Star Wars: Battle of Hoth is a brand new strategy board game that will use the same popular Commands & Colors rules system found in the evergreen hit Memoir '44. Publisher Days of Wonder has spent days teasing fans with cryptic images on social media that hinted the game might be coming – on Thursday it uploaded crystal clear images to specialist site Board Game Geek that confirmed what fans had hoped.
We'll make a bold claim right out of the gate: Star Wars: Battle of Hoth has the potential to be one of the best Star Wars board games ever made. The Commands & Colors rules are a simply brilliant set of strategy board game rules, light enough that anyone can learn to play, but offering enough depth and flexibility that they offer experts a great challenge.
The BGG description for Battle of Hoth sums it up like this: "players take turns choosing command cards each turn to activate units and decide how to move and attack, across seventeen scenarios included in the box". Sounds simple, but as you use command cards your options for your next move will shrink, forcing you to get creative.
BGG news editor W. Eric Martin reports that he was able to play one of the scenarios against the game's co-designer Adrien Martinot at SPIEL Essen 24. He says that the game feels a lot like Memoir '44 – the extremely popular WW2 implementation of Commands & Colors – but with added features that come from the distinctive Star Wars setting, such as the AT-ATs and stationary Rebel bases.
According to the game description, there will be optional extras to play more advanced games. That includes leader cards that provide "support from six iconic Star Wars characters", and "two multi-scenario campaigns in which successes and failures shape the next battles".
The board seems to be a few hexes smaller than the one in Memoir '44, but otherwise it looks exactly like a Star Wars version of the hit WW2 game – and frankly, we're here for it. It's one of the best board games out there for strategy fans, and we can't wait to play something similar set in the galaxy far, far away.
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