At-At’s the way I like it!
Hoth, icy world in the Star Wars universe, first chilled our screens in The Empire Strikes Back as the home of the Rebel Alliance’s Echo Base. When discovered by an Imperial probe droid a Blizzard Force of Empire Stormtroopers were sent to destroy it. The ensuing Battle of Hoth is an epic piece of movie history as the Rebels make good their escape.
Star Wars: Battle of Hoth from Days of Wonder brings this to the table top in an accessible and exciting play style, based on the popular Memoir ’44 series of battle games designed by Richard Borg and joined here by Adrien Martinot. Your squads of troops charge across the frozen terrain controlled by your command cards to deal dice delivered damage to your opponents. Rules are easy enough for first timers to grasp quickly yet there are enough tactical nuances to play to engage the hardened veteran.
And, of course, loads of thematic atmosphere!
Hoth the scale!
There are 74 miniatures in this game. The Empire strikes with 32 Snowtroopers; 4 Probe Droids and 3 AT-Ats whilst the Rebels have 24 Echo Base troopers; 2 static Artillery towers and 9 of the swift Snow speeders. All of these are loving recreations of the units we’ve seen on the screen. They are not in scale proportion to each other as, say, the figures in Star Wars Legion but should be considered as represential tokens like chess pieces.
The terrain, as in other Memoir-style games, is built up of large hex cardboard terrain pieces that sit on top of the snow covered icy plain. These are generally good and consist of: Ridges; Rocks; Seracs; Crevasses; Trenches and Buildings/Wreckage plus the specific target objectives of the Rebels’ Shield Generators and Ion Cannon.
These last two are my only disappointment with this game as I felt being so pivotal to the battle they could have been solid figures rather than flat cardboard. Clearly I am not alone in this as 3D printed versions are now being offered on the add-on market.
Out of Control
In the combat games that try to realistically simulate conflict there is always a design balance to be made between giving the commander an omniscent level of sight and control as in chess or providing some level of fog of war and lack of cohesion.
The system used here sees the battlefield split into 3 sectors: right, left and centre. Each commander has a deck of Command cards from which a hand of from 3-6 cards are drawn and held on your rack. These provide orders for a set number of troops either from a particular sector or, usually for a smaller number of units, from across the board. You play 1 card on your turn, move the units you’ve chosen and then conduct fire. You can do them in any order as long as all movement is finished before firing commences.
You have a standard command deck of 16 Command Cards to which you can add 3 tailored cards for a leader of your choice: Luke, Han or Leia for the Rebels; Fleet Admiral Piett, General Veers and Darth Vader for the Imperials. This addition is optional but why wouldn’t you? A word of caution, though, as you pick. Your favourite character might not have the best attributes for the particular scenario you are playing.
Whilst this can be frustrating at times you can, at least, do some action on each turn and have some sort of forward planning by considering the other cards on your rack.
I can see clearly now terrain has gone
The other major consideration is the effect of terrain on Movement and Line of Sight. Movement is generally 1 or 2 hexes and firing usually needs to be close range to be effective where you roll a number of dice to gain hits or retreats.
Terrain can be: impassable to all or some specific units; restrict movement; prevent firing after moving; give a defensive advantage of -1 die for the attacker; and may or may not block Line of Sight (LOS). This depends whether they are Up – Rocks, Ridges, Buildings and Seracs (Ice towers) or down Trenches and Crevasses.
It is crucial to good play to grasp the differences and this is where the third dimension would be useful to distinguish one bit of flat cardboard tha represents a hole from another bit of flat cardboard that represents a height.
Add to this all units, enemies or your own, block LOS and it can get tricky to co-ordinate a mass attack.
Medals of Honour
Scenarios are won by gaining a specified number of Victory Medals. These are usually gained by eliminating enemy units but can also be scenario specific goals. They are sometimes replaced entirely by a “Sudden Death” condition relating to the film’s story line.
There are 17 different scenarios with a lot of variances in play. I haven’t played enough of them to check their balance but they all seem well thought out. You should read the conditions carefully, though. Sometimes a unit’s elimination may grant more Medals or maybe none at all!
The scenarios can be played stand alone or linked into one of the 2 supplied campaigns: Assault on Echo Base and Outpost Delta. Each has a separate booklet for the Rebel or Imperial commander. As well as the normal open scenario objectives each will have a hidden secondary objective which will provide buffs for the next battle. These can be in the form of single-use Support Cards which are played in addition to your usual Command card in your turn.
You are also encouraged to create and share your own scenarios via the Days of Wonder scenario editor.
Epic Finale
And then there’s the grand Assault on Hoth, the one we all want to play!
It’s good, it’s very good, but the reason I put it at the end is that you do need a second set to play it. Having played a few first scenarios with Ken my regular opponent he was keen enough to buy his own copy and thus we were able to complete the grand assault. For me, the box is tremendous value with all the excellent miniatures, wide range of scenarios and oozing (does ice ooze?) with character I’d almost buy a 2nd copy myself but you can make your own decision.
The Force is Strong With This One
For me, Battle of Hoth is my Game of The Year. I was hugely excited when I knew it was coming out and now I want to play all the scenarios and campaigns. I’ll also think about painting the miniatures (often as far as I get!).
It’s a game that rewards repeat play as I’ve developed an awareness of the different units strengths and weaknesses. Like chess pieces you utilise each for it’s best effect especially if they’ve been upgraded to Special Forces. On the other hand Ken says I’ve been lucky with the dice!
My one caveat is the aforementioned issue with some of the cardboard terrain pieces but I’ll craft some alternatives or buy some in the secondary market.
