"My first impressions of Congo" Topic

A friend and I picked up copies of these rules because we like the theme and our group already has most of the models we will need to play the game.

I've read through the rules and figured I would share my thoughts on the game after reading through everything.

I have posted a more complete article of my first impressions on my blog, but below you will find an abbreviated version. link

The quality of the book is very high. It has glossy color pages throughout and appears to be bound well. The artwork is fantastic. The tokens are good and should hold up well over time. The cards are alright as well. I will probably sleeve my cards, but I'm sure they will hold up fine even if I didn't.

The book's layout seems to be alright. This is something that you can only really judge after you have tried to look up some rules during a game. There is no index, which is disappointing, but the rules to feel to be laid out in a logical way. There is some interesting character to how the rules (or at least parts of them) are written which adds to the theme and feel of the game.

The book provides rules for 4 factions: the White Men Expeditions, the Sultanate of Zanzibar, the African Kingdoms, and the Forest Tribes. Each has a variety of characters and units and should provide a variety of possible army builds.

The game mechanics are interesting. Units are activated by playing cards. However, the player doesn't draw random cards, but instead chooses 3 cards from a hand of 8 cards to dictate the actions that will be taken during the turn. Each player then chooses a card for the first activation and plays it at the same time as his opponent. The card with the higher initiative acts first. Each card has a mix of different actions so the players have a variety of options available to them.

The game uses stress tokens to represent moral. A unit acquires these stress tokens in a variety of different ways during the game. These can affect the units ability to shoot, combat, or move.

Movement happens when a card is played with a movement activation on it. A unit gets a base move, but can also pick up the pace if no enemy units are close by. They can also use this movement to engage in close combat.

Playing a card with a shooting activation allows a unit to shoot. This is done by rolling dice based on the unit's shoot skill and each success scores a hit. The target then gets a chance to avoid the damage by making a defense roll.

When a unit moves into close combat both units roll attack dice based on their skills and compare the number of success each unit gets to a table to determine the results. It is a short table so shouldn't be too difficult to memorize after a few games.

Totem cards are used to provide special bonuses to players during the game. Each player gets some cards at the beginning of the game and can draw additional cards each turn based upon the details of the scenario. These cards provide a variety of bonuses from extra activations, to extra movement, or bonus dice when making a skill check.

The game comes with 8 scenarios that will provide a good amount of play time. It will also be fairly easy to make additional scenarios if you want more variety.

Overall, I am pleased with what I have seen and look forward actually playing a few games. My group has enjoyed our experiences with SAGA and this appears to be another quality game from the folks at Studio Tomahawk.

Great review.

Nice review. Please DO post the after action report here for us all to enjoy !

Just got my copy. Hoping to play next week.

As I mentioned on another thread, this set of rules cost me £34.00 GBP which is less then the cost of three packs of unpainted Foundry Miniatures. Wargames rules are fantastic value for money.

@Dale Hurlt: Thanks.

@chicklewis: Thanks. I got a chance to play the first scenario the other day and have another game planned tomorrow. I will share some details from the games.

@Northern Monkey: When a rule set turns out to be enjoyable and you play with it lots of times, they are a good value, but when you spend that kind of money on a game that you don't know a lot about and maybe it doesn't play as well as you hoped (which happens more than I like), then they aren't quite as good of a value. I understand the work and cost that goes into producing a quality rule set, but I still think they are a bit pricey. I'm pleased with what I've seen so far and our first game worked well, if a bit one sided.

Thank goodness for an out of the box and read through review that addresses the game mechanics; thank you!

I am looking forward to your AAR's. I find the concept and presentation appealing, but the price was on the steep side for me to chance it without more insight into the rules and game play, especially for a period outside of my usual interests. As you say, if you like it and play it more than a few times, it's a bargain, otherwise…

Had hopes but I don't play anything with cards. Thanks for the heads up.

I agree with shagnasty that playing with cArd.s is just kind of dull'; is it like magic the gathering in Africa? Where do the miniatures come in.?

I have lots of foundry darkest Africa figures and I thought that might be useful for this game but to do what?

The cards allow you to activate your units of miniatures. I like having them. I'm not a fan of games that let you activate every unit freely.

I wouldn't say this is a card game in any way. And has nothing in common with Magic the Gathering. It is a miniature game that uses cards to activate units.

But to each his own.

Isn't saying that you don't play ANYTHING with cards a bit short sighted? I've played lots of games with cards, some good, some bad. Cards are not uniquely terrible, it's how they are applied that matters. Surely..?

Bob,

It's nothing like Magic (or any other card game, for that matter). It's a conventional miniatures game, that revolves armound maneuvering figures on a table, and rolling dice for shooting, melee, and morale.

The command cards fulfill the role of initiative and command tests--that's it. They serve a similar function to the PIP roll in DBA, or the Command test in Warmaster/Hail Caesar/Black Powder. By similar function, I mean the allow you to activate some units to perform some actions, but you can't activate ALL units to do everything in any given turn.

Where the Command cards go a step further than PIP rolls or Command tests is that they allow and reward planning: because you select 3 at a time, while your opponent is doing likewise, you need to plan not just which cards you'll use, but what sequence you'll use them, and keep in mind what your opponent is using. It's pretty clever. Yes, it's abstract, but it simulates the ability to coordinate different units in a confused, fluid situation.

Sean already described the command cards well:

"Units are activated by playing cards. However, the player doesn't draw random cards, but instead chooses 3 cards from a hand of 8 cards to dictate the actions that will be taken during the turn. Each player then chooses a card for the first activation and plays it at the same time as his opponent. The card with the higher initiative acts first. Each card has a mix of different actions so the players have a variety of options available to them."

To explain this further, each player starts with an identical set of 8 command cards, and you select three to use during each turn. They aren't used up or discarded: next turn, you again choose 3 from the same full set of 8 cards. So this is much less random than Piquet or other card-activation systems.

The game also includes Totem cards. These are separate cards that provide minor bonuses to shooting, melee, and rallying, and aren't really a core mechanic.

And frankly, I agree with Northern Monkey. Rejecting a game out-of-hand just because cards are involved makes no sense.

It depends on how they are used, just as dice or any other mechanic or tool can be used well, or used badly, depending on the creativity of the rules author.

My question came from Sean's review which made no mention of miniatures in the game only references to the cards. I have no problem with using cards for activation, I played hundreds of the sword in the flame games.

I see there are quite a few postings about the game. Can someone tell me the best single post to read that has references to figures in it.

Also is this game suitable for multiple players. I only play with the club now there are 10 or so of us, so it's hard to do one on one things.

Thanks much. I've got hundreds of darkest Africa Figures and I'm looking for something to do with them.

Bob,

Here's a short battle report, showing what the game looks like in action: link

And here's Foundry's page, the box sets are a good guide to how figures you need, and how to organize them, for a basic force (called a "Column"):

wargamesfoundry.com/congo

As you'll see, the figure count is quite low, so you could easily provide multiple Columns yourself.

However, it's not specifically written for multiplayer games though, honestly you would have to adapt the rules for multiplayer.