Christmas Present: ToI vs. M'44 vs. CoH

Buzzkill · Christmas Present: ToI vs. M'44 vs. CoH

I am going to put a WWII board game on my Christmas list and wanted some opinions on these three:

Tide of Iron
Memoir '44
Conflict of Heroes

I am going to ask for the basic game, and may add expansions along the way. I will be playing solo, or games with my boys (8 and 12) for the most part. I tend to be a western front late war guy. Im looking for fun, easy to learn rules, but not so simplistic that I feel like I am playing risk. I tend to prefer the plastic playing pieces, but the chits in CoH look really good, so I could go that way too. I want good quality cardboard backed maps (folded paper like AAM) that can be configured multiple ways and more scenario driven than just line 'em up and fight. Anyone have experience with one, two or all of these games that can make a recommendation?

general Hoth

I've got memoir but do not like it that much. it has plenty of expansions though.
I dont know much about the other two.
The box of tide of iron looks good, i've seen it at my local shop.

Sharpe

To play with your kids, I'd go Memoir '44. The others are considerably more complex.

Buzzkill

The kids might have to take a back seat on this one, this is, after all, my Christmas present!

Remember-OWS-

From NJCO Conflict of Heroes is really in a another class. I've order the 2 first boxes... Costly, but from what I've read, it is really nice.

I own Mémoir '44 and like General Hoth, it is not that fun and long to layout.

I've playe Tide of Iron. Like Mémoir '44 the layout is burdensome but it's more fluid.

Duck Crusader

I like Memoir '44. The card system is a blast! Don't listen to these heritics.

Remember-OWS-

Duck Crusader

Buzzkill

After looking at some pics on boardgamegeek.com I am leaning pretty heavily towards CoH. I have had my fill of bad plastic mini's, I am thinking a counter game is more what I want. The counters look great and the maps bring back memories of SL which I played a ton of in my youth.

TorontoBizz

Of the three games you've listed I've only played CoH. I really enjoyed CoH, it's on my want list. It has some interesting rules regarding fog of war (I think it's an optional rule). When you get hit you pull a chit out of a cup to determine what kind of damage you took. If I remeber right, you place the counter face down and your opponent does not see it until the casualty phase.

Steel_Panther

I'll give you a quick recap of the 2 games i've played:

Memoir '44: As "Lite" a wargame as their ever was. Pure and simple. Infantry move like this, shoot like this. Tanks move like this, shoot like that. Artillery moves like this, shoots like that. Do exaclty as it says on the cards. Simple, but a little long to set up with all the units and terrain hexes.

Tide of Iron: Take Memoir '44, add different squads, overwatch (ish stuff), more terrain, tons of different units and MUCH more complex rules (as in 2 8th graders can't figure it out in an afternoon Rolling Eyes

) and you have ToI. Pretty fun, I think if I could figure out the rules Laughing

And that is that. Good luck chosing! Very Happy

afilter

Well I recently received a copy of Tide of Iron looks like I need to break it out and give it a try so I can give a report.

I noticed you did not mention A&A,,,do you already own them.

I was one of the fortunate ones to get AA50 last year for X-mas. Best one to date if you can find a copy. Rumor is they are going to reprint.

Also announced a New AA Pacific and Europe would be done.

Duck Crusader

Different style of game. A&A is strategic, these are tactical.

afilter

Remember-OWS-

Remember-OWS-

Duck Crusader

NjCo

I have lots of experience with all three of these and I also own all three. Outside the base game I own the Pacific expansion, the air pack and the campaign book as well as a couple of the mini expansion scenarios available for Memoir '44. For the others I only own the base game.Have you read my review of CoH that I submitted here for the forumini olympics? I linked to it in the post a few down from this one.

One good way to see if you'll like any one of these games just read their rules. Here are links to each:

Memoir '44
http://www.daysofwonder.com/memoir44/en/content/rules/

Conflict of Heroes
http://academy-games.com/index.php/rules-a-updates/rule-books

Tide of Iron
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com...inisite_sec.asp?eidm=8&esem=4

Be sure to check out the extra scenarios available for both ToI and CoH. ToI has a database of user created scenarios at the Fantasy Flight website. CoH has extra firefights available on their website and more are on the way including some that are specifically created for solo play.

For solo play I'd definitely skip Memoir '44. The card system just doesn't work very satisfactorily. I've soloed both of the others and enjoyed myself with both.

The plastic pieces in ToI are nice but you have to remember that whenever you have plastic pieces then you are almost always limiting the scope of possible units available in a game. Outside of a miniatures rule system this is always the case. So do you want the nice plastic pieces or do you want access to a broad range of units? ToI has more units than the plastic pieces would indicate due to the specialization counters which go on the unit bases and can change the capabilities of a squad but it's nowhere near as many different types as you have in CoH.

As far as expansions go, Memoir '44 has a ton of extra stuff. You could die of old age before you explored it all. None of it really adds a great deal of difficulty to the game which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at it. CoH doesn't have much for expandability yet but it's all in the pipeline which I've talked about in the post dealing specifically with the game. ToI does have a decent amount of expandability in place. They have the Normandy expansion as well as the North Africa expansion plus a terrain pack. I'm sure they'll have something else out eventually.

As to which you should choose I think you need to consider who you will be playing the game with. Always take that into consideration since it's not as much fun playing by yourself. If your boys will be your primary opponents then you'll have to gauge which game will be appropriate for them. If you have other opponents in mind then take that into consideration as well.

If I had to choose the one that I liked the best it would be CoH but as I said, you always need to consider potential opponents. Memoir '44 is just right for my elderly dad so when he's around that's what we play. If it's one of my buddies who is not scared of wargames then either of the others will do. CoH is a little more elegant but ToI is fun also.

If you have any specific questions or comparisons you'd like me to explore I'd be happy to help. Just let me know what your questions are.

jurgenaut

I have Tide of Iron, but I never did like it much. The scenarios out-of-the-box are pretty unbalanced. Fiddly line of sight with height differences.

The squad bases sound like a good idea, but the sockets are too small for the soldier models, so you have to smash them in with a sledgehammer and pull them using a set of pliers (or bust your fingertips, your choice).

Meh, maybe I got a bad print. But I got to play Combat Commander with a friend and found that a lot more rewarding.

Remember-OWS-

Buzzkill

Capt. Strange

afilter

Jameson

afilter