Destrin

Combat Commander is a wargame for the modern boardgaming age. Traditional hex and counter wargames have often been seen as the domain of only the hardened gamer who loves poring over dice roll modifier charts and calculating the optimum strategy for success.

Combat Commander gets away from the dry, traditional method of doing things and uses a novel card management approach to playing the game which makes it fast, fluid, frantic and fun.

Gameplay is very simple, on your turn, play a card, that card will be one of several orders such as assault, move, fire etc. Then activate some units to carry out that order. Then carry out that action. Repeat this process for the number of actions you are allowed (varies by side and by scenario) and then pass play to the other player. Alternatively, you can forgo your entire turn and discard cards up to your command limit (this varies by side and represents the better command structures the various participants had). At the end of your turn you draw up again.

Then it’s the opponents go, who does the same. The real novelty here is baked into the cards themselves. Every card has multiple uses, you use it on your turn for an order, or you could use it during your opponents turn for a reactionary order (like, say, opportunity fire). Knowing when to play cards for their orders and when to hold them to interrupt your opponents plans is a vital part of the tactics in playing a game of Combat Commander.

Additional to the two uses by the players, every card also has a pair of dice printed on the bottom. Whenever you need to resolve something by dice throw, you flip a card from the top of your deck and check the dice results there. Lastly, some dice results have what are called trigger boxes around them, which will cause events such as incoming sniper fire or other random chaos which so often happens in a heated engagement.

Combat Commander is chaotic, yes, but that’s one of it’s charms. The game is very much about having a strategy and trying to manage your deck of cards appropriately to make sure your desired result comes out, whilst denying your opponent the opportunity to reach the result he wants.