Looking to get into wargames

Hey! For many many years now, I have been interested in wargames. For some reason, I've mostly looked at miniatures wargames.

First I got into Warhammer 40k. Bought the rulebook, bought the eldar codex, bought many miniatures, painted a few of them. The never got to play. The trouble of painting miniatures, building scenery, needing a huge table, spending a long time building an army was too much. I did play Final Liberation, Chaos Gate, the old space hulk and space crusade on the computer and enjoyed them.

Next, I went with Lord of the Rings. Again, never got to play it, for the same reasons. So much trouble to play a game.

After that was a WWII mini wargames. Don't remember the name at all, but it was a free ruleset on the web. Bought boxes of plastic WWII figurines, read the rules, built some cardboard buildings, and played once. It was much too detailed. For each mini you had to choose the equipment. We just gave up after an hour of play.

Turned to axis and allies, never played. Gave up 45 minutes into the setup.

Next I went with Malifaux. Got the rulebook, bought a few boxed sets, painted them. Built my own scenery from cardboard and foamcore, threw it all in the garbage when their 3d terrain boxes came out, a bought two of thoses boxes. Assembled a beautiful cityscape, and tried it with my girlfriend. The amount of powers available for each character was overwhelming. And we gave up quickly. Got to try it again with some friends, and we found it was uninteresting due to it's over-reliance on those special powers.

Following that I went with Songs of Blades and Heroes. Quickly assembled a few minis and tried it once. Now it was too limited. Everything you did felt the same. Shooting an arrow or a fireball is identical, both in resolution and game effect. How boring!

Then I tried anima tactics with some proxy figures. It was okay, but not great. Played a few times, but nobody was interested to play again.

I also looked at warmachine, warhammer fantasy battle, warmaster, epic 40k, and a lot of other games.

Settled on Monsterpocalypse. No need to build scenery, no need to paint! Wow! But the game was a bit bland. Again those goddamn special powers that are needed to bring flavor to the game. Remove them and it's boring as hell. It's mostly put your figures adjacent to each other the forget about those and roll dices until one of them dies.

Also played Memoir 44 and battlelore, but I didn't like how it simulated the difficulty of communicating with your units. Tried Battleground fantasy warfare and it mostly came down to closing in on the other side and rolling dice. Tried Warhammer diskwar and it just went too far in the simplification.

Now, for some reason, it recently occured to me that cardboard and chits might be the way to go. Those are not games about the miniatures and boasting about the size of your wallet. Those are not games about spending 3 years pondering on your army list, spending money and painting just to play an hour or two to find out that your army is poorly built and you need to buy some more figures to be able to play better. Those are games that "simulate" war. That offer interesting decisions. That are about your skills as a commander.

So I've looked at many wargames and my choices came down to a few games. I am mostly looking for a not too complex game, that are more about your skills than the luck of the dice, where making good usage of the terrain is vital. And that doesn't come down to gamey tactics. Here are the games that I am looking at.

Heroes of Normandie: Watched a demo of the game. It seems a bit too gamey for my taste. Especially with the Zone of Control element that allows you to block access to your opponent. Which leads to gamey movements of moving in and out of the ZoC to circumvent the rules. Also the possibility to play cards to deny the other players from activating some of his unit is not my idea of being a good commander.

Combat Commander: Europe: I tried it solitaire on Vassal. This game does feel more alive than the others. It somehow reminds me of Arkham Horror. With the game raining shit down on you while you are trying to play. However, gameplay is frustrating and leads to weird situations. Yes it's supposed to reflect the chaotic nature of combat. But I feel it went too far in that direction, and the game suffers from it. Also pretty hard to effectively suppress or eliminate enemy units.

Lock N' Load Band of Heroes: Tried also solitaire on Vassal. Like in Combat Commander, the stacking rules are confusing for a newbie. The spotting rule is a good idea, but it's pretty difficult to spots units and I felt more time was spent rolling dice trying to spot an enemy than playing the game. Also this game is much more complex than the other four. I quickly looked at the vehicles rules and I got a headache, with LOS that change between an open and buttoned up vehicle, and weapons that are use differently depending on that. But it does offer the opportunity to play in something else than WWII, which appeals to me. WWII is great and interesting, but so is modern warfare, and Vietnam war.

Band of Brothers: Ghost Panzer: Also tried on Vassal. Quite simple and beautiful. However I'm worried that the need to use the 4 F tactics leads to repetitive gameplay. I do love how this game manage morale and activation.

Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear: Tried on Vassal. This one felt more fast-paced, and combat is brutal. Maybe a bit too much? And the scenario I played was quite one sided. The germans crushed the russians easily. Also, it'S supposed to offer the possibility to play other wars, but so far they are still stuck in WWII.

So, which one should I choose? Why? What are it's strength and weaknesses?

Thanks

Don't over complicate it. Ogre/GEV.

The three hardcore wargamers I know are all sold on ASL.

The term 'wargame' covers lots of ground. My standard suggestion is to find a historical period and/or scale (strategic, operational, tactical) that interests you and start there. If you're interested in the period it will go a long way to get over the rules hump. ("Rules Hump" is my Black Eyed Peas cover band).

From your explorations it seems like you're looking for a tactical WW2 game. Is that correct?

If so, I would recommend either Combat Commander: Europe or (gasp) ASL Starter Kit #1. Both are very approachable, with ASL holding out the option for a life style game if you really enjoy it.

If you're willing to go a bit outside the box you might also consider Tannhauser, which does some interesting things in the tactical space.

I wouldn't rule out Valor & Victory in that tac-level WWII genre either. Exceptionally approachable rule set, beautifully written.

S.

Michael Barnes wrote: Don't over complicate it. Ogre/GEV.

This is sound advice: Ogre/GEV is as simple as it gets when it comes to wargames. But it seems to me the OP's looking for something WW2 and tactical. In that field I can only talk about Combat Commander and Conflict of Heroes.

Combat Commander. The chaotic nature of CC is so intrinsic to the game that you either 'grok it', or you don't. This isn't dick-waving by a self-confessed uberfan of CC (it's my single most played game of the last decade). It's just that if using hand management to deal with sheer chaos in a decidedly asymmetrical tactical situation doesn't ultimately appeal to you, CC will become one of your shelf toads. Still, I've read plenty of people talking about how the game grew on them after repeated play. VASSAL before you buy seems the wisest move here. Other than that, and to spare the repetition, I can only direct you. Green gogol, to the Combat Commander label on my blog (link in sig) for reviews, AARs and general CC chit-chat.

Conflict of Heroes. This is a neat little system with core rules which are pretty solid now. Unlike CC it brings in goodies like ordnance, AFVs and aircraft; unlike ASL it does that with little or no additional rules overhead. There are caveats. First, make sure you're playing with 2nd edition rules- the 1st ed. AP/CP rules had a huge hole in them. Second, the programmed instruction format of the rules is great for learning but piss poor for reference; you have to buy the early-war Polish expansion Price of Honour to get a reference rulebook. Third, there are more expansions planned but they have been in the works for so long that some people fear they are vapourware.

As for the lethality of combat? I think this is driven partly by the damage chit system- fiddling around with or stacking damage chits would just be too footery for words, so 2-hit kills keep things simple; and by the short scenarios which are typical of the game- there'd be a serious risk of scenarios stalemating in the short time available if combat was any less lethal. In other words, I think it works just fine in the game even if it might feel overstated. Again, there's a Conflict of Heroes label on my blog for reviews, AARs and stuff.

not played a lot of the games you list as I have little interest in WW2 tactical. However you won't find a simple game that meets all your criteria. Most simplistic simulations have some gamey tactics in them, most simulation designs try to simulate the randomness of reality, so skill level is always bound up with that. WW2 tactical is especially chaotic because you are dealing with small numbers of men with comparatively destructive gear. There is also a question of on going support. Conflict of Heroes is some what on the shelf with its publisher, but CC gets regular expansions.

Ultimately war games are like board games, you can read opinions but you got to get stuck in and find out what you do and don't like. I ended up liking complex operational hex and counters, never expected to when i started looking at war games.

CC is a pretty good choice. I probably should play it again fairly soon, in fact. But it is chaotic, especially in the Europe/Med incarnation. (Pacific reduced the chaos some, but I don't much care for the overall theme or implementation). The best critique of CC that I've heard is that while it might aptly simulate the chaos that ensues after contact with the enemy is made, it's kind of weird to assume that command and control would break down before such contact. Hence, it kind of makes sense that you would have more control over your units in maneuver and then less once contact with the enemy had been made. So, yeah. Good game, though.

I have a bunch of CoH material from first ed, including the Poland expansion, and I wish I didn't. Second ed is almost certainly better by this point, as during the first-ed period rules kept getting revamped in nontrivial ways (as noted above), which fatigued me. Plus, the game is probably too Euro-y and streamlined for my tastes.

I have ASLSK1 but haven't played it. Should.

Band of Brothers is one that I've kept meaning to try but haven't. I like what the designer did with Space Empires 4x.

jpat wrote: The best critique of CC that I've heard is that while it might aptly simulate the chaos that ensues after contact with the enemy is made, it's kind of weird to assume that command and control would break down before such contact. Hence, it kind of makes sense that you would have more control over your units in maneuver and then less once contact with the enemy had been made. So, yeah. Good game, though.

Best critique I've heard too, except that it ignores the fact that CC scenarios start at the point of contact, ie. just where things could begin to break down. This is baked-in to the fixed 15x10 hex map size, which restricts the action to a 450x150m area.

ASL

The time investment is 100% worth it. VASL is the module and there are tons of players.

PM me if you want some training for newbies

I'm not much of a wargamer (Fire in the Lake and DVG solo games mostly) but I love Conflict of Heroes. I sold off my first edition when second edition was announced and have been waiting for the solo expansion to drop to buy back in.

I dug the scale, the action point system, the supplemental card play, the way terrain worked, and generally the perfect amount of detail to ease of play ratio.

I would say that to get into war games, as opposed minis, you are going to have to make some compromises. First,no good war game is going to be short by current standards. Even combat commander which is relatively short is still an 90 min or more. If you aren't totally committed to WW2 you might be better off with the Napoleonic 20 series from GMT and VPG. Less chaos, low counter density.

ThirstyMan wrote: ASL

The time investment is 100% worth it. VASL is the module and there are tons of players.

PM me if you want some training for newbies

This is all 100% true: ASL remains the peerless WW2 tacsim. which is why it surely has the single biggest player base in the genre. Accessing that quality in all its depth and richness will cost you more in time and money than any other game you've mentioned Green gogol. ThirstyMan looks to be a good example of how newbs can always find someone to get them started. You've got nothing to lose by trying.

Green gogol wrote: Band of Brothers: Ghost Panzer: Also tried on Vassal. Quite simple and beautiful. However I'm worried that the need to use the 4 F tactics leads to repetitive gameplay. I do love how this game manage morale and activation.

This is the only one I've tried for quite sometime. Have you tried the mixed scenarios with Tanks, Guns & Halftracks? 4F hardly works with Russian except for very specific circumstances.

Maybe the problem isn't finding the right game, maybe the problem is finding the right opponent. Find a war gamer in your area and play something in there collection.