Thoughts on the new Memoir '44 Campaign Book

In case you missed it, the folks over at Days of Wonder have announced another product in their Memoir '44 line: The Campaign Book, Vol. 1. A description is found at DoW: http://blog.daysofwonder.com/?p=880&language=en

For the past year I've been kind of critical of DoW for what they've put out for the Memoir series. The Campaign bag, Overlord, and Hedgerow hell were just plain stupid, and the jury is still out on the new Mediterranean Theatre expansion. But I don't know about this book. I kind of like where DoW going with this and for some reason I'm actually excited about it. My reasons...

1. I always wanted to play a better campaign game of Memoir than what they gave you with the Winter/Desert board. It looks like we'll be able to do it and be able to finish in one sitting.

2. This seems to be primarily designed by fans. On that whole web page describing the book, I didn't see Richard Borg's name once and that's not necessarily a bad thing. While I respect Richard, seeing the words "approved scenario" doesn't really mean anything anymore. A lot of the scenarios created by fans were just as good, if not much better than the approved ones. Brunnbar, or whatever name is, has designed some pretty good scenarios and I'm sure that he did a good job with his section of the book.

3. Looks like that Terrain Pack is finally going to get the use that I had hoped it would when I first bought it. I think entire sections of the book are unplayable with out the Terrain Pack. I'm sure there are many that will complain about that, but I don't care. I have the Terrain Pack and will be glad to lay out the cemetery and radar station tiles.


I'll probably be disappointed in the final product when it comes out in Feb. But for now, I'm happy with what I see.

Now on a side note, does anyone have an honest opinion on the newer Mediterranean expansion? I don't think I've ever read an honest opinion yet. The only thoughts out there are on the web are from either DoW fan boys, who will gush even over the Campaign bag, or from WWII enthusiasts who only want to complain that the miniatures aren't exact. But seriously, how does this expansion match up with the Eastern Front expansion?

Yes, I saw this and got quite excited.

My opinion of M44 is that it's largely scenario dependent. Play a poor scenario (and there are some, even in the base game) and it's a poor game. Play a good scenario and you can have a great time, especially with that EF expansion. The Stalingrad scenario is big, intense and actually requires quite a lot of planning by M44 standards.

So the quality of the campaign book is going to depend heavily on the quality of the scenarios, but if they pull it off, it could be great. A game which has suddenly become time-independent (you can play it for sixty minutes or all day) and which has dramatically upped the sense of narrative.

I'm excited about it for a few reasons, not the least of which is that the scenarios will have a branching tree depending on success or failure. This implies to me that the scenarios should be relatively balanced or else why go to the trouble.

I'm also excited that they picked three of the major offensives of the war to design around. I'm particularly looking forward to playing Operation: Barbarossa.

From being a M'44 addict last year and early this year, I have an apathetic attitude to it now due to the crap expansions that have come out in the last 12mths and the obnoxious fan-boy dickheads on the DoW forum.
And now there is a book for €30 (nearly £30 these days) that has 51 scenarios in it - WOW .... once I finish all (hundreds) the excellent fan scenarios (after doing all the DoW) I may think of buying more scenarios for a light, abstract wargame ..... NOT.

I've just traded away a couple of games to get a copy of Tide of Iron to get a better game to play rather than spending money to buy scenarios.