Lured by those fat, shiny counters, you’ll get stuck in and uncover one of the fastest-flowing sets of mechanics in all of wargaming. To play the first few of the fifteen included scenarios, you need just six of those pages of rules, one of which is just an example. If you still find that offputting then, consistently eager to help, the game organises them into a modular learning format. You’re on the Eastern Front in 1941 mein Kapitän, and it’s Operation Barbarossa! Your job is to command squads, platoons and companies in thrilling tactical firefights.īefore doing so, you will have to take a look at the rules. To make sure you stoop, remove your cap, and take a good look at the tactical map before pushing some counters around, just like you see officers doing in all the best war films. The enormous visual appeal of Awakening the Bear is there to invite you in to the command tent. Alas, in spite of the name, there are no actual bears. You can even see a flamethrower doing what flamethrowers do in slightly more detail than you probably want.

Oddly-named German tanks rumble around in the box. It’s the faint scent of solvents from the decadent, multi-coloured printing used on the mounted boards and fat counters. You can smell the difference between CoH and typical wargames the second you open the lid.

“The historical wargame that Eurogamers love to play,” was the actual marketing copy. The publisher even said so on its sister game, Storms of Steel. WELL, I’ve got a game for you with none of that! It’s called Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear (a series you might remember from my primer on wargames or my article on the best introductory wargames) and Academy Games made it just for you.

Or perhaps it’s the drab art and thin components? Maybe the focus on simulating men being sad in some mud. Possibly it’s their rumoured rules complexity. Thrower: Why don’t you play wargames? Why, after all I’ve forced SU&SD to publish about them at gunpoint, have you not pressed the nuclear button on this this amazing corner of our hobby? There’s lots of reasons I can think of. Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear, War Games, SU&SD Recommends, Heavy Games

Company of heroes board game solo