Heroes of Normandie

Has anyone played this one? It looks cool but I feel like it's on the pricy side for just having tokens. There was a kickstarter a while back for a Cthulhu-themed sequel called Shadows Over Normandie. That looked cool as well, but again was crazy over-priced. Still, I'd like to give it a shot.

I am only an ultra rare poster on here, but for a while I was eyeballs deep into Heroes of Normandie so I hope I can offer some useful insight. It's a mixed bag for sure.
Overall I would say that it's a fast paced two player skirmish game, light on tactics and high on action. You do ridiculous things that you wouldn't in any other skirmish game as it's all geared to the histrionics of Hollywood war movies rather than attempting to be a simulation in touch with reality. Mad charges into a hail of machine gun fire, squishing people with tanks, using completely excessive force to dislodge a single unit, these are all commonplace. Often you will 'win' a scenario despite the fact that your troops are obviously about to be annihilated if the game were to continue any further. The pace of the game moves at a fair clip as there are a very limited number of orders that you can assign, and they deplete as units and particularly officers are killed. You don't have the time or space to overthink tactical positioning, just keep moving forward and be quick to enter conflict.
The cards throw a lot of swingy events into play that can make or break plays for domination, some people don't like this and take them out of the game but I find them symbolic of what the game is all about.
Having all the things you need to play neatly captured on the board and tokens is a nice touch, it is a bit icon-heavy but the scenario pack in the base game leads you in gradually so it's not overwhelming (the rules include icons from all expansions which is why it looks so bloated). If you are prepared to activate common sense you won't need to look into the rulebook once during play, but then again common sense and fairplay can be a problem for some. There are comprehensive re-writes that can be downloaded that do a good job of clearing up corner cases even though they are a heavier read as a result. I wouldn't play this game with anyone who likes to be a rules lawyer. Some errata but nothing critical to gameplay, there is a mini-expansion with fixed tokens that can be had for minimal cost if needs be.
Although it's 'just' a box of tokens they are rather lovely, there is a lot of effort in the graphic design and artwork - it's supposed to be a cardboard alternative to tabletop miniatures and they have done a good job. The quality if the materials is good as well, although it has that weird waxy-plastic coating that is prone to tearing at the edges when punched. It's worth the money I think, but then I got mine relatively cheaply and don't know if I'd pay full price to acquire a copy either. There is also a lot of stuff in there, you totally don't need any of the expansion material unless you find a regular playing group and all get heavily into the freeplay option.

I played for a while but eventually put it away for two reasons. Because it is a crash-bang-wallop style of game there isn't much substance to it, it's fun but doesn't really grip you from game to game. Also, or because of this, I struggled to find anyone amongst my regular gaming partners who wanted to play this on a regular enough basis to get into freeplay. As a result we played a lot of the scenarios which get very samey very quickly. From what I understand from people who are still really deep into it, freeplay is where it's at but there are a lot of kinks in the expansion material that mess with that option and put it into 'living rules' territory.
So I don't know much about what your looking for from it, but I can say that it's fast, it's fun, it's high on confrontation and makes a good fist of emulating an over-the-top war movie. From my own personal experience I'd recommend trying it first if you can before buying or be prepared that you might swallow a bit of cost putting it back out into the secondary market after a few plays. I sold most of the expansion stuff I got as I had no use for it and haven't really played it much after the initial flurry of interest died down.

Thanks for the input. Considering the opponents I have available to me, I doubt it would hit the table all that much. I will likely get it at some point if a good deal presents itself, just because I tend to buy games that interest me even if I know I won't play them all that much. It's good to know that expansion material can largely be ignored.

Try out its precursor, Frontiers, first to see if you'd like it before undergoing the expense of Heroes of Normandie. You can get Frontiers on Tanga for $8.99 with free shipping.

Here's what I wrote about it:

Over the past few weeks, my son and I have been playing Frontiers--another game from Tanga's Island of Lost Toys. Once you wade past the lame anti-American political diatribe found in the rule book and its poorly written rules, you can hunker down and experience its game play--only then does this scifi tactical war game prove its worth. The rules apparently suffer from a French-to-English language translation barrier. However, they’re largely intuitive if you've ever played any other a miniature war game system. Experienced gamers will easily navigate around them, grasping the concepts and filling in any gaps. Newbies, however, might need a few walkthrough games before figuring out how to play. This barrier is likely why the game saw poor sales and ended up in the discount bins since it was intended to attract new players to the miniature war gaming genre, albeit without any miniatures.

You don't use miniatures in Frontiers--instead, you use round and oval cardboard chits. These chits contain excellent artwork and clear graphics showing each unit’s stats. The lack of cumbersome plastic miniatures makes Frontiers cost less and offers you two ready to play armies which fit inside the box, all without any assembly or fussy painting. You can tell that the game’s designers invested a lot of time perfecting their system--it shows. It really shines during gameplay. Their clever spacial and color-coded graphical interface on each of the unit chits make gameplay easy, quick, and smooth. Figuring out a unit’s stats is a breeze. The different combat units’ artwork offers a 3D feel. The included poster playing surface adds to the scifi atmosphere.

During setup you balance the strength of each army by agreeing upon the total AP points available. AP point values are listed on each unit according to their strength. You simply choose various units and add them to your army until you reach the AP limit. Each army also receives unique faction cards which add chaos to the game by assisting with attacks, adding to defense, helping with mobility, or increasing health etc. Scenarios might dictate victory conditions requiring you to eliminate a certain AP value of your enemy’s army. Other scenarios might require you to hold and defend specific parts of the map or capture an item--it’s all up to your imagination.

The terrain features included in the box are abundant and you can choose to place craters, ruins, wooded areas, and buildings onto your battlefield. Players mutually decide where to place these items during setup. Terrain features disrupt line-of-sight, add color to the board, and offer variety to game play. Certain destroyed units become part of the terrain; this is a neat feature. The terrain also allow you to customize the architecture of buildings. Some units can enter buildings (or even infiltrate them during initial unit placement). I like the fact that these custom buildings allow you to add castle-defense scenarios or simply use them for complex tactical cover.

The game has hidden mission supply drop/cache counters for units to obtain on a first-come basis. These might give a unit a new weapon system, explosives, a med-kit, or what have you. Other counters in the game can be used as capture the flag style mission objectives; e.g., one counter included represents a computer data bank that each army might be trying to protect or obtain depending upon the scenario. You can combine all of these features to create your own custom scenarios. All of the items together lend depth to the Frontiers sandbox and promote repeated gameplay.

Game play is simple. On your turn, you choose whether your unit moves, attacks, or, uses or flips to use its special ability. You can also play one of your army's cards which might either improve your attack, defense, health, movement etc. depending upon which cards appear in your hand from the deck. A unit’s movement value determines initiative. The order in which your units take action depends upon which secret numerical order token is placed next to it; just like in Heroscape, decoy order token are used to increase the fog of war on the battlefield. The number of orders available to you depends upon the initial total army AP number chosen during setup and whether your army includes leaders who increase the number of order tokens available to you; likewise, losing leaders in combat reduces your combat effectiveness by reducing the number of orders available.

Attacking successfully in Frontiers depends upon the combat strength stats listed on your unit and what type of enemy unit is being attacked, all combined with the roll of a d6 die--if you equal or exceed a unit's defense value, then it takes a hit. Distance, line-of-site obstructions, and any cards available might modify your chances of success during combat. Some units might also have special weapon features that assist in combat by reducing distance penalties, line of sight problems, or what-have-you.

I usually play the Legion army and my son plays the Zirl army. Both sides are well balanced and asymmetrical; however, the planned expansions, had they been released, would have added additional units, new terrain, more specialized units, and fleshed-out a few existing units by adding customizable weapon systems intended for both of the armies's larger mechs. They had even planned another faction to choose as your army. Of the units in the box, we most enjoy the special abilities that some units offer, and, of course, we like the larger mechs which can attack more than once if you assign two order tokens to them. My favorite special ability so far is one unit's ability to lay down smoke to obscure the enemy's line of sight to your units.

This game shines very brightly if you're creative enough to write your own scenarios. Those included in the rulebook are few and basic. I've been meaning to make the additional expansions which the designers created, but, didn't publish. Instead, they chose to reboot their entire gaming system to a WWII theme: Heroes of Normandie which also changed the ruler based unit movement to a grid system. The Frontiers expansions are available for download for free, however. You don't need them though since what's included in the box is enough to keep you busy for hours. Moreover, you can glance at the free Heroes of Normandie scenarios for game ideas to add to Frontiers--war is war.

If you want to experience this gaming system, then you can do it on-the-cheap with Frontiers since it's much cheaper than its WWII cousin. Copies of Frontiers sell for as little $8.88 with free shipping (or cheaper). I prefer the scifi genre to WWII and I'm also thrifty so it's been a perfect fit for me. Frontiers is a real bargain--there's a lot of well designed tactical miniature wargaming crammed inside the box, especially for its current discounted price.

It's my favorite game at the moment. Contrary to some, I think it has substantial strategy in terms of sequencing your actions and making the best possible use of your cards.