inconsequential ruminations

I went over to Steve’s house last night and played Combat Commander: Europe. Steve has been really keen to play this with me. We played Squad Leader a few weeks ago and this reignited his enthusiasm for Combat Commander. Combat Commander: Europe is pretty good, but I am not sure it is entirely successful. It shares a lot of the mechanics of Memoir ‘44, while attempting to cover the same ground as Squad Leader. Sounds a bit like Up Front?

There is a lot of randomness and chaos that I found jarring. For instance, victory conditions can change randomly during the game and snipers, who might as well be magic fire storms, invisibly shoot at random map hexes and disappear. Randomness is not essentially a bad thing, after all WW2 combat involved plenty of luck, but I wish the luck was more thematic. At least you do not feel like an omnipotent god controlling your men, but more like a real combat commander with imperfect knowledge and control over events on the ground.

On the plus side, the components are way better than Squad Leader, although the maps are slightly drab and the rules are not particularly challenging for a wargame.

I did not find it significantly longer or shorter than Squad Leader. We played the first scenario in two hours including rules explanations.

If you have not read it already, check out Mikko’s concise and thorough review.

I need to try Lock and Load and Tide of Iron, to see if I can finally settle on a tactical WW2 wargame.

So far 6/10, but I am keen to play it more.