We are playing Tide of Iron for the first time now in the holidays. We are four Tide of Iron newbies. I get the impression that best first scenario would be Breaking the Line or Chain of Command from the support section and we should play those instead of the ones included in the box. Any tips for which one would be the most fun for first scenario.

I would recommend these 2 for your first games then have a go at the ones in the book (just dont expect them to be balanced, so play both sides) I still have some fun with the scearios in the base game.

If you have all 4 of you wanting to play at the same time set up both Breaking the line and chain of command there is enough in the box so that you can have both these scearios running at the same time. (once you end up with DoTF and the sceario book then you will have some awsome scenarios to play)

Thanks for your suggestions. I think the idea of playing both introduction scenarios at the same time is really good. I guess it would be really fun first to play the introduction scenarios and then one big game with 2 vs. 2. But we will see, since our time is limited, and from previous experiences I know that first time will take quite long. I am a bit skeptical about the scenarios from the box, since our group is highly competitive.

But I disagree with Aussie_Digger. Playing unbalanced scenarios is extremly booring, so I would actually recommend that you read a review of the scenarios before playing them. Silence the guns is a good balanced scenario.

Grand Stone said:

I do not think so. If one finds a scenario to be unbalanced, you can still play it again with switched sides and see who managed to beat the disadvantaged side with fewer losses or in fewer turns.

You can also tweak the scenario slightly to restore balance. This is something I like about ASL scenarios, they always have a balancing option for each side.

Or you could just play the scenario often enough to find a way of winning with the underdog. :-)

Sometimes it helps to read the objectives of a scenario more carefully and plan accordingly. I also fall into the trap of counting heads (and turrets) in a scenario and then try to reduce my opponent's head count instead of going after a scenario's objectives with a plan.

I geuss it depends on what you find fun, but personaly I dont find it any fun whatsoever playing an unbalanced scenario. I like playing the underdog, but only if the underdog has a slight change of success. In the two first scenarios they dont. And if you come here and tell me that you won as the underdog, then I am sorry to inform you that your opponent did some serius misstakes.

Making serious mistakes happend in battles all the time, often how batlles are won and lost.