Games for Couples: Star Wars Battle of Hoth
Improve your relationship by playing games together! We take on the challenge of finding 2-player games that both men and women enjoy.
As any true fan of Star Wars will tell you, The Empire Strikes Back is definitely the best of the Stars Wars movies. And for a kid who was sitting in the theatre in 1980, seeing the giant AT-AT Walkers on the big screen as they approached the rebel base on Hoth was a seminal, iconic moment. So when Days of Wonder announced Battle of Hoth, the board game, I had to pinch myself to see if I was dreaming.
Not the least of the awesome wonderfulness of this development was that the game was based on Richard Borg's classic World War 2 wargame, Memoir '44. My wife and I consider Memoir '44 to be one of the all time greats among board games. We have literally played through all of the scenarios that span the course of the war (the ones in the scenario book, the expansions, the ones from online, fan-made extras) at least twice.
So digging into Star Wars Battle of Hoth was truly a treat for us, and here's our thoughts on the experience.
Such Cool Miniatures
When you open up Battle for Hoth, you can't help but geek out at the miniatures. The towering walkers, squadrons of snow speeders, defensive rebel gun emplacements, platoons of Imperial snowtroopers. I couldn't help but feel like that 10-year old kid setting up my Star Wars action figures for mock battles across my bedroom desk, making pew-pew sound effects with my mouth. The Battle for Hoth miniatures are really nicely detailed, and even the plastic boxes they give you to hold them are really high quality. "Impressive" you say, in your best Vader imitation.
Tight Map
As a veteran player of Memoir '44, I also noticed right away that the board was smaller. (The original is 13 hexes wide, while Hoth is 10.) I wasn't sure about this change at first, but after getting into the game play, you notice that it does make the battle tighter, perhaps a bit quicker., as it cuts some excess movement that is just getting into position.
The terrain hexes are added on top of the board to create all kinds of possible scenarios. Ridges, Rocks, Crevasses, and Trenches offer various forms of cover and obstacles to maneuver around, and tokens for the Shield Generators and Ion Cannon provide some cool objectives to target or protect.
Asymmetric Combat
A departure from the formulae in Memoir '44, where both the Allies and Axis have generally the same units, the Battle of Hoth is very asymmetrical. Imperial troops get 4 figures per unit while rebels only 3--meaning the Empire can absorb more losses and the rebels always feel outgunned, as they should. The AT-AT walkers lumber meanacingly across the battlefield very slowly, but they are so hard to take down. The rebels have no equivalent unit, but they do get the fast and hard-hitting snow speeders, with 3 movement and 4 battle dice at close range. The rebels also get Artillery emplacements with great range, but they are immobile. Rounding things out, the Empire fields Probe Droids who are weak in their attack, but hard to kill.
The asymmetric battle continues into the card deck, with both decks featuring Command cards that are unique to their side, like "Precision Fire" for the Imperial walkers and "Speeder Assault" for the rebels. Two other types of cards make the tactical choices even more interesting: Special Support cards give you very specific rare and powerful abilities, and you can sometimes add Leaders to your deck, getting 3 unique cards that match the leadership style you choose. You can pit Vader's ruthlessness against Leia, Luke, or even Han Solo, or the Imperials can go with their Fleet Admiral or the General of their ground forces. These combos, along with the scenario details, make for a lot of variability.
Linked Campaign Missions
In addition to the book of scenarios, the game also comes with 2 branching campaigns. The Rebel and Imperial player get separate booklets that show scenario setups for your side, contain little bits of thematic description to read, and even have secret objectives. The next scenario you play depends on who wins this one, and if you achieve a decisive victory, you gain a bonus in the next, like an extra unit to place on the battlefield. The experience is pretty immersive and you can replay the campaigns to see different engagements and outcomes.
Keeping It Light
Like its predecessor Memoir '44, Battle of Hoth is medium to light as war games go. But there, I think, lies its genius and appeal. The system is not too complex. Casualties is easily tracked by the number of figures in a unit, the dice use clear symbology to show hits and have a built in progression of toughness to the units, so that standard troops die easily, Snowspeeders are in tougher, but on the other end, AT-ATs can be truly hard to take down. The retreat results on the dice mimic a simple morale system so troops sometimes break and rout. The game mechanics provided enough tactical complexity to keep me interested, while not overwhelming my wife with the minutiae that some wargames get into. The battles are cinematic, back and forth affairs that we both like.
That's not to say there is not something given up by the simplicity of the system. All games are in some ways abstractions that reduce complexity, but this means they also reduce realism. An example of that in Hoth is the snow speeders inability to fly over friendly units. This sort of makes sense with the tanks and infantry in Memoir '44, but it's pretty weird that my sci-fi aircraft have to go way around my own ground troops to approach the enemy. But hey, if such things bother you, you can always apply some judicious house rules.
Conclusions
If you are at all into the Command and Colors or Memoir '44 war games, definitely pull the trigger on Hoth. The miniatures alone are worth it. And if you just want an accessible war game your wife or teenage kids will play with you, this is the one that ticks all the boxes. Cool minis. Iconic theme. Great replayability.
Memoir '44 Game Garage
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