REVIEW: The Carentan Expansion for Heroes of Normandie

By Sean "Throckmorton" Sarah

In a spurt of new releases over the next few months Devil Pig, the makers of the Origins Award Winning game Heroes of Normandie are pumping out a number of products for their flagship game line. In my last article I took a look at the new Sainte-Mere-Eglise expansion which covered night fighting and paradrops.

Today's foray into Heroes land gives us a look at the damnably bloody battle for Carentan where the 101st Airborne squared off against Oberstleutnant Freidrich August Freiherr von der Heydte's 6th Fallschirmjagers (I really just wanted to use his full name, because it's pretty epic as names go) in a struggle for one of the key crossroads leading out of Normandy.

Where Sainte-Mere-Eglise gave us a ton of American Airborne units, Carentan focuses almost entirely on the Fallschirmjagers giving the German players a deadly new option in their defense of the bocage country.

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REVIEW: Sainte-Mere-Eglise for Heroes of Normandie

By Sean "Throckmorton" Sarah

By now I hope you've read my review of the base game and early expansions for Devil Pig's table top board game Heroes of Normandie.

For those of you that haven't allow me to do a quick recap.  For those of you that have, sit tight and enjoy a quick refresher.

First note, since my last post the game has won the prestigious Origins Award for Best Historical Board Game and The Origins Fan Favorite Award for Best Historical Board Game. So, it's good to know my love is shared.

Heroes of Normandie is the game of the movie of World War 2, specifically the actions around D-Day and the weeks that follow. The game is played on modular map pieces divided up into squares, much like hexes in other WW2 board games... but they're squares! But this game is markedly different than the hex and counter games from which it draws its lineage for a number of reasons. First, the design is gorgeous and has a high action/cartoony feel to it. Second, it's "visual syntax" the way in which it communicates information to you is the best I've seen in this style game. Finally, it's not a simulation (though it has simulations elements) so much as it is a high adrenaline, tongue in cheek, retelling of some of the best WW2 movies from the 50's, 60's and 70's repleate with familiar heroes both fictional like Oddball in his Sherman and factual like Jack Churchill with his broadsword and longbow.

Thus, with many thanks to my friends at Iello, the American distributor of the game, I was able to get my grubby hands on a review copy of Sainte-Mere-Eglise the first of two new expansions coming out for the game in the very near future.

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