My friend Ben came over to the Saturday club I run so I could teach him Combat Commander Europe this weekend. He's normally a German type game player, but had expressed an interest in some hex and counter wargaming and I figured CCE was a good starter game. We played Scenario 3, a German attack on some low morale Russians and I let Ben play the Germans as they are more flexible and somewhat easier to do stuff with based on my solo play of this situation.
He started out by standing and trying to shoot it out, but the forest and buildings we were in made both our shooting pretty ineffective, and time pressure was on Ben so he started to advance. The game uses a variable ending system so you're never sure when it will end but whenever a Time event comes up the Russians got a victory point so the Germans can't afford to hang about.
After a few skirmishes, and one German squad managing to find itself in a minefield, he gradually pushed me back out of the woods, and the buildings I controlled, so he could see the prize, the main victory point building, control of which would mean victory for him.
With time running out, and German casualties mounting, Ben took a chance by running two of his squads and a leader straight across the open to leave himself adjacent to the building, planning an advance and melee next turn, chancing that I didn't have the cards in hand to shoot at him.he was lucky and my guys kept their heads down and didn't take the opportunity to take some shots at the Germans in the open.
However I had an Advance card of my own and I charged out of the building into his units to try and forestall his assault. This was risky as I knew if I lost the melee I would lose the game, this was better for me though than standing in the building and letting Ben advance as I would get better odds with this attack. Success! My units wiped out his force and ensured me victory in the game.
It had looked like I was going to win for most of the game, so really I was quite surprised that it actually came down to the last draw of the cards. Ben had picked up the game pretty quickly and had realised that with his bigger hand size there was a good chance that I wouldn't be able to react to his advancing on the final building. We both enjoyed it, the game has lots of flavour, fires breaking out in the middle of the forest late game, snipers causing units to decide to go to ground, a Russian hero running madly at a German squad, only to be shot up, broken and then lost in melee when he was looking to push the Germans back etc.
I'm looking forward to another go at this excellent system!
He started out by standing and trying to shoot it out, but the forest and buildings we were in made both our shooting pretty ineffective, and time pressure was on Ben so he started to advance. The game uses a variable ending system so you're never sure when it will end but whenever a Time event comes up the Russians got a victory point so the Germans can't afford to hang about.
After a few skirmishes, and one German squad managing to find itself in a minefield, he gradually pushed me back out of the woods, and the buildings I controlled, so he could see the prize, the main victory point building, control of which would mean victory for him.
With time running out, and German casualties mounting, Ben took a chance by running two of his squads and a leader straight across the open to leave himself adjacent to the building, planning an advance and melee next turn, chancing that I didn't have the cards in hand to shoot at him.he was lucky and my guys kept their heads down and didn't take the opportunity to take some shots at the Germans in the open.
However I had an Advance card of my own and I charged out of the building into his units to try and forestall his assault. This was risky as I knew if I lost the melee I would lose the game, this was better for me though than standing in the building and letting Ben advance as I would get better odds with this attack. Success! My units wiped out his force and ensured me victory in the game.
It had looked like I was going to win for most of the game, so really I was quite surprised that it actually came down to the last draw of the cards. Ben had picked up the game pretty quickly and had realised that with his bigger hand size there was a good chance that I wouldn't be able to react to his advancing on the final building. We both enjoyed it, the game has lots of flavour, fires breaking out in the middle of the forest late game, snipers causing units to decide to go to ground, a Russian hero running madly at a German squad, only to be shot up, broken and then lost in melee when he was looking to push the Germans back etc.
I'm looking forward to another go at this excellent system!