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Main Catalogue | Board Games & Card Games | Fantasy Flight Games | Tide of Iron

Tide of Iron

Price: £69.99

RRP - £74.99

PLEASE NOTE: Due to the excessive weight of this item we are having to charge extra p&p to ship to addresses outside the UK, which will be added before your order is charged. Overseas orders will be charged at cost - we will contact you to agree this before charging/shipping.

Board Game, 2-4 Players, by Fantasy Flight June 6th, 1944. \'The longest day\' was but the opening salvo for the Allied offensive into western Europe - an offensive that would last for almost a year. The objective of the invasion: dismantle Hitler’s mighty Wehrmacht; liberate the occupied countries of western Europe; and ultimately subdue the threat from Germany and the Nazi regime. TIDE OF IRON is an epic game of World War II tactical conflict for two to four players. The components in this base game allow players to simulate the dramatic struggle that took place between American and German forces in Northern Europe during the years 1944 and 1945. * 216 detailed plastic pieces representing troops, vehicles, and weapons. Assemble custom units on 48 squad bases. * 12 huge double-sided map boards for endless scenario designs. Customize the map with 28 map overlay pieces. * 110 cards and scores of other components. * Online support including scenarios. ++++++++++++ Counter review ++++++++++++ 2-4 players, 2 hours designed by Christian Petersen, Corey Konieczka and John Goodenough reviewed by Alan How One look at the enormous box and you know that this game is from Fantasy Flight. Lifting it tells you that something heavy is inside, so it must be Fantasy Flight, and your first look inside confirms the news. Tons of components and your games storage area is being invaded. It\'s time for some extra support to the shelving. Tide of Iron is Fantasy Flight\'s tour de force of WWII miniatures wargaming. Hold on, what about Memoir \'44 from Days of Wonder and Combat Commander Europe from GMT to name two of the more successful games to come out recently? Hasn\'t this gaming topic been covered enough in recent years? It seems not. Tide of Iron has a few tricks up its sleeve and provides a very different feel to the other games. My initial reaction was that I would expect the game to feel like Memoir \'44, but this is not the case. While Memoir \'44 provides actions based on the cards in your hand, Tide of Iron gives more freedom to plan your actions within a broader set of limits. The scale of the game is in many ways like the other two games and you could immerse yourself in the game as there are enough scenarios to keep most people busy for many games. The set-up is similar to games of this type: you set up one of 12 geomorphic board patterns (note that boards are double sided, so who know what number of combinations are possible). Terrain changes are added, such as additional forest, streams or roads or even clear terrain to cover up map features on the boards. Sides are selected and you complete your set-up. The first major change from Combat Commander Europe and Memoir \'44 is that each side has a number of bases (in plastic) that represent squads. Each base has four holes into which you insert the moulded plastic soldiers whose prong fits into the hole. The combinations of types of soldiers are detailed in the scenario set-up, so each player must decide how to exploit the situation. Basic soldiers provide the bulk of most armies, but there are also elite soldiers, officers, machine guns (my favourite) and mortars. The latter two occupy two holes in each squad base, so do you double up machine guns or separate them? The clear rules set - standard high quality Fantasy Flight with good examples - provide some ideas, but each person will have thoughts on the value of having strong and weaker squads or more mixtures in between. In addition to squad mixture selection, the scenario may allow you some specialisations. Defensive settings often feature medical bonuses, while offensive teams may get engineers or flamethrowers. These are represented by cardboard chits, which neatly fit into a slot on the side of each squad base. The symbols and colours are quite distinctive, so it is easy to tell what benefits a squad may possess. These two features allow a large degree of customisation, far more in fact than Combat Commander Europe and Memoir \'44. The disappointing feature was that the size of holes in the base and the prongs from the soldiers were not well matched. My set was difficult to fit into the holes, so I followed the advice given on the Boardgamegeek and widened the holes. While this was not ideal, the game was not spoilt by this additional one-off effort. The next innovation is the use of card decks. Each player is provided with one or more decks of cards from the scenario set-up. These decks are related to the task for each side and are maintained separately. Offensive players might get a deck of 20 or so cards with offensive benefits, while defensive players could receive a deck of morale and reinforcements. One card per round is received after the initial set has been delivered from your choices of decks. They all have a cost in command points which are earned by capturing various hexes on the board. Each command point hex will deliver a number of points and you have two opportunities to spend these points - once during the action rounds and once in the final part of the turn. The game proceeds in a series of action rounds, during which each player can enact a fixed number of squads. Once these are executed, the other player uses their fixed number until both players have had several goes carrying out actions for each squad or vehicle. I wondered how the game would deal with opportunity fire and I rather like the mechanisms that have been chosen. During the action round, squads can be marked as ready for opportunity fire, which means that they can react to the other side\'s moves, by firing on active units. As each squad can only act once during an action phase, you can easily set too many units to opportunity fire, so a squad cannot do anything else, such as direct fire, when it is able to do so. I liked this limitation and the decisions that accompanied it. There is also a good rule that allows you to carry over opportunity fire from turn to turn. Other actions, such as move and fire, have familiar reduced fire impact, while moving over terrain will get you to work out the cost of the terrain within the limits of the squad\'s ability. This depends on who you put in a squad, so an officer comes in useful for getting a squad to a travel a bit further, while a machine gunner will try to use opportunity fire when on the defensive. The combination of units and their abilities works well, as does the choice of cards you get to react to different situations. I have not played the game extensively but you can see the way that the cards operate and how they integrate well into the game. I applaud the systems as the rule book is clear and the feel of the game is right. Stupid things do not happen, just unlucky ones when you have bad luck with the dice. Attacks are resolved using normal 6-sided dice. You add up the value of the firing units, possibly add in combined fire from other units in range and line of site of the enemy and then blast away. Hits in normal range are obtained from 5s and 6s, with benefits for close range and penalties for longer range. At the same time, you throw the defender\'s dice. These represent the cover and benefits of dug-in positions, with 5s and 6s deducting from the score. A net positive score removes a number of men from the squad, or may damage a vehicle - both cases reducing the overall prospects for survival of the unit. You can opt for suppressive fire instead. This makes it easier to cause morale loss, which will prevent that unit from acting, so the sequence of selecting units to fire on is important as these units may not have acted in this round yet. This sequence of you-me-you continues until all units have acted. The sweep-up session at the end of a turn improves morale, adds more cards from the decks of your choice and allows cards to be played, subject to having sufficient command points. The overall sequence of play is well considered, as the action round is discrete, while the conclusion of each turn is handled in a sequence that makes sense, as well as making the game work well. I recognise the effort that has gone into this particular part of the game. Tide of Iron features many aspects of play that are familiar to miniatures or wargame players - such as timing of moves, fields of fire, focussing on weak points - within a rule set that is well constructed, with clear colourful examples. It is in the light wargame set and is a strong bedfellow to Combat Commander Europe and Memoir \'44. I felt that the game might be more daunting to learn, but was pleasantly surprised, partly because of the similarities to other games of this type and partly because it was just not that difficult. I would really recommend the game to anyone who likes Memoir \'44 or Combat Commander Europe, as the innovations are sufficiently different to play all three and (dare I say) own all three. My own preference across the three - Memoir `44, Tide of Iron and Combat Commander Europe - is for Combat Commander Europe but that is because I think there\'s more speed and I love the systems and the uncertainty of the game ending. If you need the toys to be able to feel the game, then Tide of Iron is the one for you. The moves are more intricate and somehow more personal than Memoir \'44. The squad creation idea is a good one, though slightly spoilt by the need to drill the holes better, so the production just scores below excellent because of this. Like all three games, you can play a huge number of scenarios, and even the same ones many times without lessening your enjoyment as new actions take place and the events will unfold in a different order. I have really enjoyed Tide of Iron and will happily play this again. I have not yet played the 4-player versions, so I cannot comment on the value of this aspect, but I look forward to my next gaming experience through the Tide of Iron.

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Main Catalogue | Board Games & Card Games | Fantasy Flight Games | Tide of Iron

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