Like it's sister game, Echelons of Fire, the 1995 collectible game Echelons of Fury was an obvious imitator of Magic: The Gathering, with a similar sequence of play, combat mechanism and overall approach.
From a wargamer's perspective the World War II-themed Echelons of Fury may have a little more interest than the modern-themed Fire version of the game, but the game is still afflicted with the same flawed card selection and underdeveloped rules as the modern game and will generally be as frustrating.
As with the Fire game, Fury is a quite dead, so acquiring cards will tend to be fairly easy and inexpensive, if one is so inclined. Drafting decks from a common collection can create some interest and playing a game won't take all that long in most cases. The game allows for varying the deck size and the resulting level of headquarters damage needed for victory, but I think the game is best played with the minimum 40-card and 20 point HQ. Under those conditions the game plays quickly and you can get a whole series of games completed in a short period of time. Restricting the deck so severely makes the card choices more intense.
My particular collection happens to have a "brothel" card, which is not only amusing but shows where the designer missed an opportunity to differentiate his game from Magic: The Gathering and prospered. A big problem with the Echelons game sis that they are, frankly, kind of dull and dry. Throughout the game there's evidence that keeping costs down was a priority but I think this came at the cost of its long-time viability.
The "Brothel" card adds some spice to the game but also indicates how the game could have kept interest fresh by mining some of the rich history of the vast conflict. For example, the game as printed suffers from an excess of identical common cards. Anyone who acquires more than a few decks worth will have far more regular infantry squads, light machine guns and bazookas than they could ever hope to use. But by simply labeling the cards with the names and histories of famous fighting units the collectibility and historical interest of the game could have been heightened. Perhaps a Squad from the Big Red One 1st Infantry Division and one from the Bloody Bucket 28th Infantry Division would have been the same in game terms, but they would have given players less reason to feel cheated when they opened a booster pack and got yet another coupe of common squads.
Likewise many more flavorful special events could have been brought into play with more creative cards like the Brothel card hinted at. World War II was full of strange and unusual events that could provide fodder for cool cards.
As it turned out, the collectible game market is fiercely competitive and there appears to only be room for a handful of hot titles at any given time. Without a hook that could help it stand out in the crowd Echelons of Fury joined Echelons of Fire in the bargain bins.
Had the game lasted longer it might have had time to work out some of the kinks in the game design. It's easy to forget today that many of the early Magic sets had some real problem cards and rules that led to some significant changes and left a legacy of banned and restricted cards. It's been a few years since Magic had to ban a card in play and I think this reflects the intense development process the company uses.
Players of Echelons of Fury will have to make their own fixes, but considering that all play will be among friends in casual play this should not be difficult.
Overall, I think Echelons of Fury is a mildly amusing light war-themed card game that would be worth getting on the cheap if you get the chance, but not anything you'll particularly miss if it passes you by.
Showing posts with label Echelons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Echelons. Show all posts
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Reviewing collectible games from a wargaming perspective: Echelons of Fire
I've reviewed Echelons of Fire in greater detail elsewhere, http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/315273, but to recap, Echelons of Fire was one of the first wave of collectible card games to appear once Magic : The Gathering made its big splash. It's theme is modern era tactical level combat. Most of the cards are either United States Army or from the Soviet-style N.D.G. (I call them the No Darn Goods). The second edition added some British and Serbian units. The only dragons in this game are a U.S. anti-tank missile.
Echelons was a closer imitator of Magic than most. If it wasn't a clone, it was at the very least a half-sibling, sharing the same sequence of play and many of the same concepts, even including ante. Like Magic the game is won by reducing the enemy player (headquarters) from its initial 20 points down to zero points.
Echelons does have some differences from Magic that extend beyond mere names. Unlike Magic, for example, there is a limited form of maneuver in Echelons of Fire, as attacking units must use a maneuver card (left, center or right) to pass through a terrain card (woods, town, hills, open, city, bridge, river) on their way to the target headquarters.
Also somewhat different from Magic is the role of the supporting supply (mana) cards. In Echelons you not only have to pay the unit's cost in ammunition and fuel points to deploy it initially, you must keep paying it very turn. This is similar to the concept of "upkeep" in Magic, but it's a standard feature, not a special ability.
More so than Magic ,the fighting in Echelons revolves around the units (creatures in MTG terms) as there are relatively few ways to directly attack an enemy headquarters.
For a wargamer the theme in Echelons of Fire is obviously much more attractive than MTG. As Echelons is a "dead" game, there is no convention or tournament scene so casual play is the only available venue. Because the game is no longer in print there is a finite size to the collection and cards are inexpensive to obtain on eBay and still generally available.
There are some rules holes and "degeneracy" problems in the game that may have to be house ruled if you play a lot, but they probably won't come up among casual players with limited collections very often.
The quality of the cards is a notch below Magic and the breakdown between common, uncommon and rare cards is poorly done. Players will have vast numbers of common fire teams and infantry weapons in excess of any need. If you build up any sized collection at all you will even have plenty of the rare cards, which are much less overpowered than similar cards are in Magic.
My overall recommendation is that Echelons of Fire may be of mild interest to a wargamer. It allows you to explore some of the deck construction metagame of Magic without the expense and the frustration of facing players who have much more resources. Indeed, as you're not likely to find an opponent with his own cards, you'll probably be drafting both decks from your own collection.
It is still, fundamentally, a card game in mechanics and card-game skills will play a bigger role than the usual principles-of-war based maneuvering typical in board wargames. That said, it does adhere to the theme strongly, and wargamers will probably find it a more comfortable theme than Magic: The Gathering.
Echelons was a closer imitator of Magic than most. If it wasn't a clone, it was at the very least a half-sibling, sharing the same sequence of play and many of the same concepts, even including ante. Like Magic the game is won by reducing the enemy player (headquarters) from its initial 20 points down to zero points.
Echelons does have some differences from Magic that extend beyond mere names. Unlike Magic, for example, there is a limited form of maneuver in Echelons of Fire, as attacking units must use a maneuver card (left, center or right) to pass through a terrain card (woods, town, hills, open, city, bridge, river) on their way to the target headquarters.
Also somewhat different from Magic is the role of the supporting supply (mana) cards. In Echelons you not only have to pay the unit's cost in ammunition and fuel points to deploy it initially, you must keep paying it very turn. This is similar to the concept of "upkeep" in Magic, but it's a standard feature, not a special ability.
More so than Magic ,the fighting in Echelons revolves around the units (creatures in MTG terms) as there are relatively few ways to directly attack an enemy headquarters.
For a wargamer the theme in Echelons of Fire is obviously much more attractive than MTG. As Echelons is a "dead" game, there is no convention or tournament scene so casual play is the only available venue. Because the game is no longer in print there is a finite size to the collection and cards are inexpensive to obtain on eBay and still generally available.
There are some rules holes and "degeneracy" problems in the game that may have to be house ruled if you play a lot, but they probably won't come up among casual players with limited collections very often.
The quality of the cards is a notch below Magic and the breakdown between common, uncommon and rare cards is poorly done. Players will have vast numbers of common fire teams and infantry weapons in excess of any need. If you build up any sized collection at all you will even have plenty of the rare cards, which are much less overpowered than similar cards are in Magic.
My overall recommendation is that Echelons of Fire may be of mild interest to a wargamer. It allows you to explore some of the deck construction metagame of Magic without the expense and the frustration of facing players who have much more resources. Indeed, as you're not likely to find an opponent with his own cards, you'll probably be drafting both decks from your own collection.
It is still, fundamentally, a card game in mechanics and card-game skills will play a bigger role than the usual principles-of-war based maneuvering typical in board wargames. That said, it does adhere to the theme strongly, and wargamers will probably find it a more comfortable theme than Magic: The Gathering.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Echelons of Fire
By 1995 everyone seemed to jumping on the Collectible Card Game craze started by Magic: The Gathering two years earlier. The 1995 Origins convention book lists more than a dozen new designs, for example.
What wasn't yet clear was how Darwinian the competitive market environment would proove to be for collectible/trading style games. Because of the time and energy needed for the metagame of collecting and deck building, and perhaps more importantly, the wallet-emptying nature of that metagame, there really wasn't room for more than a handful of active collectible/tradeable games at one time. While there have been many CCG launches in the 15 years since Magic; The Gathering debuted, very few have survived. Many of the ones that fell by the wayside were good games, too. Unlike more traditional boardgames where moderate degrees of success were possible, for CCGs it was an either/or situation.
In the case of the modern-era military Echelons of Fire, and it's sister game World War II era Echelons of Fury, you have a game that's not bad, but certainly not great, and definitely unable to compete against M:TG.
Many of the Class of 1995 CCGs explored new ways to implement the CCG concept, but Echleons hewed fairly closely to the M:TG model. Indeed, in gameplay it's remarkably similar to M:TG. Instead of "mana" in five colors there are two types of supply (fuel and ammo) and combat is a deterministic comparing of numbers between attacking and "blocking" defenders, with unblksed attacks doing damage directly to the player. Just as in Magic, the player can take 20 points of damage.
There are some differences in detail between the two games, but these differences tend to the disadvantage of Echelons of Fire. In Magic: THe Gathering, the resource-providing land cards can be reused from turn to turn, but the supply cards in Echelons are tied down "maintaining" the combatant cards. This tends to hinder the dynamic nature of the game compared to M:TG. Likewise, the need to have maneuver cards in order to attack, and especially the fact that those maneuver cards can be lost in an unsuccessful attack, also tends to make the game more static than M:TG.
The biggest problem with the game, however, was the ill-considered card mix. While imitating the common-uncommon-rare pattern used in M:TG the game, the execution is flawed. For one thing, the common cards are way too common and repetitive, while having marginal usefulness in game terms. In M:TG even when cards are otherwise identical common cards, the artwork varied, adding to the collectibility. In Echelons they are all the same, and before long the player will far more fire teams and machineguns than he will ever need. This could have been mitigated by varying the illustrations perhaps, or adding unit IDs or something along those lines.
It's not all bad, though. The game does provide a quick-playing game system that captures some of the flavor of modern combat. Designing an effective deck is challenging and there's no one obvious strategy to follow.
The game avoids the overpowering "combo" problems common to Magic: The Gathering and many other CCGs. Constrained by the laws of physics and logistics, the most powerful weapons are also the most demanding on ammo and fuel, keeping their game impact within bounds. An M-1 Abrams can blast its way throug anything, but it takes three ammo and three fuel to field and by the time you get those cards in play you might be dead from repeated attacks from infantry squads.
The standard game has a 40-card deck with a 20 point headquarters target, but using such a small deck may not make the most of the different weapons systems available and I recommend generally usinga 60-card deck and a 30-point headquarters. This allows players to create more robust decks that give some scope for using the more powerful and interesting weapons such as the M-1, attack helicopters and aircraft. With larger decks it's best to limit the number of specialist elite infantry cards such as Airborne or Engineers to no more than 3 or 4.
The game is easy to get on the secondary market inexpensively.
What wasn't yet clear was how Darwinian the competitive market environment would proove to be for collectible/trading style games. Because of the time and energy needed for the metagame of collecting and deck building, and perhaps more importantly, the wallet-emptying nature of that metagame, there really wasn't room for more than a handful of active collectible/tradeable games at one time. While there have been many CCG launches in the 15 years since Magic; The Gathering debuted, very few have survived. Many of the ones that fell by the wayside were good games, too. Unlike more traditional boardgames where moderate degrees of success were possible, for CCGs it was an either/or situation.
In the case of the modern-era military Echelons of Fire, and it's sister game World War II era Echelons of Fury, you have a game that's not bad, but certainly not great, and definitely unable to compete against M:TG.
Many of the Class of 1995 CCGs explored new ways to implement the CCG concept, but Echleons hewed fairly closely to the M:TG model. Indeed, in gameplay it's remarkably similar to M:TG. Instead of "mana" in five colors there are two types of supply (fuel and ammo) and combat is a deterministic comparing of numbers between attacking and "blocking" defenders, with unblksed attacks doing damage directly to the player. Just as in Magic, the player can take 20 points of damage.
There are some differences in detail between the two games, but these differences tend to the disadvantage of Echelons of Fire. In Magic: THe Gathering, the resource-providing land cards can be reused from turn to turn, but the supply cards in Echelons are tied down "maintaining" the combatant cards. This tends to hinder the dynamic nature of the game compared to M:TG. Likewise, the need to have maneuver cards in order to attack, and especially the fact that those maneuver cards can be lost in an unsuccessful attack, also tends to make the game more static than M:TG.
The biggest problem with the game, however, was the ill-considered card mix. While imitating the common-uncommon-rare pattern used in M:TG the game, the execution is flawed. For one thing, the common cards are way too common and repetitive, while having marginal usefulness in game terms. In M:TG even when cards are otherwise identical common cards, the artwork varied, adding to the collectibility. In Echelons they are all the same, and before long the player will far more fire teams and machineguns than he will ever need. This could have been mitigated by varying the illustrations perhaps, or adding unit IDs or something along those lines.
It's not all bad, though. The game does provide a quick-playing game system that captures some of the flavor of modern combat. Designing an effective deck is challenging and there's no one obvious strategy to follow.
The game avoids the overpowering "combo" problems common to Magic: The Gathering and many other CCGs. Constrained by the laws of physics and logistics, the most powerful weapons are also the most demanding on ammo and fuel, keeping their game impact within bounds. An M-1 Abrams can blast its way throug anything, but it takes three ammo and three fuel to field and by the time you get those cards in play you might be dead from repeated attacks from infantry squads.
The standard game has a 40-card deck with a 20 point headquarters target, but using such a small deck may not make the most of the different weapons systems available and I recommend generally usinga 60-card deck and a 30-point headquarters. This allows players to create more robust decks that give some scope for using the more powerful and interesting weapons such as the M-1, attack helicopters and aircraft. With larger decks it's best to limit the number of specialist elite infantry cards such as Airborne or Engineers to no more than 3 or 4.
The game is easy to get on the secondary market inexpensively.
Friday, April 11, 2008
I'm a Stuart tank fan
I've been a fan of the Stuart tank ever since I was little.
I'll admit it's an odd choice. It's not a sexy tank like a Panther or King Tiger. It's not a real effective tank like a T-34 or Sherman. It's not a historically significant tank like an FT-17 or T-
55. It's not even a really awful but colorful tank like an M13 or Type 93.
But it was the first tank I remember seeing myself, in the steel, as a child. There was one poised in the middle of a square near a shopping center my mother liked to frequent. It was a war memorial. There were a lot of those scattered about the New Bedford area in the years after the Second World War. Later I became aware of a couple Sherman tanks, a few 57mm anti-tank guns, a German PaK 40 ATG and some .30 cal machine guns, but the Stuart was first.
I asked my mom what it was and she told me it was a "World War I" tank. Later, when I was a little older and started reading I quickly discovered she was mistaken and it was a World War II tank. As a matter of fact, it was an M3A1 tank.
Folks interested in a detailed recounting of the Stuart's stats and service history can check it out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_tank
I'll admit it's an odd choice. It's not a sexy tank like a Panther or King Tiger. It's not a real effective tank like a T-34 or Sherman. It's not a historically significant tank like an FT-17 or T-
55. It's not even a really awful but colorful tank like an M13 or Type 93.But it was the first tank I remember seeing myself, in the steel, as a child. There was one poised in the middle of a square near a shopping center my mother liked to frequent. It was a war memorial. There were a lot of those scattered about the New Bedford area in the years after the Second World War. Later I became aware of a couple Sherman tanks, a few 57mm anti-tank guns, a German PaK 40 ATG and some .30 cal machine guns, but the Stuart was first.
I asked my mom what it was and she told me it was a "World War I" tank. Later, when I was a little older and started reading I quickly discovered she was mistaken and it was a World War II tank. As a matter of fact, it was an M3A1 tank.
Folks interested in a detailed recounting of the Stuart's stats and service history can check it out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_tank
My reading revealed it was a tank that wasn't altogether successful, so I developed a little bit of an underdog's fondness for the little tank.
And darn if it didn't keep showing up. One of my favorite comics was The Haunted Tank, which featured the ghost of Jeb Stuart watching over the crew of an M3 Stuart tank as it battled through North Africa and Europe against the Nazis. The little haunted Stuart even took on an beat some Tiger I Tanks (with some ghostly help).
The tank also showed up in a memorable Twilight Zone episode about some National Guardsmen who end up going back in time to fight at The Little Big Horn (although without tank, unfortunately).
It's even Tank Girl's tank!
When I became a wargamer I started playing with Stuarts whenever I got the chance. They were usually pretty easy to have back in those days. Everybody wanted Panthers and Tigers anyway. Actually, if you wanted to play with any other kind of tank (T-34s, Shermans, Matildas, etc.) you'd probably get your chance. I remember seeing some pretty improbable arrays of King Tigers and Panthers on some miniatures battlefields.
Stuarts showed up occasionally in board wargames, too. They were actually pretty decent in Avalon Hill's Tobruk game. It was a good early 1942 tank, about equal to a Pz III or Crusader.
Still, by the time the U.S. troops got to use it against the Germans in late 1942 it was obsolete and therefore Stuarts in most wargames don't leave a very good impression. Their primary use and usefulness -- recon -- doesn't usually play a big role in board wargames so Stuarts tend to be under-represented.
The little tank gotten a more respect lately, I think. It's showed up three separate times in the Axis & Allies miniatures game (twice British and once U.S.), each time sporting the "All Guns Blazing" 
special ability allowing it an extra shot against soldiers. It's got high speed and decent stats for a 15-point piece making it a reasonable build selection.
Anytime it appears in a Pacific War setting it tends to be useful. It's at least as good as any of the Japanese tanks it's likely to face and its anti-infantry ability is actually better than a Sherman in some ways. In games as diverse as Echelons of Fury- Pacific, Up Front!, Matanikau and Advanced Squad Leader it can be a big help against Japanese troops. In ASL, especially, that 37mm canister round can be deadly.
It might not be powerful or sexy, but the Stuart still played an important role in America's fight against the Axis. It succored the British in the desert when they needed large numbers of a decent, reliable tank to hold back Rommel and aided the Soviets, too, when they needed quantity and reliability. Stuarts freed up Shermans from scouting and screening roles and provided the chassis for a lot of supporting vehicles such as howitzer carriers, recovery vehicles and recon scouts.
After the war it soldiered on in a lot of smaller, third-world armies where its simplicity, ruggedness and reliability were appreciated.
And it helped spark at least one little boy in Massachusetts to study history, serve in the military and discover a life-long hobby.
And darn if it didn't keep showing up. One of my favorite comics was The Haunted Tank, which featured the ghost of Jeb Stuart watching over the crew of an M3 Stuart tank as it battled through North Africa and Europe against the Nazis. The little haunted Stuart even took on an beat some Tiger I Tanks (with some ghostly help).
The tank also showed up in a memorable Twilight Zone episode about some National Guardsmen who end up going back in time to fight at The Little Big Horn (although without tank, unfortunately).
It's even Tank Girl's tank!
When I became a wargamer I started playing with Stuarts whenever I got the chance. They were usually pretty easy to have back in those days. Everybody wanted Panthers and Tigers anyway. Actually, if you wanted to play with any other kind of tank (T-34s, Shermans, Matildas, etc.) you'd probably get your chance. I remember seeing some pretty improbable arrays of King Tigers and Panthers on some miniatures battlefields.
Stuarts showed up occasionally in board wargames, too. They were actually pretty decent in Avalon Hill's Tobruk game. It was a good early 1942 tank, about equal to a Pz III or Crusader.
Still, by the time the U.S. troops got to use it against the Germans in late 1942 it was obsolete and therefore Stuarts in most wargames don't leave a very good impression. Their primary use and usefulness -- recon -- doesn't usually play a big role in board wargames so Stuarts tend to be under-represented.
The little tank gotten a more respect lately, I think. It's showed up three separate times in the Axis & Allies miniatures game (twice British and once U.S.), each time sporting the "All Guns Blazing" 
special ability allowing it an extra shot against soldiers. It's got high speed and decent stats for a 15-point piece making it a reasonable build selection.Anytime it appears in a Pacific War setting it tends to be useful. It's at least as good as any of the Japanese tanks it's likely to face and its anti-infantry ability is actually better than a Sherman in some ways. In games as diverse as Echelons of Fury- Pacific, Up Front!, Matanikau and Advanced Squad Leader it can be a big help against Japanese troops. In ASL, especially, that 37mm canister round can be deadly.
It might not be powerful or sexy, but the Stuart still played an important role in America's fight against the Axis. It succored the British in the desert when they needed large numbers of a decent, reliable tank to hold back Rommel and aided the Soviets, too, when they needed quantity and reliability. Stuarts freed up Shermans from scouting and screening roles and provided the chassis for a lot of supporting vehicles such as howitzer carriers, recovery vehicles and recon scouts.
After the war it soldiered on in a lot of smaller, third-world armies where its simplicity, ruggedness and reliability were appreciated.
And it helped spark at least one little boy in Massachusetts to study history, serve in the military and discover a life-long hobby.
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