Lawrence Hung  - Apr 2, 2007 2:02 pm (#17995 Total: 18001)  
Now playing Combat Commander,Die Macher,Assyrian War,Silent War,
Twilight Struggle,Band of Heroes,7 Days of 1809,Here I Stand,
Carthage,Rise of the Roman Republic,6 Days of Glory,
ATS 1a Screaming Eagle,Triumph of Chaos,Sword of Rome,ASLSK1,
Battle Line 	 

Combat Commander: Europe - An AAR

Up Front + ASL + Memoir' 44...and so they say. Following the posts
above, this game has a divided opinion among wargamers. Some like its
constant uncertainty with the card system while some don't like the
moment of impetus or inertia one might see about the infantry and keep
discarding the cards. 

I bought Combat Commander after some initial hesitation. About 2 levels
up the complexity of Memoir'44 and it seems right in the scale for me.
As someone said, it filled a niche between Memoir'44 and ASL. I think it
is rightly so and I am one in that niche. Not a very fan of tactical
game from the beginning, I want to see if this game shakes my belief. 

We are advised not to try the first scenario "Fat Lipki" and so we
didn't. Out of a total 12 "historical" scenarios, we then chose scenario
10 "Command School", Novorossiysk, Russia 4 Feb, 1943. The newly
arriving Black Sea Fleet commandos took the Command School nearby a
lake. The Russians sent in the Black Sea Fleet commandos to capture a
local university in the town of Stanichka after the amphibious assault.
The scenario description doesn't record the historical designation of
the units participated like that in ASL scenarios. But rather, a general
unit in the army or battalion. 

A great "game". Yes, it is a game with some fair doze of simulation
value, if randomness is not something you avoid at all cost. For example
in my game, a German troop unit could suddenly "pop-out" in the center
island of a lake broken and then eliminated because of a call of retreat
by the event and without a right path to...because at its back, it is an
impassable island terrain. 

Is it fun? Maybe. Realistic? Arguable. If you argue from the strictest
sense, well, it could be realistic. The objective of the game is to
inflict the casualties to the enemy up to the level of surrender... yap,
a bloody tactical level game objective, isn't it. It is this outright
cool objective that makes this game good. The game designer would argue
that geographical control of the objective hexes is secondary at
tactical level. More so, the geographical objectives are subject to
variable victory points by the secret objectives both drawn in the
beginning and during the game progress. It really makes the commander's
decision to stay or continue to fight a heart-torn, uncertain one. 

Voluntary exiting your units off the opposite map, as usual, awards VPs
too. Both sides have even forces. The Russian commandos are generally
tired and have a lower surrender level than the German (6 vs. 7),
meaning that they couldn't take too many casualties. They have a better
skill at melee because they are mostly elite units while the Germans
have more leaders/ commanders. This gives the German advantage in group
action because a commander could activate units in one action within his
command radius. The command rating is the command radius, so don't mix
it up with he "range" rating of a leader. The leader always adds his
"capabilities" when stacking with the units directly. So he adds his
"range" rating to the combat units firing further at the target. 

The dice results are printed on the cards. The system does not shuffle
the cards every time a player draws. So when you draw a single card for
each combat, chances are that the probabilities of the dice change after
each draw. It is deterministic on the appearance by your card deck as
drawn. Yet the events, hex location for some of the events take place
also apprears to be randomly determined as you determine the pace of
discard. It is this kind nice twists shown all throughout the game. 

Another interesting twist is the dice re-roll mechanism . Initiative
card allows a re-roll of dice (card) if you are at a critical moment.
The card is passed to your opponent after use. If at the end of the
game, a tie in VPs would warrant the winner to the one who holds the
initiative card. 

The German element of the 73rd Infantry Division is called up to
counterattack. Sergeant Esser and Biermann joined the ranks under Lt.
Schrader. Biermann led the way to outflank the Russians in the center
(objective hex 5) overlooking the manmade lake behind. He was killed in
an advance order while taking a melee. Cool, the first blood was shed,
thought Lt. Khukovsky. He was given the order to hold this center
building at all cost. The secret mission objective given to him by
comrade Stalin was that this building worths 5 VPs. The German strategy
appeared to be failing. 

Sergeant Esser was now alone. He had a superior command quality. But he
thought he was guilty of putting Biermann to death because he urged him
to go too far on the road to hex E3, where he met the Russian troop
retreated from the front. So he moved swiftly forward again and exited
at the Russian back, securing some of the VPs with the open objective
where units exited doubled their VPs. 

With shattered forces at hand now, Lt. Schrader had to consolidate the
forces again for a push towards the center. He moved to the building at
hex I6, just next to Lt. Khukovsky's building. They exchanged several
rounds of fire but to no result. Meanwhile, the Russian advanced with
Sergeant Bikovets on the other hand towards objective building no. 4,
lightly guarded by German infantry with a light machine gun. He was
suppressed but moved into the near forest to avoid the suppressive fire.
He fired back but the German was safe in the building for cover. 

Lt. Schrader recovered some units several times. Seeing the Russian
slowly reinforcing with 2 more units from the events, after suppressing
the Russian unit with sustained fire (a +2 modifier), Lt. Schrader
decided it was the time for a final advance into the objective building
no. 5 in the center. It would make the day, break it or fix it. As melee
result eliminated one more Russian unit, Lt. Khukovsky surrendered. 

There are no tanks in the game. But I suspect they will be added very
soon as I see the system could work well to the tank tactics. The
weapons included in the game are mostly machine guns, howitzers,
flamethrower, satchel charge (you throw grenade with a fate card...more
on that later), mortar. The usual battlefield obstacles are found here:
bunker, trench, wire, mines. They are all there for the defensive works.

At its core, Combat Commander is a card driven game. Every order and
action is taken with a card. Without it you can't do anything. Discard
to save more right cards in hand is "the" strategy. A longer hand
therefore gives more flexibility to the side, in this scenario the
German. It was a very tense fight. The German casualties are huge too,
with 2 remaining units to go to surrender level. 

We called for the day and felt satisfied for some of the more dramatic
moments in the game, and the game intended to produce them. This one is
a close one and we completed it in an afternoon of 6 hours. We would
very much like to try the other scenarios. Right, there is no Stalingrad
scenario coming with the game. But there are additional scenarios from
GMT for purchase of other products. Scenario "101" is one for the
"Krasny Oktyabr", with the longer street fighting game length at 13 and
15 surrender level for the German and Russian respectively. We will see
if this scenario could deliver the same excitement in future soon.