Memoir ’44 week for D-Day Commemoration

Memoir '44 board game — Here’s to those who sacrificed all.

This past week I’ve played a lot of Memoir ’44.

And I’ve loved every minute of it!

Those that are familiar with our reviews will know Memoir ’44 is one of my favorite board games. And it’s my most-played 2-player board game.

It’s still strange to think that it would be such a hit with me because I never considered that I’d enjoy playing a “war game”.

However, Memoir ’44 doesn’t fall into the same category as other well know war games like Axis and Allies. It’s a lighter game with a great balance of strategy and luck that make for some very tense and fun games.

Since I first played Memoir ’44 with my buddies, we’ve held an annual D-Day Commemoration game night around June 6.

I always look forward to it and have yet to be disappointed.

Last year we played the Overlord version of the game — where you split into teams to go head-to-head. It basically turns the 2-player game into a 4 vs 4 game on a much larger battle map.

This year, we decided to mix it up again.

Instead of going with Overlord, we set up multiple 2-player games for a bunch of head-to-head matches and switched around battling against different opponents.

The only catch in doing games this way is that you need multiple copies.

The good news is that amongst our group, we have multiple copies (because those I introduce it to have a tendency to go buy their own copies as well).

And after this last game night, I have a hunch that 2 more families will soon have a copy of Memoir ’44 on their game shelves.

This year we had 11 guys for our D-Day Commemoration Game Night with June 6, 1944 scenarios in play.

Everyone had a great time and I’m already looking forward to next year.

Memoir ’44 Campaign

But that game night wasn’t the only night of Memoir ’44 for me this past week.

The weekend before, Caleb and I dove into a Memoir ’44 campaign using Campaign Book #1. He hadn’t played a campaign before, so I was happy to introduce it to him.

Of course after he beat me in the campaign, I wonder if I had taught him too well…

Campaign mode adds a cool twist to regular Memoir ’44 games. Instead of just playing independent scenarios, a Campaign is a series of scenarios that are played one after the other. And the outcomes of one scenario will have an impact on the subsequent scenario — building up to even more engaging final battles.

I thought I was off to a great start winning the first scenario. But Caleb came storming back in the next scenario for a close win.

The particular campaign we were playing had 4 scenarios as part of the campaign. But if Caleb were to win the 3rd scenario by more than 2 medals, that would be the last battle. And sure enough, he took me out hard with very luck dice-rolling to end the campaign with a resounding victory.

(He was much easier to beat when he was younger and would just rush all his troops forward. He’s definitely learned more strategy over the years.)

Battlelore-Memoir ’44

After our campaign, Caleb started talking about wanting to create his own battle scenario.

During our discussion, I told him about how the 2nd edition of Battlelore handles setting up a game.

In Battlelore 2nd edition, each player gets to choose which units to deploy and where to deploy them on the board. Each type of unit has a set value and players has a set amount to spend when deploying units. Thus, players must choose carefully between which type of units and how many of each to deploy.

With that in mind, Caleb decided to set up a Memoir ’44 scenario using the Battlelore deployment mechanism.

So he set up his own creation of a battle map with hills, forests, and cities and then placed pieces of paper on the hexes where units could be deployed. Then he assigned a value to the infantry, armor, and artillery units and said we had 54 points to spend in deploying out units.

Since he also enjoyed the victory and reserve rolls used in a campaign, he added that element to our game as well.