Stats:
No. of players: 2
Amount of time to play: 90-180 min
Age requirements: 12+
Set-up time: 5-10 minutes

Combat Commander Europe is a scenario-based, card-driven, 2 player, wargame. You command your squad and try to outscore or eliminate your opponent.

Combat Commander Europe Rules Description:

Combat Commander Europe is a squad-based war game. You control troops and their leaders and try to capture objectives or eliminate your opponent’s pieces for VPs. The exact units you start with are determined by the scenario you are playing.

Each army, the Americans, Germans and Russians, has their own deck of cards. The cards drive the action in this game and are used to give orders to your troops. Leaders make orders more effective by allowing extra units to act from one order card. They also may boost your units’ stats.

You can fire weapons to increase your attack values and use radios to call in artillery strikes. You can even use firing groups to increase your attack.

The combat system uses cards to determine your die rolls. Any time you need to roll you turn over the top card from your deck. To see if you hit someone you total your roll and add it to your unit’s Fire Power. The defender adds a die roll to their unit’s Morale. If the attacker’s total meets or beats the defender’s unit they are hit. You must hit a unit twice to eliminate it. The first hit breaks a unit, decreasing its stats.

When you make rolls with your cards the dice are in the lower right hand corner. Sometimes these dice are enclosed in a red box. When such a card, called a trigger, is revealed you stop the action and resolve the trigger. Triggers can cause events to happen, weapons to jam, and snipers to fire.

The initiative card allows you to re-roll any result (or force your opponent to re-roll). It even cancels any trigger events associated with the initial result. Once used you must pass it to your opponent who may then use it. You can use this card as often as you like, even on the same series of rolls.

When units are eliminated they are placed on the Casualty Track. Based on the scenario each side has a surrender marker on this track. If you place a unit on the surrender flag you lose the game. You also lose if your last unit is eliminated. The game may also end after a certain number of turns. The Time tracker moves every time a Time Event is triggered. Once it moves passed a scenario specified space you roll each time it moves. If the roll is less than the numbered space the Time Tracker is on, the game ends. In this case the player with the most VPs wins. You earn VPs by eliminating enemy units, exiting units off the opponent’s end of the map, or controlling scenario objectives. Ties are broken by the player with the initiative card.

Quick Review of Combat Commander Europe:

Combat Commander is a fun, strategic war game that almost has a narrative and tells a story. You must make the most of your cards and resources and adjust to the randomness of rolls and events. The triggers help tell the story and stuff it full of twists and turns.

The components for this game are excellent. The cards are high quality and the maps look great. The rules might seem overwhelming but there is a sample scenario you can run through to get a handle on a majority of the rules. You will still be looking at the rules your first few games but they are well organized and have a very useful index on the back. It even comes with a tray to hold all the unit chits.

I like the way the events can change the playing field and force you to adjust on the fly. I am sure some people hate this, but I think it depicts WWII era fighting and the chaos of war.

Another thing people don’t like about the game that I do is the cards. It is not that people dislike the cards. They don’t like having cards that limit what you can do. You need to do your best to manage your hand. Knowing what cards to use and when to discard to draw new cards is key to this game. It can be frustrating when all you want to do is move and don’t get a move order, but again it can be thought of to represent the era.

There is a lot of replay value in the box and that is great. There are twelve scenarios included and a random scenario generator. On top of that there are more official and fan-made scenarios on the web.

If you are a euro gamer looking for a war game, give Combat Commander: Europe a try. Even hard core war gamers should enjoy this. The only caveat is for people that want all the control in their war games and dislike random events, rolls and cards limiting them. They might want to try something else. And even then I’d say they are missing out on a fun experience.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 4 out of 6
Luck 5 out of 6
Player Interaction 5 out of 6
Replay Value 5 out of 6
Complexity 5 out of 6
Fun 5 out of 6
Overall 5 out of 6