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Close up of a tough first battle with the Polish Army. I had to hide in light cover and allow them to come to me! Litko markers show first an explosion, then on later turns I swap it to small smoke. Love this game.

Tiger Leader (2015)

Players

Best: 1

Playing time

30–60 min

Age

7.04

Average rating

319

Ratings

2.75/5

Weight

#7906

BGG rank

Outside top 5,000

Designer:Rick Martin

Publisher:Dan Verssen Games (DVG)

Average rating, ratings count, weight and rank are sourced from BoardGameGeek (BGG).

Game DNA

Strategy7.0

Luck7.0

Interaction5.0

Complexity5.5

Theme5.0

This game's strategy, luck, interaction, complexity and theme.

WargameWorld War IIHexagon GridOpen DraftingSimulationDice Rolling

Overview

In Tiger Leader, you're in command of a German Kampfgruppe of tanks, armored cars, trucks, halftracks and supporting infantry. Your Kampfruppe may also be assigned air support and heavy weapons support in order to achieve your goals. Your goals are to take your objectives while trying to keep as many of your men alive as possible during realistic tactical missions.

Tiger Leader features nine historical campaigns that can be played as individual campaigns or linked to form one huge mega-campaign that follows your troops from the Invasion of Poland to the final battles on the Eastern and Western fronts. The scheduled campaigns include:

The Invasion of Poland 1939 The Battle for France 1940 The Battle for North Africa 1941 The Invasion of Russia 1941 The Battle for North Africa 1942 The Fight for Italy 1943 The Fight for Russia 1943 The Days of D-Day 1944 The Final Days in Berlin 1945

A major part of the game is mission planning. You decide which vehicles and infantry units to use and which commanders are best for the mission. Vehicle and infantry commanders are rated for skill level and even personality quirks such as how well they keep their heads while under fire. Deciding which commanders are used for each mission is a major consideration. Your units will become fatigued with every mission. If you push a commander and his men too hard, his skills will degrade. Your commanders and their crew also gain experience with every mission. This makes for some great decision-making. Should you keep fighting with your top commanders and crew and further fatigue them to get the job done, or let the new guys fight in order to prep them for the tough missions ahead?

Missions are quickly resolved using an area movement system to display tactical combat. Speed and realism take top priority in this game. Terrain cards randomly generate each battlefield. Double sided terrain tiles provide everything from cities and farmland to snow covered forests and hills to sand dunes and oases.

During combat, you get to resolve every fight with enemy tanks, infantry, anti-tank guns, and squads of infantry. Each enemy tank, truck, infantry, etc is represented by its own counter on the battlefield. A unique fog of war system adds to the tension of the combat as unless you have a clear line of site to the enemy, you may not know exactly what is coming out of the morning fog towards your tanks until it’s too late.

After combat, you can rest and refit your vehicles and infantry. As new technology becomes available, you can replace older obsolete tanks with newer and deadlier models such as the Tiger, Panther and even the deadly King Tiger! If you’ve played Hornet Leader, Phantom Leader or Thunderbolt/Apache Leader, you’ll make an easy transition into Tiger Leader.

We’ve included the cards for every commander to progress in experience from Newbie, to Green, Average, Skilled, Veteran, and Ace!