Memoir '44 - alternative victory conditions

My version of alternative victory conditions for Memoir '44 by Richard Borg. Originally posted on boardgamegeek.com, where you can download it as a .pdf file.

I was always aware of this medal-completing victory system, simply because it became too fast, too random and sometimes you didn’t have a chance to bring all your units into play; well, okay, you had a chance but you didn’t need to do that! And that was my greatest concern of M’44. 

I have been watching Ricky Royal YT channel with a nice playthrough of this game and I’ve found that it might actually be a nice alternative to the original victory conditions. He didn’t say it himself, but I got an idea watching his performance. Here’s how it goes (check upon scenario no. 10, if I'm not mistaken, from the basic game)

Each unit (a hex, not a single miniature) has its own value:

INFANTRY – 1 point

ARMOR – 2 points

ARTILLERY – 3 points

At the beginning of the scenario each player counts its own units according to their values above.

Let’s have a look at the example.

The Axis player has 11 units – 10 INFANTRY and 1 ARTILLERY – that brings him to a total of 13 points.

The Allied player has 14 units – 10 INFANTRY and 4 ARMOR – that brings him to a total of 18 points.

Each player then uses this formula below to count the number of victory points he needs to get to win the game (of course, each player is regarded to use TOTAL value of his opponent!)

·         (TOTAL/2) + 1 = ?

So, in our example, The Allied Player counts:

his opponent’s TOTAL is 13

13 divided by 2 is 6,5 – fractions rounded up – so it is 7

7 + 1 gives us a total of 8 VP he needs to get to win this game

Now, those VP are NOT medals, as we know it from the basic game. Those VP total shows you the number of points from destroyed units you need to collect to win this game. So for an Allied Player it is crucial to try to attack an ARTILLERY just to collect 3 VP (the value of ARTILLERY), but if he does not manage to do that, since this unit is well protected, he needs to eliminate 8 INFANTRY units instead. It might happen, that by having 7VP you will destroy an ARTILLERY so it gives you a total of 10VP and that is of course a victory of yours as well, so those 8VP indicated at the beginning of the scenario is just a minimum to achieve victory.

There are also victory medals (Iron Cross and Medal of Honor), that might actually help you winning the game. In this case, the player who is NOT about to control those objectives in order to get victory points, is adding the number of medals on the board to his total. Each medal is worth 1 point.

Let’s say that in our example there were 2 Medal of Honor markers. So the Axis player (NOT Allied) is adding 2 to his total, so it would be 15 instead od 13 and a VP total for his opponent would raise up to 9VP. Those victory medals are actually pretty neat thing, just because it is the only option that any of players can actually loose one VP (or one medal in the basic game) he gathered before – but of course he can get it back, so that’s why it would be even more interesting.

The only thing you need to add to your M’44 collection would be a pen and a piece of paper just to write down the value of VP for both sides to achieve. And I think it is not a great disadvantage, is it?

CREDITS:

Game design & publishing: RICHARD BORG of DAYS OF WONDER

Alternative rules: MARCIN ‘TranceAtlantic’