boylermaker
Senior Member
I can't do too many more of these: once Hollow Legions comes out in 2023, I'll own every core module and have been playing for a decade. At that point, I will at last be promoted from "Newb" to ... I dunno ... "Journeyman"? "Styxman"? "REO Speedwagonman"?
Anyway, got my Croix de Guerre the other day. I am pleased with it. As always, the physical components are very nice over all. A few quibbles, but nice things to offset them quibbles as well.
1) CON: Die cutting doesn't always go all the way through the counter sheets, leaving ragged edges on the counters, and sometimes tearing the bottom if you don't cut them out with a razor blade.
2) CON: The French blue was a bit inconsistent: on a few sheets, there were areas of darker and lighter blue (and no, I'm not getting confused by German counters!). This isn't a big deal for me (you may well already have variable-color German and Russian counters from several generations of modules and HASLs), but I've never seen this within a single module before.
3) PRO: Whatever nonsense was happening with the counter font on the Forgotten War counters (and maybe the RB/RO counters) has now ceased, and we are back to the familiar numbers that don't look like they were cut out from construction paper by a conscientious third-grader. For me, this "pro" by itself outweighs all the aesthetic cons.
4) CON: There are two-toned counters that didn't exist before. I think I've made my feelings on two-toned counters clear in the past.
5) PRO: One of the problems with TTC is they make the alignment-of-die-and-printing much more high-stakes. This time I did pretty well: my TTC countersheet is perfectly aligned in the front, and fairly well aligned on the back. So I'm less annoyed by TTC then usual. (CON: looking at my other countersheets make me suspect this will not be the case for everyone).
6) PRO: These TTC may be totally ignored, and I can go back to using blue counters for the Vichy and Commonwealth counters for the Free French like I was before. The only time that you would have to use these excrescences is if some deranged future designer makes a scenario with Vichy forces armed with German SW, or Vichy and German forces on the same battlefield. The good news is that scenario designers completely ignore the functional features of TTC, so we are safe from such things. Or at least, the probability is low; low enough to be about the same probability that someone will design a Vichy-vs-Free-French scenario in which the Vichy have 5/8" counters, in which case you'll have to discard the TTC and go back to the old method anyway.
7) PRO: If you DO like TTC counters, now you have some for Vichy forces! Good for MMP for doing this in a way that is optional and backward compatible, so that everyone can be happy.
8a) PRO*: Rather than put the recently-printed-in-Yanks boards 40 and 41 in the module, they replaced them with the utterly-out-of-print-Action-Pack boards 42 and 43. This is a nice bonus for people like me who came along ater those boards had disappeared.
or
8b) CON*: Rather than put the recently-printed-in-Yanks boards 40 and 41 in the module, they replaced them with the utterly-out-of-print-Action-Pack boards 42 and 43. If you are one of those people who didn't get Yanks before it went out of print, you now don't have the boards 40 and 41 that you are going to want for some of the Croix de Guerre scenarios. Hopefully you are into VASL. Frankly, if you are new enough to the hobby that you don't have Yanks, you are going to be so swamped by module dependencies that you'll need to play most of these scenarios on VASL anyway.
9) CON: No overlays. The X-series of overlays, especially, are widely used and were in the original Croix de Guerre, but are nowhere to be found here or in any other core module. If, like me, you joined the hobby some time in the past decade, you may want these overlays. MMP seems to have no plans on including them in any core module, but has used complaints along these lines to try to drum up interest in a currently-hypothetical Overlay Pack that would be 90% overlays I already own. Hard pass on this one. Perhaps their plan is not to include overlays in any future core modules, and force a god-knows-how-expensive, never-seen-the-light-of-the-preorder-page Overlay Pack into the "core" rotation? If so, the upcoming Hollow Legions reprint will make an interesting test case for that business strategy, since it's my understanding that overlays are basically essential for DTO. I expect that when I spend $150 for Hollow Legions, I am not going to be excited by the idea that I have to spend an additional $100 for an overlay pack just to play any DTO scenarios on a physical board (and that's assuming that the overlay pack will be in print at the same time as Hollow Legions, which is possibly the most unlikely assumption that has ever been assumed). That said, there was a great deal of annoyance over the disappearance of these overlays from CdG, and MMP has always impressed me with customer service. It wouldn't surprise me if the missing CdG overlays quietly found their way into Hollow Legions.
10) PRO: Alternatively, possibly the removal of overlays represents the first step in MMP shifting from offering content as nationality-based-modules to component-based-packs. Maybe the future is a world in which there is a map pack, an overlay pack, a counter pack, a rulebook, a Chapter H book, and then a series of scenario packs and HASLs. As someone who plays almost entirely on VASL, that world would save me a lot of money (also: as someone who plays entirely on VASL, #9 doesn't bother me so much; but as a completionist, #9 bothers me a lot).
11) PRO: There are approximately 1000 scenarios in this module.
12) PRO: The Dinant HASL looks fun, recreating the forced crossing of the Meuse river by the Germans in 1940. 11 scenarios (most on the very handsome HASL map, but a couple on geoboards) and one 5-date CG. It looks reasonably chromatic, but a lot of the chrome is bucket-list stuff that is in the rules already, like climbing. For some reason, I find that sort of thing preferable to bespoke chrome. One of the scenarios is set in 1944, it looks like during the Bulge: getting to use the HASL map for two very different points in the war is a very cool feature that most HASLs don't have.
13) CON?: There was a fair amount of grumbling that you couldn't get Dinant separately, for those people who already had CdG from ancient of days. While Dinant is pretty cool, it's also a bit light, so I can appreciate why people would be uninterested in paying $150 for a module in which Dinant is the only thing in the box that is new for them. That being said, this is a Newb Review, not a "Back-in-my-day-we-walked-to-school-under-fire-from-enemies-not-suppressed-by-VBM-both-ways" Review, so I'm not going to adjudicate the question further.
All in all, I thought it was worth my money and would recommend that people in my same position buy it. But I would say this is a third tier module. By that I mean:
In Tier 1, we have core modules that you should absolutely have if you are interested in the hobby:
Beyond Valor, For King and Country, Yanks
In Tier 2, we have core modules that I would recommend you buy when they are in print, but you could skip without too much harm if you are happy living on the ETO alone:
Rising Sun, Hollow Legions
In Tier 3, we have things that you should get if you have the money and interest, or if you want to be self-sufficient when it comes to kit:
Croix de Guerre, Doomed Battalions, Hakkaa Paalle, Armies of Oblivion, Forgotten War
If you have a more limited ASL budget than I do, or if you already have the first edition of Croix de Guerre, or if you have friends whose gear you can play with, I think this one is skippable, but I'm still glad I bought it.
Anyway, got my Croix de Guerre the other day. I am pleased with it. As always, the physical components are very nice over all. A few quibbles, but nice things to offset them quibbles as well.
1) CON: Die cutting doesn't always go all the way through the counter sheets, leaving ragged edges on the counters, and sometimes tearing the bottom if you don't cut them out with a razor blade.
2) CON: The French blue was a bit inconsistent: on a few sheets, there were areas of darker and lighter blue (and no, I'm not getting confused by German counters!). This isn't a big deal for me (you may well already have variable-color German and Russian counters from several generations of modules and HASLs), but I've never seen this within a single module before.
3) PRO: Whatever nonsense was happening with the counter font on the Forgotten War counters (and maybe the RB/RO counters) has now ceased, and we are back to the familiar numbers that don't look like they were cut out from construction paper by a conscientious third-grader. For me, this "pro" by itself outweighs all the aesthetic cons.
4) CON: There are two-toned counters that didn't exist before. I think I've made my feelings on two-toned counters clear in the past.
5) PRO: One of the problems with TTC is they make the alignment-of-die-and-printing much more high-stakes. This time I did pretty well: my TTC countersheet is perfectly aligned in the front, and fairly well aligned on the back. So I'm less annoyed by TTC then usual. (CON: looking at my other countersheets make me suspect this will not be the case for everyone).
6) PRO: These TTC may be totally ignored, and I can go back to using blue counters for the Vichy and Commonwealth counters for the Free French like I was before. The only time that you would have to use these excrescences is if some deranged future designer makes a scenario with Vichy forces armed with German SW, or Vichy and German forces on the same battlefield. The good news is that scenario designers completely ignore the functional features of TTC, so we are safe from such things. Or at least, the probability is low; low enough to be about the same probability that someone will design a Vichy-vs-Free-French scenario in which the Vichy have 5/8" counters, in which case you'll have to discard the TTC and go back to the old method anyway.
7) PRO: If you DO like TTC counters, now you have some for Vichy forces! Good for MMP for doing this in a way that is optional and backward compatible, so that everyone can be happy.
8a) PRO*: Rather than put the recently-printed-in-Yanks boards 40 and 41 in the module, they replaced them with the utterly-out-of-print-Action-Pack boards 42 and 43. This is a nice bonus for people like me who came along ater those boards had disappeared.
or
8b) CON*: Rather than put the recently-printed-in-Yanks boards 40 and 41 in the module, they replaced them with the utterly-out-of-print-Action-Pack boards 42 and 43. If you are one of those people who didn't get Yanks before it went out of print, you now don't have the boards 40 and 41 that you are going to want for some of the Croix de Guerre scenarios. Hopefully you are into VASL. Frankly, if you are new enough to the hobby that you don't have Yanks, you are going to be so swamped by module dependencies that you'll need to play most of these scenarios on VASL anyway.
9) CON: No overlays. The X-series of overlays, especially, are widely used and were in the original Croix de Guerre, but are nowhere to be found here or in any other core module. If, like me, you joined the hobby some time in the past decade, you may want these overlays. MMP seems to have no plans on including them in any core module, but has used complaints along these lines to try to drum up interest in a currently-hypothetical Overlay Pack that would be 90% overlays I already own. Hard pass on this one. Perhaps their plan is not to include overlays in any future core modules, and force a god-knows-how-expensive, never-seen-the-light-of-the-preorder-page Overlay Pack into the "core" rotation? If so, the upcoming Hollow Legions reprint will make an interesting test case for that business strategy, since it's my understanding that overlays are basically essential for DTO. I expect that when I spend $150 for Hollow Legions, I am not going to be excited by the idea that I have to spend an additional $100 for an overlay pack just to play any DTO scenarios on a physical board (and that's assuming that the overlay pack will be in print at the same time as Hollow Legions, which is possibly the most unlikely assumption that has ever been assumed). That said, there was a great deal of annoyance over the disappearance of these overlays from CdG, and MMP has always impressed me with customer service. It wouldn't surprise me if the missing CdG overlays quietly found their way into Hollow Legions.
10) PRO: Alternatively, possibly the removal of overlays represents the first step in MMP shifting from offering content as nationality-based-modules to component-based-packs. Maybe the future is a world in which there is a map pack, an overlay pack, a counter pack, a rulebook, a Chapter H book, and then a series of scenario packs and HASLs. As someone who plays almost entirely on VASL, that world would save me a lot of money (also: as someone who plays entirely on VASL, #9 doesn't bother me so much; but as a completionist, #9 bothers me a lot).
11) PRO: There are approximately 1000 scenarios in this module.
12) PRO: The Dinant HASL looks fun, recreating the forced crossing of the Meuse river by the Germans in 1940. 11 scenarios (most on the very handsome HASL map, but a couple on geoboards) and one 5-date CG. It looks reasonably chromatic, but a lot of the chrome is bucket-list stuff that is in the rules already, like climbing. For some reason, I find that sort of thing preferable to bespoke chrome. One of the scenarios is set in 1944, it looks like during the Bulge: getting to use the HASL map for two very different points in the war is a very cool feature that most HASLs don't have.
13) CON?: There was a fair amount of grumbling that you couldn't get Dinant separately, for those people who already had CdG from ancient of days. While Dinant is pretty cool, it's also a bit light, so I can appreciate why people would be uninterested in paying $150 for a module in which Dinant is the only thing in the box that is new for them. That being said, this is a Newb Review, not a "Back-in-my-day-we-walked-to-school-under-fire-from-enemies-not-suppressed-by-VBM-both-ways" Review, so I'm not going to adjudicate the question further.
All in all, I thought it was worth my money and would recommend that people in my same position buy it. But I would say this is a third tier module. By that I mean:
In Tier 1, we have core modules that you should absolutely have if you are interested in the hobby:
Beyond Valor, For King and Country, Yanks
In Tier 2, we have core modules that I would recommend you buy when they are in print, but you could skip without too much harm if you are happy living on the ETO alone:
Rising Sun, Hollow Legions
In Tier 3, we have things that you should get if you have the money and interest, or if you want to be self-sufficient when it comes to kit:
Croix de Guerre, Doomed Battalions, Hakkaa Paalle, Armies of Oblivion, Forgotten War
If you have a more limited ASL budget than I do, or if you already have the first edition of Croix de Guerre, or if you have friends whose gear you can play with, I think this one is skippable, but I'm still glad I bought it.