Fury at the fury

In the past few sessions Eric and I have been playing Fury in the East (BGG entry), a one-map WWII East Front game from MMP that covers the first 9 months of the Barbarossa Campaign. This game was part of Operations Magazine Special Edition #3, their yearly special that features a complete game, sometimes more than just one, as well as lots of updates, corrections, and variants for existing games.

FitE is a reprinting of the Japanese game G-Barbarossa (BGG entry), with updated graphics. It's a fairly strait-forward, corps level, move-fight-panzer move, locking ZoCs, odds combat, column shifts for terrain/supply type of game. However, there are a few wrinkles:

• Only German panzer units move in the second movement phase
  
• German panzers may move out of a ZoC
  
• Units performing Rail or Strategic movement may move out of a ZoC, as long as at least one unit is left behind
  
• For Axis combat is optional; for Soviets it is mandatory; all enemy units exerting a ZoC must be attacked; all units in an enemy ZoC must perform an attack
  
• Soviet Leaders have hidden strengths, and must be revealed to provide leadership to Soviet units; some leaders have no capability, and are removed immediately to the pool; Leaders destroyed in combat are out of the game
  
• Soviet combat units have to be in range of a Leader, otherwise movement rates halved, negative column shift applies; panzers may ignore infantry ZoCs with no Leader
  
• Terrain effects only apply to the Soviets, in terms of plus/minus column shifts
  
• Axis units not only have to trace supply to a supply source, but also have to trace to one of three supply heads
  
• There are different CRTs for each side; the Soviets taking losses; the Axis having retreats, with option to take a step loss instead
  
• Weather is a single condition affecting the whole map; also controls how many Luftwaffe units are available
  
• Axis player gains VPs for controlling Soviet cities; capturing Moscow is an automatic Axis victory
  
• Axis player has Hitler mandated objectives in turns 2-7; not achieving these are -5VPs per objective
  

The major problem is the rules just totally SUCK. Without doubt, this is the worst set of rules I think I've seen for any game I've played. (I believe that the S&T game Frigate had worse rules, but I never played that one.) Terminology issues, major omissions all over the place. Now this is a magazine game, and perhaps there should be some allowance made, but the game is effectively unplayable with the rules that came with it. Did no-one even attempt to blind playtest this from the proposed rules? Even worse is that as a reprint from a previous game there are so many glaring omissions. Did no-one make a comparison to the original game rules?

On the plus side, the developer, Adam Starkweather, has been very active in supporting the game over on ConSimWorld, responding to questions very quickly. However, he does have a habit of shooting from the hip and making pronouncements without going back and looking carefully at the rules. Several times he's made rulings, and then had to reverse them in later posts. That gives no confidence in any of his responses. He's also said 'If not mentioned in the rules, that’s fine.' Trouble is, the rules miss out so many critical items that you can't take that attitude.

And all this is a damn shame, because FitE is a very decent game, and does a very good job of modeling, at a high level, the differences in the forces, and the nature of the Barbarossa offensive. The game flows easily, with options for both sides and plenty to think about. The initial Axis successes slowly grind to a halt in the face of mounting Soviet forces, and the switch in the player turn order nicely reflects the change in balance caused by the winter. I've been playing it quite a bit recently (solo, as well as with Eric) and I've had a blast doing so.

So, track down this gem, get all the errata and rulings from the ConSim World forum, which has been nicely collated into a single document here, get the beer and pretzels out and have a blast.

Next up is Galicia from GMT's Clash of Giants II (BGG entry). Due to a gaming weekend and scheduling issues, we've had to have a couple weeks off, but are due to get back to it next week.

Disappointment in the East

Mike and I gave Fury in the East another go. After the first aborted affair, we got our questions (mostly) answered, and gave the game a second shot. We fully expected our play to last at least a couple nights as reported play times had been in the 1 hour per turn range. 10 turns means likely three nights unless Moscow falls earlier.

The first night saw Mike with slightly less progress as our first game, but with slightly more kills. We got through three turns that first night (as opposed to two the first time we played) and things were feeling smoother. We still had a few niggling issues, but nothing major.

During the middle of turn five, we suddenly realized we'd completely forgotten about the Russian militia. (Did I mention they're completely missing from the rulebook?) It was impossible to backtrack at that point, and so we bagged it. It's likely Mike would have won, but it's impossible to say at that point, as the bad weather was just arriving.

Thoughts on gameplay, from the Russian perspective:

You have one job in the first three turns or so. Run. Make sure you know when you can leave negated EZOCs, and get out of dodge. Leave sacrificial lambs as speed bumps to slow the Germans down, and get as much out of there as you can. Particularly the leaders. It violates every instinct you have to do this, as you have this feeling you need to keep units around in force as much as you can to slow the Germans down, but you can't. You need those units much, much further East.

And herein lies the problem. You're very much at the whim of the random Leader draw during setup. In our second play, I didn't draw a single *-rated leader on the map. This meant every leader Mike was able to kill on the first turn (and it's a lot, there's no way around this) hurt. If you're lucky and get two or three *-rated leaders in that initial setup, you'll fare much better later on. The only way you can try to mitigate this is to plan your deployment with two things in mind: a ZOC net with weak troops to slow the German advance, and everything else placed with retreat in mind.

I haven't played enough to really give good advice on how to do this. Here, of course, lies the problem.

I likely won't play this game again until they can revise the rules. They're basically unusable as printed. Major rules are left out (+3 movement cost for overruns and any mention of Militia units come first to mind) and they're horribly organized.

And, really, it's a shame. This is a good little game destroyed by horribly written rules. I lower my quality expectations a tad when looking at magazine games, but this falls well below even these lowered standards. Hopefully, MMP sees fit to published revised rules. Errata won't do it – they need a new edition. There are enough niggling things slightly incorrect that it makes you question everything else you read, no matter how clearly written. It's just too frustrating.

After Mike and I stopped playing, we had a little discussion about the state of rules writing these days. Sadly, I feel it's declining. I can think of only three designers where I can count on a solid set of rules with a minimum of fuss: Dean Essig, Ed Beach, and Chad Jensen. Other designers may have occasional good or great sets of rules, but aren't consistent enough to hang with those three. Wargames these days have almost fallen to the level of software: never use the very first version of anything; wait for the update. And, the inevitable result of that is that publishers seem to be counting on that update to fix problems they've missed the first time around. It's a nasty spiral. But at least, most companies are savvy enough to understand that keeping those rules updated and electronically available is a good thing, and makes customers (eventually) happy.

Which is what I hope MMP does here, because I think you guys would enjoy this game after they fix the rules.

Familiar Ground

The last two weeks, Mike and I have been playing Fury in the East game included in the most recent Operations Special Issue published by Multi-Man in the summer of 2010.

This is a remake of a game originally published in Japan as “G-Barbarossa” and is originally designed by Ginichiro Suzuki. It covers the initial phases of the invasion. The game is ten turns, and all but the first two cover four weeks. The first two turns cover two weeks each.

In many ways, this is a standard Barbarossa game. It probably most resembles Red Star Rising of all the eastern front games I've played. While it doesn't use a variant of the Victory in the West system as in RSR, it does incorporate randomness into the Russian combat units and leaders. It's at a bit higher scale, though; more like Defiant Russia in scope.

Two weeks ago, Mike and I got two turns into the game in an evening, and compiled a large list of rules questions. While two-thirds of them had been answered on CSW, we still had a number of other issues to resolve.

After posting questions and getting very quick answers (one of which conflicted with a prior response on CSW), we proceeded to restart the game, with myself taking the Russians again versus Mike's Axis forces. We got three turns in this time, and didn't really run into any new questions.

While I'll post more information about the game next week, I do want to get a few things posted first.

Keep in mind, this is a magazine game. As such, I do have a bit of a lower bar for quality, proofreading, etc. While the production quality is good (all components are good quality, and I know of zero counter or map errata) the rules need restructuring and at least one more edit pass.

There are some frightening omissions. First, overruns cost an extra 3 MP beyond the movement cost of the defending hex. This isn't in the rulebook – it's in the minimal posted errata. Given most German units have 8MP, this is a massive mistake. The Soviets are required to make mandatory attacks against adjacent German units during their combat phase. However, the rules state that all German units in Russian zones of control must be attacked. A clarification on CSW has modified that saying all Russian units in German zones of control must attack as well. This is very significant if you're trying to preserve units or leaders. (And as Russian units cannot move if in an enemy zone of control, preservation is important.)

I'll leave final thoughts on the game until my next post, but I'll leave you today with this: If you attempt to play this game, do your CSW forum research first, and play through the first two turns. Ask questions, then start over. You cannot get this game right the first time from the rules as written.

On a different note, it might be worth the effort. More to come.

Washington wins his war - again

As promised last week, on the table this time was Washington's War (BGG entry) from GMT, a remake of the old Avalon Hill game, We The People (BGG entry). I'd never played the original before, but had played WW once with Chris B, but it was far enough back that I don't recall a huge deal about it. I think I played the Americans, and I recorded that Chris won, but that's about it.

Looking at the game itself first, like C&C:Nappy from last week, it's a great production. A sumptuous hard board worthy of any Euro game, a good deck of cards and some colorful pieces. There are two sets of counters provided for the generals - large ones that fit in the provided stands, and smaller ones like more traditional war-game counters. More pieces for the combat strength points (CUs) and double sided Political Control (PC) markers. There are also some area control markers, some of which were printed with the same nationality on both sides of the counter, which means that you can't correctly mark control of the areas if one side gets more than 8 areas. Replacement counters were provided in their magazine, C3i, but they're of the smaller 1/2" size. OK, that's a minor issue, but still a trifle annoying. All well and good so far, then, but how does it play?

Let's start with a brief overview of the basic mechanisms for those of you unfamiliar with this CDG. The map features 14 Areas (the 13 Colonies plus Canada), with each area containing a number of Spaces. These Spaces are connected by lines which allow movement between the Spaces. There are three types of cards; Event cards; Battle cards; and Operation Cards (Ops), which have a number from 1-3. Each player is dealt a hand of 7 at the start of each game turn, and they take turns to play an Ops or Event card, with the American player deciding who plays first (unless the British player has a Campaign Event card, and chooses to reveal it). In CDG terms it's closer to Unhappy King Charles (BGG entry) than WW2: Barbarossa to Berlin (BGG entry), where the cards have both Ops and Events, and you choose to use one or the other.

An Event card allows the player to take a special action as detailed on the cards, which may allow the placement or removal of one or more Political Control (PC) markers, or other special event to occur, including activating multiple generals in a play (Campaign). These are separated by nationality, and getting a hand of your opponent's event cards is not good as they can only be used for very limited actions.

An Ops card allows you to do one of several things; place PC markers; take reinforcements; or move a general/army. The first are used to take control of Spaces, with each of the 13 Colonies (plus Canada) having a varying number of Spaces. The player with the most controlled Spaces has control of the Colony. What's interesting here is that the placement rules are asymmetrical, with the British player needing to place PC markers adjacent to an existing PC, but the American player can place them in any empty Space. Both players may place a PC marker in a Space occupied by a friendly army, removing any opposing PC marker.

Reinforcements are also asymmetrical. The British player gets a varying number of CUs by game turn (listed on the game turn track, e.g. 3 in GT1, 8 in GT2, 1 in GT3), but they are placed in a Reinforcement box, and once during the game turn may move any number of CUs from the box to a port, along with a general. Do do this, however, the player must play an Ops card of any value. The American player, however, can receive reinforcements up to twice per turn, again paying an Ops card to do so, but receives CUs to the value of the Ops card each time, and they can be placed in any single space not containing a British playing piece. A general may also be placed at the same time.

Finally, the Ops card may be used to activate a general, but the Ops card value must be equal to or higher than the general's Strategy Rating. Most of the American generals have a value of 1, so any Ops card can be used, but most of the British generals have a 3 rating so they are harder to get moving.

Battles are fairly abstracted, and occur when an army moves into the Space occupied by an opposing army. The Americans may attempt to intercept a British army moving into an adjacent Space, as well as evade combat, at the cost of retreating and giving up the Space. If a battle does occur, each side calculates their strength - the number of CUs, plus modifiers for control of the Colony (militia), if it's a port Space (for the British player - British Navy intervention), British regulars, and play of a Battle card - which gives a +2. There is also a modifier for the Battle Rating of the general (which are from 1-6), but the actual rating may be either full or half, depending on a die roll for that battle (1-3 = half; 4-6=full), but may never be more than the number of CUs in the army. To this total is added a d6 die roll for each side, and the player with the higher grand total wins the battle. The loser of the battle has to retreat one space, and loses a variable number of CUs (1-3=1; 4-5=2; 6=3), and the winner may lose a CU based on the Agility Rating of the opposing general and a die roll (AR3:1-4; AR2:1-3; AR1:1-2). Battles are the biggest change from the original version of the game, which used battle cards in the same manner as Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage (BGG entry).

The end of each turn has a supply/attrition phase, where isolated PC markers are removed, each British army north of the wintering line loses half its CUs if not in a wintering space, and all American armies lose a CU (except for any army with Washington). The French may also come in on the side of the Americans.

The game ends at the end of the ninth turn (1783), unless a special Event card is played, which makes the game end earlier, representing the fall of the British government. There are 5 such cards in the game, and they have to be played as events, they may not be discarded, and they cause the game to end either in 1779, 1780, 1781, 1782, or 1783, i.e the game may be as short as 5 turns or run as long as the full 9 turns. Having a majority of the spaces in a Colony gives the player control of the Colony, and the winner is the player with control of the most Colonies.

In our game my opening hand consisted of 2 2Ops cards, a 1Ops card, a British Event card, 2 American Event cards, and an American Battle card. Not exactly a great starting hand. Eric opened by using Washington to attack my single general on the map, Howe. With both armies having 5CUs, he gained the advantage with a full Battle Rating to my half, and the die rolls gave him the battle win. To exacerbate the result, my roll caused 2CU losses, but despite facing Howe's 3 Agility Rating he did not suffer any CU losses.

This gave me 3 problems; Howe is now in a non-wintering space, so will suffer attrition in the winter; as Howe has a Strategy Rating of 3, I have no Ops cards to activate him with; and I'm at risk from Washington attacking again and totally eliminating Howe. If I reinforce Howe with my 3CUs available in the reinforcement box I'll probably persuade Washington not to attack, but I'm going to lose half of them to winter attrition. In the end I choose to place PC markers in the south, taking away the American control. We jockey back and fore for control for the rest of the turn, and I use the 1Ops card to bring in an army in the south, and I lose 1CU from Howe from attrition in the wintering phase.

The second turn sees the British get 8CUs in reinforcements, and with a pair of 3Ops cards in hand I use my one reinforcement action to boost Howe with a 1Ops card. I then try to hunt down an American army, but he successfully evades (required 1-4 on d6). At this point I make a really stupid mistake, using my other 3Ops card to place PC markers, forgetting that Howe is still on a non-wintering space, so he loses another 2CUs to attrition at the end of the turn.

In the third turn Eric chooses to move first before I can get Howe out of harm's way, and pounds him good. I place a new army in New York Colony to try to cause a diversion, but Eric isn't falling for it, and over the two actions Howe's lost his army and is removed from the board. He then moves to block my army I just placed, while I can to little but place PC markers and actually gain control of a couple more Colonies. We'd missed placing the extra cards (the Declaration of Independence and Benjamin Franklin) into the deck on the second turn so shuffled them at the start of this turn, and Eric immediately draws both of them. The former allows him to place a PC marker in each Colony, swinging the balance to him. (I think that put it at 7-6 Colonies in his favor.), and the latter moves the French intervention marker 4 spaces up the track. (There are 10 spaces on the track, and it moves forward for each battle won by the Americans.) With all the battles I'd lost this was enough to have French intervention at the end of the turn.

However, I also had drawn one of the Special Event cards that indicates the fall of the British government in 1780, which shortens the game by 3 turns. Even worse, Eric had drawn the card that ends the game in 1779, meaning that the game will end in the earliest possible turn and there are only 2 more turns to play, unless another Special Event card is drawn.

The fourth turn sees me draw another four American Event Cards, a 3Ops, a 2Ops, and a 1Ops card, and I know the game is over for me, barring some sort of miracle. That ain't happening as Eric draws a full hand of Ops cards, and his armies go a-hunting. With the board almost full of PC markers, and with the limitations on the placement of PC markers for the British, the Event cards are useless to me, and I have to watch as Eric takes control of Colony after Colony. Indeed, even my last 2Ops card is played as a discard, as I am unable to do anything with it.

At the start of the final turn Eric is up 9-4 on Colonies, with one undecided, and way more CUs on the board. Neither of us draws any Special Event cards, and although I gain a Colony in the North, I lose the one in the south when Eric pounds my army there in a continual wave of attacks, as although I win the first battle (the first time in the game) we both lose a single CU. He also takes the undecided Colony to run out a solid 10-4 winner.

Here's the ending position:



We only missed two things in our game:

• two extra Event cards are added to the deck at the start of the second turn - we added them at the start of the third turn
  
• the British CU in the NW of the map isn't on a wintering space, and should have been rolling for attrition each turn
  

However, I missed several rules that might have helped me:

• after playing a Battle card you draw a replacement (I missed that only once, but it meant that Eric had 2 plays at the end of the second turn when I had no cards in hand)
  
• you can play an opponent's Event card in a battle for a +1 modifier, but don't draw a replacement card (this would have helped me in the first two turns)
  
• there are overruns of weak forces - I left 1CU in the north, thinking that it would block him, but needed more, which I did have available
  
• you can create a queue of Ops card play to activate a general - this would have allowed me to activate Howe in the first turn, although I'm not sure what I could have done with him that was useful, and it uses up 2 actions
  
• discarding an Event Card allows the removal of an American PC marker adjacent to a British PC marker (I would have expected this to be included in the list of available 'PC Actions' for discarding an opponent's Event card)
  
• ports are considered adjacent to each other for the British player - this means that all my discards for no use could have been used to place British PC markers, and, when combined with the above, to remove American PC markers
  

Pretty much everything in the game went wrong for me. From the die rolls to the card draws. Going back and looking at the deck, there are 12 Event cards each, 4 British Battle cards to 5 American, 2 Mandatory Events, 5 game end Special Events, and 4 Campaign Event cards (3 Minor, 1 Major), leaving 66 Ops cards (22 of each value). From my draws, I think this one is another statistical outlier, so I'm not going to hold too much over it.

WW is certainly at the simpler end of the CDG scale in my view. Unlike Twilight Struggle (BGG entry) or Labyrinth (BGG entry), there is less in the cards themselves, and you don't need to be aware of potential 'killer' combos, it's more in the Ops.

I really enjoy playing this one, as I do Unhappy King Charles, and all the CDGs, really. It's certainly a very interesting game, and I like the options available, the jockeying for position of the PC markers, the maneuvering of the armies. Every card play feels important.

Another great point is the game length. We finished in just around 2 hours, but really only played half a game, so it could run up to ~4 hours, likely less, but it easily plays in an evening. Knowing the rules better, I'd really like to take another swing at it. If you're thinking of trying a CDG I think this is a great starting choice.

Next up, after a week's break, is Fury in the East (BGG entry) from MMP, a one-map WW2 East Front game that gets gets good buzz. I'm looking forward to that one.

Valley Forge wasn't needed this time

Most categories of wargames can point to a single game that started them off. For block wargames, for example, you can point to either L'attaque or Napoleon as being the starting points. For hex-n-counter, many point to Tactics as the originator.

For card-driven wargames, there's a clear start: We the People. Published by Avalon Hill in 1994, Mark Herman's design paved new ground for what was possible in a wargame. Looking back on it now, it is still the simplest game in the genre (maybe... 1960's rather simple as well) and holds up pretty well given how different it was at the time.

That said, availability of We the People is a bit lacking. Herman had wanted to reprint it. As Hasbro now owns the rights, it appears the negotiations weren't going well. So, Herman re-designed it as Washington's War. He tweaked a few things (not many) from the original to the new release. Here's the differences:

• Battle cards are gone. You used to play cards from your hand to resolve battles. That mechanic – which I hated – is now gone in favor of a contested die roll with modifiers.


• You can now discard opponent events during a battle for a modifier.


• If your opponent plays one of your events for any purpose other than discarding, you can swap an Ops card for it to play the event later in the turn.


• An overrun rule was added that keeps 1-strength armies from being an overly strong blockade.

And that's really about it. If you know how to play We the People, you know how to play this. A quick run-through on the rules should be all you need. That said, I'd only played WtP a couple times, and not for many years.

Things to watch for if you're playing for the first time:

• Take care about winter quarters


• Watch for political isolation


• The Brits get a LOT of positive combat modifiers

I randomly drew the Americans, and off we went.

Early in the first turn, Mike attacked Washington's forces with Howe, trying to take advantage of those early British modifiers. Combat in the late 18th century was a bit of an unknown affair. You never knew how well your forces (or commander) for that matter would perform. To sort of simulate this, one of the first things you do is roll for commander effectiveness. It's a 50/50 roll that if you fail cuts your commander's rating in half. Mike failed his roll on this first attack while I passed mine. This effectively eliminated the British DRM advantage and made the combat essentially a toss up. I won it, forced him to retreat, then pressed the advantage before he could reinforce.

From that point forward in the game, I held a military advantage. My cards matched well with what I was trying to do, Mike's did not. I think I only drew three British events the entire game, Mike had four American events in a single turn.

Mike did a pretty good job early on forcing the political control. I think he had 8 colonies at one point. Turned out after the fact he really didn't have much of a choice due to his card draws. Turns 3 and 4 saw me methodically reducing that advantage.

Between winning battles and events (including getting Benjamin Franklin into play pretty early on) I was able to get the French into the conflict in the fourth turn (1778).

We drew a 1779 “Government Falls” card in the second turn or so, and the way I was able to keep Mike on his heels meant the French helped lay the coup-de-grace early that year. When we hit the end of 1779, I think I had 9 colonies, Mike had 4 (including Canada), and one was drawn. It was a pretty significant victory for the Americans.

I had evicted Mike from the South, and he didn't have much left in the way of forces in the North. Even without a government falls card, it was going to be very hard for him to recover.

My thoughts on the game?

Production quality is good. Mounted board, thick cards, attractive (standard GMT) counters. It played very cleanly. We only had a few questions, and they were all handled by the rulebook. The game doesn't break any new ground, really, but it wasn't meant to. It was meant to be a refresh of a game that broke a whole lot of ground when it came out. And it does that very well.

Recommendation?

If you're looking for a good, simple 2-hour CDG, this is it. It is the wargaming equivalent of an appetizer, though, so if you're looking for something a bit more substantial, you might want to temper your expectations. But appetizers are usually pretty tasty, and this is as well. It's one I'm happy to have in my library.

We're taking the week between Christmas and New Years off as I've got family coming to town. Our next game up will be Fury in the East from the MMP 2010 Operations Special Issue. More East Front goodness.

We're not dead yet

Well, after a rather extended hiatus, we're baaaaaaaack!

It wasn't really a hiatus, as such, just that our plan didn't really work out as we'd thought it would. Our OCS Korea game has been going on for most of this year, with (mostly) regular weekly sessions, and we were both taking notes and pics, but we just never got around to writing anything up. Partly that was down to our schedules, but at least on my part there was a certain amount of lethargy and disinclination to actually say much. It's hard to give insights into your thoughts and plans when your opponent is reading.

Anyway, we discussed where to go from here, and the idea of quietly closing the blog was quickly voted down on a 2-0 count. We agreed that the blog works best when we're playing shorter games, and that's what we're going to get back to. Moving forward, we'll get back to focussing on games in the 1-2 session length (i.e. 3-6 hours), unless we can find time for a longer session. That means shorter war-games (hex/counter, block, and CDGs), and (probably) more 18xx. Sounds like a plan, and I'm certainly very comfortable with that mix.

So, the first topic (and, in fact, the above conversation took place while we were playing) is the new GMT release Command & Colors: Napoleonics (BGG entry), the latest in the Commands and Colors series. This game covers the battles in the Peninsular War, featuring the British, French and Portuguese, and a single scenario featuring a small segment of the Waterloo battle. An expansion for the Spanish is currently on the P500 list, and tentatively scheduled for an August production slot. I'd expect to see more expansions for the Prussians and Russians, as well as lots more scenarios covering those armies, as well as some sort of 'Epic Napoleonics' rules/expansion. Sigh, more money sucked from my wallet.

The production is just as you'd expect for a C&C game from GMT; lots of wood blocks; colorful stickers; mounted map; good player aids; all in a bullet-proof box. In other words, up to their recent production standards, which have certainly taken a step up in quality.

I'm not going to go through the whole ruleset, but here, in my view, are the major differences from C&C:A (and others):

• Unit losses: the number of dice used when attacking is based on 1 die per block in the attacking unit
  
• Unit/Nationality distinction: various units get extra dice in combat depending on their unit type or National characteristics; e.g. Light/Rifle units gain a die in ranged combat; British line foot units gain a die in ranged combat if they do not move, and French line foot units gain a die in melee combat
  
• Terrain: unlike the Ancients battlefields, we now have terrain to deal with, more akin to the Battle Cry and Memoir '44 battlefield
  
• Objectives: just like in M'44
  
• Square formation: infantry can form square in the face of cavalry assault
  

Of these, the first is the biggest change, in my view, and one that has been a bug-bear for quite a few C&C players, or potential players. Now those 1-block units are really fragile and mostly useless, and have to be withdrawn from harm's way. The unit/nationality distinctions are an interesting change, and allow for some variation in the way you use your force, with both the composition and side impacting your strategy/tactics.

OK, terrain really isn't a change, per se, but it's just that there is some, often a lot, unlike most of the C&C:A scenarios, where I've seen pool tables with more features. Some of the terrain features are also classed as objective hexes, in the same way that M'44 has. This was, in my view, one of the biggest issues with BC, as often there was no incentive to move forward and get shot at, as the other player would get the first shot due to the move/no fire rules. (In C&C:N you can move and half-fire.) So, that provides an incentive to do something.

C&C:N wouldn't truly represent Napoleonic warfare without allowing foot units to use square formation, and the implementation is interesting. As part of the cavalry melee procedure the infantry unit has the choice to enter square, but to do so, the player has to give up a command card (and you must have more than 2 in hand), which is placed on a holding display, reducing his hand size and, hence, tactical flexibility. Furthermore, the card is chosen at random from your hand. To quote the Guinness advert, 'Brilliant!' With some good cards in your hand, you now have a tough choice to make. Protect your unit, or potentially give up the ability to carry out your plans. Of course, all those that hate the C&C abstraction style will have more reason to hate on the system, spluttering about lack of control, etc. I think it's a stroke of genius!

We played the first two scenarios, both from the battle of Rolica, with me drawing the French each time. The first saw me move to a quick 4-banner position (with 5 required to win) as the dice gods favored me with an embarrassment of dicey riches, seeing me score 4 hits out of my first 5 rolls on his Light Infantry unit. (With 5 blocks and a 1-die bonus they can be pretty lethal, so that turned the good fortune into great fortune.) However, I thought to dash forward with a good card to claim my winning banner, but an untimely flag result on the first combat took his unit out of range of my second unit, allowing Eric to isolate them and bring it back to 4-3, before I did manage to claim that winning banner.

The second scenario, later in the same battle as the French were pushed back, once again saw me with the French. The sides are almost identical, with the Allied forces gaining an extra leader. What makes the scenario interesting is that the terrain provides for only 4 axes of advance for the Allies, with prohibited terrain funneling the attacks. The French, meanwhile, are sitting on a ridge of hills, which reduces incoming ranged fire by 1 die. So, restricted advance options for the Aliies, and a strong defensive position for the French, quite a puzzle. To make it even worse, most of the Allied artillery (which doesn't lose a die for firing into hills) is still stuck at the base line.

Sounds easy for the French player, but my sole artillery unit ran out of ammunition (an early card play by Eric) and returned to my base line. The issue was where to place it, as I was unsure of where Eric's main thrust was going to come, and although my hand had some really interesting cards, I had few section movement cards. In the end I chose to concentrate on the Portuguese on my left flank, but also drew a card that allowed me to redeploy a unit by 4 hexes, so my artillery was able to reduce the Portuguese threat, then move to the center to counter the advance in the center and on the other flank. I had one opportunity for using square, but with a hand of great cards I had to decline, as I had plans, which all worked as I ran out a comfortable winner.

A tough scenario for the Allies, in my view, but Eric felt that he played it wrongly in not bringing up his artillery first and using them to reduce my units. That would have given me a tough choice on whether to hold or force the action. The French bonus die on melee means that closing the action is of use, but is it worth leaving the hills? I'd like to get this scenario back to the table, and try it from the Allied side.

Here's the ending position, which shows the terrain:



(The 2 units at bottom left are Portuguese, one with a leader.)

OK, so what are my thoughts on C&C:N after my first play? As you've probably surmised by now, I really liked this one. I found it more interesting than C&C:A, which was partly due to the terrain providing a more interesting battlefield. However, the bigger factor was unit/nationality characteristics, and how to leverage them in my favor. I know it probably sounds like cult of the new, but so far this is my favorite C&C game. The mix of terrain, characteristics, everything. A great balance, and the continuing development of the C&C system is very evident. In play, I think C&C:N also flows better much better than BC, and has more tactical choices than C&C:A. The choices are tougher, as witnessed by several times in our games, as Eric or I had to take a moment to weigh our options and consider the potential implications. Yes, this will definitely see more table time.

For next time, Eric has requested GMT's Washington's War (BGG entry), the remake of We The People and the first of the CDGs. I've played it once before, so I'm looking forward to getting a second chance to try it. Beyond that, I'm thinking of Fury In The East (BGG Entry), one of the games that came in the MMP Operations Special Edition #3 magazine. But who knows, there are so many good choices out there.