I recently got Tide of Iron, but have yet to actually play a game. I read the rules online a long time ago and knew it was something I wanted. My friends are accustomed to playing miniature wargames (mageknight, heroclix) and I'd like to start playing this game with them. They all like playing Samurai Swords , Risk and similar games but they were turned off by the complexity/depth of Axis and Allies. If you didn't catch on, I really love strategy games, and thankfully my friends like them too.

I printed Tiger Hunt and thought we would give that a try first. I feel pretty sure they will want to play another scenario after that. Do any of you guys have a suggestion? I have a feeling my friends will insist to try the first scenario, At the Breaking point. Unfortunately, I know that scenario is terribly imbalanced. I looked at the American cards, and then the German cards; this is a near hopeless situation. The Americans have Medics, and twice the machine gun/mortar crews of the Germans. To make matters worse, there are two useless cards in the morale I deck, "take down the beast", and the Panzer IV is crippled.

I can imagine the designers decided to reduce the mobility of the tank so the german player is encouraged to use engineers to remove razor wire. Personally I feel this scenario might be decent if the Panzer IV was replaced with a move 4 Tiger, and the two unusable cards from the morale deck were removed. The extra firepower of the Tiger is moot considering the Americans lack vehicles. This would create a situation where the American player might actually need all those extra squads to destroy the tank. Otherwise it seems as if the American player can win with good placement, reinforcements and OP fire. The presence of a heavy vehicle would create tactical problems for american assaults that I feel might make this scenario balanced.

CX0427 said:

Starting with this scenario is a good idea, if you take the German side. There is no way your friends can't win! Then they will want to continue to play with you.

When I asked for suggestions, I meant did anyone have a suggestion for a better balanced scenario from the base set.

The odd thing about Tide of Irons is that there really doesn't appear to be any 'balanced' scenarios at all that came with the original game. Additionally the game seems to attract purist (even the designers apperantly) who would rather have a scenario be grossly unbalanced rather then historicaly inacurate.

Mind you I have no opinion on this topic nor am I really interested in debating it, its just an opinion and I call it like I see it.

Right out of the gate (after playing 1 game out of the box, I realized that this game is designed to be adjusted by the player to their preference. ) Like you my immediate sense was, go to the community and find out how other players have balanced scenarios but as purist often do, getting a direct answer was like pulling teeth.

What I suggest that you do(which is what I did) is either find a player that is excited about the game, or just play a single player mock game and try out each scenario in the book you are interested in playing. As you play make note of the things that where unbalanced in the scenario and slowly adjust the scenarios to be balanced.

Being new I can only advise you on how to balance one of the scenarios out of the book (the first one in the official scenario book that came with the game - Can't remember the title off hand.).

* Remove the 2 "Taking down the beast" cards from the German deck - This card is useless in the scenario since their are no vehicles on the American side.

* Remove the 3 re-enforcement cards that give the American player 2 squads for 4 points (don't recall the name off hand). - This helps to reduce the amount of units that come into play on the American side per turn.

* Finally reduce the value of the victory point in the town that the American player owns at the start of the game to 2 from a 3. This ensures that if the American player doesn't defend the hill position south of the town he will be collecting only 3 points per turn forcing more out of the American player then sit on your ass and wait for the hand it to me victory.

This worked really well in our game and while the Americans still came out winners, it was a victory the player rightfully earned as it really could have gone either way.

I do want to add though that as a World War II game the purist do contribute perhaps the most interesting aspect of the game which is in fact the historical accuracy and sort of 'sense of history' as you play the game. While it would be easy just to create an 'even map', give each player 'even amounts of units' and just count up kills for points to see who wins, I don't think Tide of Irons would be as much fun to play. Hence I recommend that balance or not you play the scenarios and adjust them just enough to break the very obvious game breaking imbalances of some scenarios. Meaning, don't change it so that the historical element is lost for a 'fair game' but rather adjust it to make the scenario enjoyable and more importantly unpredictable. I believe this aspect is the reason why most players are a bit reluctant to effectivly hand you an even scenario, as historicaly very few battles where actually balanced, most where battles in which one side was at a disadvantage and this is replicated in almost every scenario I have seen, online, offline, official and unofficial.

Well balanced fair play doesn't necessarily mean both sides get the same units. If you want that, go play chess. Personally I don't play the game anymore. People tend to fall into two categories: either they don't know how to play other than how to move pieces around, or they play extensively and have hundred of moves and counters memorized. If I asked to play you in a game of chess, I want to see how well your brain can create a strategy on the fly. I don't want you to spit up the elite black bishop opening created by a bishop in the 16th century.

One example that you often see in strategy games is the classic matchup of superior position vs superior numbers. The question quickly becomes how to make the game fun & winnable for both sides.

At some point I had planned on making a campaign involving the Battle of the Bulge and the preceding, yet largely unknown Battle of Hurtgen Forest. Currently my plan is to have 2 maps for each battle, and I would like to have a 5th map, but haven't decided if it would be better for it to occur before or after these two battles. I need to take another look at some of my notes.

Long story short... yea it looks like the initial out of the box matchups were not well play tested. If the player with the advantage deploys his troops in good positions, the only way the other player will win imho is by extreme luck. What do you expect from a guy named John "Goodenough"?

CX0427 said:

I suppose you could debate the concept of what is 'balance' in a board game, but I think most people out there would agree that balance simply means that the chances or you could say possibily of winning is equal for both sides. It certainly doesn't mean 'equal', it just means 'equal chance of winning'.

Tide of Irons is a great game and it can very easily be balanced, it just takes a lot more care then FFG took when creating scenarios. I mean blatently rigged scenarios like 'Breaking the Line' are a very poor introduction to the game and should never have made it through play testing. I would venture to guess that this scenario was never play tested prior to release because even as a completly novice after 5 minutes of playing the game I knew that Germans had absolutly no chance of winning whatsover. Hence I can't imagine how a group of play testers who's job it is to find problems somehow missed it.

In your case elf unfortunaty I think you might be your suffering from 'over play syndrome' as I like to call it. Any board game can ultimatly be broken mathmaticaly and this usually occurs when it has been played too often by a person and analyzed to its core. If thats the case i would recommend that you move on to the next best thing. The unfortunate aspect of board gaming is that games get played out. On the other hand, fortunatly there is TONS of great games out there and with sites like boardgamegeek and Tom Vassels Dice Tower it doesn't take much effort to find a good canidate. Conflict of Heros Awakening The Bear is one I have heard a lot of great things about, If you don't mind switching gears and playing some Sci-Fi or Fantasy, I can personally recommend Twilight Imperium (amazingly fun game). I have also heard a lot of great things about Memoir 44.

Gamer4Life said:

The use of the phrase "blatently rigged" means you think it was intentional, while "can't imagine how..(they) missed it" says it was a mistake. You can't have it both ways!

Also, your logic is amiss. Balancing is easy, the scenarios are not balanced, therefore FFG took too little care and didn't playtest, because of the premise that balance is the only important thing. How about starting with the premise that FFG intended for these scenarios to be exactly what they are, because, after all they are a majoy game company and this was a major new introduction of a 'new system' game. Supporting evidence being that balancing is easy, the scenarios are not balanced, the intros to the scenarios indicate the historical context, battles are rarely balanced, therefore this must be what FFG intended. In addition, the rulebook urging the players to create their own scenarios, indicates that adjustment of scenarios is surely allowed, especially because "balancing is easy".

longagoigo said:

Sure I can..

Listen I'm not that interested in debating what FFG intended, all I can speak to is my experiance and my experiance is that out of the box the scenarios are lemons. Its an important topic because many players like myself go out, buy this very expensive game and bring it to our gaming groups table. If we introduce our gaming groups to this game using the out of the box scenarios I can promise you it will get tossed out faster then Tic Tac Toe. Just look at the last 100 topics on this forum you will find several posts effectivly questions 'how to introduce this game to my group" aka how to "how to hook players" etc...

I don't disagree with you that the game is obviously intended for players to create their own scenarios (I mean they only included 6 and I'm certain the game is intended to be played more then 6 times). Personally after having played the game about 5 times now I can say without reservation its an instant classic that will never collect dust on my shelf. But I can also tell you that the scenario book that came with the game is basicaly kindling.

Lets not execuse FFG for producing an obviously unbalanced scenario book. I love their company and I love their games, but they don't always nail it and when they don't they need to know about so I call bull! Its crap, lets just call it crap and send the appropriate message to game developers that crap is not acceptable and they must do better.

Let's say someone wanted to produce a ToI-like game about Custer at the Little Big Horn or the battle of the Alamo. And they designed the scenarios, so that they would play out along historical lines. And the company urged players to use the same figures and other bits to create other scenarios. My understanding is that you would criticize the basic scenario for not being balanced and, therefore, never playtested. Ok, so most people would understand the historical context and see that they need to be overwhelmed and lose.

ToI provided a few scenarios in the box and a couple others on its website, and it provided the tools for fans to create their own scenarios, balanced or historical, to share with other fans. ToI is a mostly symetrical gaming system with mostly asymetrical scenarios. Perhaps, FFG and the game designers should be held accountable for not providing a clear enough statement of their intentions. Perhaps, they should have just provided 6 scenarios with progressively bigger maps, and progressively larger number of equal forces on each side, and set the historical context as some troops, somewhere in Europe, at some point in the war, trying to do something. Of course, then the weaker or less experienced player would always lose, and complain that all the scenarios are too balanced (besides being non-historical) and therefore don't give them a chance. After all, balance is an ideal, and can only be achieved by tweaking a situation between two specific players, so their strengths and weaknesses are offset.

Gamer4Life said:

And who said this, Ya we had briefly talked about switching sides but I really felt the scenario was winnable by the Germans and wanted to prove, In a way its another positive aspect to the experiance since I didn't feel that the battle was hopeless, but rather a challenge. Its a sign of a good game when both players feel strongly that despite their different starting conditions and mechanics of strategy cards that they can win. From the many forum posts and reviews about the games scenario you almost had the impression that the game was rigged to ensure that in any given scenario the outcome was predictable but I don't think thats the case at all. Even without the adjustments I do believe an experianced player who really knows how to take full advantage of the games units and cards has a shot at it.

And this, I do want to add though that as a World War II game the purist do contribute perhaps the most interesting aspect of the game which is in fact the historical accuracy and sort of 'sense of history' as you play the game. While it would be easy just to create an 'even map', give each player 'even amounts of units' and just count up kills for points to see who wins, I don't think Tide of Irons would be as much fun to play. Hence I recommend that balance or not you play the scenarios and adjust them just enough to break the very obvious game breaking imbalances of some scenarios. Meaning, don't change it so that the historical element is lost for a 'fair game' but rather adjust it to make the scenario enjoyable and more importantly unpredictable. I believe this aspect is the reason why most players are a bit reluctant to effectivly hand you an even scenario, as historicaly very few battles where actually balanced, most where battles in which one side was at a disadvantage and this is replicated in almost every scenario I have seen, online, offline, official and unofficial.

Consistency of message is important.

longagoigo said:

Lets also keep it in context.

I did say that "Ya we had briefly talked about switching sides but I really felt the scenario was winnable by the Germans and wanted to prove, In a way its another positive aspect to the experiance since I didn't feel that the battle was hopeless, but rather a challenge" Prior to the experiance fo playing a number of games, having played them I formed my opinion on the experiance which unfortunatly was not that positive, at least in the sense of the result (as I did enjoy the game win or loose). The end result was that the scenario is not winnable, and the reason can only be one of two things. Either A, it was not intended to be winnable by the designers in a effort to maintain some form of historical accuracy or B. the scenario wasn't tested properly. In either case it makes the scenario unlikly to attract players iif going into it you already know what the outcome will be. A game should never have its outcome determined before you even setup the pieces.

I also said if you look closely that "While it would be easy just to create an 'even map', give each player 'even amounts of units' and just count up kills for points to see who wins, I don't think Tide of Irons would be as much fun to play. Hence I recommend that balance or not you play the scenarios and adjust them just enough to break the very obvious game breaking imbalances of some scenarios. Meaning, don't change it so that the historical element is lost for a 'fair game' but rather adjust it to make the scenario enjoyable and more importantly unpredictable" Frankly this is exactly how the developers should have handled the scenarios, which is why I believe that the 'imbalance' of the scenario isn't because of historical accuracy of the events, but rather the simple fact that the scenarios where not properly tested. The small adjustments that I made to the scenario changed nothing about the historical accuracy or feel of the scenario, but it did make it balanced and possible for the Germans to win (speaking of Breaking The Line).

Hence I stick by what I said, the scenario book that comes with the game is simply badly tested. The historical accuracy and fluff of the scenarios did not need to be changed in order for any of the scenarios to be balanced enough for either side to actually win.

I see no contridiction in my statement at all.

I would agree that the maps might have been purposefully rigged. Look at the historical contexts for the missions, and the blurbs on the objective cards. Usually the side that "won" on the context is the side that should win the game.

I played silence the guns tonight. I was still trying to teach someone to play who had never read through the rulebook. His turns were dreadfully long. I was trying to take super quick turns so the game might finish.

I made the mistake of not doubling my mortars, and that should have cost me the game. The only thing that saved me were a few good rolls (not to mention many many rolls like 8 dice vs no cover, no hits vs my opponent). Also, on the very last turn he put too many units in op fire and couldn't take the bunker.

What's wrong with Silence the Guns? USA can just deploy on the extreme left side. The Germans can easily get 5 command for the first turn, and 4 per turn until about turn 5. However, this enables a clever enemy to block off all or some of the reinforcement squares. My opponent kept forgetting to use his mortars first while his spotters were fresh or he would have kept me from getting anything. The USA player has plenty of troops so he can easily blast any reinforcements you put down (and I put down I think 6 squads total).

The only things that kept me alive were my machine guns, the extra command that let me have the reinforcements and my initial placement, which aside from my failure to double mortar crew, was near flawless.

Sadly my opponent had some great lucky shots to begin with, so my AT squads fizzled early.

And while I enjoyed the challenge he gave me, I know my opponent cheated (he's my brother). He only had one deck left, so I peeked at the name of the top card of his deck when we both went for a restroom break. When we got to the status phase later he drew a different card. When he lost, I confronted him, and first he denied it. Shortly afterwards he admitted cheating, but called me a cheater too for looking at the top card.

Bearing in mind I only looked at the name of the top card, and I didn't know what it did, do you feel that was cheating? From a larger perspective I just wanted to know if he would try to cheat to win.

Hmm just noticed my opponent used one extra deploy hex vertically than was legal. I have to wonder now if this was intentional or accidental. I also shorted myself an AT specialization, and 2 concealed squads (I only placed 2 not 4 total).

Gamer4Life said:

B. the scenario wasn't tested properly in terms of 'my' preconceptions of balance.

C. It was designed to be asymetrical, as a balancing mechanism for players of different strengths.

BTW: You are really going to hate Ignacy Trzewiczek's Stronghold.

Stronghold is a 2-4 player game telling the story of a siege. Players take opposite sides, one has to defend the stronghold, the other has to break into the castle as soon as possible. As time passes, defenders get Victory Points every turn for their efforts on the walls.

The game board represents the stronghold itself as well as the surrounding terrain, where enemy forces are placed and from where they proceed to the walls.

The defender has a small amount of soldiers manning the walls, while the invader has an infinite legion of them! A desperate fight is taking place every single turn. The invaders build war machines, equip their soldiers, train them and use black magic rituals to achieve victory. Meanwhile, defenders repair walls, build cannons, train soldiers and do everything they can to hold the castle as long as possible.

The 'as long as possible' means that the defenders cannot win. Sure they can get victory points, but they can't ever win.

From the designer's diary: “This can be done nicely,” I thought. “We’ll make a Westerplatte” – the peninsula in Gdansk where the Germans launched the invasion of Poland and World War II by sending thousands of troops against a Polish garrison holding only 182 soldiers, a garrison that still held off the attack for six days despite the lopsided numbers. Westerplatte is the first thing that children in Poland learn at school, and it is a huge symbol of courage and patriotism in our country. I wanted a sense of inevitability of the castle falling, I wanted the attacking player to have an ominous smile on his face, to be certain that he’ll eventually enter the castle, it’s just a question of time. I wanted him to flood the walls, to build catapults and siege engines and thwart the desperate defender’s efforts with a cruel satisfaction. .

Understanding the intent behind this game is important. And understanding the intent behind the scenarios in ToI is also important. Their intent doesn't necessarilly have to be to provide you with scenarios that are perfectly balance for you and your gaming partner. There are players of unequal strengths who will also be playing the game.

Gamer4Life said:

I think you're forgetting that you're looking at this from your perspective (somewhat difficult not to do). There are many situations where having scenarios that would be balanced for you, would not be balanced for others. That is why the designer encourage tweaking and making scenarios. Granted, it is difficult to know how asymetrical the scenarios are before playing, but an experience player, familiar with all the scenarios, would know which ones (of your unbalanced scenarios) would be balanced for him and a novice player (father and son, for example). Unfortunately, nothing has the elegant handicapping system that the game of Go has. Back when it was released, there were so many people who conplained that something was unwinnable as one side or the other, until they discovered how to win by applying different tactics.

I think you're basically suggesting that the designers do exactly what they did do. And you're doing exactly what the designers intended you to do. They gave us variable asymetrical scenarios, which can be easily tweaked to make adjustments for variable player strengths, as well as add replay value.

Gamer4Life said:

You really don't think that if you had played that scenario with someone who was really thick about war games and you'd been just able to win by the smallest of margins as the Germans, you wouldn't be crowing about how well balanced that scenario was?

This thread is ridiculous. The Gamer4Life says he has no opinion and doesn’t want to debate a slew of hasty generalizations and then proceeds to give an opinion and then debate them. I’d call you something but it would be unfair to people who legitimately fall into that category.

To the original poster, if you want to introduce and hook people into the game, just play it as written. Especially since you state that you’ve never played it before. This is a game of nuance, tactics, and strategy. Even with a base of 6 scenarios (not counting the official and fan ones that can be downloaded) there is a lot of replay value. The bits that you get to play with and the options available in how you build your units should thrill the parts of you and your friends that thrive on pushing minis around on a map board and blowing each other up. The game itself is fairly straight forward with some hiccups around really understanding assault actions and some of the strategy card impacts. Try not to mix up move and shoot too much and you should be good to go. You will learn as you play and eventually your group may decide that it would be “more” fun if you tweaked a scenario a certain way, then you can and you’ll go from there. Getting hooked on the game is easy if you like war games, like minis, and like having to make decisions that will affect the outcome of the game.

For what it is worth, I have won “At The Breaking Point” as the Germans. Yes, some luck was involved, but so was a couple of tactics my opponent failed to pick up on before it was too late. I usually don’t win as the Germans but I also prefer to play as the Germans in that scenario because when it comes, the thrill of victory is that much sweeter.

When you look at the scenarios (without actually playing them) you can perceive lots of imbalances and things that might be wrong with them. I can only recommend once again that you take the time to evaluate and build a strategy and then employ all the tactics at your disposal through the Strategy and Operations cards as well as the units you have available. Tide of Iron consists of a lot of move and counter-move. The scenario and your opponent are going to present you with a number of problems to solve. Your success with the game will be in how well you overcome them. This will still be true even if you change the scenario but you won't know what to change until you've actually had the opportunity to play through it a few times and determine what you and your mates feel the flaws are that need to be tweaked.

sloejack said:

I don't think there is anything ridiculous about the thread at all, and I don't think there is any reason for you to be rude about it. If your not interested in the discussion don't participate in it. It was a pretty light and interesting discussion about the balance of scenarios and how to approach it from an angle of introducing the game to new players which I think is a great topic and one that people post about often here.

I think perhaps I didn't make myself clear enough, I didn't realize my post would be discected as again I thought we were just having a light hearted discussion here. Perhaps you misunderstood my intent when I said i wasn't interested in debating wether or not the scenarios where balanced or not. What I should have done is followed it up by saying that the reason i don't want to discuss wether or not any given scenario is or isn't balanced is that it is just a matter of opinion, one person might think it is balanced another might not. Something like that can be debated endlessly and would generaly be pointless. I do have my opinion on it however and its based on my experiance with the game, so Im trying to advise the poster based on my experiance. It doesn't have to debated, its just my opinion and I like it just fine. What I don't have an opinion on is what the designers intended, because frankly I have no idea what they intended the game to be, I can at best guess at it which is what you have done because you don't know what they intended either. I only know what it is from my perspective and while I don't disagree at all with what you said about the game being customizable, I do stick by my opinion that the scenario book could have been balanced out a little better . In particular since this is the introduction to the game.

If two novice players pick this game up and flip to the first scenario and play it, after the game they will (as I did when i tried) come to the same conclusion most people have on this forum (I say most because I have seen breaking the line discussed a number of times and in each case it was refered to as 'grossly unbalanced' and 'unwinnable').

The poster is looking for a way to hook new players, using "Breaking the Line" as a starting point will probobly have quite the oppossite effect and I think he posted here looking for advice on how to give the game a good introduction as obviously he likes the game and once to play it with his friends. Hence my suggestion to alter the scenario as I have stated is a good recommendation to make the scenario a bit more even for two players. Its my advise to him.

longagoigo said:

I think you make a good point here and I agree that certainly a scenario like "Breaking the Line" when played with one veteran player using the Germans for example and a novice player using Americans the game may very well balanace out due to skill level.

It just struck me as odd that the first scenario in the book which everyone is mostly likely to play first was handled in this fashion.

Don't you think that perhaps it might have been wise for FFG to create scenarios with the assumption that two players of equal skill are going to be playing them?

Gamer4Life said:

Like you, I think these discussions are lighthearted and fun. I think a novice coming to this game is going to win or lose the first game, then, like you, think that he can do better (if he lost) or he may, unlike you, switch sides and play it again. And then he's going to go on to play the other scenarios. For most players, I don't think balance is going to be an issue. Some players aren't even going to start with the first scenario, because it doesn't involve all the map boards and it doesn't have enough squads or tanks. They may not even open the scenario book, but just start playing with the bits!!

Gamer4Life said:

I don't know about you, or people in general, but there is a lot that I know from logical consideration of evidence. For example, I can observe the way someone is holding their hand as they walk down the street and conclude that they are holding a cigarette out of sight, because public smoking is not allowed here. I can listen to someone speak and conclude that they know something that they don't want to say. I can read the rulebook, notice its layout, look at the bits and how things interact, and see the intention of the designer. And therefore, I can assure you that 'lack of playtesting' isn't the reason the scenarios are the way they are. Another piece of evidence, that we haven't discussed yet, is the publication of 2 scenarios online, before the release of ToI. What do you conclude from that?

Here is a news dispatch from before Tide of Iron was released, in which Corey talks about scenarios. It should be noted that the 2 scenarios that were published online are considered the introductory scenarios.

Re: Mission Briefing
From: Corey Konieczka, ToI Development Staff, FFG H.Q. As we get closer and closer to the inevitable release of Tide of Iron, a few lingering components still remain shrouded in mystery to most of the general public. For the lucky few managed to participate in our Operation: Early Bird demos, most of the magic has been unveiled. It is still my pleasure to reveal a little more information about the heart of the game, the scenarios.

At a glance, each scenario in Tide of Iron contains information about each of the two factions. This includes detailed information about each faction’s starting units, setup instructions, operations cards, command cards, special rules and most importantly victory conditions.

The most exciting aspect of Tide of Iron scenarios is that each faction usually has dramatically different objectives. For example, the Germans may control a heavily fortified area and will win the scenario by simply holding their territory for a set number of turns. In a scenario such as this, the Americans would most likely have more forces and be forced to attack fast, hard and unrelenting.

If you were one of the lucky fans who got to participate in our Operation: Early Bird demos, then you probably played one of two special introductory scenarios. These small exclusive scenarios introduced the basic rules to first time players while hopefully giving them a taste of what a larger Tide of Iron scenario can offer, in addition to providing an intense Tide of Iron game experience.

All of the scenarios included in the base game of Tide of Iron range in size from 6 map boards, to using all 12 map boards. The varied sizes and objectives of each scenario makes the game scalable based upon desired playtime, table space and complexity.

As we get closer to release and beyond, we will be posting many more official TOI scenarios. In addition, we will be posting a full featured campaign editor for fans to create and upload their own exciting scenarios. Until then, thank you for your excitement and continued support.

CX0427 said:

Here is part of a discussion at BGG about At the Breaking Point: www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/182159/page/1 You'll notice that the people who won as the Germans were the ones who didn't cry that the scenario was imbalanced, but instead found a way to counter the strengths of their opponents. They saw the "supposed" imbalance as a challenge to test their mettle in the face of likely, not certain, defeat.

I won this scenario as the Germans twice, although I was playing against (slightly) less experienced opponents. IMHO the most important thing is to move quickly---you aren't trying to use all 8 turns, because the Americans are getting stronger as you wait. Having to divert the tank to deal with the peripheral bridge sounds like a fairly major blunder.

You should generally have enough command points to keep the initiative and to use all of your strategy cards. Some of them are quite useful (like the one that gives +2 MP three times). I used the tank to clear wire and then soak up enemy fire (it's pretty easy for them to kill once you get adjacent to US squads, but at least they are firing at it instead of something else). Similarly, you probably need at least one engineer to clear wire so that several other units can dash through and pile up for several big assaults. Using your units to first run forward and fire at close range, then support assaults against those same hexes, is very powerful.

It may well be that a more experienced American player could have stopped me---I'm not sure.

And from another player:

I played a few solo games of this scenario to try and find a strategy for the Germans to win this. The key is a lesson I learned when I was going through Army basic training. "I'll cover, you move."

I had the Germans advance on the American positions enough so that I had units within normal range of the American line. It is critical that the Germans win initiative here. Their first move, out of the gate, is to lay down suppressive fire on all units that are in op-fire mode, especially the machine guns. Use the mortar in that first round to try and suppress a hex in which there is an op-fire unit and perhaps another unit in it. I was using a squad of two normal soldiers and two elites to lead off the first round of cover and move. They were almost guaranteed to silence a few guns in that first round.

Then, with some op-fire silenced, start moving in. I was actually doing move and fire and trying to further suppress other units on the way in. The next turn, these guys that moved become your firers. They fire and you can move the next wave in. By turn four or five it is possible to be in assault.

Also, I disagree with using the tank to smash the line right away. I held it back a few turns to provide covering fire for advancing troops and THEN moved it in.

You are going to get a bit chewed up using this strategy, but as said before, you don't need to eliminate your enemy, you merely need to hold on to a few hexes.

I am not going to say that this makes the scenario balanced. I think it gives the Germans a lot better shot at it. You might be able to win 30-40% of the time doing it.

Here's the thoughts of a third player:

I've played this scenario a few times now, and I've found the key to German victory is in two things: First, using the engineers to build entrenchments in which to set up your leapfrog into the American lines. Second, effect use of the panzer to spear point your assault is key. They can out range the American units by one or two hexes, and can suppress entrenched units to allow your infantry to get into position.

Boy you really put a lot of time into this don't you.

Ok first a sobering reality my friend, your intuition is not evidence nor does your opinion equal a fact.

Pulling out quotes from people who where successful in breaking the line can as easily be countered by the dozens who have come forward and proclaimed that its 'impossible' to win. The argument is further flawed because in every example you gave the pre-curser was that the german player was playing against a less skilled opponent. Given players of equal skill I would imagine their story would look very different.

Besdies that I'm not whinning that 'its unfair', I pointed out that the scenario was unbalanced before I played it, then I played it twice, both times as the Germans to try to prove that it wasn't. After playing it a third time I realized that unless I do what the poeple in your quotes do (find an inept opponnent) the scenario results will always be the same. Rather then looking for inept opponents I felt it prudent to adjust the scenario and I offered my changes to the poster who is asking a legitimate question about a good way to introduce them to the game.

Nice effort though but your just not convincing me here at all. I think you make some good points about the flexibility of the game and that it is designed to be customizable and easy to adjust, which is really why I love it. The only point I actually disagree with you on is the quality of the scenario book. I think its quite poor with little effort taken to ensure that the scenarios are balanced. They are completetly out of whack and as your many quotes that you provided show they are sometimes winnable if you take a veteran player and put him against a Novice (even then your quote show that it was difficult). If two players of equal skill play through the scenario book they will find the results very predictable and ultimatly the experiance is diminished.

Historical accuracy or not this is a board game and board game should have some semblance of balanced game play. Its odd to me that the designers made so much effort to create a balanced game mechanic, yet failed to show it off by creating grossly unbalanced scenarios.

Gamer4Life said:

I've got so much free time. I get so bored during my summer break.

Gamer4Life said:

In what way is even one win countered by dozens saying it's impossible to win? Impossible means zero wins, even one (and I pulled 3) shows that it's not impossible.

Gamer4Life said:

I believe they were playing against their usual opponents, which is the basis of my argument that the scenarios are asymetrical, meaning that the relative difficulty balances out with opponents of different strengths.

Gamer4Life said:

Unfortunately, for many people they don't have to look far for players of lower skill than themselves, so instead of having to find new friends who match their skill, they can pick and choose among the asymetrical scenarios in the scenario guide.

Gamer4Life said:

After playing through a scenario book that would be challenging each of them to varying degrees from scenario to scenario, I'm sure they'd do what most ToI players do. They'd create their own scenarios and tweak the official and the fan scenarios like the game was meant to be played.

I think we basically agree about the game. We don't even disagree about the balance of the scenarios. It's just that I see them as being for the benefit of players of different strengths and to force players of equal strengths to get creative with their tactics. On the other hand, you accuse the designers and FFG of not playtesting and use the term unbalanced as a pejorative.

longagoigo said:

Man I wish I was still on vacation.... free time gets slimmer and slimmer as you get older and older. Now that I'm 33, about the only time I have to BS on forums is when I'm actually at work. Fortunatly I'm a manager so I can get away with it, but it does often feel silly to have online conversations about board games when i should be analyzing the latest development projects... guess im a kid at heart.

longagoigo said:

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one point, that being, my sense of what the developers should have done or how they approached the design and testing of the scenario. I will concide on one point though and thats the fact that regardless of how balanced or unbalanced the scenarios are, wether they where tested properly or not, or whatever the case may be, one fact remains that the games customization is so flexible and approachable that it is highly unlikely anyone will play the out of the box scenarios for long as the lure to create your own is far too great.

I think on that note we can conclude the discussion, I can't really think of anything else to say. Nice one.

Gamer4Life said:

So, are you going to weigh in on the plateau rule discussion?

longagoigo said:

Heheh I was just about to hit reply when I read yours and realized that you pretty much covered what I was going to say. I found it odd though that out of all the things in the rules it was the Plateu rule that he considered too 'unrealisitic' to accept. The more realistic you try to make a board game the less approachable and fun the board game becomes, after all, reality is quite boring.

I'm not interested in a game that aims for total realism, that's why i bought TOI. The plateau rule caught my attention because it's not just a simplification such as having different types of roads allowing the same speed or different woods providing the same cover. It's an element of unrealism "actively" introduced to the game, and since I didn't see the usefulness of the rule, this bothered me.

On the topic of this thread, I played the scenario Liberation yesterday. I played the germans and the americans beat the crap out of me. By the end of the third round, I had only one squad left. Both of us made sensible choices and neither of us got exceptionally lucky rolling the dice, and we even forgot about the "merciless assault" operations card for the entire game, so the feeling we both had was that this scenario is very unbalanced.

I agree totally with Gamer4Life in this discussion, and I welcome further discussions on how to implement some degree of balance to the scenarios. I don't care about historical accuracy or about what FFG intended. I want a fairly easy tactical wargame where equally skilled opponents can have about equal chances of winning, and I'm certain that TOI can be that game for me.