Post originally by Chris Farrell at 2004-06-02 10:43:32
Converted from Phorums BB System

I got to play a demo of this game at a recent local con (KublaCon) myself.

I think it's a neat little game which I'll buy, but it's not without one semi-major issue, that being the card design. The command cards are such that some are just a lot better than others; you'd be hard-pressed to argue that a "move 3 units on the left flank" card isn't simply superior to a "move one unit on the left flank". Or that in scenarios like Pegasus Bridge where the Allies have neither armor nor any units on the right flank, the special armor movement cards and the right flank movement cards aren't completely worthless.

There are no "combination" or "synergy" cards. Powerful cards don't have drawbacks or tradeoffs; they're just better. The pressure to save cards for a critical situation vs. playing them now (like in, say, Blue Moon) is negligable. Since it's so easy to determine which cards are simply better than others, the cards you draw do have an inordinate impact on the game. What's kind of annoying is that this doesn't seem like a hard problem to mitigate, game-design wise.

Coupled with this is an inability to "cycle" weak or unplayable cards. You can't pass your turn to draw a new hand, or discard cards; you just have to play one each turn and draw a replacement. So what tends to happen is that lousy cards will stack up in your hand and your options diminish over the game, further aggravating the difference between simply drawing good and bad cards.

All this said, I do like Memoir '44 significantly better than its predecessor, Battle Cry, which I was lukewarm on. It's more textured than Battle Cry because of the more interesting terrain effect and more varied units. Decent, light wargames can be fun but are hard to come by. But the design on the card deck is somthing out of the 70s or 80s, unfortunately.

I have some capsule comments on the game here:

http://homepage.mac.com/c_farrell/iblog/C1070818615/E240693525/index.html

Thanks,

Chris