First Impressions, please! (Full Version)

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Noypi53 -> First Impressions, please! (2/12/2014 1:37:40 PM)

Still deciding if I should get this game or not. I'm already loaded with CoH & FP:RS.

Hope we can get the comments of those who have bought after their first few hours with it.



comsolut -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/12/2014 2:34:28 PM)

Reminds me of Squad Leader. (Which I loved, but hard to find opponents. So AI is for me the biggest advantage)

Artwork is great.

Played the ambush scenario and the AI was decent.

Went to BoardGame Geek and downloaded some quick reference guides, and that really helped me get into the mechanics of the game fast.

Very intuitive, and less eye strain than COH (from the constant board movement).



Blond_Knight -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/12/2014 2:57:14 PM)

As a Beta tester I found it attractive and fun. The GUI is well layed-out and the sound of the dice rolling I found soothing and nostalgic.



lparkh -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/12/2014 2:57:50 PM)

Good idea to use BGG. I went there and see there are a lot of tutorial videos for the boardgame. Here's a general link (scroll down to the video section):
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/18460/lock-n-load-band-of-heroes



SuluSea -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/12/2014 3:02:41 PM)

FWIW , there's also tutorials included with the game. I've enjoyed the ride thus far the art, interface, presentation is first class and what I expect when I buy a game from Matrix.

Have to give a shout out for the sound file as well. Back to the game..........[;)]



FroBodine -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/12/2014 3:12:53 PM)

How are the in-game tutorials? I'm hoping that they are sufficiently meaty and detailed enough that it is not necessary to get supplemental boardgame material from BGG.

Or, are people finding that the game not explained well enough, forcing us to get charts and reference guides from BGG?



Erik Rutins -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/12/2014 3:15:31 PM)

I think the in-game tutorials and the manual included are more than sufficient to learn the game. Extra materials could be helpful if you don't have the game and are curious about the system, but we made sure that owners have all they need to get up to speed IMHO.

Regards,

- Erik



FroBodine -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/12/2014 3:18:07 PM)

Excellent! Thank you, Erik. I can't wait to get home form work and make a long awaited purchase!



Redmarkus5 -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/12/2014 4:37:19 PM)

Loving the art and the old board game feel - very well executed.

Not convinced that rescuing Russian infants was actually very high on the German army's priority list in the summer of 1942 though...



Erik Rutins -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/12/2014 4:54:10 PM)

Thank you for the great first impressions.

Redmarkus4,

German army in general, absolutely not - but we are at a much smaller scale here and Mark enjoys telling stories and setting up scenarios that make players think a bit more outside of the box. This particular soldier in this battle, yes, as explained through the scenes. This is one scenario out of many more in the campaign that have nothing to do with Russian children, but this one helps establish the character of this soldier (one of the characters you follow) in the campaign and is one of many unusual stories that could (and probably at some point did) happen during the war.

Regards,

- Erik



lparkh -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/12/2014 5:17:27 PM)

Tutorials are in "scenarios" and are guided play (e.g. 'learn to rally'). Minor tip:
when you are asked to select units in a hex during the first tutorial make sure you move the tutorial popup out of the way of the hex or the clicking of the hex doesn't register and you don't get the units at the bottom right as the tutorial says will happen. You can scroll the screen if need be. So far I am finding it quite pretty, and looks like love and attention were given to it. That being said the tutorials are a bit brittle and don't work hard to make sure you 'behave' (i.e. do as instructed). But no big deal. The music (modern but soviet esque) is a nice touch.
This is after 5 minutes and 1 tutorial :-)



lparkh -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/13/2014 3:59:50 AM)

OK have done tutorials, done "Ambush" scenario and now trying first game of campaign. Boy this is challenging. I have lost about 4 times and not even gotten close to victory. I backed off difficult and am playing at normal (3 out of 4 efforts). Trying to decide how much it is me and how much it is luck (not spotting a unit and therefore not being able to fire on it is very hard, and only 1/3 chance).
Interested to see what others think of general difficulty and of first campaign scenario for Germans difficulty.
Back to try again. ...lost again.. though did better. The difficulty to me in this scenario in particular seems to be that one has to cross a lot of open ground against units in buildings...and the kicker is they don't fire unless you expose yourself (sensible of them) so then you have to spot them but this is only a 1/3 chance per an attempt and uses up a unit (a leader typically too) which is very expensive. Plus they go back to being unspotted the next turn. So you use up units trying to see them... you finally spot them.. but you don't have a lot of firepower left... and it is hard to hit them in the buildings.. and if you do they rally the next turn with good probability (buildings are good for rallying). And of course if instead of trying to suppress them you run across the open you get cut down. I tried smoke too, but this is low odds to create (so creates similar problems to what was just described with expending units trying to spot) plus it is limited help when having to move across so much open ground.
The spotting rule is the thing that pushes this scenario over the edge of difficulty at least for me :-) If spotting remained in effect across turns that would help a lot, as it is it really seems like I am going to have to get quite lucky to pull this off.
But maybe it is a skill thing, though like I say I've played a lot of these style games and could do fine.
So what are others experiences of German Campaign first scenario and of difficulty of game in general?



markhwalker -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/13/2014 12:54:36 PM)

quote:

Have to give a shout out for the sound file as well. Back to the game..........


Funny story. First cut on the German rally file sounded much different. It now says, "Let's get 'em boys!" That's fine. The first take, however, sounded like it was voiced by a gay pedophile. It said, "Let's get some boys!" [:)]



markhwalker -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/13/2014 12:59:08 PM)

quote:

The spotting rule is the thing that pushes this scenario over the edge of difficulty at least for me :-) If spotting remained in effect across turns that would help a lot, as it is it really seems like I am going to have to get quite lucky to pull this off.


Spotting isn't the only way to reveal units. Moving a unit adjacent also reveals units, Drawing the unit's fire also reveals them. Try moving a single squad to draw fire and then either returning fire or moving into melee.



Erik Rutins -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/13/2014 1:04:35 PM)

Hi lparkh,

I'd highly recommend that you try the Introductory level for the first time through. We added it specifically for folks who are playing the game for the first time. A lot of our tester feedback involved difficulty and balance and we found that Introductory seems to get it just right for new players. Once you know the game well, it's too easy, but it makes learning the game more enjoyable.

Regards,

- Erik



erichswafford -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/13/2014 1:30:44 PM)

The game is THE best boardgame-type wargame conversion that I've ever seen. Very elegant system and also just plain fun. This grabbed me right away and I was up past midnight playing before I knew it.

A lot of work clearly went into this. I really hope they do a touch version for tablets one day.

PS - I'm actually playing this on my little Dell Venue 8 Pro (8" tablet) and it works great but I have to use a mouse emulator because touch doesn't work.



aaatoysandmore -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/13/2014 1:36:36 PM)

Is there a Saving Pvt Ryanstikoff? scenario in it? [:'(]



lparkh -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/13/2014 2:14:07 PM)

I'd figured out drawing fire with sacraficial lambs ;) but forgot about adj rule (bit suicidal in this scenario ;) ) Thx. Also woke up realizing isolated units once shaken arent going to rally which should help!



markhwalker -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/13/2014 3:10:34 PM)

Yeah, in scenario one shaking those two Russian half-squads is all you need to do. They won't bother you anymore.



erichswafford -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/13/2014 3:46:39 PM)

I love how the game illustrates that it's all about morale and suppression. "Mission Kill" is the operative term here. I like how, slowly but surely, one side eventually just stops firing back and is left cowering in the rubble until they get overrun.

The game just feels right.

PS - If you've ever been shot at, you know how powerful the urge is just to keep your head down and do nothing to attract attention. It takes loads of training and/or experience to figure out this is actually the best way to get killed (eventually). Funny how that just doesn't seem to matter at the time. You just wanna live another minute or two. The next hour will just have to take care of itself.



Barthheart -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/13/2014 3:47:59 PM)

Welcome to the cult.. err.. club. [8D]



Noypi53 -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/13/2014 3:56:43 PM)

Finally bit the bullet & bought the game after all the positive feedback. Had to promise the wifey no Starbucks for me for the next two weeks to keep within the house budget. Will have to skip my morning coffee or grab the office one!

Great game so far although I'm just working thru the tutorial scenarios. Although I like CoH, this game seems to be easier to understand. Maybe it's the presence of all the rolling dice & explanations. Like someone commented in another post, I also predate the PC & got into wargames via Avalon Hill's boardgames. This game gives me that same feel.

Great job to everyone on this. [&o] I know you guys took a lot of flak for the time to develop this.

Now on to an iPad version & the expansion packs!



markhwalker -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/13/2014 4:27:06 PM)

Wow, so happy to hear you are enjoying this. CoH is a great game. Uwe is a friend of mine, and we have shared vendor booths at numerous conventions. LnL is just different than CoH.



lparkh -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/13/2014 5:28:11 PM)

OK I can report after all my whining and numerous failures (6+) on first scenario of German Campaign I succeeded at normal level. On the last turn. Definitely improved on tactics on the other hand very skeptical could ever have pulled off first go as in "real life" one would have to.
But we'll see.



Sabre21 -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/13/2014 5:41:33 PM)

I have made it thru the tutorials and dabbled a bit so far on one of the scenarios. I'm pretty impressed how close this is to the old AH boardgame Squad Leader. That game was one of the first wargames I played back in the late 70's and has always been one of my favorite.

I like the idea of an editor too, I can see a multitude of scenarios being created with this.

This is a pretty easy game to learn and understand. Thanks to all of those that made this happen.



MikeAP -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/13/2014 5:45:31 PM)

First Impressions from someone who has never played a game in the LnL series before:

Absolutely outstanding artwork! I've never played anything from the series before, but have always been very impressed with the hand-drawn boards, cards, and artwork. I'm glad I finally got to experience it!

The UI is smooth, and easy to manage. My only criticism is that some of the text display is kind of ugly (with the low-opacity black background) and it takes away from the beautiful map art. I would suggest removing the black boxes, making the font bold, with heavy black outlines to reduce the amount of UI. The map zoom is smooth, and while it's not a 'true' 3-d zoom, it does well with the blur effects to simulate different 4 different levels.

The sounds are good, and seem to fit the artwork very well. Nothing is too abrasive and the volumes are all matching. My only issue is that I've noticed my sounds start cutting out after I've had the game open a while.

Game rules are easy to learn and understand. This is my first time playing the series, and I was able to pick it up. It took me a second to figure out the impulse system and the passes. I'm accustomed to something like Panzer Corps or Battle Academy - I move/fire my units, complete my turn, then the enemy begins. LnL is more detailed in that every action allows the enemy to react, all within the same turn. I like it.

Overally I'm pleased with this purchase. I think this game sets the bar high for other Matrix/Slitherine releases. I'm really glad we have this series on PC, and I can only imagine what lies ahead...hopefully something modern/cold war.



markhwalker -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/13/2014 7:55:42 PM)

Mike, Sabre21,

Thanks. Glad you are enjoying it.



RobearGWJ -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/13/2014 8:09:12 PM)

Definitely enjoying it here, Mark. I too hope for some expansions in the future.



jwarrenw13 -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/13/2014 8:42:44 PM)

Okay, first impressions from an old gamer. I have to say it evokes very fond memories of ASL. But it is not ASL. I just played through the A Partisan Defense scenario using the Quickstart guide in the manual as my reference. The Germans have to attack and take objective hexes held by the partisans. I lost. I had great fun losing. I made one really bad mistake that cost me the game but then nearly pulled out a win on the last turn. I was on the objective with an officer and a shaken squad. A partisan stack was on one objective hex. The officer attacked to melee the two partisan units and killed them both. I had all the objective hexes under my control. But the shaken squad was killed in melee by another partisan unit on one of the last impulses of the game after my halftrack missed it with opportunity fire. Another interesting moment. I read the part of the Quickstart about indirect fire and was getting ready to put my mortar team into action. It was like the AI read my mind. The impulse before I was going to fire my mortars for the first time, a sniper appeared and killed my mortar team. Just like that. Don't have time to play any more this afternoon, but am looking forward to getting back to it.



aaatoysandmore -> RE: First Impressions, please! (2/13/2014 8:50:00 PM)

Oh JW that was a wonderful AAR. Reminded me of an old game called "Computer Ambush" by SSI back in the 80's. I can remember several times things happened on the last impulse or turn that turned the tide in favor of the ai. Loved that game but of course terrible graphics. But, for its time they sufficed for the type of game that it was. I wrote lil AAR's for it after some skirmishes I had.



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