I am considering buying this game but I want to know how good the combat works and how many maps there are in the core set.

The combat is slightly unusual in that units have to choose whether they are shooting to kill or merely to supress when firing (I imagine it as being the difference between taking the time to actually aim or just laying down as much fire on an enemy position as possible). There are also options for firing on the move and also assaulting into enemy held positions.

Infantry squads are represented by up to 4 figures slotted into a base. These figures could be regular infantry or, if available, officers or elite troops, or even heavy weapons such as machine guns or mortars. Different figures give a squad different capabilites. They can also have a specialisation such as anti-tank or flamethrower which further alters their capabilities.

As these squads take hits, figures must be removed which decrease the firepower or other capabilities of that squad.

Vehicles are represented by single models (not to scale) some of which may carry one or more squads.

In the base game there are 12 double-sided map boards (the expansions have 9 such boards) plus a lot of overlays which can further alter terrain.

One word of warning - the scenarios in the base game are generally quite unbalanced. I would suggest downloading the introductory scenarios from the FFG website (eg "Chain of Command") and starting there before moving on.

You can download the rules/scenarios here:

new.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp

TeufelHund said:

Unusual!?! Hell, that's an actual combat tactic, suppressive fire, I mean.

IMO, that's one of the best features of ToI. In no other wargame that I know of, none the less a "gateway" game, have I ever run across suppressive fire handled so well and interfaced so well into the game system.

Even the vaunted Conflict of Hero's game system missed the boat on this one, and it's lauded as being ultra realistic.

ToI nailed this one dead on, as far as I'm concerned. You can even go to Band of Brothers and see in at least two different episodes where suppressive fire is referred to. In episode II or III, where the 506 PIR is dug in along a tree line and gets assaulted by German armor outside Carentan, there is a private named Blythe, whom then Lt. Winters is encouraging to lay suppressive into the German positions.

In one of the later episodes, E company is lead by an inept officer named Norman Dyke in an assault on a town named Foy, and during the attack, Dyke freezes mid attack' and you here in the dialog him calling for suppressive fire on the German positions in the town.

Suppressive fire was, and is today a very real combat tactic. It is handled in ToI better than any wargame I know of, and that is saying something considering that ToI was designed to be an entry level, or "gateway" wargame, as they call it here. When you consider games such as ASL, PG & CoH, and here you have an entry level game that gets the concept of suppressive worked out better, then that is saying something, something that I think ToI fans and the game designers ought to be bragging about!

yes indeed supressive fire is a good rule and realistic. other games have it in a form but not quite as well done in Tide.

BJaffe

A very good buy, IMHO. Rules are easy and combat is realistic; for a war game.

kaufschtick said:

I meant unusual in terms of tactical wargames, where units usually become pinned and/or broken as a result of regular fire, especially in counter-based games where units are flipped to indicate a change in status.

I didn't mean that the real life tactic of laying on suppressive fire on a target was unusual.