New WW II game: Victory Decision: World War II

[pilgrimnorm]

Played a couple of turns last night just to give the rules a test drive.  We played Americans vs. Soviet, using the advance! scenario.  It was a learning game so a lot of mistakes were made and it was slow but we came away very excited about playing this game.  A couple of highlights for us were.
-Terrain --  We loved how terrain was handled.  In order to really try out the rules we had a huge variety including woods, bocage, a bridge with stone wall, and even a building.  The rules for terrain were easy to use and at the same time felt real. 
-Vehicle infantry interaction -- one thing that really blew me away was the interaction between vehicles and infantry.  A tank firing at infantry in the open was devasating while at the same time a tank caught by itself without infantry support could quite easily be devastated by enemy infantry. 
-Tactical Options -  The final thing I will mention and what really made this game fun was the sheer amount of tactical options you have.  The action system allows for so many options.   In most games I have played you feel like your decision comes down to, do I move or do I shoot.  Here you can move, shoot, move and shoot, move and shoot and hide... and the list goes on.  The scenarios also encourage yet more options.  Last night we were fighting over a bridge in the middle of the board, but because I only needed two out of three objectives,  I had options as to which objectives to try for, and where I wanted to focus my attacks. 
While we do have few questions as some of the rules we were not sure we were doing right, what was clear is that we are exctied about learning this game

[Agis]

Thanks for your game/ testdrive report, sounds as if I accomplished the mission to give you a playable, enjoyable and tactical challenging game. YES!!!
If you have any rule questions, please ask. As soon as some have popped up, I will create an FAQ that will be constantly updated and downloadable via my website.

BTW: I am just in the middle of the final touches  on the German Technical Manual (free days are good for supplements!), over 130 vehicles and guns! Pheww!!!
 

[Frank Frey]

Agis,

Great set of rules. I read through them today. They are easy to understand and look fun to play. I just recently moved into a condominium in Clearwater, Florida that is actually big enough to set up a 6' x 6' gaming table. I will be doing that shortly. ViDe will probably be the first game played on it.
I have a question. When the Compendiums come out will they contain unit cards like the ones for WaW? Those were excellent. Just print them out on cardstock and hand them out to the players. Made running games a lot easier.
BTW, I'm already giving serious thought to coming up with modifications for ViDe: Great War.

Frank Frey

[Agis]

Great set of rules. I read through them today. They are easy to understand and look fun to play.

Thanks Frank! I am looking forward to the 1st game report...
 

I just recently moved into a condominium in Clearwater, Florida that is actually big enough to set up a 6' x 6' gaming table. I will be doing that shortly. ViDe will probably be the first game played on it. 

Sound seven better...

I have a question. When the Compendiums come out will they contain unit cards like the ones for WaW? Those were excellent. Just print them out on cardstock and hand them out to the players. Made running games a lot easier.

Not anymore, the unit cards were a real pain to create and needed almost as much time as the books to review (just too easy to do some serious Copy and paste errors..).
However – that is exactly where the printer friendly copy comes in. Just print the units you need in draft mode and you are done. (it was one of the reasons to include the weapon stats after each unit entry!) You even have some space to take notes…

BTW, I'm already giving serious thought to coming up with modifications for ViDe: Great War.

You know that you have created an interesting game, when players start tot think of their own mods!
THANKS!!!

[Foxxxy66]

I liked the unit cards for same reason: neat to have the cards...

[Frank Frey]

Agis,

I understand about the cards. They looked to be graphics intensive and since I used to work for the Classroom Technologies Division of the University of South Florida, I can relate to that problem.
I'm looking forward to the army lists and compendiums. Have you ever thought of offering a subscription to them? The idea is that for a set prepaid fee the newest material is delivered directly to your electronic mailbox when it becomes available. Just a thought.
BTW, I've become a true football fan...with my favorite teams being Arsenal, Bayern-Munich, and Barcelona. Take care.

Frank Frey

[Dobb]

I hope I'm not barking up the wrong tree here but is Victory Decision the same as Battlefield Evolution: World At War? I understand that Agis wrote the rulebook and Mongoose pulled the plug on it a while back.

The reason I'm asking is because I bought the .pdf at one of the game store online and felt abit frustrated to realize it was the same one I mentioned, that there won't be any support on the game system which seem really good, especially Modern Combat series.

In any case, I wouldn't mind trying the game system out but how different are they to other WW2 system such as Flames of War?

[Agis]

Hi Dobb,
it is a bit difficult to describe my game objectively (being the author and all I AM biased)...

It is very different from World at War, it share the Hit and Crit system and the vehicle Hit/Crit stats (which are all OGL anyway and written by me).
All the rest is changed:
Alternate Leadership based Activation system
Integrated Leadership and Suppression system
Action based game flow etc etc
Just read the forum to get an idea...

I am still waiting for two reviews (HINT, HINT), maybe then we have an unbiased view.

Oh and as far as support is concerned, you are on the save side. I have release 20+ ebooks to support WaW from 2008 on ward, be assured that I fully plan to do the same for my own game system...

 

[Dobb]

Ah, let me get this straight:

World At War is your previous project and you pretty much expanded onto Victory Decision, right?

With that in mind, are the army lists also expanded? I felt that the weakness for WaW was the lack of detail in some aspect.

With your recommendation, should I keep going with World At War or try out Victory Decisions? What made VD better aside from certain rule changes?

I hope I'm not asking too much, I'm still trying to find a good system for me and my mates to play.

[Agis]

World At War is your previous project and you pretty much expanded onto Victory Decision, right?
With that in mind, are the army lists also expanded? I felt that the weakness for WaW was the lack of detail in some aspect.
With your recommendation, should I keep going with World At War or try out Victory Decisions? What made VD better aside from certain rule changes?

As said, I am biased! SO GET ViDe!!!
 
Seriously, can you be a bit more specific, what was missing in the WaW lists?
And please just read the post here on this Childboard, many came over from WaW, so far none was disappointed...
BTW:  Having read your game requirements on the WW II forum, I have to say it reads like a design goal description of Victory Decision! 

[Dobb]

Sorry about not being specific but I'm not exactly sure what to think about it now. 

Anyways, I'll get my grubby hands on your ViDe later tomorrow, I just can't wait.

The preview listed a large amount of things I like. A couple questions, how did you work on the infantry armoury anyways? Did you try balancing it in a way that both gets the same treatment as opposed to say Flames of War where their focus was somewhat more on tanks?

Will you be working on some sort of special characters like Back and Beyond?

[Agis]

Infantry/ vs Armour -The goal was a balanced game. But the standard ViDe game is one Infantry Platoon  plus some tank support against another Infantry force.
During playtest we also did pure tank battles and mixed battles like tanks vs Infantry only. So far all worked fine.

Special Characters - How did you know? I am indeed planning to add some special stuff sooner or later. Not for the historical version, but the more pulpier weird settings will beneifit from some larger than life units...
 
Maybe some stats for the 1st Avenger???

[Warmaster_Of_Puppets]

Great game Agis!
I'm waiting impatiently for the Russians 

[Solins]

Hello !

I am a 37 years old french wargammer, painting and playing miniatures since 20 years.
During last five years, I have paint a lot of WW2 platoons and tanks.

I was always disappointed by the lack of simplicity of the different systems I used to play or read.
Every time, with my fellow players, we were bogged in the details, and games were slow and confusing.


So when I discover VD, I was very happy to look to one more rule, it's my addiction. 

I will test the game in a few days, actually I do some refresh and reorganization on my troops. But I think this one will do the job better than many rules.

The big point (for a non English speaker) is the clarity. This rules is very well written and very easy to understand.
Even if I cannot pretend to remember all the details, I never end a chapter with the sad feeling of missing something. IMHO You can be very proud of this.

I've post positive French reviews in the war-games vault and I press my partners to test VD. I hope to attract some French players.

As we are huge weird WW2 fans, we will play Mecha-panzers and zombies as soon as possible.

Thanks a lot for this good job, I will post my impression after a test.

Solins

[Dargoth]

"I press my partners to test VD"
I read it like
I press my partners to test for VD