Travis Reynolds: Basic Training – Conflict at the Gathering

Hmm, perhaps I should be more clear – I was lucky enough to attend my very first Gathering of Friends earlier this month AND I caught up with Uwe Eickert to discuss his upcoming game, Conflict of Heroes. I guess it’s all in the wording…

Not sure what I can say about the Gathering that has not already been said: Games, I played lots of ‘em. New games (Stone Age, Hanging Gardens, Toledo, TTR: The Card Game – I missed out on Tribune), old games (Show Manager, Black Vienna, Blue Moon City), card games (I learned to play Tichu and was surprised by how much it gets played), silly games (HysteriCoach, Cop & Killer) and sports games. (I played basketball with a crew of guys and yes, someone got hurt, which is apparently an annual happening. Greg Schloesser was closer to him than I was, so I’m blaming it on him!)

It was a great opportunity to play games you just can’t get to the table for whatever reason. For me, Through the Ages was one of those games. Jeff Anderson offered to teach me on the first Sunday, and I am really glad I took him up on it. I played lots of Civilization back in the day, and I have to say that this game is what Civ wanted to be when it grew up. I can’t wait to play it with some of the guys from my regular game group.

Seeing and playing the prototypes was also great. I watched several Friedemann Friese prototypes in action, and they looked like a hoot.  I also played Game X again. (I feel like I should have a secret agent name when talking about a game with such a name!) By now you have read all of the very little being said about it. My two cents are that it is genius and lots of people will love it. I also played a dice game that Brian Yu had which was a lot of fun. Finally, I got to play Peter Hawes’ prototype, and aside from the game play (which was really, really good), this was the best looking prototype I have ever seen. The production value was better than half the games I play now! This game will be one to watch out for, and I will definitely cover it in detail closer to its release.

I played in the Tichu tournament and lost in the second round. I played in the poker tournament and managed a top twenty showing. Finally, I took part in the Game Show with John Palagyi, Jonathan Franklin and Ted Cheatham. Together we were Team RamRod (Super Troopers reference, not sure how many folks in the room got it, but it was funny to me, darn it). This was a ton of fun (thanks to the folks who ran it), although I may be a bit biased seeing as how we won! All of the events were a good time because they were fun and you got to meet a lot of folks you may not have met yet, which is really one of the highlights.

Overall, the Gathering was a grand experience. Between the games, meeting lots of new friends and all the laughs, I won’t soon forget it. Of course, now I am just looking forward to when I can get together with all my new friends again!

Conflict of Heroes

Last month I mentioned that I planned to have an interview with Uwe (pronounced OO-VA for those who might be wondering) Eickert about his upcoming release, Conflict of Heroes. Luckily, I ran into him in Columbus and we spent some time going over the game.

Conflict of Heroes is a squad level, historic simulation game. What makes it different from games like Advanced Squad Leader is just how easy and fast it is to play. Once you take the 10-15 minutes to learn how to play, you won’t have to look up anything else to play the game: no charts, no tables, no references. Best of all, it seems that there is no loss of balance, depth or historical accuracy in the game play when compared to other games with more complex systems requiring all of these things. Plus, thanks to the way the command system is set up, there’s no downtime for players throughout the whole game. Say goodbye to finding a good book to read while your opponent moves his forces!

CoH uses a unique action/reaction system that is not broken down into phases. All units on the board can be used at any time, several times. Armor, artillery guns, mortars, squads, etc. use a unique combat system that is the same for all units. Everything you need to know about your units in order to move them around, shoot at the enemy or survive when attacked is color coded and printed right on the big, thick 1” square counters. (They seem too big to call chits!) Facing, cost to fire/move, firepower, defense and flank ratings, and range are all printed on each unit. All these values are located in the same spot on all units, so they are really simple to compare when the lead starts flying. Plus, the Hit Counters also have the effect printed in the same location. If a unit suffers a modifier to one of its values, that modifier will also be printed in the same location on the counter as the original value. Did I mention Hit Counters and their effects are known only by the person who is hit? As is often true in real life, the opponent has no clue what the result of his attack was. Is the hit unit stunned, panicked, or going berserk? All in all, a very smooth and easy to understand method.

I was very impressed with the game as a whole. The components are extremely high quality, and the game looks to be a great entry in the wargame genre. I think it has great potential to be a crossover game from many angles; it is detailed enough to appeal to miniature gamers, while being simple and smooth enough to appeal to boardgamers in general. I look forward to its release and reviewing the final product.

Here is what Uwe had to say:

TR: First, why don’t you tell us about your inspirations for creating Conflict of Heroes?

UE: Well, I am a heavy duty Squad Leader and Advanced Squad Leader player, and it just bogged things down. The older I get, the less I want to sit and play a game for eight hours and get into deep charts, and it was tough to get new players into it.  So, this game has been in development a good five years, and it took us two years just to compile the mathematics, probabilities and statistical data. We had a lot of experts in the era who have been working on this, so we have been lucky from that standpoint.  The end result is that we wanted to develop a game that was interactive, playable with up to 4-6 people, and teachable in five to ten minutes with no charts.

TR: Other than Squad Leader, what games do you normally play?

UE: I’m a Eurogame player. I love Eurogames. I love the whole concept of interacting with other people. I like to play Puerto Rico, Tigris & Euphrates, Settlers of Catan, and others with my wife, kids and friends.

TR: So that combined with your love of Squad Leader morphed into the development of this game, I would think?

UE: Correct. Also, I wanted a game with really big counters, similar to Phalanx games that are really thick, a big one-inch square that’s die-cut and easy to see. Combine this with high quality mounted boards that are visually stunning, and it should be a vehicle to get new people interested in the tactical genre.

TR: You showed me how to play the game and I think that the ease of the game will lead to people who may not be interested in war games actually playing one. Have you seen that with the people you have shown it to?

UE: Yes, a lot of people will use this as an intro to wargaming. For example, those guys you met out there [at the Gathering] are not wargamers; they are Eurogamers, but instantly they were immersed in the game. The strength of the game is that there is no “my turn, your turn” – you are always doing something. Plus, I have found that the game follows tactical discipline almost better than Squad Leader because you have to react so much faster. With every action I take, you are reacting. It makes the whole battle situation fluid, and that fluidity teaches you to open your planning patterns. You can’t just think, “All of these squads will charge at a certain unit and I know this unit can only shoot once, so I will overwhelm him”.

In CoH, if you start charging at a unit, for all you know it’s going to react by either pulling back, calling in mortar support and disrupting your attack, or firing at the attacking units then running away. So it’s a good tactical teaching tool. We are really targeting this game at not only casual gamers, but also military personnel. There are a lot of troops coming back from overseas that have had tactical experience who we have found really enjoy this game.

The image of a sample turn from a scenario – note that the final graphics might differ slightly

TR: That’s great. I think it’s easy to teach to anyone from what you showed me. We sat there for 10 to 15 minutes, and I could probably play the game without being told anything else. The game flows well and everything seems very solid. The prototype you showed me – how does that compare with what the end product will be?

UE: Well, these are printer’s proofs. So everything is sitting at the printer, and we are waiting for translations right now into German, Italian, Spanish and possibly French.

TR: Do you have any dates on when you expect it to be released?

UE: The release date is Origins, so the end of June, early July. We are doing this through the distribution and store channel, so we want to have a full release at the same time in all the countries. We are making a point of getting everything printed here in the States. It’s a little more expensive, but we are getting very high quality components, and with the dollar devaluation it almost gives us parity. Why pay a Chinese company and give our money to them when our customer base is in the Americas and Europe? We should employ the same people who are going to be buying the game.

TR: That seems like a sound quality choice. It may cost you more up front, but printing overseas seems like a risk in the long run. You may save money overseas, but if something goes wrong and gets misprinted, you end up losing money having to replace components to everyone who bought your game. I will be at Origins, and I can’t wait to see it. I think it is going to be a very successful game.

I understand that you also have some involvement with a new game publishing company. Would you like to tell us a little about that?

UE: Academy Games will not only offer military and historical games, but a full line of unique educational games that develop critical thinking. These include negotiation, economic and abstract games.

TR: So Conflict of Heroes will be the initial release and a base system for a full line of expansions?

UE: Correct, this series will cover actions from 1937 all the way up to the Bosnian and Iraqi War. We already have developers working on Vietnam and Africa modules.

TR: Does Academy Games have anything else out, or will this be its first release?

UE: This is the first. Will Neibling from ElfinWerks is handling our distribution to wholesalers world wide.

TR: Sounds great. I wish you the best of luck with both Conflict of Heroes and Academy Games.

I am looking forward to this game and plan to do a full review once it is released.  Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next month!

---

Comments:

You must register with BGN in order to comment. Registration is free!

Great :-) Posted by Burkhard Hannig on Apr 25, 2008 at 09:27 AM | #

This system is really fresh and elegant. The rules are one of the best looking and most readable ones out there, and not just in the wargame genre. Posted by Jim Cote on Apr 25, 2008 at 10:02 AM | #

Conflict of HEROES!???? Is it just me or is it just wrong to use “Heroes” to describe the Nazis of the German army attacking the Soviet Union? I am, believe you me, no fan of being politically correct, but for goodness sake calling the Germans “Heroes” in this context is just way beyond the pale! What was Heroic about the German’s attack of the Soviet Union? What was Heroic about the start of the Eastern Front which resulted in such utter death and destruction and the loss of tens of millions of Russians and other peoples? I can see under any circumstances how one can attach the word “hero” to the Germans of the Wehrmacht in WWII? My goodness how can anyone be a hero fighting for the German cause in WWII? Do not even attempt to talk about the individual common German soldier, they were in service of an ideology that sought to enslave a good portion of humanity. Look at what their “heroism” wrought! Posted by Stephen Meyers on Apr 25, 2008 at 02:34 PM | #

Looks enticing! Posted by Kevin_Whitmore on Apr 25, 2008 at 10:25 PM | #

< Back Home