Took a quick look through the demo...

Man... I do hope you guys get this one published and properly marketed because it looks great. Once you've got the rules translated I plan on giving it a playtest with my son.

Keep up the good work!

-DavicusPrime

thank you !

Hey guys,

I noticed that the demo pictures and the demo units don't have point values like Forntiers units do. So how does army selection work in HoN according to your current design?

-DavicusPrime

There is cards with units on it. For exemple :
Infantry Platoon : The heart of the Platoon is one Leutnant and one riffle squad (Abble, Baker and Charley) and you can add 2 Platoon supports card with one riffle squad for each card. You have also Platoon add-on cards (vehicles, machine gun...) Every card has a cost.
See cards here : http://www.yc-games.fr/spip.php?article129

I like the army building concept. Reminds me of how GW's Epic 40K used to work.

I read through the rules a couple times and then gave the demo scenario a couple trys with my Daughter. I've got some questions and comments...

The Name: Heros of Normandie works fine but it implies the game will focus only on the D-Day Invasion and the immeadiate push inland. If the scope of the game expands beyond the Battle of Normandy, you could turn it into a series of "Heros of..." games. Letting you create theater specific suppliments.

Assaults: This is a very nasty little action. It pretty much guarrantees that any single undamaged unit with 2 steps of damage can take out a target unit of any strength. Especially if you give them the first order. The order of action resolution means that in that situation, none of your other units can get a shot off to try and save the target unit. This makes assault a very strong method of attack. One I haven't quite sorted out how to defend against other than to stay more than 3 klicks away from potential assaulters.

Suppression Fire: this is a rule that, due to it's location in the rules has me unclear on when it's valid to use. Can any unit use this as an alternate form of shooting or is it only available to units with the rapid fire special ability? I haven't used this in my games so far. The only time that it seemed like a good idea was when a unit was setting up an assault, but the turn sequence putting assault ahead of shooting usually meant it was too late to do anything about it.

Use a Special Ability (flip the unit): In the action resolution order, this is the last thing, but the explaination for it in the rules indicates that you can combine this action with a move. Does the move and use of the special ability both happen at the end of the sequence?

Rules Layout: There were some choices in the layout of the rules that I think could be changed to help make them more clear. The big one I would change would be to put all the shooting options (Shoot, Grenade, Suppression Fire, etc.) in one place in the rules. Putting each option as a sub-heading of the Shooting action description. I'm not remembering any others right now, but if I spot more when I read through the rules again I'll post them.

Terrain Effects-Bocage: I was unclear on how to deal with these... It seemed that the rules stated that a unit coming in contact with a hedgerow could either halt when it came into contact or could enter it. And then the following turn pass through it with no movement penalty. So that's how we played it. Was that the intention of the rule?

Thanks for making this demo available. I'm excited to see what develops for this game in the future. As a side effect it's got me diving into WWII history again.

-DavicusPrime

Assault Resolution...
Scenario: A unit with Order 1 is about to be assaulted by another unit with Order 1... Since movement is resolved prior to Assault, the target unit chooses to take a move action to pull back out of range of the assaulting unit. How would the assault play out for the attacker?

Options:
1) The assault fails to take place and the attacker does nothing, and the retreating unit doesn't get their free shooting attack.

2) the Assaulting unit moves in pursuit of the retreating unit. The Retreating unit gets it's free shooting attack. But since they don't end in contact with each other, the retreating unit is left unscathed.

3) The assaulting player is allowed to change the action chosen and plays it out accordingly.

Of the above options, I like the second. As it provides a counter move against a first turn assault and makes declaring an assault a little more risky.

What do you, the designers, think?

-DavicusPrime

The name : yes, the concept is "Heroes of...", Normandie, Stalingrad...

Assault : The "assault" order become a "move" order.
After feedbacks on the demo, we've changed the rules. Try this and tell us what do you think about it
- Every unit under 2 Klicks from an assaulted unit can shot an the attacking unit using the rules. They can't do it if they are allready activated (with an order). After the shoot, place an Over pawns

Suppression Fire: available only for the units with Rapid fire. Usefull to prepare an assault or to lower the movement of a unit (-2 to the movement per over pawn)

Special abilities : There is no more step 5... So if you choose to move and flip your unit, do it at the move step.

Rules Layout: Suppresion fire is only for rapid fire skill, so we explained it in the Skills chapter. But we'll try to make it clear

Terrain Effects-Bocage: You're right : first, the unit enter the bocage and stop. Next turn the unit can move as normal.

Thak you for your feedbacks, it helps !

Alright... Tried the demo again with the change in assault rules and it worked much better. It went from an assault being a guaranteed kill to a risky but potentially decisive action.

Some clarification requred though: Does a unit count as activated due to possessing an order counter even if it hasn't yet performed it's action... Example: the unit has an Order 3 marker but the current actions being performed are for the 2nd order.

Also, I assume a unit doesn't count as being activated if it possesses one of the two decoy order markers?

Thanks for the clarifications on suppression fire and 5th step confusion and moving through bocage.

I look forward to further demos and developing news for this game.

-DavicusPrime

A unit with a non performed order isn't activated.
Decoy marker doens't count for anything, just to mess with the opponent...

Thank you again and keep playing.
We'll put some ad-ons for the demo soon, like light vehicles (halftrack and jeep willis), heavy tanks (panzer IV and Sherman) and the rules to play with. Hope you'll like it

Cool. adding vehicles sounds good. Thanks Clem for the clarifications.