I am not a historical war-game player and for me to even consider playing a WWII game , it has to be something special. I found out about COH – Awakening the Bear when I was looking for another board game. The cover painting looked interesting and also that it was a Origins winner made me investigate even further. And I am very glad I did, what a great Board Game.
Made by Academy Games the Conflict of Heroes system represents squad level combat during WWII to modern day conflict.
Conflict of Heroes is a tactical war game of platoon-sized engagements, with each counter representing a squad of infantry, a crewed gun or a vehicle. The engagements are presented as firefights with different objectives. During a firefight players use their army’s units to fight for these objectives, which are worth victory points (VPs). The player with the most VPs at the end of the game wins.
Each firefight consists of several rounds. In each round, players alternate taking turns. During his turn, a player may take an action with one of his units, stall or pass. When a unit activates, it receives 7 action points (APs), which it spends to take actions. These APs are tracked on the green Unit Action Points Track on the player’s Track Sheet. Different actions can cost a different number of APs
Play continues with players alternating turns until both pass consecutively. At this point the round ends and the next round begins. Most games consist of five or fewer rounds.
Victory points are won during the game by destroying enemy units and taking objectives. Victory conditions are listed on each firefight sheet. A player can lose most of his command, but still win the game if he has met his victory conditions and has more victory points than his opponent.
The components are some of the best I have seen , the maps are fantastic, the counters big and easy to read (and very thick) and the rules are very well written. The box comes with a plastic insert for the counters 🙂 . You can download maps for planing moves, off board bombardments and of course the rules. Also an IPAD app exists for tracking Action Points. So a very well supported game and with lots of possible expansion available I think this will be getting plenty of attention. Also solo rules are being release soon which look very promising.
I have just worked through the first firefight and will go back and read the rules again to clarify some points. The fluff is very good e.g. ” Oct 17, 1941. Field Order: “Commander, this is a main supply route for the Germans. We will mine the road and ambush the next convoy. Destroy as many trucks as possible and then melt away to the east. We will rendezvous at camp” Partisan Leader Viktor S. The firefight outlines the forces, command action points and any option rules. The attention to detail is evident in the design and layout.
The soviets were getting pinned but still managed to control the supply point and ambush the the convoy. The Germans Pioneers were coming on from the NE side , behind the Soviets line. The Soviets only had to last a couple more turns. So just an intro scenario to get used to actions, LOS and combat. I really like only controlling a few units , it feels more immersive. The rules are very similar to Nuklear Winter 68 with similar counter configuration. Here you can see the soft and hard target fire power of 2 and 0 for the Rifle unit (red for soft and blue for hard). Also the front and flank defence of 12 and 11 and Action Points for Firing and moving or 3 and 1 respectively at the top of the counter. The white triangle is for the facing to determine the front and flanking directions etc.
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