40K + Heroes of Normandie = Heroes of Black Reach

Anything specific, repo? I'm interested in your wargamer opinion.

First and foremost, I think it tries real hard to be cutesy-wootsey and yet isn't. Sort of touches that same nerve that that Japanese Anime Card game with the adolescent girls with big boobs and SS uniforms atop tanks does for me. Not quite as egregious as that but in the same area.

Second, I think the battlefields were far too constrained. The game has no scope. No real room to maneuver. The terrain is at once sort of complex in it's implementation and bland as well. Oh a one space block house, big deal, now lets add 3 paragraphs of rules regarding windows and doors and los in and out of it and such. Meh.

Third, I didn't like the retail model. You get not really a lot in the base game and then have to buy little mini expansions for additional units and such. Sort of DLC for the board gaming world. Not saying it's not ethical or profitable but wasn't for me at least not in a quasi war game. Strangely though, I'm all aboard this model for a LCG. Hey! I don't have to make sense all the time.

I guess, my 3am opinion is this. The game tries to be sort of a Kelly's Heroes board game but if I want cinematic type combat I can play Combat Commander which is 1000 times better. It tries to be funny but just isn't. Not saying there are a lot of funny wargames kicking around to compare it with but it's sort of that forced humor which is just false. The combat system, from what I remember, isn't bad but it didn't make me stand up and shout.

Thanks!

Michael Barnes wrote: I think there is plenty of content and lots of units to play with. It is weird that the scale is sort of incongruous with typical 40k,
But how many Boyz can you pack onto a chit.

Complexity, it’s kind of hard to say becaus I was really familiar with the previous games.
It does seem like there has been a little streamlining, but it is still a complex system. I think it seems less complex than Shadows.

$60 is a good price on it, I think. There really is a lot in the box.

I was talking more about the relative comparison. A few boyz with lots of heavies/elites. I like games with lots of rank & file dudes, because it's more likely for the game to have a good core. A game with lots of special units? Special rules-palooza. There's a reason that 60% of my 40k collection are "troops". But that's, yeah, just my quirk.

Well, the Heroes system is sort of a weird scale- it’s sort of between company and heroic, I guess? But a lot of the more zany, Earth Reborn style rules aren’t in Black Reach now- no jumping through windows and all that.

I really liked the less serious, more comic style of Normandie...I thought it was really refreshing after so...many...WWII games that are so staid and serious and aimed toward a geriatric audience. But even then, when I was done with it I realized that unless I decide to get full on into ASL or Up Front reprints, I never want to play a WWII game again. I no longer give a shit about WWII as a setting. I don’t give a flying fuck about playing through the Bulge or Kasserine or any of it. It’s more played out and boring than renaissance commerce or palace building. Combat Commander is great, Rommel in the Desert is great, A Victory Lost is great, Company of Heroes is great. I never want to play those or any other games in the setting again.

So that is why Black Reach is especially interesting to me- I would rather play with Space Marines than US infantry or whatever, and I’d much rather see Orks than SS.

Jeff’s DLC complaints are totally valid. Even in the Black Reach core box there are elements that need the DLC reinforcement boxes. If they do like they did with Normandie, that also means a lot of piecemeal additions- single punchboards, full boxes, magazines, promos, etc. and that is annoying.

Did you get the first couple expansions with your (I presume) review copy? How vital are they? Honestly, it sounds like 40k is a perfect fit for this model of distribution since they are essentially exactly the same just in minis vs. cardboard.

Again, let me know if your copy is goes up for sale.