Tom Stearns
United States
Houston
Texas
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Here are some close up looks at the key battle areas of the game. This is my ongoing solo game. I am in the night turn of the 11th.
Montebourg threatened by 4th Div and 101st Abn
82nd Abn withstands withering attacks from 243rd and 91st Div's. 91st Div has tried for 2 days to push the 82nd out of Pont-l'Abbe without success. 2 reduced strength battalions withstood attacks from 4 battalions, plus artillery support. It was close last turn, but no retreat rolled and the engineers finished the improved position. Reinforcements and replacements have arrived. 91st's attempts have probably come to an end.
90th Div secures Carentan just before 77th Div arrives to confront them.
29th Div secures Isigny and prepares to deal with 17SS.
Pz Lehr has pushed 1st Div back to the main highway. Big Red 1 has their hands full.
50th Div struggling to make any headway vs the 352nd defending Bayeau.
7th Armoured and 51st Div work together against 12SS.
3rd Canadian operating north of Caen against 21st Pz.
6th Abn and 3rd Div threatening east side of Orne River and Caen. Bridgehead well expanded and secured. 6th Abn repelled a concentrated effort by 346th Div at town of Troam. Elements of 3rd Div appearing on eastern outskirts of Caen.
Turn record track with June's scheduled reinforcements stacked on their day.
These close up pictures really show the beauty of the counter and map graphics. If these pictures don't make you want to get this game out on the table then I give up on ya......well maybe I give up on ya.......okay then I won;t give up on ya , but c'mon get playing!
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Wendell
United States
Arlington
Virginia
All the little chicks with crimson lips, go...
Hey, get your stinking cursor off my face! I got nukes, you know.
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Nice update. It certainly is an attractive game - map & counters.
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Robbie Nye
United States
North Carolina
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Man, you are right! I got my game for Christmas and I love it. Just seeing the pics from your game fired me up. Think I will get off the computer and go back to playing!
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Tom Stearns
United States
Houston
Texas
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RNYE wrote: Man, you are right! I got my game for Christmas and I love it. Just seeing the pics from your game fired me up. Think I will get off the computer and go back to playing!
'Atta Boy!
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Jon Williamson
Canada
Calgary
AB
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Very nice Tom. Pretty game and the narrative looks to be there.
The stacking limits look pretty low. Maybe two units max. Is that generally true?
Thanks.
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Tom Stearns
United States
Houston
Texas
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Capt_S wrote: Very nice Tom. Pretty game and the narrative looks to be there.
The stacking limits look pretty low. Maybe two units max. Is that generally true?
Thanks.
6 stacking points per hex. Battalions are 3 or 4 stacking points. Artillery are 1 or 2 stacking points. HQ's are 1 stacking point. Companies tend to be 2 stacking points. Original rules say that British 4 point armor can stack with 3 point infantry as exception to the rule.
Note that stacking points and steps are two different values in this game. The dots on the right represent steps. White dots are armor, red are AT and black are infantry. The white number in the black circle on the left is the stacking value.
Combined arms bonus requires white dot and black dot units attacking together. Red dot units cancel CA bonus.
Hard ZOC. Units cannot move from ZOC to ZOC. They must first exit ZOC and then re-enter. +2 mp's to exit ZOC. Units stacked in ZOC negate mp penalty for exiting as long as one unit stays behind.
I know this is more than you asked for, but may help the pictures give you more information.
For instance the unit OOS in front of 7th Armoured cannot retreat due to ZOC's. Even if a friendly unit moved adjacent to it, it still cannot move ZOC to ZOC.
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Jon Williamson
Canada
Calgary
AB
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Oh no...that is great information. Thanks.
I should have expected something more detailed in this game. I suppose I was curious to know if they simplified some aspects of play (like stacking) in order to help with playability. Some games do, most do not. I would have been surprised if this one did given the grand nature of it.
I do not own the game, but there is an appeal for me not dissimilar to the attraction I have for monster grand tactical games like TSS. The narrative of this division fighting that one over Town A and repeating that story over the breadth of a large map is a draw for me.
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Tom Stearns
United States
Houston
Texas
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Yep Jon I agree the narrative of the game is very interesting. This is not a complex game, especially compared to Wacht am Rhein 2, Highway to the Reich and other monsters. Counter density is much less than The Longest Day. The Sequence of Play is very straight forward. So much so that I find myself referring to it not because of how much detail there is to remember, but because I feel like I'm missing something, and I'm not. Move, fight, mech move (friendly) and that's it. The Allies get an armed recon attack phase at the end of each German turn. This abstracts some of the air impact on the campaign. Even the administrative stuff is easy because of the various tracks for tracking it.
I think this game is a must buy for anyone interested in this campaign. Before I would have said TLD, but no more. BfN is the new king.
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Robbie Nye
United States
North Carolina
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I agree. I love The Longest Day, but BFN is now king!
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Peter Martin
United States
Oceanside
California
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gohrns wrote: I think this game is a must buy for anyone interested in this campaign. Before I would have said TLD, but no more. BfN is the new king.
I agree. Our experience was that the only "difficult" (and it's not that difficult) part of the game are the beach landings. Once (if!) the Americans are on the beach the rest of the game flows very well with minimum rules checking.
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Tom Stearns
United States
Houston
Texas
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Yea Pete, Omaha Beach is tough, but I never really feel like the Germans have any chance to push the Americans off it. It's more of a "how long can they delay" the Americans really establishing the beach head. In my solo game I moved as much of 352nd to Bayeau as could reach it. What couldn;t reach Bayeau in a timely manner went to Isigny. The terrain south of Omaha is such to really hinder a fast advance straight south. As the pics attest, Bayeau is still being held by 352nd and Isigny just fell on the 10th.
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Jon Williamson
Canada
Calgary
AB
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Just out of curiosity, can the invasion beaches change? That is, is there any flexibility in choice or is it the historical landings only?
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Tom Stearns
United States
Houston
Texas
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Historical only. Even the units assigned is pretty infelxible.
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Skip Franklin
United States
Oklahoma City
OK
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RNYE wrote: Man, you are right! I got my game for Christmas and I love it. Just seeing the pics from your game fired me up. Think I will get off the computer and go back to playing!
There are CyberBoard and VASSAL modules for this game if space is an issue.
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Danny Holte
United States
Fullerton
California
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gohrns wrote: Historical only. Even the units assigned is pretty infelxible.
I thought I'd jump in - and thanks for the kind commments - The reason that alt-history type scenarios are not included is pretty simple really.
The number of pages available for rules and scenarios was limited in the initial game. So, we wanted to stick with the main event and the important battles. And, most of all, if players want to mess around with alternate landing sites or airborne drops, there's really no need to lay it out; you can just go ahead and pick a spot and do it.
The one alternate airborne drop that was going to go - switched due to the transfer of 91 LL, is included.
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JASON TIPPLE
United Kingdom
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It really is a very good and very playable game. Ive only done some of the smaller scenarious so far, but they are essential I think to learn from mistakes you could make in the campaign. I will do the campaign soon!
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Rusty Coleman
United States
Geismar
Louisiana
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Awesome game. The alternate landing for the 82nd seems to work well. There are some alternate scenarios but the landings are pretty much clear. There is allowance to land units on different beaches after the initial landings. Not indluded was information on how the naval forces were grouped in real life using the first name of the beach they were to operate with. Also, the actual and potential effectiveness of operation Titanic was not included. This is not a criticism in any way. If it were not for this game, I wouldn't have done any research that led me to find out about that. My Dad landed with the 899th but his LCT wound up on Omaha while the rest were on Utah. Again, a great game and you will learn history by playing it.
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Mike Windsor
United States
Fort Worth
Texas
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I'm still sitting on the fence because I'm not sure how it will play out solitaire. There was another good set of AARs that stopped, and I'm wondering if you get everything set up, play for a week or so, and then just lose momentum due to sheer size.
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Tom Stearns
United States
Houston
Texas
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Mike i dont believe thats the case. The counter density is manageable especially compared to TLD. The turns play pretty fast considering the scope. There are no mechanics that prevent effective solo play. The solo air chart is great. The 3 map variant is excellent also.
This a must have title for people who enjoy this campaign.
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Mike Windsor
United States
Fort Worth
Texas
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I was afraid you'd say something like that. I remember setting up Atlantic Wall from SPI, and making it about three turns before throwing in the towel.
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Tom Stearns
United States
Houston
Texas
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I never played Atlantic Wall, but by all accounts Ive heard, Atlantic Wall isn't in the same ballpark by a long shot.
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Mike Windsor
United States
Fort Worth
Texas
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Thanks. I think I'll go hunt down a copy of tBfN.
You ought to request a commission, Tom. 
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Tom Stearns
United States
Houston
Texas
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Nah, when I find a game that I think is top notch I just like to share the love. ALso creates potential opponents on Vassal....
I bought mine from NWS Online. The seem to have the lowest price.
Good luck and let me know when you want to take for a spin via Vassal. Actually trying to put together a 4player vassal game for the near future. Currently have 2 of us with 1 other maybe.
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Mike Windsor
United States
Fort Worth
Texas
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Thanks for the NWS tip. Their price new was better than the "like new" prices on BGG. Now I've ordered the expansion from GMT, so thanks for helping me part with $100.
By the way, Tom, where did you come up with that horrid avatar?
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Tom Stearns
United States
Houston
Texas
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LOL......HA! Just noticed your horn frog microbadge! We are old/new rivals born again. Actually I love TCU. My dad grew up in FTW, I lived there for 7 years, my wife worked at TCU, and my oldest son's first college football game to attend was there when he was oh, a couple of months old. I am pumped that TCU is in the Big 12 even if my Horns get thumped.
Your welcome for getting you spend $100, money well spent. I'm on the P500 for the expansion as well so I at least I put my money where my mouth is.
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