Overview

Conflict of Heroes: Guadalcanal was released in 2016 and is a squad-level, tactical, hex and counter wargame. The Pacific Theatre of WWII holds a massive interest for me; despite my living a figurative stones throw away from a lot of European WWII history.  I am just in awe of the willing and persistent sacrifice of both sides' combatants in a theatre that arguably comprises the most bloody battles of WWII, Guadalcanal included. To say I was eager to review this game would be an understatement.

CoH:Guadalcanal focuses on the landings of the US Marines onto the strategically important island of Guadalcanal and their subsequent defence of the island and the vital airfield it offered to the Americans. This action was at an early part of the Pacific War and is the first major allied offensive against the Japanese who had been enjoying a string of victories as they successfully invaded large chunks of real-estate in the South Pacific.  I think it is useful for wargamers to understand the context in which any wargame is set and Academy Games have done a fantastic job setting-the-scene with a rule-book littered with designers notes and a three-page [campaign introduction] that describe the strategic situation in which the players cardboard chits find themselves.

Inside pages of rules and firefight book

Gameplay

The game contains 12 firefights that play out the Marines defence of Guadalcanal against increasing numbers of Japanese forces. The rule-book follows a programmed instruction method whereby players can read a scant 9-and-a-bit-pages of rules before playing the first fire-fight (I estimate that includes about 3 pages of examples and designers notes). 

If you are an experienced wargamer, there are lots of similarities to other rule sets that will enable you to be up and playing very quickly, for example the Line of Sight and blind hex rules were very familiar and the overall terrain defensive modifiers are almost exactly the same as in other tactical-level wargames. These similarities are all wrapped in a combat system and turn structure that is completely unique, as far as I can tell, to the Conflict of Heroes line. The rules are also very well written and littered with a plethora of gameplay examples, it was a rare case where I had to look up a rule in which either it wasn’t immediately obvious from reading the rule or there wasn’t a relevant example to clarify the situation.

The first firefight

Many good wargames reduce the IGOUGO problem by allowing an opponent to Op Fire a moving stack or react to a move. CoH completely removes the IGOUGO problem by alternating turns between players after every action is resolved. The players only have 1 active unit at a time and 7 action points to spend on that unit. The different actions cost a different number of action points and when they are all spent, or if a player decides to activate another unit, that counter is flipped to its 'spent' side. I really like this mechanism, it not only indicates which units have already moved (my memory is very grateful) but it removes any down time as you're only waiting for your opponent to make one action e.g. a single unit moves one hex, before it rolls back to you. It also means that as a player you're constantly having to evaluate whether your plans remains sensible in light of your opponents last move or whether you should adapt and activate a different unit, potentially losing Action Points.

All combat actions are quickly resolved by 2d6 modified by unit attributes and the environment. The combat system is very intuitive, easy to teach and if you're reading the rules by yourself, to learn. In essence you add the firing units Attack Rating to 2d6 for your Attack Total. The Defender adds any defensive modifiers from terrain to their Defence Rating. If the attack value is greater than or equal to the defence value that unit is hit. When a unit is hit another counter is placed face-down underneath which will affect the units attributes and available actions. Two hits on the same unit eliminates that unit. That's essentially it, although the action cards do add a nice layer of immersion.

The Action Cards

The combat system is really quick and I didn't feel that it was missing any crunch that we wargamers often yearn for. Attacking units use one of two Attack Ratings printed on the counter dependent on whether their target is a vehicle or personnel target. Defending units use one of two Defence Ratings printed on the counter depending on which direction the attack is coming from.  In my experience the direction individual units are facing is rarely modelled in wargames. Here, it is seamlessly integrated into the combat and adds a level of tactical consideration that I enjoyed e.g. should I activate this unit to turn and face the encroaching enemy and receive the best defence possible thereby losing my opportunity to attack with this other unit?

In overall terms of complexity this game is a little lighter (and maybe more fun?) than GMT's Combat Commander series, which does suffer a little with the IGOUGO problem. To stretch a bad analogy, if Advanced Squad Leader is like completing and filing your own tax return (some masochists enjoy it), Combat Commander would be like planning a monthly budget and realising that you've actually got money left over (always nice to see), CoH:Guadalcanal is like getting lucky after taking a punt at the betting shop (Let’s try that again…). In my face to face plays of this I felt like I was having more fun for a very similar level of enjoyment when compared to Combat Commander series.  If I did score games this game would get top marks for fun and also for the amount of [historical backgrounds] provided for each firefight. Academy Games have a reputation of releasing fun, educational games and in that they've excelled themselves with CoH:Guadalcanal.

Fully loaded box

One of my biggest dislike of many wargames, and I still play them so it's not that big, is that in a lot of them the players have a perfect knowledge i.e. the players can see all terrain and unit attributes and plan accordingly, there is no fog of war. This is not necessarily a bad thing in a wargame as long as the scenario is balanced, you're then playing against your opponents tactics and trying to mitigate the randomness of the dice. However, there is an extra level of immersion when you're fighting with fog of war modelled. CoH does a good job of this as your opponents do not know what effects their hits are having on your units and players can attempt hidden movement, or even setup hidden, in cover terrain. This is a very important tactic of the Japanese player and when it works it is, depending on your perspective, either a beautiful moment of bravery or an excruciating loss. Unfortunately, you're not provided with anyway to mark hidden movements but the rule-book recommends to print out maps from the Academy Games website to record hidden units on. You can also download all of the firefights and rule-books for the entire CoH system and expansions which I think is a good sign for the level of support that this game continues to receive.

Firefight 4 - Japanese have held out so far...

There are very clear differences between WWII-era military forces of America and Japan, their moral, funding, equipment, ethos etc. feel different in reality and should feel different when playing them in a game. In this game, and many others, I am always pleased to see those differences being part of the game system. Apart from the usual elements of Attack Rating and morale or Defensive Rating being different depending on the unit and nationality you also get a pool of hit counters specific to each nationality. I should highlight that in each firefight the Japanese player has to add from 1 to 5 'No Hit' counters into their mix. This is a great boon to the Japanese player effectively giving their unit an occasional additional hit, or more, before it is destroyed. This is a subtle yet very effective way of modelling the apparent bravery/personal disregard of the Japanese troops under a 'banzai charge' for example.

However, the biggest change to the CoH system is the addition of Bushido Points for the Japanese player. This allows the Japanese player to achieve firefight-specific objectives to get Bushido Points which give them more Command Action Points (CAPs) per round. CAPs are distinct from Unit Action Points and allow players to interrupt their ‘activation’ and use other fresh units to immediately react to their opponents actions.  This is a necessary escape from the on-rails Unit Action Point system and it gives players a real feeling of making important and timely tactical decisions.  The Japanese player should always have an eye on those point-awarding objectives.  The Command Action Points also permit easy balancing of the game when pitting players of vastly different experience of the game against each other, which I found really useful when introducing the game to newcomers and it is not often considered in wargames.

Command Tracks and Players Aid

Components

The counters, which break the wargame mould of 1/2" and 5/8" counters, are a glorious 1" of real-estate to pick up and stack, as with all CoH games.  On a purely physical accessibility measure this wargame beats any other that I have seen. I can see wargamers with poor eyesight being able to play this when other wargames are no longer legible. Additionally, Academy Games have provided a hard plastic organiser in which to store all the counters. This is hands-down the best stock insert I have ever seen in a wargame; other wargame publishers should take note. There is more than enough room in it for all the counters from the base game and the expansion to be, not just stored, but even organised into nationality, unit type and even system counters by type as well. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that, after the outlay in time and money of storing other wargames' counters.

Left to Right: ASL, Combat Commander, Conflict of Heroes

Best Insert Ever

The maps, of which you get 4, are satisfyingly geomorphic and depict the terrain in a photo-realistic style, the trees even have shadows!  Initially, I didn't like the artwork on the maps, thinking that it was just getting in the way and too busy, but these criticisms largely evaporated through game play. The only minor gripe with the components that did remain is that the hex sides and hex numbers sometimes were too dark to immediately discern them against heavy jungle hexes but this was not a significant hindrance.

Into Mirkwood

The Expansion

The expansion adds 5 firefights and several more units with which to play with. The first firefight of the expansion - The Last Banzai, The Fight for Henderson Field: The Second Night, picks up where the 11th firefight of the base game finished, i.e. at the end of the first night during the Fight for Henderson Field. This is a really nice touch and provides players with sense of continuity between the base game and the expansion. These two scenarios are however 4 player, behemoths and I couldn't arrange a 4 player game to cover the two firefights so we played two-player and still had a blast.

Some of the expansion components

Criticisms

In an ideal world I would have liked the expansions firefights and units to have been included in the base game as they feel like an integral part of the base game. The game is excellent without the expansion but the expansion’s firefights have to be printed from the Academy Games website. The OCD collector in me would have liked them to be in the same book or at least a book of the same paper and print quality as the base game’s firefight book. You only get a single page of paper introducing the new units and rules for mine along with a single punch-board of tokens which costs $25, this feels a little steep.

Prior to each round starting, which is made of any number of player turns, the players roll 2d6 for initiative which determines who is going first. This can be altered be spending Command Action Points but this mechanism felt a little arbitrary and I recall one player looking a bit annoyed that they had lost the roll six times in a row. C’est la Vie!

Conclusion

I really enjoyed this game, and not just for its theme. The combat system is simple yet it captures everything that I would want and it exposes the nuance in different fighting attributes of both forces whilst remaining balanced. It could almost be classed as introductory wargame but even a veteran wargamer would find a lot to enjoy in this system.  There are no game-slowing table look ups and your actions and decisions come around so quickly, sometimes it’s a relief when the Round ends and you can take a short breather; I want all my wargames to have this quality. I will still evangelise for Combat Commander, but now I may be inclined to offer this up as a more fun experience, i.e. less downtime, fewer rule look-ups and plays quicker than other tactical squad-level games.

I would like to thank Academy Games for the review copy of this game.

Publisher: Academy Games

Players 2 – 4

Designer: Uwe Eickert, Gunter Eickert, Dean Halley

Playing Time: 60 minutes to 120 minutes

MSRP: $90

You can currently get the Guadalcanal and US Army Expansion bundle from the Academy Games website for a sale price of $80.

Fields of Fire, designed by Ben Hull and published by GMT games is the best solitaire wargame and I think it could challenge any non-solitaire wargame for quality, immersion, fun, and challenge. 

There, I said it. I know that's only my opinion but in this case, I am pretty sure I'm correct. If you're still here and haven't rushed out to order it already then maybe you want to know why I claim such an accolade; read on ... (prepare yourself for a completely biased view of this great game)

I first discovered this game in the long dark days between the first edition and the newly printed second edition. There aren't many in my regular game group who entertain my wargame habit. In researching my drug of choice, I quickly discovered Ambush as a solo wargame. I promptly paid a benevolent stranger on eBay a princely sum and on completing the first scenario I was hooked. I went on to play the game out and wanting more. I had never played a game that told such a great story and in which you were so emotionally invested in the characters. However in Ambush, each mission is exactly the same, obviously, the outcome will be different, but all the events are preprogrammed to happen again. Ambush has little replayability value but it's a blast the first time around.

For my next fix, I found Fields of Fire; it came with a recommendation, 'if you like Ambush, you'll like this', and a warning 'you could go insane trying to understand the rules'. Unfortunately for me, the game was out of print and out of stock everywhere I looked. So I fired up Vassal and printed off the rules and got ready for an education.

As soon as I started scratching at the system I realised that there was something special here, and the myriad of player aids and unofficial rules available at the game page on board game geek made me think that I wasn't the only one who saw something great. I learnt the game over a week or so using some terrific examples of play and introductions that others had written, which for me, were invaluable for learning the game.

Fields of Fire puts you in the shoes of a 2nd Lieutenant in command of a rifle company of the US Armies 9th Infantry Regiment. This regiment, the 'Manchus' are one of the oldest and most decorated infantry regiments in the US Army. The game portrays their experience through WWII, Korea and Vietnam. There are not many war games that provide 3 different conflicts as part of the base game.

Instead of the traditional wargame hex map, you get a deck of terrain cards which are constructed, per the scenario setup, in front of you in order for you to analyse the terrain before you plan your strategy. There are different terrain decks for each theatre: WWII, Korea and Vietnam and each terrain area has specific attributes, like cover, combat modifier, trafficability, and burst effect. You need to plan to use the strengths and weaknesses of each card as your troops move up the 'map' to take their objectives.

The Normandy Terrain Deck, example cards

There are two distinct parts to this game, the planning phase and the mission itself. During planning you decide which of your 3 platoons will receive your allocated weapons and assets. 'Assets' are crucial for your success in this game and include signal flares, radios, runners etc, i.e. everything you may need to stay in command and communications with your subordinates. The quote below from Prussian General summarises my experiences with Fields of Fire quite succinctly:

"No battle plan survives contact with the enemy" - Field Marshall Graf von Moltke

After you've decided on your plan of attack you then form up your troops in the staging area just off-map and start worrying about what's out there on the map and whether you're going to survive. The way in which each scenario plays out is largely driven by an Action Deck of cards, which contain a plethora of numbers which determine the results of your orders, your attacks, your skirmish results indeed any type of randomisation in the game is resolved by drawing an Action Card. I read one online commenter who claimed their Action Deck cheats. I empathise with them.

The action deck. Showing resolutions for events, orders, initiative, combat success and combat effects and random numbers(12)

The entropy caused by the Action Deck and the Terrain Deck changes the scenario so much that in playing through the same scenario twice, it feels completely different. But in none of them will it be easy, in fact in my experience it is often a brutal and savage experience in which you find yourself clinging onto your last vestiges of command whilst you vainly try to establish contact with your subordinate HQs. What this does is give this game, with 29 included scenarios, almost infinite re-playability.

There are some gamers that decry any randomisation and abhor dice, not something the typical wargamer shuns. However, there are no dice here. You do have the equivalent of a d12 on each Action card. With nearly every order, you're drawing another Action card. This means you're going to reshuffle that Action Deck a lot. They're typical inflexible GMT card stock, i.e. they don't lend themselves to easy shuffling but I've sleeved mine and it is a breeze to shuffle. I am not a 'sleever' per se; my Terrain Decks will not be protected, but the Action Deck will receive such heavy use I would recommend sleeving for protection and to aid shuffling.

Normandy Mission #1 set-up. Note the hills/stacked cards these will prove very useful in maintaining LOS and therefore comms with your subordinates.

One requirement of playing solo is integrity, it's easy to cheat when playing alone. But in this game, there are so many edge cases that crop up sometimes a referral to the rulebook in every single instance costs too much time. Given enough experience, (probably 3+ games) you know 90% of the game with just the Sequence of Play to jog your memory. I would recommend in those edge cases to just play through what you think is sensible and find the rule after the game, if still necessary.

In order for your units to make an action, they need to be given orders from a higher HQ, as determined by the Action Deck which is then modified by game conditions. Your CO HQ can then 'spend' them on any subordinate unit. This command hierarchy exists above and below your CO HQ and is a crucial part of this game e.g. your 1st Plt HQ cannot order a 2nd Plt unit, similarly, your 1st Plt HQ cannot order CO Staff. Where you attach machine guns, mortars and vehicle assets and how they may be commanded and from which terrain, should all be considered in the planning phase to increase your chance of success.

On some turns, you may find your CO HQ with very few commands and they are unable to order any of their subordinates because they are out of communication i.e. the subordinate cannot see or hear their commander giving them an order. If not in visual/verbal communication then they are left to their own initiative. However, if they see an enemy your units will never have to be ordered to open fire, that is automatic. Strangely for a tactical war game, you'll find yourself ordering 'ceasefire' more often than not in an effort to conserve ammunition.

The game system also allows for pyrotechnics to be used to signal your on-map units. Upon seeing a flare they will attempt to carry out the action that was assigned to that flare during the planning phase. Although a new player may be overwhelmed by the multitude of different options, I found my gameplay took an exponential leap forward when I learnt to use pyros proficiently.

When talking about a tactical squad level infantry combat game, I can't think of anything that is missing from this game. You have forward observers that can call in fire support, jeeps, tanks, helicopters, communications, ammo depletion. If I had to criticise the game, and I really don't want to, then maybe the vehicle segments are a little abstracted. However, that is probably a design choice because this isn't Panzer Leader or Check Your 6! whose focus is on armour and airborne battles respectively. This game's focus is firmly on the infantry battle, deep down at the tactical and company level and in that it excels.

The 'Manchus' in Vietnam

This tactical realism comes with a price. You have to manage the Volume of Fire and Primary Direction of Fire counters and all the other ancillary chits which are placed and removed each turn. There is a fair bit of counter management and sometimes, 3 hours into a tough scenario you cannot see the chits from the cards, figuratively speaking. I have found myself just staring at the map, and I'd like to say I was deciding what to do next to save my sorry situation, but the reality was I was just drained, not thinking, just staring. You could say this game had caused some cardboard-induced PTSD and I was diagnosed with the burden of command.

I find this game contains the most realistic version of the known unknowns and inherent fallibility of an infantry-man in hostile territory than any other game I know. Whilst playing this game I am nervous and yet hopeful. I have never commanded an infantry company and I hope my next comment does nothing to diminish the sacrifice or demean the jobs of those that have served in such positions, but this game is the closest a wargamer could get to the reality of 20th-century combat, albeit with the obvious exclusion of physical harm.

This game really does feel like a fight; against the enemy, of survival and against the system which is doing its utmost to win. The second edition has got some excellent player aids. For some strange reason, whether through design or just the rose-tinted glasses through which I view this game, I always seemed to pick up the right chart.

There is also another game in the works using the same system. Fields of Fire Vol 2. With the Old Breed which introduces the 5th Marines in WWII via Peleliu, Korea and Vietnam. It's currently on GMT's P500, which will be the cheapest price you could ever buy it for. 'Vol 2', As I understand it, is a complete game in its own right and you do not need to own Vol 1.

5th Marines moving inland on Peleliu

I didn't ever suffer use the first edition of the rules, so can't attest to their readability or clarity, which are notorious in bgg forums. I started with the unofficial rulebooks the gaming community had collaboratively put together which I thought were good to learn from and to refer to. The second edition's rules borrow a lot from those efforts and what we now have is an excellent rule book, although the game itself is quite complex I can't criticise the new rulebook. It has clarified several aspects which I found very useful.

Overall, the second edition is a glorious production with top quality components and worth every bit of its $75 price tag. Every wargamer who is inclined to play solo, either occasionally or predominantly and who can invest a bit of time would do well to pick this up. If you're willing to put a little bit of effort in, you won't be disappointed. The stories that are created on your table-top are more visceral and as close to what I imagine real infantry combat to be like than any other game I know.

If I had to choose one game to play for the rest of my life i.e. my 'desert-island game', it would be this one. I've been playing it for approximately 3 years and I still find it fresh and challenging and even now, I am looking forward to my next patrol.