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There are a few characteristics of Conflict of Heroes mechanics that started nagging me rather quickly while I was playing through the Awakening of the Bear. Coming here on BGG and reading the CoH forum threads concerning the game I found the same was the case for many other users, hence rule modifications proposed by different users tend to concentrate around a few similiar issues. Some of them are described by user Heinz Guderian in posts placed here; I don't agree with all his criticisms and decidedly don't find them nearly as detrimental to the value of the game as he does, but I think he makes good point in some cases.
The most important in my opinion is the issue of reacting to opponent's actions. Current system makes such reaction very costly. To react to player A moving or firing his unit, usually costing him between 1 and 4 APs, player B has to either use opportunity action and spend the whole activation of his unit (costing 7 APs) or activate a new unit, neglecting the one he used so far (losing all its remaining APs) and forcing him to use remaining APs of newly activated unit in following turns. This leads to very gamey behavior, when player A may react to a player B action by activating a unit in another part of the battlefield, forcing player B to either drop the currently activated unit or keep using it, allowing his units in the area of player A's current activation to be approached and fired upon, unable to react. This doesn't map to anything resembling the actual tactics. Furthermore, if player B activates the new unit it may be that he has no viable action after the first one; player A's advancing unit may have been eliminated, may have found cover etc., while player B situation requires keeping the newly activated unit in place (eg. a bunker) and advancing makes no tactical sense. The effective cost of such an activation may be a double-digit number of APs (combined costs payed by the abandoned and the newly activated unit), much more than the cost faced by the attacker.
The defensive fire is just too costly here in general. In reality it was easier to lay fire when a unit was stationary than when it was moving; this fact is reflected in many tactical WW2 systems, usually by isolating special phase for opportunity fire. The CAPs in CoH are not a way of addressing this issue. They are conceptually a way of abstracting command and communication quality, the influence of officers commanding platoons and companies on their subordinate units - and I like them in this respect. It doesn't make sense to require use of special scarce pool of points (CAPs) for opportunity fire, which is an easier activity than moving and laying offensive fire, which uses here normal and abundant joined pool of points (APs). After two or three rounds of play, with casualties taken, CAPs become even scarcier and opportunity fire even more dificult to carry out.
I can understand the striving for relative simplicity and avoiding the game being fiddly, backing the initial decision to represent unit status only by the position of the counter. However, I think it is too large a compromise, especially as the game family expands to new campaigns and units. Were the game a sort of middle ground between a wargame and an abstract, like the Manoeuvre, it wouldn't matter much. On the other hand, any game that makes a point in discerning between T-34b and T-34c should have the opportunity fire solved right, even for the price of being more fiddly.
The issue of opportunity action has been addressed on BGG forums before. Here Rusty Ballinger suggests activating all units at once and keeping record of the number of points left for each of them after every action. Colin Houghton here proposes a rule for defensive half-activation, and here suggests activating units for opportunity fire and marking them with the number of APs they used, instead of flipping them to the "used" side, all other actions carried out under original rules. I like the last suggestion the most (and I don't think there should be any additional penalty to such defensive action, as was proposed in response to the latter post). The rule I use in play is quite similiar:
1. Activating a unit, player declares whether he does this in the normal/offensive mode or the defensive mode. The rules for the normal activation are as described in the manual. In case of the defensive activation, player carries out an action with the new unit without deactivating the unit that is currently in the normal activation mode. The player subtracts the cost of action from the AP pool available to the newly activated unit and marks the remaining number of APs, putting the mark under the unit counter. A unit activated in the defensive mode can take all available actions except for advancing to another hex. When the unit uses all its available APs, it is flipped to its "used" side. At each given moment a player can have multiple units activated in the defensive mode and maximum one unit activated in the normal mode.
Normal mode allows a unit to advance and capture targets at risk of being more vulnerable. Defensive mode leaves more room for reaction, but requires concentration on the sorroundings of a unit, excluding possibility of movement (except for special effort represented by spending CAPs); although there is greater flexibility in firing, the number of shots is still limited, as the unit cannot effectively engage all the enemy units around.The rule differentiates these situations and makes for more streamlined, less fiddly, less chess-like play than it is in case of activating all units at once. At the same time I think it changes the original rules to the least necessary degree. A unit in the defensive mode may still rotate, at a cost of an action and 1 AP, which represents slower and less efficient reaction to the events happening all around the unit in comparison with the situation when a unit can concetrate all its efforts in one direction; it makes the flanking of enemy units effective also if those units are in the defensive mode.
As for the markers, I currently use pieces of paper marked with numbers, maybe someday I will get around to sticking them to cardboard and making them into counters.
Another important, frequently mentioned issue with the current mechanics of CoH is the incentive to concentrate fire on a unit that has been hit once. It contradicts what happened in reality, where units tended to fire at a given target while it was a threat; once it became supressed, it stopped being a worthy aim for the time being. Supressed infantry units were likely to remain in cover and be harder to eliminate. Inflicitng casualties upon an infantry unit, disorganizing it or making it surrender might have resulted from a close assault, much less often from long range firing.
However, in CoH the benefit of keeping firing at a hit unit is large. A unit hit for the second time and eliminated will not be a threat any more, will count as a victory point, will decrease the number of CAPs available to the opponent. Additionally it is often advisable to fire at this unit at distance, using CAPs to modify rolls, group firing etc. instead of appproaching the target and putting yourself at risk. This was described in the post of user Heinz Guderian I linked to in the beginning of this post, it is also put forward by David Janik-Jones here.
The solution based on allowing for multiple hits was suggested, among others, by Michael Karatsoris here. I use the following rule:
2. Remove "Killed" and "Destroyed" damage counters, as well as "Unnerved" infantry counters. Every time a unit takes a noncritical hit (AV - DV between 0 and 3), draw a counter with replacement - take a look at the counter drawn, place a paper copy of it under the unit and return the counter to the bag. The standard rule of not showing the counter to the opponent remains in place: "Only when a unit’s affected stats are used in play must a player show his opponent what the hit counter is". If a unit already has at least one hit marker, place the newly drawn hit marker on top of it. When a unit successfully rallies, remove the topmost hit marker, not including "No Rally" vehicle markers. The effects of hits are cumulative, subject to the following exceptions:
- If apart from "Foot Berserk" marker there is another marker (including another "Foot Berserk"), its only effect is reducing the firing range to 1, there is no firing or defence upgrade;
- If front DR becomes lower than flank DR, the same, lower value is applied to both front and flank defence.
Infantry unit is eliminated only when taking a critical hit (AV - DV>=4).Vehicle unit is eliminated when taking a critical hit or two physical, "No Rally" hits; other hits do not count into this limit.
This way it is much harder to eliminate a unit (inflict casualties, make it surrender, heavily disrupt it, destroy a vehicle etc.) just firing at it at distance, being safely tucked in a dense forest, a bunker etc. Eliminating an infantry unit often requires suppressing it to reduce its fighting value and then approaching it to get a short range (+3) or close combat (+4) modifier. Even that carries some risk with it, as the attacker may not be aware of what actually the hit marks are an whether the unit fired upon would not be able to fire back. Destroying a tank is more probable in close assault. In many cases it is still possible to get a lucky long range shot or volley, only now it is less probable and requires approppriate blue or red firepower to get that >=4 difference - only dice, no easy way with "instant kill" counters. This results in more realistic tactics than the original rules.
As for the decision to draw with replacement, I find the number of damage counters (20 in each of two pools) small even for the sake of the standard game. Drawing damage counters without replacement and leaving them on the board significantly changes probabilities of further draws. Under my rules the number of damage counters becomes even smaller, and the need for them on the board much greater, therefore I use their copies, printed on paper, basing on PDF form of
one of CoH manuals. This way the probabilities are always the same, and there is no risk of running out of damage markers.
Opportunity fire and damage model are the most important issues I have with CoH. Another one, of smaller importance, is CAP usage. I like the way the control is abstracted into CAPs in CoH, I also like how the supply of CAPs diminishes with losses taken. What I like less is how CAPs can be used to make a unit fly around the map, fire much greater number of volleys than normal etc. I think the influence of commanders should be more subtle. So the rule for influencing each roll adding 1 or 2 to the number rolled on dice at the expense of 1 or 2 CAPs I enhance to the following form:
3. Each unit can be supplied once a round with 1 or 2 CAPs that either supplement its APs or are used to add to one roll of the dice when firing. The unit is then marked as having spent CAPs during the round and cannot use them again in this round. A unit cannot divide its CAP allowance between two shots or a shot and AP allocation. A unit that used 1 CAP cannot be allocated another 1 CAP during this round.
I chose not to allow for dividing CAPs as I think it makes for slightly less fiddly gameplay and more interesting decisions, but it is not very important. The last modification concerns group firing - conditions for it rarely happen in the scenarios, but under the rules it is possbile to form a firing group of huge firepower joining forces of many units. Therefore one could group many poorly equipped infantry units into a force able to easily wipe out at distance whatever bunker or tank happens to get in sight. Unlikely. Therefore, although it isn't needed often, I use a smiple rule:
4. Supporting units in a firegroup may add no more than 2 FP in total to the leader's firepower.
For me these rules improve the gameplay, while keeping the cost in terms of additional rules and increased playing fiddliness close to the necessary minimum. They are a way of dealing with what I find shortcomings of the game, while still enjoying what I think are its strenghts:
- simple and streamlined gameflow, where movement, firing, rallying etc. interweave, without division into multiple phases;
- incorporation of various infantry, tank, vehicle, artillery, cavalry units (even planes), bunkers, mines, various area types etc. and a good trade-off between emphasizing their charactersitics and rule overhead;
- expressing unit quality in terms of costs of firing and quite finely tuned firing efficiency values for infantry and armor targets as well as values for front and flank defence, all units having facing etc. - its another place where rules strike the sweet spot between detail and simplicity;
- CAPs are a good way of abstracting command and communication, in a WW2 game I like this solution more than leader counters; the decrease in available CAPs as a result of taking losses is also a good way of simulating the loss of cohesion as the fighting goes on;
- damage counters, the fact that a hit may affect a unit in different ways, supressing it, stunning, pinning to the ground, making it go berserk, immobilizing a vehicle or damaging its gun etc. - this is fun and works well;
- simple rules for combat resolution and sensible number of combat modifiers;
- some very good firefights;
- great component quality;
- I'm not fond of WW2 wargame design decisions that may not allow you to effectively fire with your unused unit at enemy unit in range, clear terrain and line of sight just because you don't have the specific card; in CoH the conditional probability of hit is in such case always greater than zero, and this is a requirement for me in such a game;
- regressing to the former point, the way cards are used in CoH is usually my favourite in a wargame - they are not required for unit actions, but give bonus options and add flavor to the game;
- its a very good game that doesn't overload players with a huge ruleset and can be played fairly quickly, which sets it apart from some wargames that rather give a feel of a second job than something you do in your leisure;
- "Price of Honour" is the best expansion to any game I have ever seen  .
EDIT: Correction of an error in description of vehicle damage model.
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Jesse LeBreton
United States
Kingsford
Michigan
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I never minded the hit system. Sure, there are abstractions, but I don't mind at all because the abstractions are a game within themselves. How could I put it better. Well you see what I love is the depth of the choices on how to spend AP the best. Do you group move, which is not the most optimum way to spend your AP, or do you activate each unit by itself for the most efficient use of AP? Do you group up to fire, or fire individually? This game has a fine mix of the abstract and the tactical, all in one. I don't think it's trying to be a realistic combat sim. Being an old hand at competitive Chess I enjoy COH's abstract nature. It may not model real life combat as well as ASL, but I don't care, besides it gives reasonable results within a simple and fast playing system.
Anyway, good effort. For some it may prove satisfying.
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Jesse LeBreton
United States
Kingsford
Michigan
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I though I might add that I have played perhaps several dozen games using a persistent AP system, so I got a lot of experience with it. Perhaps a lot more than the people who posted it here. And I can tell you that persistent AP dumbs the game way down. It becomes super easy to get out of tight spots that bad play may have forces you into. I could provide many game examples but if you have experience playing the normal way, you should already know what I'm talking about. I found it very unsatisfying playing with persistent AP.
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I find playing with tracking APs in defensive mode much more satisfying and making room for more interesting decisions, but otherwise I wouldn't put this variant here
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Concerning hits, I play now a variant that eliminates an infantry unit on a third uncritical hit (with "Killed" and "Unnerved" chits removed), and a vehicle on second hit (with "Destroyed" chits removed). I think it works well.
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Posted Sun Jan 29, 2012 10:57 pm
