Band of Brothers

[bob48]

Band of Brothers -  A Personal View.

Despite the following comments, this series remains my 'go-to' squad level WWII system. I owned the original two games, 'Band of Brothers' and 'Ghost Panzer' and then also backed the kickstarter project for the remastered games plus 'Texas Arrows' and the extra material generated by the successful stretch goals.

Its obvious that the designer, Jim Krohn, has put an immense amount of thought, time and effort into the system, and has devised a system that is easy to learn and flows well without a huge rules overhead.

However, from a personal point of view, there are a few aspects that I find irksome and that, in my opinion, could have been done in a different way and made the game even better and without adding any great burden to the rules.

Vehicles cannot enter woods hexes. OK, I understand the difficulty in vehicles, especially tanks, moving through dense woods / forests, but much use was made tree lines for concealing tanks and guns.

My house rule for this is that tanks can only enter a woods hex from a clear train hex and expends all its movement to do so. Further, it cannot enter a wood hex from another wood hex or enter a wood hex that only has wood hexes on its adjacent sides. Vehicles gain a +1 defensive modifier in woods.

Facing and concealment.

Vehicles and guns have to face a hex vertice rather than a hexside. This means that any such unit under a conceal marker will be readily identifiable to your opponent as as a gun or tank due to the counter orientation (unless using the optional infantry facing rules).

My rule here is that the owning player sets the orientation whenever the conceal counter is removed.

Of course, this could have been easily solved had the facing arrow been printed in the counters corner rather than the 'top' side.

Only ONE vehicle is allowed to occupy a hex. However, the game ignores wrecks and therefore, a knocked-out vehicle magically disappear from the board. This may be acceptable in open country, but in built-up terrain wrecks could have a profound impact; they present obstacles to movement, and may obscure LOS.

Its not difficult to produce 'wreck' counters (or borrow them from another game) and again, its possible to come up with a few simple rules to accommodate this;

Leave destroyed vehicles in place and mark with a 'wreck' marker. Roll 1D6; on a 1-2, no smoke, on 3-4 place a  'smoke 1' marker, and on a 5-6 place a 'smoke 2' marker. Use the existing rules to reduce smoke (or re-roll each turn to set smoke level if you prefer).

A vehicle must expend half its movement allowance (rounded up) to pass through a 'wreck' and must have sufficient MP's to enter a hex beyond the wreck. This is to simulate either 'squeezing past' or pushing the wreck out of the way. A vehicle cannot end its move in a hex containing a wreck.

Infantry spend an extra MP to enter a hex with a 'wreck' but cannot end a turn in a 'wreck' hex if the vehicle is marked with a smoke marker. No cover is provided by a burning vehicle – or one which is about to blow up! However, an infantry unit in a non smoking wreck hex gains a +1 cover modifier.

I do not think that the above adds much of a rules overhead, but, to my mind, does add some greater 'realism'.

I'm also a little disappointed that a greater variety of vehicles has not been included, especially lighter recon vehicles such as armoured cars. In some cases, we have an abundance of some flavours of unit that could have been better used to provide some common vehicles that have been omitted. For example, the M5 light tank, M8 and M20 armoured cars for the US, the Puma and/or other light recon vehicles for the Germans, and maybe the BA10 and BA64 for the Russians. Its a pity that such vehicles, which would have been common in the periods covered by the game, have been ignored.

And a last word on the dire colour scheme used for the Russians – I would gladly pay for replacements done
in more appropriate, sombre colours.

I stress that this is just my view, and not everyone will agree with all my comments.

[gameleaper]

thx for the info, I like stuff that coinsides with what I'm doing.

[acctingman]

Thanks for this Bob!

I'm on the fence with this game over LnL Tactical (and Panzer) 

[BanzaiCat]

Bawb, why aren't you writing reviews for the site? ;)

[bob48]

It takes me a while to get motivated.

[BanzaiCat]

lol

Same here, brother. :)

[bob48]

Anyone who does play these games should also be aware of this error in the latest version rulebook;

http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX?7@@.1dd368aa/2037

[Richie61]

I've only played the VASSAL module and never opened my KS set, but I agree with Bob's comments. His "house rules" make sense and I agree that more vehicles would be nice. I think that it's more an infantry game with armor inserted to make people happy. Kind of like armor added to Combat Commander late in the modules run.

[Barthheart]

.....Kind of like armor added to Combat Commander late in the modules run.

Wait, what?!? When CC get tanks?   :timeout:

[Richie61]

.....Kind of like armor added to Combat Commander late in the modules run.

Wait, what?!? When CC get tanks?   :timeout:

;D Yes.  ;)