Rochester Gamers Community

Robert (uberslack) invited me over for a Saturday night game of Combat Commander: Europe at his place. We played the introductory scenario which was well-written and explained a large part of the game. We were both pretty stoked to try this game out, and while the introductory scenario had us basically shooting at each other for 2 hrs from two different buildings across a road, the game proved to be entertaining with a lot of potential. In this first pic, you can see the fire in Robert's eyes! :)

The game in itself is similar to ASL, but much easier to learn with a much smaller ruleset (21 pages compared to a binder!). To be fair, ASL starter kits have made ASL more accessible to squad level combat newbies like me.

This is a card-driven game (CDG) with a WWII theme. Depending on the scenario, you can hold and discard a specific number of cards. In addition, depending on the scenario you may only give a certain number of orders (but each unit may only be ordered once). So, like Memoir '44, you have to be careful with what you do. Extend yourself too far, and you will be screwed if you get a bad hand next turn. Unlike Memoir 44, there are no fancy minis, rather you get cardboard chits and a paper map (Plexiglas is a MUST).

The introductory scenario had the Russians as the attackers (attackers get a whopping six cards!), and the Germans as the Defenders(defenders get only four cards). We went through the motions described in the book to a point where the book instructed us to take over the choices in the game. I thought I was screwed (I played the Germans) as I didn't have much for troop numbers. There are were no reinforcements (although some scenarios have them, and some cards allow troops to come back ("walking wounded" card)), so I had to do the best with what I had! If I lost a squad, team, leader or machine gun, I would be even worse off Luckily, I had some good die rolls, which really helped the performance of my machine guns to thin out the Russians.

My luck ran out as I stormed a building that contained a single Russian leader with a German squad and a team for a melee battle. Ties eliminate both sides. That's exactly what happened... a raw deal for the Germans! :( This next photo shows the game as we began to reach the end. As I said, we battled for quite sometime from two buildings. The building that the Russian's now occupied was worth 10VP (a tidy sum).

Here is a closeup of the battle just before the Germans lost. The Germans (leader and a squad) moved to engage in a melee with the solitary Russian squad. We both had ambush cards causing both of us to break. I had a card that allowed me to sacrifice one unit to keep the other on strong. Bad move as the final casualty caused me to reach the "surrender" limit and therefore lost the game regardless of VPs (which I was kicking butt). The killer is that the die roll achieved by the Germans would have cleared the building of Russians regardless of whether or not I fought with a single unbroken unit, or two broken units. Dumb move on my part :(. Note, there was a large blaze going on as well. It never hindered either one of us, but it started as a single counter and spread fairly rapidly!

In any case, Robert still had two unbroken units left that I would have to deal with, so I might have lost either way.

I expect future games to be much more interesting as this was only an introductory scenario. If you are interested in ASL, but afraid of the rules, I would definitely recommending picking this up instead.

With regard to any similarities to Memoir '44:

This game is definitely more complex. In Memoir, there isn't much to know regarding how much can move and attack (move 1 and attack 1, move 2, etc..) The cards present some extra complexity, but not a whole heck of a lot.

In CCE, range, movement, leadership, LOS, troop morale, blah.. blah.. are all there. Smoke, blazes, etc. affect LOS and range. Cover, while implemented in M44 is still very simple compared to CCE.

There are many more rules to learn. This isn't a game you will breeze through in 1.5hrs your first play. The introductory scenario took Robert and I four hours, and we still got some things wrong! (although not much; however, there are many other details that weren't used). Robert and I have been discussing the rules today to clarify and reflect on how we played. Overall, the rules are very clear for a wargame and written in outline format. Therefore, the index is excellent for referencing rules.

The rules, by the way can be downloaded at http://www.gmtgames.com/living_rules/CC_Rulebook_final.pdf

We didn't get to use artillery fire (radios weren't used in our game, which are required), which in M44 is an automatic hit. In CCE, it can be off target depending on the power of your radio (we did a trial "what if" of it when we played. As a result, I learned that you shouldn't order an artillery bomardment to a place that is two two hexes away as you can be hit ;). There are many other types of weapons as well that just aren't provided or give the amount of detail present in CCE.

The bad part.. NO TANKS! :(. The argument was that the scale of hexes in CCE was lower than that of ASL, but they are working on a version that will have tanks.

Overall, this game is definitely more complex than M44, but I like it much better as it is not *too* complex that it sucks the fun right out of the game. It is no more complex than an RPG in my mind (well, as I remember it back in 5th grade ;) ). I think it could be taught to a 12-year old, maybe a 10-year old.

However, now that Conflict of Heroes has been released, I find there is yet another very strong option for those seeking a wargame that is more in depth than Memoir 44, but not as "complex" as Combat Commander: Europe/Mediterranean/Pacific (there have been two more sets and two expansions released since I originally received my copy of CC:E.)