He will? My seconds will call upon you in the alley.
A bit more seriously, Tide of Iron just didn't impress me. Nice boards, but the little plastic figures were terribly fiddly and just a pain. Setting up? Way, way too long. The couple of scenarios I played were utterly dull and one-sided, and were far too much of "one player sits back and shoots whilst the other player manoeuvres".
Meanwhile, I was also introducing myself to ASL through the first Starter Kit. The first scenario for that is classic - with the Americans trying to hold onto central points in a village whilst beating off the Germans... and then the Germans also trying to stop the American reinforcements from arriving. There was a real ebb and flow to what was going on which was lacking from the initial ToI scenario.
ASL wasn't the only wargame I was introduced to at about the same time as ToI: there was also Memoir '44 and Combat Commander: Europe.
When ToI came up against that heavy-duty opposition, it failed in comparison. Memoir '44 had the plastic bits, quick game play and a large range of scenarios. CC:E had some really good scenarios and incredible gameplay. ASL SK, despite being the most complicated set of rules of the lot, had scenarios that were very entertaining and (mostly) well-balanced.
As you might gather, really nice components are somewhat secondary to me compared to good game play.
War of the Ring, putting this back on-topic, has really nice components and really great game-play.
Cheers!
