Resisting Combat Commander

After a long period of time when we were playing long games that weren't really conducive to blogging, we've decided to get back to shorter stuff and resuscitating the blog. There's been a lot of OCS played this year, in fact we've played pretty much nothing else for most of this year, most recently play testing a new, smaller OCS game on Operation Exporter. That's been an interesting experience, one I'm prepared to take on again, and I hope that our input was useful.

With a plethora of choices available, Eric wanted to try the latest release in the long (and getting longer) list of titles in the Combat Commander franchise, CC: Resistance (BGG entry), from GMT. Previous readers of this blog will already know that this is a game that I have a love/hate relationship with. I kinda love it, I think it comes closest of all the tactical games I've played in portraying the chaos of combat, but it just hates me back. Outrageous things happen in a lot of the games, and I'm (mostly) on the receiving end. In fact Chuck has now referred to it as 'Mike's ugly girlfriend' game (in homage to 'Chuck's ugly girlfriend', a reference to Twilight Struggle), and he refuses to play it with me any more, on the grounds that just too much outrageous wackiness happens, and it's no fun to play. And yet I keep coming back to it.

So, what's new in this incarnation?

• Partians have their own deck, which has only 36 cards, rather than 72, so time triggers happen quickly
• When discarding, the Partisan player has to discard his entire hand
• Partisan leaders don't have a leadership range, but can command all units within LoS
• Partisan units can grow a step in size with Muster orders - from a 2-man Crew to a 6-man Gang; however, the Fire strength + Movement Points always total 7, so as it gets larger, with more Fire strength, it gets less mobile
• Reinforcements appear by use of the Infiltrate order, which costs 0-3 VPs to play, and are placed on the Time Track rather than directly on the map; so the partisan player doesn't know when they will appear
• Reinforcements are decided by a draw from the Force Deck, which gives two options on the reinforcements; so the partisan player doesn't know what will appear
• Reinforcements appear at a Sighting marker, and each time a Random Hex draw is made, a Sighting marker must be moved to, or adjacent to, the random hex; so the partisan player doesn't know where they will appear
• When a Partisan unit is eliminated by a second break, a card is drawn from the Force Deck; if the unit symbol at the bottom of the card is a smaller force than unit on the map, the unit on the map is replaced, still broken, by the smaller unit, and no VP is lost; if not, it is removed to the VP track, for the loss of 1VP, regardless of the unit

As might be expected from GMT, production is good. Maps, counters, rule book, all look very professionally done, and up to the expected standard. The one omission, that I found to be annoying, is that there is no summary card included for the new Partisan deck, so you have to memorize the distribution of the cards - Orders, Actions.

What must also be mentioned is that CC:R continues the CC tradition of having the tightest set of rules of any game I have played. I have yet to encounter any game situation or question that isn't clearly covered in the ruleset. Given some of the rules abominations we've had the privilege to encounter (yes, Prussia's Defiant Stand, I'm looking at you), this is little short of remarkable.

In our game Eric had chosen scenario #72, and I was randomly assigned the Resistance. I'd only had the chance to briefly flick over the rules, and that bit me in the first card draw, as I discarded my hand of 2 Recover cards, a Command Confusion, and an Infiltrate-0. I drew an Infiltrate-2 card, then decided to check on the rule retail, to find that the card I'd just discarded would have given me reinforcements for a 0VP cost. Oops.

There were a lot of pot shots in the early game, to no effect, and it took half way through my deck before I found a Move order, having previously found a single Advance order, so I was very slow to get moving towards the VP objectives. In the meantime, Eric had been moving forward, and had occupied 2 of the 3 objectives. With his lead units.

I eventually managed to grind him down, timed a couple of reinforcements (playing an Infiltrate order with only a few cards left in my draw pile, so I knew when/where they would appear), and at the high point I had control of all 5 objectives on the map, due to Infiltrating into his back field, with 11VPs in my favor. Then, as might be expected, it all went south.

I missed the draw for ending the game in turn 7 (requiring a 6 or less, I didn't think it was worth the Initiative card), and then we traded rolls at the end of turn 8 as the Initiative card went back and forth several times before Eric drew two cards higher than 7 in a row. Drat. From there he used his big group to take back one objective, killed a few units in Melee, and then managed to rout a unit off the map. (It had missed 4-5 Recover attempts, needing 6-7, and drew 9, 9, and 11 in his Rout attempts. Pfft.

With hands full of Command confusion, Artillery Denied, and Infiltrate cards, I couldn't find a way to get the single VP required, and the game ended at the end of turn 9 on the first draw.

Other points of note: I managed to get 3 '10' strength Fire attacks in the game, and rolled 4, 4, and 5; I used both Molotovs, 12 strength attacks, and they both failed; Eric got a reinforcement, choosing the IG, which then fired at range 4, drawing snake-eys to miss, jam, and then was removed on a subsequent Random Hex roll.

That's probably the closest CC game I've had, I think. Whilst it's easy to view the failure to Recover that unit, and the Rout draws, as the game loser, failing to recognize that the Partisan units don't want to go toe-to-toe with the German units was the real game-losing mistake. I should have been pulling back away from him, in order to not give him the Melee attempt. Ho hum, lesson learned.

We missed the rule that the Partisans only spend 1 MP per hex, which would have helped me a fair bit, and that eliminated Partisan units are removed from the game, not that it had any impact. And I didn't grok the Partisan Leader LoS command rule for some reason. It's pretty clear in the rulebook, I just couldn't get it into my thick head. So I wasn't making the best possible use of my Move/Advance cards.

Overall, an excellent expansion. With the Force Deck and Infiltrate mechanism, the Partisan player doesn't know what he's going to have to play with, and that seems realistic.

So, if you like CC, you'll totally groove on this latest addition to the family.

New Combat Commander, same old story

Eric arrived for our latest session and we headed out to the garage to get started on the Sicily game, which we set up after our España 1936 game in our previous session. We both looked at each other, and both expressed an interest in playing something else. It had been a long week for both of us, and I was coming off a cold, and we both felt mentally unprepared for OCS. So we headed back in for something lighter. After throwing around a few options, Eric wanted to try the Pathfinder campaign from C3i #22, so we set up the first scenario, which features the American airdrop on St. Mere Eglise. I'd been playing the Axis in pretty much every game we'd played recently, so asked to play the Americans, and Eric accepted.

The Germans have just a few units on the board, and the Americans land by random draw to simulate the airdrop. About half of my guys ended up along the 'B' hex-column, 2 units adjacent to his guys (and automatically broken), and one on the opposite of the map in each corner. The biggest issue was that 2 of my 3 leaders were at opposite corners of the map, and not near anyone. In the end they played no part in the action at all. The two broken guys were taken out pretty quickly by Eric's fire, although not before I'd drawn a hero event and so just gave him even more points..

My biggest problem was finding cards that allowed me to move, and I seemed to spend half my time discarding cards. I was making reasonable progress, having captured two of the three objectives, when it came down to the usual critical bit of action. At this point we'd pretty much traded casualties, he having removed all the units that landed close as I couldn't find move cards to get them away nor recover cards, and me from assaulting his units in melee. I advanced into his hex holding 2 ambush cars, and generated a +4 attack. He drew a 9, and I calculated the options. He was at +5, so all I needed was a 6 for the clear win, as that would put him over his surrender level. A 5 would have us both killed, but I would be short of my surrender level by 1, so would still win. Hmmm, I need a 5. I decided to use the initiative whereupon he drew an 8. OK, I still need only a 4. And drew a 3.

At this point I have little option but to try another advance and melee as I have little chance of taking him out with a fire (I have no MGs, and only a small mortar). However, once again it takes me forever to find movement cards and he gets the required ambush cards to kill my remaining unit for the surrender win.

Once again I manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory with a freaky card draw. Just like a lot of my CC games. This has got so monotonous that I have now placed CC onto my 'Will not play' list and I'm planning to sell my CC games.

This game did bring up one weakness in the CC system, however, one that I'd never really thought about before. The card decks are tuned for a set of tactics, and if you don't have the force that matches those tactics, then you're going to have problems. Take the American deck. In most of the scenarios the Americans (at least all the regular scenarios that I've played) are dripping with support weapons, and the deck provides tactics that match. Lots of fire, break (or kill) the enemy, then maneuver. Take away the support weapons and you're left with a hand that's heavy on fire cards that you can't really use. (A 6 fire attack against a regular 7 morale unit, in terrain, isn't going to see a lot of success. Add in a leader on defense and it gets even harder. And any number of Sustained Fire cards won't help you when you've no MGs.)

I'm not sure how this impacts other nations/scenarios, and it may be a feature of the Americans only (I think the Germans, at least, are rather more balanced on the card distribution), or even just this scenario. The American player here needs to maneuver, to get troops together to build fire teams to provide some mediocre attack fires. But the tactics forced on him by the card distribution prevents that.

One of my other gaming colleagues is only so-so on CC because he feels that it comes down to ambush and advance cards, and this game highlighted that. With no real way to generate high firepower attacks the only real way to remove the defenders and gain the VP objectives is through melee. Then the game comes down to who can draw the advance and ambush cards. And get the better draws in the melee itself. I was lucky in that I drew advance and ambush cards together twice, but I couldn't draw the movement cards to make use of the advance before Eric had time to discard through his deck and also get ambush cards. As far as I can recall, this is the first CC game I've played where the game ended with the surrender criteria being met, rather than the sudden death.

Over the years I've pretty much had a hate-hate relationship with CC in all its forms, and this game was the final nail in the coffin. Too many games have been little or no fun, with random blow-outs to one side or the other. And I've been on both sides, but mostly the receiving side. I may keep CC:Pacific (I think it's the best of the bunch) but the rest are going on the block. The tactical limitations of the pre-determined deck introduce a restriction that I'm not prepared to deal with. Well, that and the game just hates me.

We fully plan on getting back to Sicily for the next session.

Fulcrums

So, the big plan kicks in. OCS Sicily is back on the table.

Mike and I spent some time after our Espana 1936 game getting Sicily redeployed down in Mike's Garage.

A while back, I saw a reference to an old issue of Operations Magazine that had an article on a simple method for taking down and re-establishing an OCS game. I'll put a post up sometime soon (very soon after this one, schedule willing) that details the method. I can't dig it out at the moment as my access to old Operations Magazines has died with the recent demise of Magweb. Have to consult the archives.

We've used this technique twice now to tear down Sicily for later completion. And it's worked nicely. Took us about 30-45 minutes to get the game back ready for play.

So, last week, Mike and I met to get started again. One catch, though. Neither of us were really mentally ready to play it. I'd been swamped at work, and I believe Mike had as well.

So, what could substitute quickly for an evening's play with no prep time? Combat Commander, of course!

I had been a bit curious about the Normandy Campaign published in the latest C3i magazine. (#22, I believe) it's set up as a sequence of battles where the first is fixed, then you have a small number of choices for each of the next two rounds. So, that meant we were playing scenario #33 from the Paratroopers Battlepack, set on map #2, the bocage around St. Mere Eglise on D-Day. The Americans have landed dispersed and are trying to take the town from a German contingent holding it but not expecting the Americans. Mike took the Yanks as he hadn't played them recently, and off we went.

This is one of those games with random deployment for one side. So, Mike's troops and leaders were all over the map. German reinforcements were due on the 2nd time trigger, and on the 3rd, the American command has organized enough to get an extra order per turn.

For the most part, the the game was tight throughout. VPs toggled back and forth a bit, and I managed to pull an extra HMG crew and leader from the support forces. Time wasn't going nearly quickly enough for my taste, however. Mike had managed to assemble two primary fire teams while two or three other squads remained in cover out of the action.

The weaker of the two teams managed to take out my HMG – a useful item, but with somewhat limited effectiveness in the reduced sight lines around the bocage. This gave Mike one of the three objectives. I had just a lone unit in a second, neighboring objective.

We finally reached a tipping point – Mike had split his primary fire team under cover of smoke to prepare for an assault on the third objective. Success on his part would put me one unit away from surrender and move the VP count to around zero. All this with around three time triggers before we even started rolling for sudden death. Then, I hit a time trigger and removed one of the key smoke markers. I pretty much had to take initiative here and assaulted the smaller piece of the split fire group, eliminating it. If I had not, I would have been assaulted with unstoppable force. However, in the process I had to abandon the objective. I had expected Mike to move into the objective, taking the 8 VP swing, and make me try to take it back from a stronger force while he brought up a unit four or five hexes away in reserve.

Nope. Mike assaulted my unit+leader instead. He had the initiative card and a 4 point firepower advantage. No ambushes, so it was straight up. I rolled a 9, and Mike figured it was worth spending the initiative to make me re-roll. (This after some discussion on which had higher odds: me rolling higher, or his troops dying.) He decided to spend the initiative card and force me to reroll. I proceeded to roll an 8.

If Mike rolls a 5 or higher, he's pretty much got the game in the bag, though I'd spend initiative to make him try again, of course.

If Mike rolls a 4, we all die, I'm one unit from surrender (while he's 2, I believe) and I have almost nothing left on the board while he's got two unencumbered squads available to claim open objectives. I wouldn't spend initiative to re-roll this, as at least I've got a shot at a surrender victory if I can gang up on somebody.

So, 8% of the time I win outright. 8% of the time it's a draw (though really a win for Mike given the circumstances). On the other 83%, I force a re-roll with the same odds. That works out to around a 16% chance or so of my winning the combat outright. A little less than rolling a natural 6 on one die.

Mike flips the card.

He rolled a three.

Yep. In the one critical point where the game is essentially decided either way he had about an 85% chance of success (about 75% of that outright success) and the dice failed him. DSDF rears its ugly head. Again.

At that point, Mike pretty much failed his personal morale check. He still had a great shot at victory as I had two broken units very close to a unit of his, but I was able to rally them before he could take advantage. From that point on, Mike mostly threw things at my units hoping they'd stick with the unsurprising result of a German win by American surrender.

Of course, I saw it as a very tense hard-fought battle that came right down to one critical point where the result wasn't what was expected and involved a very interesting decision point. Somehow, I don't think Mike's report is going to portray it quite that way.

The interesting thing about it is the number I rolled: a 9. Given the 4-point spread in our firepower, this exactly straddled the bell curve, providing the illusion of a toss-up decision.

In retrospect, I don't believe that's the case. I'm not sure I would have spent the initiative when he did. My 9 was going to be the same or better around 27% of the time on a re-roll. If he keeps the initiative, he'd have failed the assault 16% of the time, with another 11% being a “winning draw.” The exact same odds.

I'm going to have to drum up a simulator to figure out what's the best choice here. I've already got the state machine defined, just need to code it up. In my free time.

My gut says, though, that I'd rather have the initiative to re-roll my rolls. I have no idea if that's statistically correct, though. Either way, I was surprised when Mike first assaulted my units, and more surprised when he made me reroll a 9.

Yet another Combat Commander scenario that comes down to one or two critical points. Which, of course, leads to two minds on the thing – either the games are tense and exciting and come down to one or two critical junctures that may go either way, deciding the game; or you may as well just roll a die and declare a winner and save yourself the time.

I'm firmly in the first camp, in case you haven't figured that out on here.

Along the Beaches of Butaritari

Mike's turn this week, and he wanted to get back to the sunny South Pacific. So, Combat Commander: Pacific hit the table again, this time Scenario E – an advance by US Marines along the beaches of Butaritari. This scenario's got Sighting markers and the Sengoku Hei sniper counter. Two of the new tweaks for CC:P.

Mike asked me which side I'd rather have, and as I'd been curious about using the sniper, I took the Japanese. This had the unintended side-effect of having put me in defensive posture for both our CC:P games despite having played both sides.

(In this report, I'm going to assume you know the basics of how Combat Commander works. If not there are myriads of places to get a summary – just a friendly warning.)

The (partial) map for the scenario can be found on the geek. The portion shown is the Japanese deployment zone for the scenario, and the US forces are attacking from the left. The sighting markers are placed in the 8 jungle hexes in the center of the map, and the open ground is strewn with a line of foxholes and wire. In the center of the line is a bunker with an infantry gun inside. The sniper must be deployed in a palm hex, and half the starting Japanese units must be placed in infiltration boxes.

The way the sighting/infiltration rules work is this: The Japanese player can play an Infiltration Order (which specifies box A, B, C, or some combination) and you can do one of two things: If there's nobody in the listed box, you roll on the support table, choose an appropriate unit, and put it in the box. If there's somebody already there, you instead take the units in the box and place them in a hex with a sighting marker, and remove the sighting marker from play.

Sighting markers move whenever a random hex is determined for any reason. After resolving the reason for the random hex, you then move one of the existing sighting markers onto that hex. This leads to some interesting decisions late in a scenario as you're trying to maximize the potential threats.

I got a little aggressive in my deployment. I placed a medium MG in the objective jungle hex at the bottom-right of the map with a leader. I also placed a light MG in the other objective jungle hex just above it. These are worth 4 and 2 points each according to the open objectives. I then put the sniper forward in the palm tree hex on the hill closest to the US forces. My thought was to maximize the amount of damage he could do right off and the elevated LOS would allow him to see the entire US deployment zone.

My plan, for the most part, worked. There was this matter of the sniper sucking wind, though. He got two shots off before being wiped out in a melee and failed miserably. The way the sniper works is that he's treated as ordnance. You have to successfully make a targeting roll first, and if you do, his FP of 3 is added to the product of the dice rolled, not the sum. This makes his shot a potential 39 points. And, given that doubling the defender kills him outright, you can see where this guy has the chance for serious damage. At least it's mitigated by him only being able to target a single unit, no matter how many units are in a particular hex. He managed to roll a 4 and a 5 on his two damage rolls, though. Pretty poor. (Average is 12.25)

That being what it was, everything else was going pretty well. The medium MG was slowing Mike down severely on my left, and a couple infiltrations slowed him down on my right. Some quick time triggers left us with one time triggers left before sudden death rolls kicked in and me with somewhere around 12 or 13 VPs. One thing that helped mightily was acquiring a 150mm OBA gun early on. I never killed anything with it, but it really slowed him down. Mike did get a hero in play, but he didn't do much early on.

About here things changed. Both of us were near the tops of our respective card decks, so there was likely a lot of game until the next time trigger. Right about here was when Mike disabled the light MG that was in the jungle hex near the beach. He realized there was a gap around the wire that he could get units through once the guns were down. Some fortunate Asset Denied orders (and my lack of Asset Request orders) shut down the guns, and opened up a channel for him to exit the map. His having drawn bonus exit points as his objective chit didn't hurt his cause, either. I was desperately trying to get over there and do something (or just kill what I could otherwise) but never managed to have any luck. Mike took the objective near the beach, started getting guys off the map, and got the benefit of one extra time trigger past sudden death. (I don't know that it made a difference, though, as I had little left with which to fight.)

Final score was either 19 or 20 in Mike's favor at the end. At one point just before the tide started to shift, Mike commented that it didn't matter a whole lot what he did as his position was lost. I've come to believe that that's almost never the case in Combat Commander... This game can see massive shifts in fortune. All it takes is one break (in this case the loss of MGs opening that exit gap), and some time to exploit the break, and it can all swing the other way. As it did this time.

That might have been the most enjoyable game of CC I've ever had. The story written during play is one that would fit into any history of the Pacific Theatre. (The Marines were nearly stopped trying to advance into a prepared enemy position – shots coming from everywhere, Japanese units appearing out of nowhere, snipers in the trees. It looked bad, but heroism emerged. The guns were disabled, sniper found, crews taken out, and the Marines managed to break through the position just in time.)

Oh, and Doug – Mike did have his own wonderful DSDF moment as you mentioned in the comments to last weeks' post. There was a pretty important shot Mike was taking (can't remember the details) and he rolled a four. That wasn't going to cut it, so he passed over the initiative, rerolled, and got a 2 with a time trigger. Worst possible result given the game at the time. EXACTLY the situation you predicted.

I really believe CC:P may be the best CC to date. The rules are absolutely rock solid. (Every time we had a question – which isn't much lately – the answer was right there in crystal clear language. A couple times it was even as its own single-sentence paragraph. Obviously the odd cases were thought through.) The scenario design is fantastic. While Scenario C (The Ilu River scenario we played a couple weeks ago) didn't seem particularly “pacific-ish” it was certainly well-designed.

I haven't played the cave rules yet, but that's next, I'm sure. And I've never had a chance to venture into the Random Scenario Generator yet for any of the games released to date. (A system that the game was originally designed around.) An absolute gaming treat, and it only took 2.5 hours to play.

Then again, I've yet to play Stalingrad. Could it get better? CC:Pacific sets a VERY high standard.

CC:Pacific - take 2

I totally spaced getting the rules for our next game to Eric before the weekend, so we had to change our plans and I chose to go back to Combat Commander: Pacific for a second play. This time we chose scenario 'E', which has the US (me) attacking a dug-in Japanese defender (Eric). (Well, I did start to set up 'D', but started reading 'E' when sorting out the counters, and then couldn't figure out how to place the Sogeki Hei unit in palm trees, when there were no palm trees on the map...) This scenario makes use of the new infiltration rules, and the Sogeki Hei unit, so lots of Pacific goodness.

I balanced my forces left and right, with the strong '2' leader in the middle. Eric's set-up was mostly dictated by the scenario, with most of his units set up for infiltration, but he set up the SH unit well forward, obviously hoping to create some quick damage.

I started the game in the normal manner, discarding my hand, a couple of times in a search for a Move card. I finally got going, and was immediately under some long range MG fire. I also was able to rush the SH unit, who apart from one '5-4' draw for a 23 FP attack, was unable to hurt me, and I didn't lose any units before I was able to melee and kill the SH unit. I'd also played an Asset Request, only to be denied, but Eric got a module of 150mm, which was to be real scary throughout the game.

After that Eric played an Infiltration and dumped a unit right on top of me, where the Sighting marker occupied an objective hex. In the ensuing melee I drew '4', used the initiative, then drew '2'. However, the objective hex was right next to my right flank force, and I was able to pour fire into the hex until Eric didn't have a Revive card and I removed his unit.

I started progressing up the left flank, again taking fire from the MG, and also his gun, but time was progressing, especially when I drew a '2', shuffled, then immediately drew another one. Eric played another Infiltrate card, placing units right in the midst of my left flank force, and things were starting to look bleak, with a lot of broken units and only two turns until Sudden Death.

However, things weren't all bad. I finally remembered that Asset Denied cards could be used against the opponent, and had silenced both his weapons, leaving just the radio. Pity I'd discarded a few of them right at the start of the game. I was able to form a large fire group on the left and remove the threat there, along with a timely Sniper event. I'd also Advanced into another melee with another unit that had Infiltrated, but Eric had two Ambush actions in hand, drawing one into hand immediately before the melee. The biggest thing, however, was that Eric's drawing had mostly gone stone cold dead, and mine picked up considerably. I found lots of Revive cards to recover all my units, Fired effectively, removing his force defending the one objective, and marched my Hero into it. He didn't draw any Asset Requests to use his 150mm, and pretty soon was down to a single squad and leader. With me finally realizing that the way to win was to get off the board, I drew lots of Move and Advance cards to allow me to build a decent lead, and was finally able to get the Time trigger I wanted and rolled the end of the game, to win at 20VPs.

The Infiltration works well, and I was never sure where units were going to pop up next. Having Infiltrate and Ambush cards are a very strong combination when Allied units are occupying Sighting hexes, and I was getting very wary of doing so. The melee structure, moving it to the start of the Allied turn, allows the Japanese player to pick his fights. The US player (don't know about the other Allies) certainly has lots of firepower, and needs to bring that to bear.

So far I'm really enjoying CC:P, but I wonder how much of that is due to our two games being fairly wackiness-free. Sure there's been the odd wacky moment, but nothing of the game ruining sort. (Like taking out the German's HMG in the first turn, when it's their main defensive armament in the whole scenario.) If we'd had the same low level of wackiness in the other games, would they be on the same level as CC:P? Then again, CC:P does feel tight, and the specific rules for the Pacific theater work well. (With a caveat for the Banzai Charge, but I'd need to play a few more times.)

Down by the River

Last week, Mike and I got together for my choice: the new entry in the Combat Commander line of games, CC: Pacific.

Now, my copy hadn't arrived yet, and when we were looking at what scenario to play, I suggested we play Scenario C. (CC:P letters the scenarios instead of numbering to avoid confusion with the other games in the series.) Scenario C had been mentioned by the developer as possibly being the best scenario design in the entire product line, but I was shooting blind in choosing it. So we gave it a go.

I'm not going to get into the actual rules of Combat Commander all that much, as I've covered them before and CC:Pacific mostly just includes changes needed to reflect the marked differences in ground combat found in the Pacific Theatre of Operations vs. Europe.

Some of the differences are that the Japanese have a Banzai posture available to them (some scenarios, such as the one we played, start in that posture while others may have it foisted on them from an event) that only allows 3 cards in your hand, but gives you the option to give Charge orders that activate every unit you have that hasn't been activated yet to move. Very human wave-ish, but the allies get to automatically activate everyone for opportunity fire. So it's a human wave everyone can shoot at. Other major rule changes involve Sighting markers that move whenever random hexes are determined – this allows Japanese units to come onto the map when revealed in those spots – gives a real feel of “where are they coming from?”

There's a lot more that's changed. Thankfully, the rules include a page that runs down nearly all the changes. Rereading the rules reminded me just how well they're written.

The scenario we chose involved the US forces attempting to fend off a wave of Japanese infantry crossing a river on Guadalcanal. The map for the scenario can be found here. All the beaches hexes above the river (as shown in that image) contain wire. So, the Japanese must spend all their MP on a turn to get into the river, and all their MP on a turn to get out of the wire. So they get slowed to an effective standstill twice. The dark green bits on the map are swamp (which blocks LOS) and the larger, lighter green bits are jungle (which also blocks LOS). I constantly thought the swamp was jungle while we were playing. Just need to get used to the new terrain. The rest of the green bits are palm trees which only cause a minor hindrance to any shots going through them.

The US are outnumbered about 2:1 to start, but have two Mgs and a howitzer available to them. As soon as the Japanese enter the river, reinforcements come on after the next time trigger, then after the Japanese get into the Palms they get reinforcements. The focus of the game is on the three objectives on the edge of the jungle facing the river.

I played the US in this one, and posted the howitzer on the middle objective, one MG just to its right, and the other on the objective closest to the beach. I tried to maximize sight lines, and was just hoping to hold out long enough. I goofed early on attempting to get radio reinforcements and managed to get a denial – this kept me from getting the radio that would come on as a reinforcement later. (Once you get an artillery denied marker, you're stuck with it.)

Mike started moving, and the swamp was blocking most shots I had for a while. Once he started moving close enough, I started opening up. I scored a few hits on units closest to the beach but wasn't having a whole lot of success. What was happening though was that my howitzer was failing its targeting rolls so badly it was hitting Time Triggers. (These are usually found on double 1s and double 6s – I kept hitting the double 1s) This was really helping me out because Mike managed to pull off a handful of Charge orders and I was really feeling pressured.

About halfway through the game, I lost the howitzer. This left the majority of my defense to the MG in the center of the map. Mike's units got fully across the river and were starting to enter the palm trees by the time we got down to the final time trigger before sudden death rolls would occur. He had units all across the line, but had focused on taking the objective furthest forward. (This was also the one I had defended the least.) He did take that, and was starting to move down to the next objective when we hit the next time trigger. Mike had initiative, but the odds were against him and the game ended at that point.

The US side starts that scenario with 23 VPs, and we ended up with me winning with 19. I'd lost five units (IIRC) and still needed three more losses before I would have lost to surrender. However, those 19 points are very tenuous, as had one other melee gone Mike's way, it would have been a 14 point swing. Much closer than the final score indicated.

I'll second John Foley's (the developer) opinion that Scenario C might be the best scenario design in the CC series. I've probably played CC a dozen or so times now, and this definitely seemed to be the best and most balanced design. Had the time triggers not come up so fast in the mid-game, I likely lose that one.

Mike felt it didn't really highlight the changes in the CC:P game, and other than the Banzai/Charge rules, he's probably right. I certainly felt pressured by the Charges, though, and was very concerned one more was coming up late. It would have made things extremely dicey on my end. I'd really love to give a scenario with sighting markers a go sometime soon. There's a whole set of rules involving caves, tunnels etc. that look like they'd be very nasty to go up against.

If you love CC, you're going to love Pacific. If you like it a bit, it might not provide enough new stuff to make you pull the trigger unless you're a bigger fan of the PTO vs. Europe. It is a standalone game, however, so you don't need any prior entries to play. If you don't like CC, well, it hasn't changed THAT much, so you probably won't like this one either.

In any case, it reaffirms to me that it's a series that belongs right a the top of what I enjoy. I'll always be eager to put that one on the table.

CC hits the beach

Eric's choice this time, so we moved from the fields of England to the Pacific islands, and rolled forward 300 years, as we got the newly released Combat Commander: Pacific (BGG entry)from GMT onto the table. This sees some changes to the base CC rules, as well as some special rules for the Pacific. The major changes are:

• Stacking. Previously there was a hard limit of 7 figures in a single hex, but this is changed so that a player may have more figures in a hex. However, any hex with more than 7 figures stacked in it has a -1 cover modifier for each figure beyond 7. Seemingly drawn straight from Fields of Fire, I like this rule.
  
• Artillery. The artillery Request/Denied order have been replaced with more generic Asset Request/Denied orders. Requests allow you to obtain artillery or aircraft missions, fire for effect, or repair broken weapons. Denied orders allow you to screw with the other player, breaking his weapons or radios. Again, a neat change that fits, and seems to be well thought out.
  
• Exiting. Units that exit the map no longer score points based on their casualty value, but on the value of the location where they exit. In fact they can only exit off these locations, rather than anywhere on the map edge.
  
• Scout. Kinda like a hero, except that he is used to direct mortar fire when activated.
  
• Melee. Now fought at the start of the Allied player's turn, rather than immediately. Allows the Japanese player an extra draw. Also introduces the Bayonets action, which adds two to the melee strength.
  
• Elimination. In a Fire, if the attack strength is more than twice the defense strength, then the defender is eliminated. This makes fire groups even more useful, and building mega fire groups of death (tm) real useful. Especially when the defender is overstacked.
  
• Reconnoiter. A new order, it allows the player to look at the top card in his fate deck, and then either leave it there, put it in the discard pile, or into his hand.
  
• Recover. Replaced by the Revive order, this gives you a number of points (1-5), shown at the top of the card. Each point may be used to remove a suppressed marker or rally one unit, which is now automatic. The Rout order has also been removed.
  
• Road. Roads now are 1/2MP, but only if there is no enemy LoS to the hex. The -1 cover is also dropped.
  

There are a number of smaller changes, impacting when weapons may be transferred, changes in the Actions and Events (some of which are just modifications of previous items), and such. Overall, I like the changes to the game. Mostly evolutionary rather than revolutionary, the stacking change is the biggest impact item, I think.

With this being a Pacific theater game, there are, not surprisingly, a number of rules to handle the Japanese. Major ones include:

• Infiltration. An order, it allows the Japanese player to remove units from the map to be brought on later at Sighting marker locations. These are set up at start, and then moved each time a random hex is revealed (e.g. for a Sniper).
  
• Banzai. A new posture, this allows the use of the Charge order, where all units that have not been activated can be activated for movement. Before that, all now activated units lose any suppressed marker, and rally. Downside is that all remaining unactivated defenders are activated for fire.
  
• Caves. New type of fortification, with limited LoS rules
  

These add some interesting flavor to the game for the Japanese player. (And his opponent, I guess!) However, we chose scenario 3, which Eric had read was one of the best CC scenarios, ever, and has the Japanese attacking at Guadalcanal, early in the war, and didn't feature Infiltration or Caves, but they are in a Banzai posture, so Charge orders were available. In a random draw, I got to play the Japanese. This scenario has the Japanese attacking over a river, attempting to take the VP hexes.

Eric set up an MMG in the middle, protecting VP hex #5 (worth 5VPs), along with a squad and weapons team. His howitzer was set up in VP hex #4 (worth 4VPs), along with a team, leader and squad. His HMG, weapon team, and a squad was in VP hex #1 (1VP), which had a good LoS to the beach hexes. His remaining squad was set up on his right, in the jungle, by itself.

I grouped my 'A' squads to the left, and in the middle, along with one of the good leaders each. The 'B' and SNLF squads were spread out in between and to the right, with the weaker leaders. My plan was to use the strength on the left against his lone unit, and mainly threaten in the middle, to see how it went. I started out slowly, taking my first three hands (of only 3 cards) and discarding them, looking for some way to move. In the meantime his howitzer is taking pot shots, to no effect.

Eventually I got moving, as I found Charge, Move, and Advance cards, all in short order. I managed to get up to the river, and across, but by this time we've had 4 'Time' events already, we're half way through the game, and I haven't even got to contact yet. On the good side, Eric tries for some artillery, but gets denied, and his MMG in the middle breaks.

Another Advance (the Japanese have 10 in the deck) and Charge gets me onto the far side of the river, and yet another Charge lets me advance onto the wire. Oh, I forgot to mention the wire. It's all over the American side. It's here that things start to go pear shaped, as his HMG, squads and leaders start to take a toll at the closer range. Still, my left flank is in good shape, and starts kicking the stuffing out of the American units, although his reinforcing garrison squads keep breaking down into teams, which makes them harder to kill. (Elite teams have higher morale than the garrison squads.) In the middle I finally get to contact, but my advance to melee in #5 goes Eric's way, when the even attack draws weak. All I needed was an even draw!

However, Time is down to the penultimate turn, I've already used the Initiative twice to reject a Time trigger, and it's getting close. I managed to assault #4, set up for an assault on #5, and even draw the required Advance card. However, it's not to be as Eric draws a Time trigger in his Fire, and with the Initiative card in his possession I can't get the double draw of '8'+ to keep the game going. Even though the score was 19VPs in his favor, it was a lot closer than that as I would have swung back 12 of those points in the next turn, just from the cards in hand.

This was one of the more enjoyable CC games I've played, as nothing too outrageously wacky went on. One or two small things, like Eric breaking his MMG in the middle early on; my 7-8 sniper attempts all drawing '7'+ (except for 1 '5'), when I needed low numbers (the numbering only goes up to '10'); Eric's gun managing to miss almost everything it aimed at, including a Fire at range 3, but at least the snake-eyes draw was also a Time trigger. Fairly minor. The critical factor was all the Time triggers early in the game, taking away half the game before I'd got sploshing through the river onto the far bank. It was a disappointment not to get to try some of the other Pacific rules, but that just means we'll have to get it back onto the table again. Bummer.

The changes to the system all made sense and worked well. I especially like the change to the stacking. However, the biggest disappointment in CC:P was the handling of the Banzai/Charge. My perception of a Banzai charge is a whole bunch of guys screaming and charging until they get to grips with the enemy and a big fight develops, with fists and rifle butts swinging. OK, maybe a Hollywood type perception, but that's what I understand it to be. And that's not what the game delivers.

The nature of the card plays means that the Charge order has you move your guys for one turn. And then they stop, piddle around, maybe Fire a little, whatever. At some later stage they may take it up again, or they may not. And that just doesn't seem right. There needs to be some sort of mechanism to allow them to carry the charge on, to keep going until they meet the enemy. Maybe it's my perceptions on the whole Banzai Charge that needs adjusting, I'm not sure, but at the moment it feels more like a 'Line Advance' card from C&C:A than a Banzai Charge.

Which is a shame, because the rest of the game is tight. The Japanese deck feels good. The new Events, Actions and mechanisms make for a better game than CC:E and CC:M, and I'm hoping that a lot of these changes make it into the v2.0 rules for the older games, and they have redone card decks, although that's unlikely.

I'm looking forward to playing more of the scenarios, especially any with Infiltration, but that whole Banzai thing is going to bug me.

Dietel, Hero of the Reich

First, apologies for being late with my post - real-life intervened, in this case work and non-work events conspiring to make me later than I had hoped (I should have it posted on the right DAY at least)!

Eric and I played Combat Commander: Europe last Thursday - it had been a month or two since our last outing, and initially the rustiness showed. However, the rules were easy to consult, and each time seemed to have anticipated just the question we were asking. Which is definitely a strong endorsement of the rules writing (and, I suspect, editing) in Combat Commander! As usual, I enjoyed our playing - I think Eric did too. It was a close fought battle throughout, and while there is definitely skill involved, there is certainly a random element that is not insignificant. The random factor doesn't bother me - especially on nights I'm on the good side of things, as I was this time - in this game, although it might were it longer.

While I picked the game, Eric had been wanting to try Scenario 7, Bessarabian Nights. This is an interesting scenario that puts very different problems before each of the sides. The Russians, in this game Eric, start out spread all over the map - each unit starts play in a random hex. After the Russian deployment, the Germans can set up anywhere on the map they like - but all their units must be in a continuous chain of units. So the Germans start out concentrated, and the Russians start out scattered. To balance this, the Russians (in this scenario, really partisans) can move much easier - no matter the terrain, it costs a Russian unit 1 movement per hex. However, the Russians can only do a single action each turn, which limits their options quite a bit.

Additionally, the objectives up the ante - neither player can gain points by leaving the map, and elimination points are doubled, and there is an open objective that if either side controls all 5 objectives when sudden death occurs, the win immediately. Each side also has a secret objective - in this game, objective 5, right in the center on the railway, was worth an extra 2 points (I don't recall Erics, but I suspect it was the cross-roads on the far "east" side of the map. The feel of the scenario is definitely a German squad stumbling into a partisan encampment, with both sides scrambling to make the most of the occurrence.

After Eric's scattering, I chose to set up my German Volksgrenadiers in the large clearing to the center north of the map, with my units spread in a line along the path, near but not in sight of any of Eric's units. This turned out to be a good move on my part, as I had a hard time coming up with Fire orders in the early part of the game. On the downside, the Russians start with a "hidden unit" card, and on my first discard Eric revealed a weapons team with a Heavy Machine Gun (HMG), with a line of sight on a few of my units in their initial position. The early portion of the game consisted largely of my units taking largely ineffective shots at the Russian HMG, and the Russian HMG taking shots at German units, also to little effect (due largely to my having relatively easy access to Recover cards).

The major turning point in the game came in one of my rolls (I don't recall if it was an attack or defense roll) caused an event - a Hero! Dietel, Hero of the Reich came into play, and over the course of the game he had a huge effect on how things turned out. Dietel joined with one of the Volksgrenadier to start a melee with a Russian Militia unit that had managed to infiltrate close to the German units - I gambled on this attack, as I went into the melee without an Ambush, but I figured if Eric had one or two I could soak them up with Dietel with little ill effect (losing a hero does not give any VPs to the opponent). Luckily, Eric did not have any Ambush cards, and the melee was successful.

After this initial contact, the Volksgrenadier moved back into contact with the German line, while Dietel infiltrated into a clearing behind the Russian heavy weapons units (the earlier mentioned HMG, and a weapons team with a German mortar). Dietel then proceeded to charge the Russian machine gun nest single-handedly, and managed to achieve the element of surprise due to attacking from the rear (I had drawn an Ambush card, which weakened the team manning the HMG) - and again won the melee, destroying the Russian unit and the HMG. My other units then concentrated fire on the mortar crew, who were eventually finished off by another event (I believe it was a KIA event - drawn by Eric - forcing him to eliminate the only broken unit on the board . . . his own mortar crew).

Dietel then proceeded to run up and down the rail line, claiming objective points (in particular objective 5, which I knew was worth 2 extra vp at the end of the game). In the process, the rest of my units continued to take opportunistic shots at Russian units that presented themselves. We had seen several Time! events (and at least one of us made it through our deck, triggering another Time! event), but the score was still pretty close to even due to a few events that allowed the Russians to whittle down the German lead. At one point, I believe the point total was only 1 or 2 points in favor of the Germans, after having been as high as 8 points.

However, from this point on, the game went all the Germans way - Time! events continued to occur regularly, and I used the German ability to issue 3 orders a turn to good effect, shooting at units to break them, and then using Rout cards to force them to leave the entrenched positions they were occupying. Eric continued to concentrate his units, and managed to make a strong assault into the center clearing, but this assault stalled due to concentrated fire from the defending Germans. We had a couple of Sudden Deaths that failed to end the game, but on the third or so, the roll came up under the total and the game ended - with a final tally around 10 or so in favor of the Germans (including the extra points for holding objective 5).

While the final result was a bit lopsided, the game itself felt close and tense throughout - I know I was scrambling to keep the Russians at bay, and it certainly felt as though Eric had the unenviable task of choosing one from any three critical actions at a time. The rules modifications - the easier Russian movement, but limited to a single order each turn - really make the Russian position an interesting one, in that they must spend time concentrating their forces, but while doing so the Germans are given opportunities to maneuver into advantageous positions. One interesting thing we noted is that, as the Germans, I moved very little - the majority of my forces stayed in the woods where they started, the only united that moved much on the map was Dietel, Hero of the Reich. This was in stark contrast to the Russian units, who moved frequently to try and form enough concentrated firepower to drive my German units out of the woods and foxholes they'd occupied.

I am looking forward to trying this scenario again, but with the sides flipped - I think the Russians challenges pose an interesting puzzle for the Russian commander, and choosing a single order a turn certainly seemed to provide for some painful (but enjoyable, I hope) decision points!

Next time, for Eric's choice, I believe we are playing Worthington Games Clash for a Continent, which I'm looking forward to!

Until then, happy gaming!

Dietel, Bane of Mother Russia

Game: Combat Commander, Scenario #7, Bessarabian Nights
Germans: Tim
Russians: Eric

Tim hadn't fully decided on something to play last week, and mentioned a couple choices. I said “if I can influence you, I'd like to play the Russians in the Bessarabia scenario of Combat Commander.”

So, that was the choice. This scenario is very different than anything else in the game in that the Russians have 12 units of partisans (plus two leaders) that are randomly placed on the board. You draw a card for each unit and place that unit in or adjacent to the hex listed on the card. Then, you've got 4 satchel charges and 4 light machine guns to portion out. You also start the game with the hidden units action card – I used that to place a weapons team with an HMG. You get one big benefit – the partisans are very familiar with the surrounding terrain, so they pay no terrain penalties in moving. You also get one big drawback – you can only play one order per turn.

The Germans in this scenario have to place in adjacent hexes somewhere on the board – and they get to do it after the Russians deploy, so they can try to avoid the worst of things.

The game starts at Time 0, and Sudden Death is Time 5. Starting objectives are that elimination points are doubled (every unit killed counts doubled) and if you control all five objectives when a SD roll is made, you win. There's also a secret objective for each side. Also, there are no victory points for moving units off the board – you have to fight it out.

I was able to deploy on three of the five objectives. (#s 3, 4, and 5 – all along the railroad.) Tim ended up deploying his group in the woods on top of objective one. As the game progressed, he never really moved very far – I took the game to him.

One of the techniques in defeating units in Combat Commander is to break them with a fire group, then either fire on them again or rout them away. That requires two orders – when you can only play one order on a turn, it takes a different mode of thought.

In return, however, Tim didn't have a concrete thing to fight against – I was spread out all over the map, so he really did have to defend from all angles.

After some fire was exchanged, the incessant harassment from the partisans produced something the Russian partisans really didn't want to see: Dietel, Hero of the Reich. Over the course of the game, Dietel did the following (at a minimum): Took out the weapons team with the HMG, eliminated a militia squad, and claimed three objectives. The thing with heroes in Combat Commander is you can't control when they appear, and they don't hurt you if they're killed. This leads to some pretty daring feats – exactly as you'd expect to see from a hero.

While Dietel was running around causing havoc, an intense battle was raging around objective 1. I was slowly getting my units into place from elsewhere on the map, and pulling them into the fray. I briefly got the VP counter onto my side, around 2 or so, but for nearly the entirety of the game, the VP counter was hovering between 2 and 6 on the German side. Given that eliminating a unit was worth 4 Vps in this scenario, it was anyone's game.

We had one rather hilarious moment sometime around when the Time counter had reached the sudden death marker. Tim had advanced into melee, and I beat him on the die roll. He had the initiative card, so he passed it my way to get me to reroll. I failed, and passed it back. (IIRC, I only needed a 7 or higher on two dice to succeed on this roll.) We proceeded to pass the initiative card back and forth around seven times until I finally managed to pass the roll while I held the initiative card. We joked about that one quite a bit.

After the time counter reached 7, Tim had managed to pull out to a 10 point lead, mostly through Dietel's antics. This included a “Battlefield Integrity” event where Tim got 1 VP for each objective he controlled. That was 4 points right there as I only held on to #2. The game ended when the Time counter hit 8. We revealed our hidden objectives and these gave a net of one point to Tim. (I got a point for objective 2, Tim got 2 for objective 5.) So the Germans fend off the Partisan attack with a final score of 11.

Did I learn anything here? Certainly.

First, don't attack piecemeal. I was pushing Tim before marshaling my forces, and it meant I had nothing around to exploit any openings that I may have opened up.

Second, put the satchel charges with faster units. I was using them to shore up my Green units (movement of 3), but that meant I had a harder time getting the charges where I needed them. I ended up only using one of them, and it didn't have any effect I remember.

Third, attack an opponents weakness quickly rather than waiting to build strength. This kind of goes in the face of the first lesson, but there were a couple times during the game that I could have gone after a weak point and decided to build up strength first. The fact that Tim could make three times the orders I could meant the opening was gone before I had another chance.

Net? I love this game. I specifically chose what's likely the biggest challenge of any of the 28 positions in the official scenarios, lost, and still had a blast. The story that was created by Dietel's antics was full of the stuff that feeds all the histories. Hollywood likely would have changed Dietel to American then done at least two movies about it.

We were a little rusty in that neither of us had played for a while, but every question we had was answered right there in black and white. We went three triggers past the targeted end of game, and still finished in two hours. This game is going to be hitting the table for me for a long time. It's really hard to beat the amount of decision making, fun, and challenge packed into two to three hours.

Administrivia

Next week's game will be Clash for a Continent. I haven't chosen the scenario yet, but it will be one of the Revolutionary War ones, not one of the French & Indian War battles.

Racing Against Time

Combat Commander: Europe, scenario #3: Bonfire of the NKVD.

Germans: Eric
Russians: Tim
Beer consumed: Sam Adams
Music: XM's Fine Tuning stream via DirecTV. (except for a ½ hour window when my wife watched Family Guy.)

This week's game was a different Combat Commander: Europe scenario, Bonfire of the NKVD, #3. In this scenario, the Russians are retreating, but are attempting to destroy papers/maps/stuff in the building they had been using as the local HQ. The Germans are trying to get there before they can destroy everything of value.

In similar fashion to the scenario we played last time, the attacker is trying to get to and control a building in the back half of the map within a certain amount of time. Two things make this scenario a LOT different than the Belgian Chateau scenario we played two weeks ago: This is a real “quality vs. quantity” matchup – the Germans have a small handful of squads while the Russians have nearly a dozen militia and green units. Also, this scenario is played along the long axis of a woods heavy map. (for reference, here's the map. From this perspective, the Germans are attacking left to right – west to east if you prefer, trying to control the small building in the middle of the right edge of the map.)

Deployment is also a bit interesting. Defenders set up first, then attackers, then the defender can deploy 12 wire counters. Tim decided to place these in what amounted to a line just west of the road from the north down. (Again, referring to the map image as north on top.) All objectives are open in this scenario – the HQ at N5 is worth 16 VPs, and the other objectives are worth 1VP each. Time counter starts at 0 and the Sudden Death marker is at 7. Another interesting tidbit of deployment is that objective #3 straddles the deployment zones – the Germans deploy in the western 3 columns, the Russians over the rest of the board.

My basic plan after seeing Tim's setup (he effectively abandoned the west half of the map) was to move forward in the forest, taking objectives as possible, marshall my strength and then assault the HQ. I fully intended to ignore objective #4 (the two-hex building in the southeast quadrant) other than harassing the occupants enough to keep them bottled inside.

My opening hand would prove to be a theme throughout the entire battle – I had severe problems getting Move orders. I only had more than 1 in my hand one time, and even then, I only had two. Obviously, my troops weren't to eager to follow through on my plan.

Early turns involved a slow advance on my part to within a couple hexes of the wire. I took objective #3, and was firing a few potshots into objective #4. Tim hit a Time trigger halfway through his deck, and by the time I had worked through my deck, we were facing off in the woods. The only melee that happened in the woods ended up a tie – all units die. Since that was one of his and two of mine, Tim was pretty happy with that exchange. Eventually, I was able to break and rout away most of the remaining units he had in the woods – after which I claimed objectives #1 and 2. Up to this point, I had four events that gave me somewhere around 8 or 9 victory points (for either controlled objectives or destroyed enemy units). Before I had even closed on the HQ, I had whittled Tim's VP count down to 6 or 7. (He started at 20.)

It was about here that things started to go pear shaped. I was routing some of his units off the board, but he had parked a good leader, team, and squad in the HQ, and I was going to need everything I had to assault it. I finally pulled the pieces together, but managed to botch it by not being able to include my leader – we both played a couple ambush cards and the result was a 9 strength force for Tim while mine was only 4. (It would have been 10 if I had managed to include the leader.) With the odds stacked against me, and Tim in possession of the initiative, the inevitable happened and my assault was repulsed.

That pretty much broke any chance I had at forcing Tim out of the HQ, and the VP counter was inching its way back his direction. The killing blow came with the incredible speed in which the game ended. The Time counter was at 4 when I managed to pull a Time trigger on the last card of my deck. This advances the Time counter twice. NOT what I needed. On the very next turn, Tim exhausted his deck, advancing the Time counter again, and rolled under the Sudden Death number. As he had the initiative and the lead, he obviously let the result stay and claimed his first CC:E victory. I believe the final score was about 13 in Tim's favor.

We played this scenario in almost exactly two hours, and again had a wonderful time. This truly is one of the best < 3 hr wargaming experiences available.

Noted items

• Assaulting buildings is tough. They're interesting puzzles to crack, and I did a poor job of assaulting the HQ in this session. I'll have to toy around with various combinations to see what works best. Leaders are obviously critical here as they add their command rating to every unit in the hex, AND add their own firepower. Assaulting a hex containing a leader without one of your own is likely to fail.
• The defender has won both scenarios where we've had an attacker/defender setup. Granted, Tim was a lot closer to winning as attacker last time than I was this time. However, I think it means we really haven't grasped what it takes to win as the attacker yet.
• For whatever reason, I completely forgot about the VPs available for running off Tim's side of the map. In the end, they wouldn't have mattered in this case. I would only have scored 6 or 7 VPs, and I never had enough Move orders to get those guys back into play where they could have mattered. I wouldn't have had a prayer of taking the HQ had I run off the board.
• I'm reaching the point of 2nd level thought on when to use the initiative. It's not just a matter of “do I really want this roll to succeed” anymore. Now I'm starting to think about whether I'm going to need the initiative in the near future. For example, had I managed to keep the initiative before assaulting the HQ, the result could have been very different. Tim rolled a 10 on his melee attack, IIRC, and I obviously would have had that rerolled.

Administrivia

Next week's game is my choice, and we're going to give Twilight Struggle a run. I've played four or five times now, and Tim has yet to play. So, he'll get the Russians. I've got the 2nd edition rules and cards, and there's only a couple minor errata on the 1st edition map, so this should be fun. Not that there were THAT many changes in 2nd edition, but I haven't had the chance to play the new version yet.

Combat Commander: Europe - Scenario 3 (Bonfire of the NKVD)

Dateline June 24, 1941, outside Brest-Litovsk: A Russian outpost is being pulled back from an overwhelming German advance, but the documents and communications equipment of the outposts Command Post (CP), including details about the defenses of Brest-Litovsk, need to be destroyed before falling into the hands of the advancing German army. The only force able to intercede between the Germans and the CP is a unit of the Russian Militia, with very light weapon support (a single heavy MG, and a single light MG). The Russians begin in place, while the Germans advance and attempt take the Russian Outpost CP before the key documents and comm. gear is destroyed.



Game Details: As the Russian player, I set up first (with the exception of a large quantity of wire counters, which I set up after the Germans). Captain Egorov was required to set up in the CP (obviously, he's the one doing the burning of papers and such), but otherwise I was free to position my teams on most of the map - all but the last three hexes, where the Germans enter. The CP is the small building near the road on the far end of the map, the Germans enter on the opposite side (lengthwise). Since I was the defender, and my primary objective was simply to keep the HQ from falling to the Germans - it was worth a total of 16 VPs all by itself, for a total swing of 32 points if it was lost (I'd lose 16, Eric would gain 16) - I felt no need to be overly aggressive for the most part. The Captain and a weapons team manning the Heavy MG went into the HQ building, two militia squads with a Corporal went into the other major building, and a large force of infantry, including the Light MG, went into the woods along the road. Eric Deployed the bulk of his forces on the far side of the clearing, with some weapon squads coming in amongst the buildings on the other side of the map. At this point, I deployed my wire - since my main goal was simply to slow his team down (and, if possible, channel his units into lines of fire from the rest of my units), I used it mostly on the edge of the forest in the hope of both slowing him down, and making him easier to hit with my stationary fire teams (in CC:E, wire has two effects - a unit entering it must stop moving, and they have a -1 penalty to all of their stats while in the wire).

Eric's Germans went first, and he moved his squads up, taking a couple of pot-shots at my units in the farmhouse on the left flank, and moving the mass of his force through the clearing, and up onto (but not yet into) the wire, while I churned cards a couple of times looking for a better set of cards. One important card I ended up pulling ended up being quite important - an Ambush, going well with an Advance already in my hand. Eric then moved into the wire - one group in particular looked threatening, as he had a full squad PLUS a weapons team and his Heavy MG. The Militia squad guarding that section of the wire advanced, used an Ambush to weaken the Germans further, and the resulting Melee ended in a tie - eliminating my militia along with both his squad, his weapons team, and probably most importantly his Heavy MG. That seemed like a pretty good trade to me, as the Russians have numerical superiority in this scenario, while the Germans units and weapons are quite a bit superior. As it turned out, neither of us were able to use our Heavy MGs much, as mine ended up breaking shortly thereafter as a result of doubles rolled while using Sustained Fire, and eventually being eliminated (the weapons team obviously was unable to repair the damage).

At this point, the Germans managed to use the Demolitions card they started with (a special rule for this scenario, to make up for the large quantity of wire the Russians start with) to remove one of the wire tokens on the right flank, and started pouring his units through - this resulted in a fairly prolonged firefight in the woods and along the road, with the Germans coming out on the better end of it. The one major thing Eric was unable to do was eliminate Sgt. Maisky who had been in charge of guarding that part of the wire - he was able to retreat back behind a low wall and take command of a fresh militia squad that provided some protective fire on the left flank of the HQ building. I managed to consolidate my forces, mainly be retreating a militia unit into the HQ (the stacking limit of 7 allows one leader, one squad, and one team to occupy a single hex, and buildings provide strong cover which make them difficult to attack at range).

Eric was using his MGs and a seemingly endless collection of Rout cards to drive several of my weakened squads off the map - at one point, I was down below 10 VPs, after having started with 20, due to losses suffered either directly or as a result of my Routed units running off my end of the map. Eric continued his advance through the forest on the right flank, protected by a good amount of brush between my units and his (and by forest, in some cases). He also had a Walking Wounded event bring back one of his previously eliminated units (broken), appearing right behind my HQ - but luckily for me he ended up not having the Moves (to move it off the board for VPs) nor the Recovers to make it more of a threat, before I was able to eliminate it with the squad Sgt. Maisky had taken charge of.

At this point, things were looking a bit grim for the Russian defenders (or, at least, it felt that way), as the Germans were able to move a sizable force (2 squads, plus a light MG) forward to threaten the HQ building. I expected him to advance into the HQ and start a melee, so I discarded and managed to get a second Ambush card. Sure enough Eric advanced both squads into the HQ, and he ALSO had 2 ambush cards - I broke my team and my squad (after verifying that Command still applied in melee - the cost of breaking my squad was a reduction in FP of 3, while breaking Cpt. Egorov cost 4 FP, 2 each for the team and the squad), and ended up with a significant numerical advantage over Eric's broken forces (IIRC, it was on the order of 10 FP to 4 FP), and I managed to roll fairly well, eliminating two German squads (and a LMG), and maintaining control of the key objective. The Germans still had enough forces to be a threat, but managed to maneuver behind the copse of trees right outside of the HQ building. I was able to use recover to un-break the squad and team guarding the HQ, and was able to fire (with a decent attack value) on his units hiding in the field on the edge of the map. At this point, luck took a strange turn - Eric's defense roll was both the last card of his deck, AND a Time! trigger, resulting in TWO time triggers at once. This brought the VP total back from the brink (by 2), and also put us one Time! trigger away from Sudden Death (with me controlling the initiative).

On his next turn, Eric moved his units closer, and I took the chance to take some opportunity fire, my attack roll resulting in yet another Time! trigger . . . at first, I grabbed the top card, which was higher than the Sudden Death (SD) value, but we checked the Time Advance sequence, and I was supposed to reshuffle my deck first . . . on a recheck, my roll was significantly below the SD value, ending the game. Since I held the initiative, Eric had no option to force a re-roll.

For those keeping track at home, that was THREE Time! triggers right in a row . . . with a Sudden Death roll to end the game capping it all off.

On the whole, after having eliminated the units assaulting the Russian HQ, I felt like I had things well in hand (for the first time since the Germans had swarmed over the wire, to be honest), so I'm not sure the result would have been terribly different if the game had gone on longer. Additionally, the HQ building was, in fact, worth another 2 VP (due to a hidden objective drawn as an event), making it worth a total of 18 VP, for a total swing of 36 points if it changed hands. As it was, the game ended abruptly (and in my imagination, the surviving Russian militia, along with Captain Egorov, retreated to the relative safety of the Brest-Litovsk fortress, with many vodkas drunk to their brave comrades who had made the ultimate sacrifice holding off the advancing Germans).

This was my fourth game of Combat Commander: Europe, and my first victory (which was pretty exciting from my perspective). I'm still enjoying CC:E quite a bit, but I'm likely to be aiming for something a bit different for my next choice - I have a while to think of what I want to try, though, as it's Eric's turn to pick this week, when I will likely be taking the Russian perspective once again, facing off against the U.S. in Twilight Struggle.

CC:E Scenario 4 - For Want of a Few Minutes More

Eric and I played Scenario 4 of Combat Commander: Europe Thursday evening – the set up for the scenario is that the German’s hold a chateau/mansion in Belgium, and the Americans need to drive them out of the strong defensive position they are in.

Eric (the German defenders) set up his forces first, putting a lone squad with a machine gun in one of the outbuildings near the side the Americans would enter on, and the majority of his forces in the manor house, with one outlying MG squad as well hiding in the woods. He also had an infantry gun and weapons crew in reserve – the scenario set up provided that he could place the gun and crew after the Americans (me, attacking) set up.

I split my forces into two main groups – the elite squads, with a light MG and a .50 cal MG lead by Lt. Wray, and the line troops, also with a light MG and a .50 cal MG lead by Sgt. Buehler. I put Lt. Wray and the elites up against the wall to the right, and Sgt. Buehler and the line troops on the right (along the road, and very near the outbuilding where Eric had set up one of his MG squads – I was hoping I would be able to take thembefore they had the opportunity to do too much damage).

The Germans then set up their heavy gun – Eric was a bit conservative, and set the gun crew up near the rear, behind the manor. One thing we didn’t really notice at the time, but I did eventually (and I’m sure Eric did too) is that this set up left the road on the left side pretty much un-covered – there was a wall and woods between the manor house and the road, and the forward observation post was all that was protecting that side (and this was soon to be eliminated).

Initially, I focused on using my artillery to drop smoke all around the manor – this provided me the cover I needed to advance my units closer. I also, on the very first turn, used the line troops to overwhelm the observation post in the outbuilding before it had a chance to respond. This left the left flank of the map open, and I was able to move my units quickly up the road to begin the assault on the building.

At this point, I think I made my major mistake of the game – I took a lot of low-quality pot-shots at the German forces. This had some positive effects – many events occurred, and in this game most of them seemed to go my way (a sniper eliminated the infantry gun after only one or two shots from it, for instance) – but also had the long term effect of driving the time marker forward. This ended up being my undoing, as I ran out of time despite what felt like good momentum in the final assault.

The frontal approach was, for the most part unsuccessful – although it did keep the heavy weapons focused on the front, allowing my line troops access to the building from the side. More effective was moving my line troops up the road, climbing the wall all at once, and advancing on the building that way. Once the engineers and their flamethrowers arrived, they also came up the road, and were very effective once they were able to get near the building. The flamethrowers ignoring cover makes them very strong in clearing buildings and fortifications (which, I guess, makes sense).

One the whole, I think I had the Germans (Eric) off balance most of the game, but time ran out just after I was able to gain access to the building. It should be interesting to hear what his perception of the flow of the game was!

Memorable “stories” from the game:

• One of the line squads advanced into a space containing a leader, squad and MG, and after both Eric and I used our lone Ambush cards, rolled a tie on the melee rolls – resulting in elimination for both my lone squad, and Eric’s group of units (including a leader). This would be one of those “heroic charges of a machine gun nest” you see in movies / read about in books.
• American snipers were very active throughout the game – eliminating the infantry gun very quickly, and keeping pressure on the German defenders
• Both the Germans and the Americans came across discarded weapons (i.e. scrounge events), leading to joking cry’s of “look what I found, Sarge”.

Lessons learned:

• As attacker, take fewer high-quality shots, rather than a lot of low-quality shots (time is not your friend). This *is* mentioned in the play advice section of the playbook, but I didn’t read that until after this game (and learning something directly may be more effective than having someone tell it to you).
• Flamethrowers are harsh and effective for rooting out enemies with strong cover, but also not easy to use as they need to be adjacent
• Units in strong cover (buildings or pillboxes) are difficult to eliminate
• Artillery is not terribly effective for attack – but smoke can be very useful!
• Advance into melee can be your friend – especially against hard points

This was my second game of CC:E, and I still enjoy it immensely – one of the reasons, I think, is because it moves quickly (we did the entire scenario in about 2.5 hours, or so), and also because the rules are very well laid out. We did have a few questions in the course of play, but it was both easy to figure out where to look, and once found, the rules laid out in a good level of detail what needed to be done.

I’m leaning towards using “my” picks for what game we’re going to play to focus on CC:E for awhile, in order to get the rules well imprinted on the old gray matter (which needs more help these days ;).

Combat Commander: Europe - Eric's View

Our first Thursday night game was Combat Commander: Europe – a new release from GMT Games.

CC:E is a WWII tactical wargame. Counters represent 5-man weapon teams, 10-man squads, and single leaders and weapons. Visually, it looks similar to a slightly enlarged Squad Leader. As an example, here's a shot of the map of the scenario we played right after the bulk of deployment.

The big difference in CC:E vs. other tactical games is that this one is card driven. You cannot do anything without playing a card from your hand. Time is somewhat nebulous as well. This makes the flow of each scenario much different every time you play as the cards dictate what can happen.

As an example, here is an image of some sample fate cards. Each card has a number of sections to it. Cards can be used out of your hand two different ways, as an Order or as an Action. Actions can amend orders if the conditions for playing that action exist. As you can see in the image, the center card has an action where you can add 2 to the strength of an attack into an adjacent hex. You would play this after playing a Fire order similar to what's shown on the right and left cards. (Fire is a special case in that it's an order AND an action so the inactive player can use Fire to take opportunity fire at opposing units moving across the map.) The size of your hand is determined by your posture in the scenario. Attackers get 6, defenders 4, and if you're in recon mode, you get 5.

In the bottom right corner of each card is a die roll. The cards in your deck also act as your dice. Occasionally, you will get triggers that show up when “rolling the dice.” This is shown in the rightmost card. If the red box reads Event! Then you flip over the next card, and the event shown on it is performed. Occasionally things happen in random hexes – the bottom left corner of the card is used for that. Every map in the game is the same size (10x15) and the random hexes are within this boundary of columns A-O and rows 1-10.

On your turn, you are allowed to perform up to a certain number of Orders as defined by the scenario. Alternatively, you can discard up to a certain number of cards instead. Useful if you have a hand full of cards that don't help the current situation.

Each game allows for a certain number of Time Marker Advancements. The scenario we played starts on the time track at space 1, and the Sudden Death marker is placed in space 7. When you either use the last card in your deck, or produce a Time! Trigger, the time marker advances. Once you hit the Sudden Death space, you start rolling dice every time the time marker advances. Roll under the current space number and the game ends immediately. Even if you're in the middle of resolving a firefight that could be decisive. Games can also end if either side reaches their Surrender level in units or leaders lost.

VPs are gained through Objective chits and killing enemy units. These objective chits are either scenario dependent or random, and can be secret to one side. The scenario we played had two open objective chits making the big building worth 15VPs. When an objective (shown by five numbered red dots on the map) changes hands, the old owner loses VPs equal to the revealed objectives, and the new owner gains them. So, had Tim taken the big building, I would have lost 15VPs and he would have gained 15. A net swing of 30 – likely a decisive amount. (This scenario starts with the Germans being +20. It's zero sum, not a comparison. The building changing control immediately would put the Americans at +10.)

The game comes with 6 double-sided 17"x22" maps, a scenario for each map, 3 decks of 72 cards each, and 3 sheets of German, Russian, and American counters, markers and weapons. There's also a small handful of tracking sheets and reference cards. Rules are also included for DIY scenarios where you randomly generate a game on one of the enclosed maps.

CC:E Session Report

So, now that we've got a basic look at how the game works, let's talk about how it went for us.

Combat Commander: Europe, scenario #4, Closed for Renovations.

Tim: Americans
Eric: Germans

The setting is a German rear guard holed up in a Belgian chateau that the Americans are attempting to take in mid-1944. Very much an “attacker storming fortified defender” situation.

The map image shown above is from the German point of view. For reference, hex A1 is in the top left, O10 is the bottom right. The big building is the objective. The Americans can deploy only in the top row of the map, and they get reinforcements when the time marker hits 3. The Germans can deploy anywhere else on the map. They can also hold on to a weapon team and infantry gun until after the Americans deploy. I put squads with LMGs in the B7 building and M3 building. The rest of my force went into the chateau. After Tim deployed, I put the IG and weapon team behind the wall in the woods in hex D10. (This turned out to be a mistake, in retrospect.)

Tim started off by blanketing the chateau with smoke. He has off-board artillery in this scenario, and managed to successfully hit the entire chateau and one layer of hexes between it and his forces with only two artillery strikes. Smoke is what's called a hinderence in game terms – it reduces the attack strength of any shot going in, out, or through it. Tim's plan was apparently to give himself cover and run his troops up to the chateau in order to assault it. Here's the situation after the 2nd time trigger.

The other thing he did early on was take out my unit and weapon in the M3 building. Deploying there was definitely a mistake on my part – it was far too easy to be overwhelmed.

As time went on, Tim slowly moved his units up through the trees in front of the chateau and along the road on the other side of the tree line. THAT's where I should have parked the infantry gun. As all my units were now on one side of the trees, he had a free run to move up the road. Meanwhile, we were each taking pot shots at each other and generating what seemed to be a LOT of sniper events. In fact, the weapon team with the infantry gun was completely taken out by snipers. Eventually, he had tightened the noose to the point that he was about two hexes away from the front and right side of the chateau.

Right then, a breeze kicked up and removed all the smoke. Suddenly, I was in a target rich environment :)

I was trying to plan opportunity fire when he assaulted the chateau. Regrettably, I was out of Fire cards on the turn he moved in. Those flamethrowers are deadly inside buildings – no cover bonus against them. We did have a single assault in hex H6 – I played an ambush and then we went and tied on the combat result. This meant the units from both sides were eliminated. So much for THAT plan.

By this point, we had passed the sudden death spot on the time track. The game really could end at any moment, and as I recall, it ended on an artillery attack when I uncovered a Time! trigger while defending against an artillery attack. Here's the final situation:

I had 27 Vps at the end, if I recall correctly. The chateau had increased to a value of 18, so had it changed hands, Tim would have won with 9 Vps. Also, I was only two units away from surrender, and Tim was a good 6 or 7. He could afford to make some high risk assaults.

This was the second time Tim and I had played CC:E. We've both loved it each time, despite the fact I've won both games. The game flows easily, and we only had one situation that we thought wasn't entirely covered by the rules (though I later found the exact passage in the rules that explained it.)

There isn't another game precisely like CC:E. It melds mechanics from a handful of other games (ASL, Up Front, Lock n Load) but really doesn't play like anything else out there. It's the wargaming equivalent of Lays potato chips – you can't just play it once.

Some of the criticisms of the game are that is isn't "realistic," it's too chaotic, and that having the cards dictate what you can do creates "false choices." Well, if you want this game to be Advanced Squad Leader, those criticisms are correct. However, comparing it to ASL is apples to oranges. Yes, they're both WWII tactical wargames played at squad level, but both apples and oranges are fruits, too.

If you want determinism and full control of your troops, don't play this game. If, however, you want to see a different narrative unfold before your eyes every time you play, and want the experience to fit within three hours, this is a great game to choose. (Our game took just shy of 2.5 hours.) I believe you'll be seeing it appear in this blog many times over the next few months. It's on my hot list, and I have a feeling this might become the first wargame to receive a 10 rating from me on BGG.

I'm curious to hear from those that have played CC:E what your experiences have been.

The next game on the docket is 1889. An 18xx game based on one of the Japanese islands. After that is Tim's choice, and I've yet to hear what it'll be.