Conflict of Heroes

I've come close to ordering Conflict of Heroes but decided against it. The components look like they might be the best of any of the squad-level WWII games. Looks simple enough (which could be good or bad) and an action point system is something I don't see enough of in the wargames I own.

I was really put off when I heard it described as "a wargame eurogamers will love" and it is definitely suffering from the aforementioned "shiny new game" syndrome on BGG. #1 wargame currently and none of the online stores have it yet AFAIK. Still it will be worth a try when someone asks me if I want to play. I doubt any game could pull me away from Lock n Load: BoH (plenty of theaters of operation available WWII through Mogadishu 1993 with a moderate amount of rules) but I will try it when I get the chance.

Has anyone here played both Tide of Iron and Conflict of Heroes? Seems like no one's comparing those two specifically. I've read the rules, so I know what's different, but how do they feel different when you're playing? I very much enjoy Tide of Iron, but Conflict of Heroes looks very tempting, and I feel like I only have room for one WWII tactical game on my shelves...

Thanks for the play experience post, Bulwyf. Still thinking about it. Maybe Clash of Monarchs alternatively, so I can indulge my addiction to hideously complex CDGs.

So I just played the first scenario.

Pretty fun game.

What I think will really sell this game is:

1.) Overall it's low-medium complexity. I'd put it on par with Combat Commander: Europe and probably Tide of Iron too. I wonder more and more why Tide of Iron's rulebook is so bloated and long. It's crazy. CC: E still has the better rulebook, but this one is damn good. So it's easy to learn basically. I looked up a rule ONCE - no joke. Smoothest learning game ever.

2.) Components - Big Counters and Mounted Maps. BOOM. Thats going to get the cross over customers on the edge who typically hate wargame components (remember all the fuckers whining about Twilight Struggle and Commands and Colors: Ancients? UGH).

3.) Action-Reaction System. It's really interesting that you can react to an opponents action by taking your own action and then your opponent can do so again, going back in forth in a chain.

The crux of the gameplay here is managing your unit's APs and managing your overall CAPs. The way you can spend CAPs to give a unit a single action and NOT mark him used is genius. Likewise, spending CAPs to have a USED unit take an action is cool too.

It's a very neat little system and not confusing really.

Additional Thoughts:

Only thing I had to look up was Group Activations and how to do Combined Fire. A little tricky to remember at first (I forgot about the 1 CAP expenditure if combined actions aren't by units in the same hex).

Unit facing: nice addition really. It does away with complicated armor rules for facings and makes "flanking" foot units a possibility (again, without adding complicated rules - I'm thinking about ASL's "surrounded" rule here...).

German LMG 34's are badass, but we already knew this. 2 APs to fire meant once I got them in good defensive positions (woods with nice fire lanes) that I had them firing FOUR times per activation by using 1 CAP and 7APs. Even if the odds are bad (I needed to roll a 10 in one case) it's mitigated to an extent by four attack rolls.

Red FP/Blue FP - again a nice system. Only problem is that some unit's Blue FP when halved is STILL GREATER THAN their Red FP. I think UWE and the developer are going to change the rules though so you can't exploit this, and i've houseruled this anway.

I'm pretty excited about the system on this, but I'm going to hang fire until we get Western/Med front versions of the system. I just wish there were some more information around on when those versions might be out and what they might look like. Someone from somewhere told me that the Western Front version is next in line, but that's all, and I have no idea if it's accurate.

I've never played Combat Commander, but I did look into it. There are several reasons why this looks to me to be a more interesting game ...
* CC has no vehicles
* CC is two-player and this is multi-player
* CC has a thirty page rulebook. This looks a lot easier to digest.

Combat Commander: Europe has about 15 pages of actual rules.

A significant portion is dedicated to explaining what each of the "actions" on the cards do. Thats only there for reference if you get confused.

That said, two other good reasons really.

The next game in the CoH series is called Steel Rain and will be the Eastern Front 1943-45. It will introduce aircraft.

Hopefully we'll get a nice city board to do some Battle of Berlin stuff.

Hopefully the countermix will have some of the latter models of Panzer IV and some Panthers. My assumption though is that it will be more Germany vs USSR.

I read a post on BGG from like July where Uwe kind of said that after Steel Rain, which he did not mention by name - i think he called it east front 2 or the second east front game) that he was planning a North Africa game. Not sure if that one is a stand alone or an expansion. I'd guess standalone game because we'd need desert maps.

Hopefully some nationality packs come out.

Lagduf wrote:

Unit facing: nice addition really. It does away with complicated armor rules for facings and makes "flanking" foot units a possibility (again, without adding complicated rules - I'm thinking about ASL's "surrounded" rule here...).

Have you played Up Front?

MattDP wrote:

I've never played Combat Commander, but I did look into it. There are several reasons why this looks to me to be a more interesting game ...
* CC has no vehicles
* CC is two-player and this is multi-player
* CC has a thirty page rulebook. This looks a lot easier to digest.

i had similar feelings on CC until someone actually brought it to the bloody games club (read: EUROHOLICS ANONYMOUS)! i could have hugged him! so we played it, and i loved it. we have since played it 5 times. i am 5-0 up. this has no bearing on my opinion. seriously though, it is an easy, exciting game and i think you'd love it too.

Schweig! wrote:

Lagduf wrote:

Unit facing: nice addition really. It does away with complicated armor rules for facings and makes "flanking" foot units a possibility (again, without adding complicated rules - I'm thinking about ASL's "surrounded" rule here...).

Have you played Up Front?

Nope.

I'd love to have someone teach it to me though.

I'll buy the MMP reprint if that ever materializes.

This is SUCH a nice game, jeez. The components are so nice, it's hard for me to believe this is a wargame. I just got so used to the 1/2" sized chit with NATO symbol + a couple of numbers that I found these almost hard to process.

The rules are a snap, and there's a lot of playability even in the training scenarios. I had a recent game that I thought was just going to be a rout for the Soviets (they took out an LMG at loooooong range with boxcars on the first turn). A couple of nasty close combats, some flanking, and the Germans crawled back into it, and managed a 1-pt win by having the Pioneers flip the command counter on the last turn.

Everyone talks about CAP management--even the rulebook, and they are all correct. That is the game. You really do have to sweat them, especially once one or two units get killed and you have to manage with less.

The random nature of the hit markers really mix things up too. I got up close and personal to blast a unit at close range (+3 FP), only to have them pull BERSERK. This is a bad thing.

There's flks on here with about a hojillion times more experience with wargames than me and can speak to its virtues in light of UP FRONT, ASL, ATS, etc. But for folks that have less inclination, CoH is an awesome starting point.

Lagduf wrote:

Red FP/Blue FP - again a nice system. Only problem is that some unit's Blue FP when halved is STILL GREATER THAN their Red FP. I think UWE and the developer are going to change the rules though so you can't exploit this, and i've houseruled this anway.

Hi. I'm one of the developers. I'm glad you're enjoying the game. As you said, Uwe and I are trying to resolve this issue. Allow me to clarify it for others reading the thread.

First, the blue value represents armor-piercing (AP) attacks. Half of that represents heavy duty high explosive (HE) attacks. The red value represents close combat effectiveness. (As an example, for tanks this usually means the coaxial MG and the bow MG.) For some tanks, they always want to use half blue if they can. High explosive rounds are superior to MGs for taking out squads. However, you can lose the use of your main gun (blue value) through hit counter effects.

Some guns have blue values that are so high, the same thing can be said about them (always use the blue value or half of it if you can). I think the problem is that the game does not model the limiting factors that would give you accurate historical frequency of use. Say an enemy squad comes charging out of the woods at an AT gun. Sure, the crew might use the gun on it, but they have limited ammo and would most likely need to preserve it to do their job (take out tanks). So, the men use their rifles and such. Would the gun be more effective on the enemy squad? Yes. But they have limited ammo and act accordingly.

In CoH, you don't track ammo. Therefore, there's no reason for units not to always use weapons for tasks they weren't specifically designed for if it works better than other attacks. Now, this isn't a problem from a game standpoint. The firepower values are consistent and "realistic" given Uwe's resources and assumptions. Most of the playtesting was done with the values as they are listed. It's just redundant listing the red values on certain guns. I think Uwe is leaning toward dropping them in future printings/games.

That said, I'd be interested in your house rule if you don't mind sharing.

That's hot-buttered awesome. Nick, thanks for posting here. Please accept my compliments to you and the other developers about the game--I am impressed. And special thanks are in order for Uwe for the design, which is -superb-. Keep up the good work!

I haven't yet played a scenario where a Red/Blue controversy has come up, but I can appreciate the issue. What about Vehicle Suppressed with it's -2/-3 FP effect? Or the Vehicle Gun Damaged, that only seems to effect Red FP? Those are cases where having the two value make sense, even if skewed.

Nick Warcholak wrote:

Lagduf wrote:

Red FP/Blue FP - again a nice system. Only problem is that some unit's Blue FP when halved is STILL GREATER THAN their Red FP. I think UWE and the developer are going to change the rules though so you can't exploit this, and i've houseruled this anway.

Hi. I'm one of the developers. I'm glad you're enjoying the game. As you said, Uwe and I are trying to resolve this issue. Allow me to clarify it for others reading the thread.

First, the blue value represents armor-piercing (AP) attacks. Half of that represents heavy duty high explosive (HE) attacks. The red value represents close combat effectiveness. (As an example, for tanks this usually means the coaxial MG and the bow MG.) For some tanks, they always want to use half blue if they can. High explosive rounds are superior to MGs for taking out squads. However, you can lose the use of your main gun (blue value) through hit counter effects.

Some guns have blue values that are so high, the same thing can be said about them (always use the blue value or half of it if you can). I think the problem is that the game does not model the limiting factors that would give you accurate historical frequency of use. Say an enemy squad comes charging out of the woods at an AT gun. Sure, the crew might use the gun on it, but they have limited ammo and would most likely need to preserve it to do their job (take out tanks). So, the men use their rifles and such. Would the gun be more effective on the enemy squad? Yes. But they have limited ammo and act accordingly.

In CoH, you don't track ammo. Therefore, there's no reason for units not to always use weapons for tasks they weren't specifically designed for if it works better than other attacks. Now, this isn't a problem from a game standpoint. The firepower values are consistent and "realistic" given Uwe's resources and assumptions. Most of the playtesting was done with the values as they are listed. It's just redundant listing the red values on certain guns. I think Uwe is leaning toward dropping them in future printings/games.

That said, I'd be interested in your house rule if you don't mind sharing.

Hey Nick, my "house rule" is just your suggested rules change as you posted here:

www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/345645

It's only a "house rule" right now because it's not printed in the rulebook yet

Anyway, I agree with you on that change, and your second proposed rule change as well.

Lagduf wrote:

Schweig! wrote:

Lagduf wrote:

Unit facing: nice addition really. It does away with complicated armor rules for facings and makes "flanking" foot units a possibility (again, without adding complicated rules - I'm thinking about ASL's "surrounded" rule here...).

Have you played Up Front?

Nope.

I'd love to have someone teach it to me though.

I'll buy the MMP reprint if that ever materializes.

Basically to surround the enemy you have to move from a relative range of 5 to an adjacent enemy target group forward to relative range 4 and then you need to play a movement card in the sideways mode (lateral group transfer), while the enemy group has still one of your own groups directly opposing them on the other side. Pretty simple, eh?

jeb wrote:

I haven't yet played a scenario where a Red/Blue controversy has come up, but I can appreciate the issue. What about Vehicle Suppressed with it's -2/-3 FP effect? Or the Vehicle Gun Damaged, that only seems to effect Red FP? Those are cases where having the two value make sense, even if skewed.

Actually, the rule is fine for vehicles because there are damaged chits that can affect the values differently, just like you point out. The problem is for guns, which are foot units. Their firepower values cannot be affected differentially because there are no chits for that.

So, Uwe is leaning toward dropping the red values for the guns affected by this issue. I guess you could also include foot unit damage chits that affected the FP values differentially like for vehicles. I'm currently wracking my brain trying to come up with another solution. I'm thinking it lies in modifying the close combat modifiers, since that's when the red numbers should be most prominently used given the way the game was designed.

Like I said, none of this affects actual gameplay. We're just trying to clean up every messy bit we can. We're working on a significant rulebook update right now, so this is on my mind quite a bit.

Thanks for the compliments by the way. I got involved in the project after my forays into WWII tactical gaming proved to be very frustrating. In particular, the fact that the rulebooks were difficult to read and received infrequent and incomplete updates drove me crazy. I'm trying to walk the walk.