magazine rescued a great little game. The recent OPs number 10 Blitzkrieg to Moscow2 is worth a look ……. It is my Christmas box!

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    1. Not sure I would call it awkward as there are only a few phases to go through (Strongpoint placement, Bombardment, Invasion) but all quick to resolve. A quirk is that strongpoints are rated 1 hit, 2 hit or 3 hit and allocated randomly (3 per beach) so you can potentially have very strong or very weak areas (mine were fairly evenly spread) but obviously differs each replay. Only the US Paras roll for 'dispersal' (ie become Spent) and mine suffered. Like all such lite games repeated plays or live play would reveal issues I am sure. The cards are an exciting addition (my 88s thwart your airpower, here come the nebelwerfers etc) but can see how they might be perceived to 'unbalance' an impulse if one dislikes that sort of thing.

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