Breaking the Chains

Breaking the wrist?

 

As a follow up here, post video after some discussion as promised with other folks who have played, my conclusion on this game is significantly less positive than what I state in the video.

I think we could sum up the situation as BtC is just a bit too generic.

While it tries to be interesting with the different modes and aspects of play it fails in the Naval/Air combat game play. Which is the heart of the game

It is neither interesting, realistic or ‘future historical’. It is dry and a bit boring.

Is it half hearted?

Is it half finished?

Why not have have a slightly greater spread of results? We thought the roll dice and get lucky or die to dry

Why dumb down missile types, aircraft types and ship types?

Part of the problem is scale. The Fleet series used smaller hex scale for good reason (I think its 45nm to 76nm there abouts)

Why are aircraft ‘flying’ over the target, when stand off attacks can happen from the equivalent of 2 hexes (at least) away.

So bombing over the is ‘mandatory’ – very WWII -esque.

Why are ALL subs and sub classes a generic 8 to hit? How can Diesel s and Nuke be the same?

Why do the Chinese have the same ASM ranges and capabilities?

Why not include ALL the information on the counters and ON the FRONT. They are nice BIG counters…but I need to flip, I need to memorize icons and the odd exception here and there – like the Sovremy class ships. Bummer.

I’ve mentioned the massive # of turns or actions in a turn. This is just not something that I want to mess with for that long when the tactics (especially in the shorter scenarios are painfully obvious). Its a bit like you might be  slightly sexy, but I’ve got beer goggles on game that really is more akin to War at Sea than it is to Fleet Series titles.

That said, I think the ideas are interesting, they just need refinement and some depth and flavour added. Oh and finish editing the rule book and please make the rules consistent in format and sequence.

 

 

 

 

 

2 thoughts on “Breaking the Chains

  1. Yep, I know the problem. Ya gotta have the room in the various game scales (number ranges, number of hexes, etc) to allow for the variations of the unit capabilities. Also, to show the difference between simple WWII ranges/strengths/endurance etc versus moderns.

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