Stats:
No. of players: 1
Amount of time to play: 30-60 min per battle
Age requirements: 12+
Set-up time: 15 min (if you have not assembled your squad)

Tiger Leader puts you in charge of a battalion of German tanks, infantry and artillery during WWII. You must choose your units and defeat the allied opposition.

Tiger Leader Rules Description:

Tiger Leader has similar rules to the other board games in the Leaders series. You choose a campaign and objective then build a squad to defeat allied troops.

Campaigns take place over three or four weeks. Each week you pick a certain number of enemy battalions to attack. And each of your units may participate in one attack per week. Before each week starts you draw a special condition card. Some of these are helpful and some make the fight harder for you.

You build your squads by purchasing tanks, infantry or artillery units with Special Option (SO) points. You are assigned a certain number of SO points based on the campaign you play. The campaign also informs you which levels of commanders you can add to the squad. You should have one commander for each tank, infantry and artillery unit purchased. Different commanders grant you different bonuses and might have a special ability.

Each battle lasts five turns and each battle starts and ends with an event. After reading and resolving an event card you place you units on the hex map. Next you place the enemy battalion units based on die rolls.

A turn is split into three phases, fast, enemy and slow. Your units take actions during the fast or slow phase based on their commander. And in between those phases the enemy acts. Some commanders or units grant you tactic points. You spend these to act twice in one round during the phase that your unit doesn’t normally act in.

Enemy actions are determined by rolling a d10. Generally speaking, the higher the roll the more aggressive the enemies’ actions. Each type of enemy unit act differently based on the roll. For example tanks might advance while riflemen look for cover.

Attacks are resolved by checking range and line of sight and then rolling higher than the attacking unit’s attack value. You also subtract the defender’s defense stat from the roll and one or two more for light or heavy cover. Commanders may also give you a positive or negative modifier to the roll. You also get extra die rolls for advancing on the enemy or if you are in the same hex as your target.

If you hit an enemy it is destroyed. You score Victory Points (VPs) and gain experience by destroying a certain number of enemy units in a battalion.

If you’re unit is hit you draw a hit counter from a cup or bag. One side of the counter is used for infantry and the other is for vehicles. The counters can cause immediate or ongoing penalties to your units or even destroy them or kill your commanders. Commanders can also gain stress tokens which after a certain number makes them unfit to fight.

Once you have fought for five turns the battle is over. You resolve another event card then your unassigned units may attack another enemy battalion. After all your units have participated in one fight the week is over.

Each week you gain SO points to repair or upgrade vehicles or replace units and commanders. At this point you may also promote any commanders that earned enough XP.

After the three or four weeks are over the campaign ends. You check your objective card and see how your VP total stacks up.

A Quick Review of Tiger Leader:

Tiger Leader is a fairly abstracted game of WWII tank warfare. It plays pretty quickly but can be tough and repetitive. Like in the other Leader games managing SOs is fun and important.

The components for this game are hit and miss. The cards and chits are nice and the art is decent, but the hex tiles are just ok. The rules are pretty good but you might need to google to find some answers to grey areas.

The commanders are cool and leveling them between weeks is a lot of fun. You get to see them grow and change and get attached to them. But it can be frustrating to lose a commander you took a lot of time to level up.

The AI is decent and can actually act pretty wisely. But I don’t like that an infantry unit has a chance to defeat a tank from up to two or three hexes away.

This game just feels too harsh, random and repetitive. I heard there is an upgrade pack that has revised rules. They should really help as in its current state Tiger Leader is a bit of a slog. I played a few games but never quite enjoyed it as much as I wanted to.

I would have to say all in all Tiger Leader is a fine board game. But of all the games in the Leader series it is my least favorite. Thunderbolt Apache Leader and Phantom Leader are just a lot better. So even though it is fine in its own right, I’d buy another in the series before picking up this. Maybe the system is better for aerial combat. If you really enjoy tanks you might want to give this game a try or wait for the update kit.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 4 out of 6
Luck 5 out of 6
Player Interaction N/A
Replay Value 4 out of 6
Complexity 3 out of 6
Fun 4 out of 6
Overall 4 out of 6 (this might change with the update kit)