Go full stealth mode in V-Commandos

Regular visitors to our site may already know that one of my favorite board games is a WWII game called Memoir ’44.

It’s a 2-player game where players go head-to-head in historic battles of WWII. It’s considered a light war game with simple mechanics of ordering units in different sections of a scenario-specific map and rolling dice to determine the outcome of each skirmish.

The game we’re reviewing today is also a WWII-themed board game – but it’s cooperative!

Instead of battling against each other, in V-Commandos players work together to take out enemy objectives in a WWII setting. Yet rather than relying on brute strength to take out enemies and objectives, this game hinges on stealth operations.

Let’s see if V-Commandos is a game that might strike your fancy.

 

How to play V-Commandos

In V-Commandos, 1 to 4 players take on the role of commando specialists who form a squad to go on different special operations. Players can choose to take part in single terrain games or dive into longer operations that involve multiple terrains that string together.

Rather than covering everything involved in playing the game, we’re going to give just a high-level perspective to give you a taste of the game play so you can decide if it’s a game you’d like to play.

 

Special Commando Roles

Each player gets a unique commando card and double-sided token to represent them in the game. Each commando has different skills they begin with and can acquire more items and abilities during game play. Open circles on the commando card show where additional item tokens can be carried.

Each commando also have various stages of health: Healthy, Injured, Critical Condition, and Eliminated.

When a commando is hit during combat, they place a -1 token on their card. This means that while injured, they perform less actions on their turn. If those spaces fill completely, the commando will be in Critical Condition and if not rescued by the end of the next game turn, they’re eliminated.

The good news is that if eliminated, the controlling player can renter play with a new commando on the next terrain (when playing a full operation).

 

Stealth

You know the game is all about Stealthy maneuvering when the first two pages of the rulebook go over concepts of stealth and alarm in the game before even diving into the rules for a game turn.

That’s because stealth is critical to surviving and winning the game.

That’s also why players are represented on the board with token rather than miniatures. One side of the commando token shows the commando in stealth mode while the other shows the commando is visible (using easy to understand icons).

Also, when alarms are triggered by becoming visible more enemy units will flood the terrain when it’s time for the enemy actions.

Things that can make a commando visible include using a loud weapon, moving into a large tile without using a stealthy action (costs more action points), failing a stealth check, or a spotted token is place on a tile with at least another enemy unit.

Players can turn off alarms and take actions that get them stealthy again with will have a big impact on the outcome.

 

Terrain and Operations

V-Commandos has a slick method for setting up a game. The game comes with 26 different Terrain cards that each outline a specific map and objective to successfully complete the terrain. If players want to play a short 30 minute game, they can simply pick one of the Terrain cards.

The Terrain card shows which terrain tiles are needed to construct the map which will include both outdoor and indoor sections. (The terrain tiles are double-side with outdoor artwork and indoor artwork on opposite sides.) And each terrain tile faint circles that show how many units can be on a tile at one time.

If players want to play longer games, they can select full operations that combine multiple Terrains. The Operation cards give background information as well as detailed descriptions of the overall objectives and operation-specific rules. They also show which different Terrains will be used in the operation. Players start by setting up the left-most Terrain/s and when complete, they move directly into setting up and playing the next Terrain/s to the right.

It’s a cool way to string together different mini-missions as a team.

 

Game Turns

A full game turn consists of 4 phases: Event, Commando, Enemy, End of Turn.

The first thing that happens on a game turn is that an Event card is revealed for each Terrain in play. The effects on the Event card are in play during this game turn. There’s a huge variety of different effects that players will need to adjust to. This also makes each game play out different even if playing a Terrain or Operations played before.

 

During the Commando phase, players can play in any order they’d like. We really like this part of the game!

Rather than just always going in the same turn order like in most cooperative board games, players can adjust their order based on the current game state. It really gives a great team/squad feel to the game.

Commandos can take many different actions such as moving, collecting or dropping equipment, entering trap doors, blowing up TNT charges, attacking, using equipment, stopping an alarm, or interacting with an objective. Some actions require action points and others can be done for free.

Since there will be many enemy units, it’s good to know how combat works. If a Commando is stealthy on a tile with an enemy unit, they can attack in Close Combat and it’s an automatic success. The enemy token is removed and a random equipment token is drawn from the bag and place in that space.

A Commando using a firearm can shoot at a declared target tile within range. The player rolls the number of dice indicated by white squares on the weapon chosen. For example, when using a Sten gun, the player will roll 2 dice. The minimum number to score a hit is indicated in the corner of the target tile. Each successful die roll causing a hit eliminates 1 enemy unit.

 

Commandos can also save actions for use on future turns.

During the Enemy phase, enemy reinforcements will first storm the area. They arrive on tiles next to the enemy trucks. Normally only 1 enemy unit will arrive. However, if an alarm is triggered, the truck tokens will be flipped to their orange side and 2 enemy units will pour out of each truck onto the adjacent tile.

Next enemy units will move toward the nearest visible commando or in the cardinal direction shown on the current Event card.

Lastly, the enemy units fire on visible commandos. Like with commando shooting, the number of dice rolled is equal to the total white squares shown on the enemy tokens of the squad on that tile. Hits are scored in the same way – based on the dice results of equal or higher number indicated on the tile the visible commando is on. Stealthy commandos can’t be targeted with dice rolls.

For the last phase in a game turn, players check to see if all the objectives for the Terrain are completed and at least 1 Commando got out alive. If so, the players have successfully completed that Terrain.

If the failure condition is reached, too bad for the commandos.

If neither of these conditions are yet met, a new game turn begins and play continues until either success or failure is achieved.

 

Can the whole family enjoy playing V-Commandos?

In many board games, the theme doesn’t have a big influence on the game itself. Often they seem to be tacked on. But the game play itself wouldn’t shout out the theme.

Such is not the case with V-Commandos.

In V-Commandos, the theme is paramount and is central to the game play. As such, the game won’t appeal to everyone in the family. That’s just the way it is for war-themed games.

However, for those who enjoy tactical maneuvering with a stealthy feel, V-Commandos hits the spot.

Our family really enjoys playing cooperative board games. However, even with that being the case, V-Commandos only appeals to a select few in our family.

A couple other factors to consider are the complexity and length.

While the basic flow of play is very straightforward, there are many things to remember when playing out operations. It’s not that they aren’t easily remembered with frequent plays, but the game will definitely keep you thinking about all options as you work to accomplish your goals.

As far as the length of the game goes, players have complete control over that. If players want a shorter game, they can just play out one of the 26 different Terrains. If they want something longer and more involved, they can play through an operation.

The cool thing about that is the Operation cards themselves indicated an estimated time to complete the operation. So if you want to play for 3 hours, pick an Operation with that estimated time and have at it.

With that many single Terrains and various Operations to play, the replay value is huge.

 

How does V-Commandos score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

If we exclude those in our family who aren’t interested in playing V-Commandos in the first place, our “let’s play again” game meter gets a solid score.

Every game feels like a puzzle to solve. You know your objective, you see where the enemies begin, where they’ll reinforce troops, and where the alarms are. So it all comes down to working well together as a team to move stealthily into position, take out the enemies, grab supplies, accomplish your mission and get out.

Yet there’s more to the game than just figuring out a puzzle. And that’s because there are still dice involved. And the dice rolls will determine who gets hit and what happens next. So you’ll also have to adjust your thinking on the fly and make the most of what’s left to accomplish.

And those elements will bring us back to playing V-Commandos again and again.

We’d like to thank Triton Noir for a review copy of V-Commandos.