New Apartment, New Game

I noticed Friday that Wargame Vault was having a summer sale and scooped up Dominion of the Spear Revised Edition to try it out with my orcs and lizards.

It was super late at night and I may have missed something in the rules but I wanted to play so I grabbed a small 14.5" table and had at it. I used the basic rules without using any of the options.

The lizards had two Melee Foot, one Elite Melee Foot, one Missile Foot,  and one Melee Cavalry. 

The orcs had three Melee Cavalry, one Melee Foot with a Defensive Advantage, and one Eliete Melee foot.

Lizards won the roll to be the attacker.

The overhead lighting here is not great for pics of minis at 1AM and I haven't moved my lamps from the old apartment yet. So, apologies for the heavy shadow.

Turn 1. 

The battle lines were drawn.

On the left, lizard archers ineffectively rained arrows down on a unit of charging Boar Boyz who were held off by the archers and forced to regroup for another charge. In the middle Geckos and Black Orcs clashed in fierce melee, but neither line moved. On the right, the elite foot of both armies, Gators and Wild Orcs, crashed in a bloody melee, that saw both units devastated and driven from the field.

To replace the Gators, the Skinks were brought up from the reserves. A unit of Boar Boyz rode to the front to replace the fallen Wild Orcs.

Turn 2.

The lizard archers unleashed an unrelenting barrage of arrows on the Boar Boyz before they could make contact, and the orcs were driven from the field. In the center, the Black Orcs were overwhelmed by Gecko ferocity. But on the right neither the Skinks nor the Boar Boyz could gain any advantage.

The Boar Boyz in the reserves charged to meet the Geckos, but their left flank was totally exposed as a result.

Turn 3.

The exposed flank would be their undoing. With the orc center gone, the Boar Boyz on the right were now exposed on their flank and the Geckos attempted to take adavantage - but finally some luck went the orcs' way and the attack was repulsed. Their luck did not last long, and though they managed to drive the Skinks from the field, they Boar Boyz were destroyed in the attempt.

I think the game took something like five or six minutes. Certainly fun, but I like the changes that are in Dominion of the Trenches as they give the player more decisions. Those changes are included in Appendix A in this revised edition.

I'll be using "Option C" for determining battle sector (instead of all three every turn as in the core rules) and the Unreliable Disadvantage. Both of those options are standard in Dominion of the Trenches. The Rally and General options in the appendix also look good, and I'll try those eventually as well. 

The other thing I like about Dominion of the Trenches is that you bring up reserves to the sector that just fought, and it's not guaranteed, ie. you have to roll for it. So, I will probably use that (it adds a lot to the narrative).

However, I plan to modify the die roll with the same modifiers used for different troop types facing each other. For example, an archer unit in reserve would get +1 to its roll to move up from reserves if it would be facing a Mounted Melee unit. Conversely, a Mounted Melee unit being sent up to face archers would get -1 to move up from reserves, to reflect that extra effort it would take to motivate them to face a rival that has an advantage.

Finally, I'm thinking of stealing Leadership Points from Battles of the American Revolution  and givng each side the opportunity to spend 1 point per turn to add +1 to a roll. That one I'm less sure about though. I'll have to try it out a few times. Which means I need to play some games. Boo-hoo!

End of June Cornucopia

I'm moving soon - Monday officially, although I'll have two apartments for July while I finish moving bits and pieces of things - and sorting through things to decide what to bin, what to donate, and what to pack this past week has taken up a lot of time. 

Still, I did manage to squeeze in hobby time last weekend to alleviate some of the stress of the whole thing.

First and foremost, I finished my Adepta Sororitas Hospitaller. 

That "rock" is the foam core from a piece of well, foam core. I peel off the paper on the front and back and just use the foam bit.

Hers was the first base I used flowers and various grass tufts on - pleased with the results, I finished the baes on the rest of my Sisters:

One squad has predominantly red flowers, one has predominantly black flowers. The red flowers are a better product frankly, but I like having the color distinction to prevent intermingling on the tabletop. 

For Father's Day last Sunday, I received this little gem:

And it's literally little. It's Worthington's Battles of the American Revoltion : Oriskany & Freeman's Farm travel sized set. 

I've only played the Oriskany scenario so far - and it took five attempts before I got my first American win. The Americans have a restricted setup zone but the British and their Native American allies can set up anywhere on the board as long as they aren't adjacent to an American unit or inside the American setup zone.

The setup for my most recent game.

Victory is achieved by the first side to earn 6 Victory Points. VPs are earned by eliminating units and for the Americans by exiting a unit off the board via the road hex on the left edge.

End of Game, the Americans eliminated 6 British units

Each side has number of leadership points and only one can be spent per turn per side. The question of when and where to spend and on which bonus (Rally, +2 movement points to one unit, or +2 combat points to one unit) adds interest to the game.

The rules are pretty short and a far cry from something like ASLSK or Great War Commander or even Hold the Line (which I used to own). There are definitely questions that arise as a result. 

For example, can a retreating unit end up adjacent to an enemy unit that it was not in combat with previously? I originally thought no, but then I found this led to very short games - a unit taking a one step loss was then forced to take a second step loss by being adjacent to a new enemy and thus eliminated. So now I say yes. 

Another example, must a unit attack every unit it's in contact with? Some people BoardgameGeek say yes. I'm not sure about this - again it's a question of game length.

My only other, not gripe, but occasional annoyance, is that the counters fill the hexes and it's too easy to nudge adjacent units when trying to move a unit. I get that compromises must be made to be travel-size and it doesn't really bother me all that often.

Those issues aside, it's a fun, light game that is quick to setup and takes up just a small space.

I gave Scenario 2 from Great War Commander another try as well, this time intentionally placing the French at the start, rather than randomly determining how they'd deploy.

The French deployment - Leaders within command distance of other leaders allowing for many more units to be activated by a single order.

I won't do a turn by turn narrative - I need a better system for note taking for that. But, I will say, the French got off to a bad start, with friendly fire from the pregame barrage landing on one of their own.

The French received an Offensive card on the first turn and so I immediately put to use - trying to play them aggressively, in-line with the historical event.

The effect was ... not what I imagined.  Almost every French unit involved in the Offensive was broken by coordinated op-fire. 

Also visible in this picture, The French called in an artillery strike. And it nearly landed on their advancing units. smh.

Despite the rough start, the French reached the village and engaged the enemy at the point of the bayonet.

The game ended in Sudden Death with then time track reached 10. The French squeaked out a win by just two VP, but as the picture above shows, they were dominating the Germans. 

The Germans had taken shelter in buildings in the town center, but they were virtually surrounded with adjacent buildings in flames or occupied by the French.  A lone German unit, isolated at the edge of town, was essentially bypassed by the French.

Finally, I got out my lizards and orcs for some One Hour Wargames using the 'Dark Ages' rules.

The orcs had one shield-wall, one warband, three heavy cavalry (treat as knights from the Medieval rules), and a unit of goblin skrimishers. The lizards had one unit of archers (treat as Ancients archers), four warband, and one cavalry unit.

For scale, bases are 3" wide x 2" deep.

I played the scenario twice. Both times, the orcs dominated. The fact that they are predominantly cavalry means, in this scenario, their reinforcements can get where they are needed quickly. Their other benefit, the shield-wall depoloying on the hill gives them a unit with a lot of staying power (1/2 damage for shieldwall, 1/2 damage for being on a hill).

Unfortunately, it may be a bit before I can get in any wargaming again - everything is going to be boxed up later today. That said, next weekend is July 4th and I'll be running a game session of our ongoing Basic Fantasy RPG campaign or possibly a one-shot RPG related to the holiday.

Great War Commander : 23 August 1914

This was as a learning game in two respects. 

The obvious one is that this scenario, the scenario #2,  introduces on-table ordinance in the form of a German mortar and off-table artillery in the form of a "telephone" that can call local barrages for the French. The other is that it had been almost two weeks since I played last and I had become uncertain about some rules in the interim which lead to more page flipping than I thought it would.

The situation is such that the French are initiating a last counterattack before withdrawing and the Germans are tasked with holding the village of Onhaye, Belgium. 

The Germans are outnumbered but they do have the cover of the village and reinforcements (a platoon with an MG - not exactly an overwhelming force) are coming. Unlike the French in the previous scenario, the Germans are not required to setup in specified hexes and therefore are not required to start units out of cohesion. There is a limit how deep they can deploy and which columns, but beyond that, the only requirement is that all of the fox holes they are allocated have to be deployed and occupied at the start. 

There are 5 objectives in play in this scenario, three of which are near French deployment so they have a leg up in that respect, but the Germans offset this with 6 VP at the start.

The French get a free barrage before the start of turn 1 that will turn two of the buildings, determined by card draw, to rubble and suppress any units in them. Rubble reduces the defense value of the building from a +3 cover bonus to +2. If later rubble is reduced to a shellhole, the cover bonus reduces to +1.

Because it was my first attempt at the scenario and being more interested in the ordinance and barrage aspects for this first run, I, for good or for ill, opted to deploy the French randomly. I used the cards to do this (the cards all have hexes on them for randomization of effects, such as snipers, blazes, and aerial attacks). The result was a force divided into three - which, while it on the one hand enabled easy capture of objectives for the French, led to some very obviously self-inflicted difficulties coordinating attacks.

Setup, post- pre-game barrage.

As one group of French attempted to capture the village head on, one tried to advance over open ground on the right, and another from the woods to the North West. Open ground when facing machine guns is, not suprisingly, a terrible idea - although the French were luck, recovering more than they lost each time. The French attacking from the woods tried to swing around the back of the Germans, but were completely cut off without a leader after some devastating rifle fire.

As I, and thus the French, began to get the hang of artillery barrages the village was gradually brought down to rubble and shell craters. Unfortunately, the bombing did very little to the Germans occupying the village.

And then the tide began to turn.

Not only did the Germans have reinforcements scheduled to arrive, but they drew a card which gave the * additional * support. 

End of game battle for the village.

Close combats went badly for the French. Although they managed to relink the cut-off units in the back of the village, the Germans continued to hammer the French with rifle and MG fire (the mortar was poorly positioned from the start - my error - and served no role in the proceedings) and initiated their own close combats with success. Meanwhile, the French churned cards looking for Offensive, Fire, or Advance (by this point artillery barrages had become too risky - they can drift from the proposed target and strike your own units ff you're unlucky).

The game clock reached 10 - the first sudden death check for this scenario. A card was drawn and the game ended there and then.  When the points were totaled the Germans won 24 to 18. Basically then, both sides scored 18 points, but the Germans had the 6-point advantage from the start.

The final accounting.

A lot of fun and stimulation of the "little grey cells" (been watching Poirot season 1, for the first time). I think next time - if I can get the game in before too much time passes - I will be able to invest more in focusing on the decisions and less on the rules.

Also for next time: the French setup will be more deliberate, and I will put the platoon with an MG with the highest ranked leader, and the Germans will position their mortar     well away from the town and the French board entry points, to take advantage of the mortar's long range.

And, completely unrelated to the above, a WIP shot of my Hospitaller. Quite a bit left to do, but this figure is finally starting to come together.  and you can get a sense of what the final will look like. 

I'm hopeful that I'll pick up the brush again in the next few days, now that I sense completion is near.

D-Day Game

On Friday evening, after our regular walk to the convenience store for too many snacks, I said to my son,  "Tomorrow is June 6th". To which he replied "We need to watch a movie!" He suggested The Longest Day which I was more than happy to agree to. As it turned out, getting him away from video games with his friends was impossible - and that was OK, he should interact with them.

In the meantime, though,  I cobbled together a makeshift 4' square table from four plastic drawer units and two 2' x 4' panels and set out a variation of ""Bluff at Easy Green" from Skirmish Campaigns : Heroes of Omaha and Panzer Lehr".  I no longer have the book, but an old blog post gave me enough to go on.

I had considered doing it with my unpainted 1/32 WWII figures in order to field 5-7 figure squads, but in order to possibly entice my son to join me for a game, I dug out my remaining painted figures (most of my painted 1/32 WWII figures have been sent to other homes or are awaiting donation in preparation for a move at the end of the month). This meant "squads" of four figures, so maybe more like a handful of fire teams per side.

I have long since tossed reindeer moss I used to use to indicate bocage, so the brown strips of craft foam with trees around the fields would have to suffice.

For rules, I decided to do something that would be easy to teach quickly and require little reference if any during play on my part - One Brain Cell Toy Soldiers with a modified version of the wound table (1-2 KIA, 3-4 knock down until next turn, 5+ ignore wound).

Major Sidney Bingham, Jr., 2nd Battalion Commanding Officer of the 116th Infantry Regiment directs a BAR gunner and bazooka at the newly arrived German reinforcements. 

 

 In the event, I played twice before my son saw the setup and wanted to play! Victory!

To encourage movement, I set a 10-turn limit to get 8 of the 15 Americans off the table or it would count as a German victory. 

In the two games I played and in the game with my son, the Americans won (yay!). Which makes sense, given that the scenario is intended to be the 1st of a 3-game mini-campaign and the goal of the Americans is to get off the table, not fight to the last.

In the game with my son, my dice rolling was abysmal when rolling attacks and when rolling on the wound table, but great for initiative - which was wasted every time by the subsequent aforementioned poor attack rolls.

Americans burst out of the orchard to open fire at close range before charging into hand-to-hand and then exiting the table for victory.

Still, our game together did come down to the 9th turn before the Americans reached their victory condition. By the end of that turn though, the Germans were obliterated with but three figures remaining.

My son had fun and I had fun, so win-win really! 

It's also caused me to consider keeping the painted Americans (the painted Matchbox Germans are staying for use as villains in Christmas games) if only to draw my son into games every now and then.

p.s. Regular readers may notice the new game mat. I like how it looks, but it's not quite the measurements specified (it's closer to 47" wide than 48"wide, although it can stretch to that). I will probably cut it down to a 3' square mat (or close to it)  and a 2' square mat, for use in different games.

Great War Commander : Bleid, Belgium 22 Aug 1914 Again!

I set up the same scenario again on Saturday night only to realize about 90 minutes in and nearly done, that I had been playing incorrectly - units, for the most part, can only be given one Order per turn. I also kept forgetting the Fog hinderance until turn 6. I have the same problem with the mud turns when I play Battle for Moscow.

So, Sunday, I reset the board and had at it again.

The French setup is always the same per the scenario - except which infantry unit gets the MG, that's up to the player. Units with a functioning weapon, units within a leader's command radius, and units on their baseline are in cohesion. For the French, three of the units start the game already out of cohesion and will be marked suppressed after the 1st turn (which will be the Germans turn). That means they start their own turn already suppressed.

For the Germans, I had advanced up the right twice - which I think is the best approach as it provides fast access to a nearly undefended objective. So, to mix things up, I rolled a die to determine deployment and ended up setting them up to the left instead.

The setup. Rommel is personally leading the platoon with the MG.

Rommel's company consisted of the three platoons to the right. 

He commanded the MG to fire at the French unit which had taken cover in a house and had their own MG. A few bursts of the gun and the French unit broke right off the bat. Not an auspicious start for the French.

The Germans divided their force, with Hauptmann Waldau leading his company up the road on the left, using the craters/shell holes for cover. 

Still, the French managed to suppress one of the German platoons in the road. 

As Rommel's men moved through the fields, a French sharpshooter fired on them and pinned (broke) the lead platoon.

After consolidating their line, the Germans pushed their way towards the village in earnest but ahead of them a shell struck and set the woods ablaze, forcing the Germans to split up their command again as Hpt. Waldau took his platoons around the conflagration.

While firing on the French positions the German MG jammed - the crew labored furiously to clear the gun and bring it back into action. 

A broken weapon (MG in this case) checks every time a card is drawn to determine a random hex for some Event or Order. One band of numbers is a repair, one means nothing changes, and another is permanently broken

I'm missing some pictures here but the Waldau's company swung around the village while Rommel's company made little ingress, but the MG was repaired and unleashed on French units occupying the largest buildings in the village.

The French attempted to counter Waldau's advance by acting the aggressor, but were defeated in close combat and moments later, the French platoon in the building on the German left, was cutoff and surrounded.

Meanwhile French barbed wire emplacements were glimpsed through the fog blocking the German road approach to road leading out of the village.

In a valiant last stand, the Red Trousers held their ground against repeated attacks, but eventually succumbed to the combined fire power of multiple platoons against their position.

As the fog lifted, the extent of the French wire defenses blocking the road became clear.

Wire is places as the result of an Action. I just like the narrative of the fog lifting - which happens when the time tracker reaches 6.

The French maneuvered around the village to draw the Germans to them while avoiding coming under fire as much as possible, making their way back to the large building protected by the wire.

By Waldau ordered Rommel and his platoons to press onwards out of the village.

Geraman reinforcements arrived at the other end of the road. Any resemblance to Rommel and his company is purely coincidental.

Hpt. Waldau pushed his troops through the wire to reach the last French occupied building. When the dust cleared, the village had fallen.

 

The French had an event occur where a leader was recalled to return later as a reinforcement - on the plus side, the remaining units were so pressed together, they could not be out of choesion!  Notice too, the flames have spread!

The game ended with a French surrender and automatic loss.

Even if they hadn't, the score was lopsided, with the Germans scoring 34 vp vs the French 7 VP.

***

The French actually were doing OK for much of the game. Their downfall began in earnest when they drew an Event where command meddles and you're forced to draw a card and use it for your next order. It was an Advance order - the aggressive French attempt to counter the Germans lead to the isolation of the French unit near the end of the game.

Although I did enjoy witnessing their heroic last stand!

Playing the rules as intended, with one Order per turn for any given unit, changed the game a bit - more discards, waiting for the right cards to appear. This worked in the French favor on occasion, as it held up the German advance somewhat. However, they too were waiting for cards and more often than not the Germans got their needed cards first.

Also, eagle-eyed readers may notice Runners on the map. I had avoided using them unintentionally - I just wasn't reading the card text properly. The French runner could have earned them VPs but they never got a chance.

I'm ready for the next scenario, which introduces off-board artillery and an on-board howitzer!

Games! (For lack of a better title)

Last week, on a very rainy (3" of rain in one hour) Wednesday, I headed over to the FLGS for another  head-to-head game of Grimdark Future.

I brought my fantasy lizard folk again, but with a slightly different order of battle. In addition to the spinosaurus, I brought my triceratops battle wagon:

 

As one person commented, a transport that actually transports.

Long time readers will note the added railing on the howdah, in addition to the permanent goblin green base. I've long had an issue with the crew falling off when moving the triceratops around the table and this prevents that quite effectively while looking appropriate.

 Here are some pictures from the battle: 

 

The space ork deployment. *boo hiss*

The Children of Bokrug deployment. Yay! (The archers have "scout" and get to be beyond the standard deployment zone)

 

Squigs!

Green vs green! My crocs (Gator Hero and Gators in Age of Fantasy) did OK this game. Not as good as last time.

Carnage! My favorite image from the game! I think it conveys a certain gonzo joy.

If brevity was my thing, I'd have just posted this picture to summarize the whole game!

From a game perspective, my lizards got stomped pretty badly. But from my perspective, they had some awesome moments of glory and some remarkable fortune that made the story of my army more than enjoyable for me. 

My opponent and I discussed it a little afterwards and we were both somewhat convinced that in Grimdark Future, a primarily melee force increases the challenge level.

As I have previously mentioned I intend to make my own version of a Penitent Host (40K thing), which will feature Sisters Repentia - armed with chainswords - as the dominant infantry. However, they'll have Celestial Warrior Sister squads in support. Those units are much better shooters than the best lizard archers, having a 24" range for their rifles (30" for the HMG), hitting on 3+  vs 18" range, hitting on 5+.

So much painting to do to even get to field phase one of my Blessed Sisters force in Grimdark Future! 

And of course, I ran out of black gesso, which I use for primer. So there will be a delay there until the weekend when I can get to the art supply store. 

In any case, Saturday, I set out the Bleid, Belgium 22 Aug 1914. scenario for Great War Commander again. 

This is 2nd turn? The French platoon with the MG are already gone.

This time, I tried to move French leaders around in an effort to bring outlying units into cohesion. Unfortunately for the French any kind of movement order card came few and far between (I attributed this to a indecisiveness in command), and they suffered a jam on their MG the 1st time it fired. The next turn, the infantry unit carrying it were destroyed. That was turn 2, if I recall.

It went almost entirely downhill from there for the French. 

The one bright spot for the French. The French unit marked Veteran was the result of a field promotion in response to fire received. Perfect timing because they were going to have to defend in melee. And they won handily. 

 

But the Germans kept coming and the French collapsed.

Surrender! The French had lost six units - five infantry and one leader. For the second time, Rommel was sidelined early and played a minimal role in the ensuing battle.

It seems to be a tough scenario for the French - most of the units are out of cohesion from the start. Even if you bring the leaders to them, you have to round up the units to all be in a group (adjacent hexes within the command range of the leader) to get the most out of the orders. That requires more movement orders itself. And, as I said, they were few and far between. I ended up using Advance and Offensive to accomplish movement for the French, but those have limitations/requirements that Move does not and so aren't always as useful. 

I suppose if the Germans were circumspect in their approach the French might have had time to reorganize their infantry, but I have read Rommel's Infantry Attacks and he *is* one of the leaders on the board Therefore, putting the French back on their heels was the name of the game.

As it was, the French reached their surrender point of 6 units lost, thus ending the game automatically in a German victory. Meanwhile the time tracker had advanced exactly ONCE. 

I plan to play it yet again this coming weekend - both to help the rules thus far to stick (there's no artillery in this scenario, that's the next one) but also to try to use the French leaders to bring units into cohesion, perhaps with better luck and also to see if I can keep the French on the table long enough to force a sudden death.

I believe this might be possible by falling back and consolidating as soon as possible, as opposed to starting a firefight on turn 1, which greatly favors the Germans.. 

This theoretically/ideally would force the German "player" to wait for/use up orders for movement and minimize losses. If and when the time track advances, the defender (French) get 1 VP automatically so the more card time the Germans spend trying to get their troops to the village, the better for the French. 

This approach  *will* sacrifice objective control, but the benefits might be worth it - especially since I don't think the French can really hope to hold more than two of the four objectives on a good day (at least when I'm running them!).

 

Great War Commander - First Impressions

With Noble Knight announcing their Spring Sale, I took it as a sign to finally pull the trigger on purchasing Great War Commander (2nd Printing). It's been on my wish list for a while, and with Dominion of the Trenches covering the low complexity, fast gaming, it seemed only right to take advantage of the sale to move a bit in the other direction.

Image from boardgamegeek.com

There's plenty about the game on boardgamegeek.com, so this is neither an in-depth review nor detailed AAR. It is my impression of the game having played along with the example of play and then played the first scenario("Birth of a Legend" which takes place in Bleid, Belgium 22 Aug 1914, and includes Rommel as one of the Central Powers leaders).

Of note, I will mention ASLSK several times - it is the board game that I have played that is most like GWC - both are low-level tactical games in their respective periods. 

I have a little experience with hex-and-counter games but just a few titles so I don't have a lot of reference points, but I can say with some authority that the rule book is considerably more useful as an at-the-table reference document, than the ASL Starter Kit #1 rule book. The latter requires searching through dense paragraphs to find a rule you remember reading but can't quite recall where. Great War Commander's rule book is not perfect mind you and some things I found myself flipping forward and backward to find. 

Still, while everything wasn't entirely clear to me (and won't be until I've played a few more games I'm sure), it felt (on reading) far less complex than ASLSK. 

Of course, it may be that because I've read, and re-read, played and replayed, ASLSK #1, as well as Burning Mountains (not terribly complex,but certainly tedious), and Battle for Moscow (a game of minimal complexity), that Great War Commander seems more accessible. That is, I have a base of experience to draw from and had I started with GWC with no experience of any kind, I might find it completely opaque.

Speaking of complexity, boardgamegeek shows that ASLSK#1 averages 3.76/5 and GWC averages 3.17/5. For my money, I think it's more like 4/5 and 3/5(or probably more like 2.75/5) respectively. Boargamegeek also shows Burning Mountains has a 2.20/5 complexity rating. I think it feels more difficult than GWC on reading, frankly. In play, I would argue some of the math makes it feel more complex than GWC but the actual turn sequence is fairly straightforward. But I majored in Philosophy and ,later, Library Science, and was never much for math.

After reading the rules, as the rules themselves recommend, I played along with the example of play. I thought this was a genius approach to teaching the game! (Maybe other boardgames do this? I don't know.)

While it was a little cumbersome at times trying to find the card called for in the text, it really felt like I was playing a learning game, where I got to know what playing the game would feel like generally, how the more common rules worked, etc. 

My coffee table is wider at one end than the other - there is no way to line up the edges of the map with table that won't trigger OCD in many viewers. The skull in the upper right and fake phone in the lower right regularly reside on the table. EVERY day is Halloween, my friends!

Speaking of cards, GWC, as you may know, is in the Company Commander family of games and is card driven. No dice are rolled (although there are dice icons printed on the cards, so it's not quite like using playing cards).

The turns are considerably less structured than most other wargames I've played. There are no fixed phases unlike games like Battle for Moscow or ASLSK  or even One Hour Wargames for that matter.  There's also potentially ample opportunity for both players to play cards at any time, whether they are the  active player that turn or not.

But how much interaction and how fluid is all based on the cards that the players have in their hands. And I suppose that would be a sticking point for some. 

The initial French deployment for the scenario. They are starting with most units out of cohesion and this will plague them the entire game. I should have moved the leaders into positions where they could bring more units into cohesion but didn't figure that out until after my game!

For the active side, the cards are the orders you have available, and if your hand doesn't have something you can use, you can pass, discard cards (up to a specified limit for the scenario) and draw up to your maximum. 

This can go on for several turns until you get an order you can make use of. Possibly more so if you aren't great at shuffling the brand new decks *cough cough*

I bought this to play solo, so I'm always going to be doing something not matter what, but I can imagine it being annoying and frustrating in head-to-head games. 

The cards are also used of actions that can modify the situation - a +/- on a die roll, breaking an enemy formation in melee before the die roll, etc. So, you can make use of those cards that don't have useful orders on them, just not as orders.

Rommel attempted to lead his units to the right of the road but was caught by the French machine gun. I forget the Captain's name, but he and the units under his command had more success. Unhappily for the french, their MG jammed early and turned out to be unfixable.

 

I was concerned more about this than not being able to play an order, for playing solo. It turns out, I continually forgot what the other side had in their hand and it worked fine. Yay aging brain!

Also, because I personally feel like Fire/Op Fire is just something to expect and doesn't need to be a surprise, if a side had one or more of those cards, I kept those face up to remind me to use it. Otherwise, I quickly scanned through a side's hand for any useful action in response to the side I was playing as at that moment.  

That seemed to work quite well.

Another note, counter stacks are fairly minimal - I think the tallest stack I had was 3 counters: a suppressed (1 counter) platoon (1 counter) with an MG (1 counter). The hexes are big enough that you don't have to stack everything all the time. Which is great, because falling stacks are annoying (Burning Mountains I'm looking at you and your 5+ high counter stacks!)

Oh the weapon rules are a joy of ease and simplicity compared to ASLSK. 

Finally, playing the game was highly enjoyable, and felt like I was watching a story unfold (with opportunities to shape it). It was more towards the Dominion of the Trenches side of the equation in that respect. In my game, the Germans had a commanding victory. The French units struggle to coordinate a response felt right given my poor use of the French leaders. Air power played a small role for both sides. Rommel was wounded but survived. The Germans captured three of their four objectives, eliminated a few of the French units including the French officers, and then chose to bypass the remaining, totally ineffectual units (exiting the enemy's board edge is worth Victory Points).

I genuinely can't wait to play again. With an upcoming long weekend, I plan to play the 1st scenario again but this time I'll try to make better use of the French leaders!