Hmm, I’ve not posted this for a long time, as I think it might well be construed as a bash on EFII. But its taking up space in the draft pile, so lets get it out there in your hands. This is not a review. Just a net reaction to a four player session of East Front II from the group of guys that played.
I however have a challenge here. Given my inevitable fanboydom for Blocks in the East, my recent play of EFII is going to come across as heavily biased. the good news is I think at least 2 of the 3 other players playing felt the same as me.
Our experience was struck fundamentally by the absolute need to conduct seemingly gamey tactics to achieve any historical results. That was ratified by 2 other players who rolled by and chimed in on how the Germans should be playing against us. Much to my horror to exposing the flaws in the Axis approach and the potential holes in the Soviet game. Yikes. STFU! :). Dude… I was doing great up until then….LOL
The problem the Axis encountered was the inability to effectively use the Blitzkrieg without 0=ing out their HQ’s [reducing them to their last pip] . If you know the game you know that is bad, as you can only rebuild 1 step a turn for these HQ’s. In order to effectively blitz you will, therefore, need to have 2 HQ’s in close proximity to conduct any sort of 2-3 hex ranged offense. So AGN/AGC are tied at the hip or God forbid you do free setup and just blast away with 3x HQ in close proximity! So the first premise of the Eastern Front war goes out the window. That AGN/C/S will fight independently. Rather they will cross command and use their closeness to blow a huge hole in the line either North or Sth of the Marshes and let the rest of the armies hold the Russkies in place.
It was stated by others that the game was seemingly generic and not much of a historical effort. That perhaps additional chrome in the form of some sort of Panzers attack first, or moved further made me bite my tongue…but just for a moment. I will say though it does give new wargamers something to get their teeth into and play a theatre scale game. So thats a good thing, as long as a history lesson is what they are looking for.
Sadly I could not help but draw a comparison to BitE.
The games after playing EFII face to face I now know are very, very different. I had always thought based on my rudimentary efforts solo that it was really just Logistics and Tech Tree/Production that set the two games apart.
I was wrong.
I think, that BitE offers a lot more historical flavour, more accurate portrayal of the conflict on a theatre wide basis. That said. I am not sure that at least one of the guys won’t like BitE either. He just is not a Corps level guy.
Your mileage may vary and of course, I do respect the lineage EFII has. It has been a crowd favorite for a long time.
That mirrors my experience of EFII. A guy I knew who played it a lot said once that to start Barbarossa he doesn’t use HQs, he just uses firepower to decimate front line Russian troops and then when he starts burning up his HQ he is starting from a better position. Which probably works but probably counts as a gamey and a-historical approach.
:). Yeah, its a fun light game. there are better more historically rich and fast playing games available now. I think it got ‘ the best block game in the east moniker..’cause it was the only one back in the day.