Combat Commander Pacific Ilu River p1/2

I did this awhile back.  I wanted to explore the narrative here.  Lots of it. However I found myself becoming a bit frustrated playing solo.

It felt very card “flippy”. Thats a new term I just came out with.  You can use it too. This Jensen game relies on the cards to enable your actions.  This works fine with 2-3 or 4 ‘formations’ tied to leaders.  But more than that and then the game tends to bog down.  You cant advance  to assault until a certain unit is in position, or someone is suppressed etc etc.  The random events are great and make for high theatre. I like the rules set – very well organized, I can grab CC and setup and play fast and really not worry too much about rules since they are common sense for the most part, and easy to look up when needed.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfJEJ5i7-P8]

The frustration for  me seems to be around control of units, and driving the action to the objectives at hand.  If the battle aint progressing why am I playing.?.

Often I will discard hand after hand, as nothing happens.  Now that is not gripping theater!

The audience/owners are supportive – so thanks guys.  Attached here is the Ilu river scenario from CC:P.  A night action, lots of shooting, attack across difficult terrain and a force numbers mismatch.

This scenario plays very well. It clearly shows the Banzai style attack mode of the Japanese forces well, whilst the US uses training, weapons and technology to try and stop them cold.  Even here I think that the Japanese felt rushed. As I tend to do with most of these CC games. You often …or I often end up approaching a objective sub optimally as I cant get all my forces arrayed.  Is that fair?  Yes?! Its also ‘real life’ for the soldier in the field.  I get it.

A nice command abstraction.  Very much like a modern day TCS Opsheet in the way it impacts you ability to be omnipotent.  A good effect it just seems overly magnified on larger scenarios.