Are you a big fan of the latest installment in the Company of Heroes series? So, today I have a text for you in which we will look at the board game Heroes of Normandy: Big Red Edition 1, which works with nothing other than the theme of World War II and the clash of two enemy squads. The following lines will tell you how things stand in terms of gameplay.
- Number of players: 2
- Game time: 45-60 minutes
- Price: 1629 CZK (Alsa)
- Age: 14+
In Heroes of Normandy: Big Red Edition 1, you choose a side and go into battle.
Just like a classic RTS on PC, you first need to select a map. It’s really up to you to decide whether you build your own battlefield here with two different strong armies or, conversely, choose a pre-made map or a straight campaign consisting of several expeditions. Once you know whether you’re setting up a large battlefield or the site of a small skirmish, it’s time to choose a side. This probably won’t surprise you, but we have Germans on one side and Americans on the other. Both sides bring their infantry, light equipment, and heavy equipment led by tanks into the battle. There are also heroes who have the potential to do great things.
First, you take one of the units, determine the division, and also collect tokens so that their value corresponds to the cost of the division you control, which has certain basic parameters. Once you’re done, there’s nothing stopping you from deploying your units onto the battlefield, where a game turn consists of three phases. At the very beginning, you distribute order tokens, determined by various parameters. The more stars, the greater the volume of orders you will be provided with. The value itself may change during the game. What’s interesting about this stage is that you can place tokens at the same time.
Once you have scattered individual order tokens, there is nothing stopping you from moving the marked units and performing various actions with them during the activation phase. Once the player completes their turn, the opposing soldier will be activated sequentially according to the value given to them by the player. With a unit activated, you can begin moving to a certain number of spaces, which is determined by its card. If it is a car, then nothing prevents it from running into soldiers who have nowhere to escape because of its tracks or wheels. I also really like the ability to engage infantry while moving as part of special actions, or shoot them while moving, which isn’t exactly ideal, but can really hurt in some cases.
The second basic form of action is shooting, which largely depends on the unit’s abilities. In short, it’s difficult to shoot down a tank with regular infantry, and guys with bazookas aren’t exactly effective against infantry, but when it comes to fighting a light or heavy vehicle, they can shine. When shooting, you decide whether visibility is good and how far away your target is. If you want to evaluate whether your fire was successful or disastrous, you need to roll a die and compare the resulting number with the statistics of the unit, the terrain, and the defending side. If hit, the unit is damaged. If it is not a passenger car, destruction is inevitable.
The course of the fights has a decent pace, so you definitely won’t wait an hour for the result of the entire fight. Then, after all actions are evaluated, there is a supply phase, during which units that did not perform an action through an order token or did not receive an activation token can implement a turn or some special ability. Once this phase ends, the round ends and moves on to the next turn. During the game, you actively work with action cards, which add a certain amount of juice and heroic atmosphere to the gameplay. You always have to work with different effects within different ratings, so you won’t find much when reading the rules. Compared to other war games, Heroes of Normandy is one of the most accessible.
The military adventure in Heroes of Normandy: Big Red Edition 1 is worth it.
World War II is a rewarding theme that gets targeted quite often, at least on PC. There are also quite a few board games that work with it, but I didn’t get my hands on many of them from that period. Heroes of Normandy is an interesting war game that pits two sides against each other with different techniques and heroes willing to die for their group’s cause.
Everything stands on a very solid foundation. There are many advantages, but, in my opinion, the main one is the presence of customizable maps, a couple of specific factions and, above all, gameplay that is not frankly demanding. If you like this theme and are not new to turn-based strategy games, you will find everything you will like here.
We would like to thank Czech distributor Blackfire for providing us with a copy of Heroes of Normandy: Big Red Edition 1.
Source :Indian TV
