.'Combat Commander: Europe'
Board war game

(Stock no. GMT4)

PRICE: £49.99 (+P&P)

'Combat Commander: Europe ' is a card-driven board game series covering tactical infantry combat in the European and North African theatres of World War 2.

'Combat Commander: Europe'includes units, cards, and historical scenarios depicting the American, German, and Russian forces. The second game in the series will provide cards, counters, and historical scenarios for British, French, and Italian forces.

'Combat Commander' includes 6-12 historical scenarios as well as a 'build your own' scenario system that provides an almost unending variety of map configurations, force structures, and combat situations. Replayability is very high.

A game of 'Combat Commander' has no strict sequence of play. Each turn is divided into a variable number of 'Player Turns', each of which may consist of the active player using one or more of the 'Fate' cards from their hand for their Actions, or passing, which allows the discarding of one or more 'Fate' cards. Players redraw up to their maximum hand size at the end of each of their own Player Turns. Additionally, 'Reaction' cards may be played by either player at any time, so long as the required conditions are met.

Each nationality has its own 72-card 'Fate' deck highlighting its historical strengths and weaknesses (lots of smoke for the US; marksmanship bonuses for Britain; commissar events for the Soviets; broken Italian units will surrender more often; etc.). Each 'Fate' card contains one Action and one Reaction: only one of which may be declared when the card is played. The bottom portion of each 'Fate' card contains an Event, a random hex symbol, and a 2d6 die roll – these can never be ‘played’ from the hand, only ‘revealed’ from the top of the draw pile when a game situation instructs a player to do so.

'Actions' include: Fire, Move, Advance, Rally, Rout, Artillery Request and Artillery Denied. Each nationality also has a varying number of Command Confusion Actions which act as duds while in hand – these cards are useless except for any possible Reaction on the card. Actions, when played, generally activate a single unit to perform that Action, unless a Leader is activated: in which case it can further activate any or all non-leaders within its Command Radius to perform the same Action. There are 15 different 'Reactions'. For example:

  • Sustained Fire – Add +2 when firing a Mortar or Machine Gun. If the fire roll is “doubles”, break it.
  • Smoke – If a unit with boxed Movement is activated to Move or Advance, place Smoke in or adjacent to its hex.
  • Grenades – Add +2 when firing at an adjacent hex.
  • Dig In – Place foxholes in a friendly hex.

    There are 36 different 'Events' that will occur at random intervals to add chaos and uncertainty to each player’s plan. Event examples:
     

  • Walking Wounded – Select one eliminated unit. Return that unit to play in a random hex, broken.
  • Hero – If not already in play, place the Hero in a friendly hex. Rally one broken unit there.
  • Reinforcements - Roll on the Support Table. Select one available unit then place it along your map edge.
  • Battle Harden - One unit becomes Veteran.

    Average playing time is about 90 minutes per scenario. A scenario is played on one of several map sheets, each with a 10 x 15 hex grid depicting various terrain at a scale of 100 feet per hex. In addition to playing one of the many pre-generated scenarios included with the game, players can devise random scenarios as well.

    Age 12+                  For 2 players                      Playing time: approx. 90 minutes per scenario

    Map scale: 1 hex = 30 metres

    Complexity: Medium

    Contents:

    Six 17"x 22" map sheets
    876 Full colour counters
    4 Full-colour player aid cards
    Time track display
    Scenario book
    Rule book
     

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