As a new player who just got the base set today, and have yet to actually get a game organized, I've been reading over the forum posts and found something that disturbed me. The lack of player support beyond 2 people without expansions. I've been thinking about this, as my gaming group has as many as 8 people at times and have come up with a couple of off the cuff rules to let people play longer.

You're Job's not done soldier! : In this rule variant, Hero's are not considered killed after they have taken the last bar of damage. Instead, another character may declare that they are trying to drag the soldier to safety. The character picks up the character just like in capture the flag, and attempts to take them back to their teams entry point (or a special minor objective point set ahead of time as a med cache). If they manage to take the downed hero all the way back to the med point or entry point, the character's team can spend 2 VP (or more, not sure about play balance here) and bring the character back to full health. Alternately a character with a med pack, or other healing ability can spend 2 VP and discard the item to bring them back to half health. The opposing team can stop this by spending an action with a character adejacant to the downed character to deliver a coup de grace. The character is considered too injured to continue the fight and is removed from the scenario. This rule does not apply to downed troopers as they can reinforce. May only be used by a particular heor as many times as the game more allows for reinforcements. (Only once in the case of Hard mode.)

Here's another couple of ideas for standard 2 player games.

Special MacNeal rule "Will the real MacNeal please stand up?" : During a game in which MacNeal is a hero for the Union and is killed, if the union player still has either Commando Alpha or Delta alive, he may spend 2 VP to declare that the MacNeal the enemy just killed was a trained imposter and that one of the chosen commandos is the Real MacNeal. When done, the chosen commando is taken off the board and replaced by MacNeal. The newly placed MacNeal starts with the former commando's kit, not his own which must be retrieved if desired. Can only be used once per game.

Special rule for Hoffman and OZO "I... Live... Again..." During a game when Hoffman and/or OZO is a Reich hero, and is killed by an opponent, the Reich player may attempt to use this rule. Also, Hoffman and/or OZO must be using their special items. After either character dies, a shocktrooper (for Hoffman) or a stormtrooper (for OZO), who has acquired the proper special gear may spend 2 VP to serve as a new host body for the appropriate character. Note that troopers can only spend 1 VP per turn so the transformation take two turns to complete. During the transformation the trooper can not move or take any action at all. Also if the trooper is killed mid transformation, the VP are lost with no effect. Once the 2 turns are complete, replace the trooper with the appropriate Hero and discard the trooper. Said hero begins with their kit in the same state as when they were killed the first time (one use items have been used) and at full health. This rule can only be used once per game regardless of whether it succeeds or not, and only by either Hoffman or OZO, not both in the same game, though which hero uses the rule does not have to be determined until the circumstance presents itself.

The special MacNeal rule was inspired by Marvel Comic's Nick Fury, who is often the target of assination attempts, and as such had a number of robotic Life Model Decoys available. MacNeal reminds me so much of Fury that giving him a similar ability seemed reasonable. The other special rule for the tainted heroes of the Reich came from the fact that they just screamed for demonic possesion powers.

The Party Play rule came from the idea that honestly, more players need respawns!

Note that these have not been play tested and that I wrote them at 3 AM. Please forgive errors of spelling or name remebering. Thank you for reading this and comments are appriciated.

Hoffman, who's Hoffman ? I guess you're talking about von Heizinger

Anyway I actually like the idea of replacing another character with a "deceased" Hero, but I think it should be part of a special scenario rather than a "standard" ability.

I've been looking on the forums and it says that 3 people arent good for the game, for the simple fact that two of the characters will gang up on the third. But thats the way anygame with an odd number of players ends up. the best solution is to have an even number of players, The best number of player is 4 people, with this set up youre gonna need operation novagrad and some of the expansion characters, but the upside with 4 players and the novagrad map is the chance to make a truely epic game.