Event Report: Combat Commander Con2022

By Mitch Reed

On a windy President’s day weekend, a group of 24 gamers gathered in a northern Virginia hotel to play three days of Combat Commander, a game series from GMT and Hexasim. The event run by Steve Gibson and Art DeFilippo was a smashing success, with over 70 individual games being played and a lot of new gamers (me included) becoming quick converts to this excellent game system.

I first got into CC when Hexasim came out with the game Great War Commander, whose mechanics and engine were based on Combat Commander: Europe, the 16-year-old WWII series designed by Chad Jensen. Recently I picked up Combat Commander Pacific, which is a standalone game and focuses on fighting all over the Pacific and Asia during WWII.

About Combat Commander
The CC series was a new take on what a tactical game could be. CC uses a card mechanic to make the game flow. Orders, actions, and events are determined by playing a card from your hand, or by drawing a card from a deck. Even die rolls (no dice, but still glory) are taken care of by the cards.

Each major participant has a unique card deck that gives you the flavor of that nation’s doctrine, tactics, and organization. Units represent squads (platoons in the Great War game) in which you can attach weapons such as machine guns up to large AT and artillery pieces to. The game focuses on the infantry fight, and the WWII version does not have vehicles, unlike the GW version which does have tanks.

The fate deck is the heart of the game, during your turn you can play a scenario-established amount of cards to move or fire with your units. You can also call in artillery and engage in melee if you have the proper orders cards. The card-based die rolls also trigger events that cause the player to draw a card from their deck. These events can be good or bad, it depends on what your draw. Other game events such as snipers and time advance are also handled by the cards.

The key to the game is knowing what capabilities your units have and getting the right hand to execute your battle plan. Many gamers hate the card activation mechanic, they want a game that allows them to take any action they desire during their turn, however, this is not how things work in real life and the “black swan” nature of the game makes the game tense and one where you have to keep thinking about what to do next.

Back to the Event

I ended up playing 5 games during the event, 3 GWC, 1 CC: E, and one CC: P, of course, I did not do well, however that was due to my decision-making and bad cards more than anything else. I was one of 10 players who had less than 5 games played in the CC system, however, the gamers at the event were excellent ambassadors of the system and made sure we were grizzled vets in no time. I cannot tell you how important having players who want to teach you how to play a game is to grow a community of gamers.

As I played more games I really fell in love with this system. I found myself engaged at all phases of the game, an ability that is lacking in so many games. I also saw the differences between the three main versions of the game. The subtle differences in CC:P with the play of Japanese forces really adds some unique flavor that sets it apart from its European-based predecessor. The differences in CWC are stark. In GWC the units are bigger and some of the rules are modified to give you a great gaming experience. In my battles with Art, the game turned on the success of our artillery bombardments and most of the scenarios in the book are not trench-based fights.

One thing that I noticed about this event was that it was all about fun and growing the game. I did not see any “win at all costs” players and every interaction I had with this community was very rewarding. The toxicity we see in our community seems to be absent from the CC world, which is refreshing.

I left the event knowing that I had a large local community in which to keep playing CC for the foreseeable future.

Getting into Combat Commander

Here may be the tricky part, finding the games themselves. I picked up GWC as soon as it came out from Hexasim, and I did the same for British expansion and the recent battle pack. I was on GMT Games P500 for CC:P for ages and finally got the game a few months ago. During the event I was able to snag a used copy of CC:E on BGG Marketplace and the only battle pack solely for CC:E from Noble Knight Games.

Now I am really into the series, I want CC: Mediterranean, which adds the British, French, Italians along with minor allies into the game. CC:M is also a requirement for playing all but two (Airborne and New Guinea) of the game expansions. I could not find a copy of CC:M anywhere I usually shop, and some copies for sale are priced at four times the original cost.

This is the one issue many GMT gamers complain about, the availability of a game once it goes out of stock. I often look at an upcoming GMT release and if I think I may want to play it, I buy it. Think about it as an investment, if the game is not to your liking, you can sell it on the secondary market for a profit since many gamers do not want to wait 2-3 years for a new print run of a game.

As I keep playing the games in this series I expect to write some in-depth articles which describe each of the games in the series. I do recommend checking out this game and hitting up an event like Combat Commander Con.