Killing as the main objective for victory is what basically keeps the game balanced. The main problem with objective taking of positions is that it's much more impacted by the order cards in the game. Players will often get screwed out of claiming objectives because cards not letting them move their forces into position. The most common complaint against the game is not getting the cards to activate your desired sector, this is compounded in the games that do use location based objective. The kill X scenarios are more balanced in reality.
The point of kills being the main victory condition is that it allows a player to still win even if they don't get to move the forces on certain sides. You can just as easily play another sector card and score your kills elsewhere and still have a chance for victory.
Oh, I totally understand that. But we simply don't like the feel of that as an objective. We increased the hand count and adjusted, very slightly, some of the combat rules. So far, it's been fairly rare that anyone in my group has felt that the game was taken out of their hands due to the Command Cards drawn. In fact, only one game can I think of where we laughed about this. (The common "Ok dammit, you won...but look at THIS card I've been stuck with! And THIS one, and THIS one...!!) Generally, it's the really special Command Card (Air Strike, Artillery Bombardment) usages are what seems to make or break our games. Use 'em incorrectly or mistime their uses, you generally regret it later. My gf used an Air Strike card on some heavy defenses I had to the rear of my line (we have Capitals, where they hold a higher objective "value"). The rolls she pulled were ok. But she had wished instead of saving it for my surging Panzer divisions (naturally, I'm playing as the Axis) at the main front, where she could have slowed them down enough to bring her rear arty onto them. We're actually still playing that game now as she's currently crippled giving up 3 towns to me from the surge. I now have forces across nearly every stretch of the river. Here's a pic of what I can remember it looks like now:
Stars = My Towns Controlled (Objectives)
P = Panzer Unit
X = Her Air Strike early in game
* Old photo of building the scenario (Yes, there are 2 arty pieces instead of the 1 you see for each unit)
She has a fairly high concentration of infantry in her middle sector, keeping my forces on my side of the river. But I'm slowly flanking her with armor. She's even been forced to bring her arty off the hills, that generally guard her capital, so that they're in better range to defend the river.
Of course, this doesn't remotely tell the whole story. The rules WE have in place changes things up quite a bit and the map simple won't make sense if you're only considering the core rules. But one big thing is that I can "heal" my infantry units while they're in towns based on the number of total objectives I control. With this, I can maintain a "front line" of sorts by taking towns, which in turn allows me to push in forces from the rear a bit.
Sorry, I got carried away with my post a bit there, lol. I'll post and share my full house rules sometime in the future once we smooth them all out.
All in all, core or custom rules used: I really like M44. It's highly customizable/modular with TONS of expansions and cool unit pieces. It has a fairly simple combat system (with a beginner system so kids of certain ages can play) and it can be learned quite quickly. My gf doesn't generally care of war tabletop games. But she's really taking to M44. I gave up on A&A, thanks to this.
BTW, we need more pics of our games posted. MOAR!! ;-)
