Tannhauser

Tannhäuser is set in a world, where the Great War in 1949 still rages, in a stalemate between the German Empire and the Union. The sinister Germans are involved in occult plots to unleash unspeakable horrors beyond their control on the world. The union needs to stop this. It's Pulp action at its best.

I Rate this game high, because of the mechanics of movement/shooting/line-of-sight and general graphics, style and setting.

Tannhäuser is a 2 sided tactical skirmish game, with each side controlling 3 different Heroes and 2 different Troopers, in the basic game. Play is turn-based, with one side playing one character at a time. Initiative is determined from trun to turn, by a die rolls, with modifiers for certain things, such as casualties, rank, special raining etc. The winner chooses to go first or second. As much depends om the timing, each round the players must choose carefully whether to take initiative or to be able to react to the opponent.

At first glance, the rules are simple and quickly read, scpecially for seasones board gamers. But once you need to look something up, or to find the exact definition of rules, to solve the inevitable twists, the problems start. Perhaps the rules aren't as clearly written or arranged as they could and should have been. or perhaps it's because the gae is translated from french. But you'll figure it out. So for the wording and editing of the rulebook, I'd rate this game somewhat lower. Seasoned players should have no problems, after the initial confusion. But newbies could have some troubles.

The unique mechanics of this game concerns the Pathfinding System. To put it shortly, the game board - whether it be the inside of an old mansion, of the subterranean cult-lair - has coloured circles, where the character figures must move and position themselves. The colours of the circles change according to line of sight, and soem circles have 2 or even 3 different colurs, to signify their tactical value and field of vision. So the circle at the corner of the blue and yellow paths have both colurs, giving sight down both passages. The circles are arranges to show where movement and sight is possible. With no other scenery or obstacles other than what is printd in the board, the game board is neat and uncluttered. Also, since no model of the board blocks neither sight nor shooting, all twists of line-of-sight can be avoided.

The characters have a lot of different choises reagrding their Equipment Packs, as these represrtn both gear carried, but also special training, abilities, medals and occult artifacts. Each character has a special item, and several pre-packaged Equipment Packs, for different missions, or you can go for the totally customized packs.

Game play is fast paced and often quite quick gamesm, depending on how long you think and/or debate how to move and act. Several styles of play are described in the rulebook. Story Mode is when each side must get to certain Objective Points, and use certain skills, possessed by different characters. Capture the Flag is like the computer game version; get the enemy's 2 flags back to your own points before he does. Death match is a battle to the death of one side. Domination is the battle to gain control of more than half the objective points, by placing flags on them and keeping the enemy from replacing it with their own.
many game styles utitlize Victory points, awarded for killing enough enemies, performing actions at objectives, of finding them in certain places on the board. They're uses in story mode, to determine the winner. or they can be used to quickly heal a character, who just barely survives an attack, to get extra movement in critical moments, or to Counterattack in the opponent's turn.
Depending of the level of difficulty you want, you can opt to let 1 or 2 Troopers "respawn" as reinforcements, after they die.

The German side have occult and magical artifacts, as well as mutations as their strong side. The Union have their smoke bombs, a few hi-tech gadgets, medals and their fancy guns.

After a few games, a bit of a balance problem is seen IMHO. The German side is just better! They have some critical abilities/gear to take the edge of some of the dangerous union weapons. They have a Hero and a Trooper who work together brilliantly. While the Union might have fancy things on paper, but getting the right placement of the soke and getting the necessary range to use the heavy guns, is beyond difficult. This might not be a general problem, just a problem with the way we play. We haven'øgt cracked this nut yet, but are working on it. We want to make the least amout of changes to this game.

All in all, the game is worth it! It's fun and has nice mechanics. The publisher makes certain extra equipment, so the variation and possibilities for customization is ever increasing. Plus, additional characters and expansions are on the way, or already available.