Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear – Operation Barbarossa 1941 (Third Edition)

My favorite game to date. With Eastern Front Solo play is fast pace, smartest AI Ive ever played against, unpredictable. 11 on scale of 10. I only wish academy games made more campaigns for the Russian player. Seems only logical they create more being that the eastern front was THE front of the war! It that mattered most!

Love the new 'stress die'. It really adds a lot of drama in finding out whether or not your unit will be spent or not.

My current #2 favorite war game. Medium low rules, 40 pages with pictures and examples. Clear rules. Nice back and forth (your move, my move) fun ways to use cards and command action points. We revised in the 3rd edition. Historic. Easy to teach. Awakening of the Bear and Storms of Steel are similar, Guadalcanal has more infantry and I like tanks, but system is the same. Played 2 times.

Update: Slightly lowered my rating as many of the scenarios are not solo friendly due to hidden units (but this is what the solo expansion is for I guess), and because too many of the scenarios have a puzzle-like feel or are simply too big for me to realistically play. ------ I rated the previous edition a 10, which is very rare for me. Everything in the new edition is better, faster, more realistic and more intense, so my only wish is for the scale to go beyond 10 :)

Really like this system. Plays pretty fast and is exciting. I have played both the first and second editions, and I used to own the second edition. As good as those were, I prefer 3rd edition, it is an improvement for sure. The components are gorgeous. There is an ‘optional’ rule in the Mission Booklet that gives each player a reusable Adrenaline card - I recommend using this rule always.