First Impressions, please!

[Noypi53]

Still deciding if I should get this game or not. I'm already loaded with CoH & FP:RS.

Hope we can get the comments of those who have bought after their first few hours with it.

[comsolut]

Reminds me of Squad Leader. (Which I loved, but hard to find opponents. So AI is for me the biggest advantage)

Artwork is great.

Played the ambush scenario and the AI was decent.

Went to BoardGame Geek and downloaded some quick reference guides, and that really helped me get into the mechanics of the game fast.

Very intuitive, and less eye strain than COH (from the constant board movement).

[Blond_Knight]

As a Beta tester I found it attractive and fun. The GUI is well layed-out and the sound of the dice rolling I found soothing and nostalgic.

[lparkh]

Good idea to use BGG. I went there and see there are a lot of tutorial videos for the boardgame. Here's a general link (scroll down to the video section):
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/ ... -of-heroes

[SuluSea]

FWIW , there's also tutorials included with the game. I've enjoyed the ride thus far the art, interface, presentation is first class and what I expect when I buy a game from Matrix.

Have to give a shout out for the sound file as well. Back to the game..........[;)]

[FroBodine]

How are the in-game tutorials? I'm hoping that they are sufficiently meaty and detailed enough that it is not necessary to get supplemental boardgame material from BGG.

Or, are people finding that the game not explained well enough, forcing us to get charts and reference guides from BGG?

[Erik Rutins]

I think the in-game tutorials and the manual included are more than sufficient to learn the game. Extra materials could be helpful if you don't have the game and are curious about the system, but we made sure that owners have all they need to get up to speed IMHO.

Regards,

- Erik

[FroBodine]

Excellent! Thank you, Erik. I can't wait to get home form work and make a long awaited purchase!

[Redmarkus5]

Loving the art and the old board game feel - very well executed.

Not convinced that rescuing Russian infants was actually very high on the German army's priority list in the summer of 1942 though...

[Erik Rutins]

Thank you for the great first impressions.

Redmarkus4,

German army in general, absolutely not - but we are at a much smaller scale here and Mark enjoys telling stories and setting up scenarios that make players think a bit more outside of the box. This particular soldier in this battle, yes, as explained through the scenes. This is one scenario out of many more in the campaign that have nothing to do with Russian children, but this one helps establish the character of this soldier (one of the characters you follow) in the campaign and is one of many unusual stories that could (and probably at some point did) happen during the war.

Regards,

- Erik

[lparkh]

Tutorials are in "scenarios" and are guided play (e.g. 'learn to rally'). Minor tip:
when you are asked to select units in a hex during the first tutorial make sure you move the tutorial popup out of the way of the hex or the clicking of the hex doesn't register and you don't get the units at the bottom right as the tutorial says will happen. You can scroll the screen if need be. So far I am finding it quite pretty, and looks like love and attention were given to it. That being said the tutorials are a bit brittle and don't work hard to make sure you 'behave' (i.e. do as instructed). But no big deal. The music (modern but soviet esque) is a nice touch.
This is after 5 minutes and 1 tutorial

[lparkh]

OK have done tutorials, done "Ambush" scenario and now trying first game of campaign. Boy this is challenging. I have lost about 4 times and not even gotten close to victory. I backed off difficult and am playing at normal (3 out of 4 efforts). Trying to decide how much it is me and how much it is luck (not spotting a unit and therefore not being able to fire on it is very hard, and only 1/3 chance).
Interested to see what others think of general difficulty and of first campaign scenario for Germans difficulty.
Back to try again. ...lost again.. though did better. The difficulty to me in this scenario in particular seems to be that one has to cross a lot of open ground against units in buildings...and the kicker is they don't fire unless you expose yourself (sensible of them) so then you have to spot them but this is only a 1/3 chance per an attempt and uses up a unit (a leader typically too) which is very expensive. Plus they go back to being unspotted the next turn. So you use up units trying to see them... you finally spot them.. but you don't have a lot of firepower left... and it is hard to hit them in the buildings.. and if you do they rally the next turn with good probability (buildings are good for rallying). And of course if instead of trying to suppress them you run across the open you get cut down. I tried smoke too, but this is low odds to create (so creates similar problems to what was just described with expending units trying to spot) plus it is limited help when having to move across so much open ground.
The spotting rule is the thing that pushes this scenario over the edge of difficulty at least for me If spotting remained in effect across turns that would help a lot, as it is it really seems like I am going to have to get quite lucky to pull this off.
But maybe it is a skill thing, though like I say I've played a lot of these style games and could do fine.
So what are others experiences of German Campaign first scenario and of difficulty of game in general?

[markhwalker]

Have to give a shout out for the sound file as well. Back to the game..........

Funny story. First cut on the German rally file sounded much different. It now says, "Let's get 'em boys!" That's fine. The first take, however, sounded like it was voiced by a gay pedophile. It said, "Let's get some boys!" [:)]

[markhwalker]

The spotting rule is the thing that pushes this scenario over the edge of difficulty at least for me If spotting remained in effect across turns that would help a lot, as it is it really seems like I am going to have to get quite lucky to pull this off.

Spotting isn't the only way to reveal units. Moving a unit adjacent also reveals units, Drawing the unit's fire also reveals them. Try moving a single squad to draw fire and then either returning fire or moving into melee.

[Erik Rutins]

Hi lparkh,

I'd highly recommend that you try the Introductory level for the first time through. We added it specifically for folks who are playing the game for the first time. A lot of our tester feedback involved difficulty and balance and we found that Introductory seems to get it just right for new players. Once you know the game well, it's too easy, but it makes learning the game more enjoyable.

Regards,

- Erik

[erichswafford]

The game is THE best boardgame-type wargame conversion that I've ever seen. Very elegant system and also just plain fun. This grabbed me right away and I was up past midnight playing before I knew it.

A lot of work clearly went into this. I really hope they do a touch version for tablets one day.

PS - I'm actually playing this on my little Dell Venue 8 Pro (8" tablet) and it works great but I have to use a mouse emulator because touch doesn't work.

[aaatoysandmore]

Is there a Saving Pvt Ryanstikoff? scenario in it? [:'(]

[lparkh]

I'd figured out drawing fire with sacraficial lambs but forgot about adj rule (bit suicidal in this scenario ) Thx. Also woke up realizing isolated units once shaken arent going to rally which should help!

[markhwalker]

Yeah, in scenario one shaking those two Russian half-squads is all you need to do. They won't bother you anymore.

[erichswafford]

I love how the game illustrates that it's all about morale and suppression. "Mission Kill" is the operative term here. I like how, slowly but surely, one side eventually just stops firing back and is left cowering in the rubble until they get overrun.

The game just feels right.

PS - If you've ever been shot at, you know how powerful the urge is just to keep your head down and do nothing to attract attention. It takes loads of training and/or experience to figure out this is actually the best way to get killed (eventually). Funny how that just doesn't seem to matter at the time. You just wanna live another minute or two. The next hour will just have to take care of itself.