Memoir ’44 – Showcase and Quick Review

Memoir ’44 by Days of Wonder is a great boardgame that I hold close to my heart. The reason it is close to my heart is because it is like a miniatures game, but super easy to get non-miniatures players to play. Whether a person plays just board-games or no games at all, most people are willing to give this game a shot. The mechanics are simple enough that it is easy to teach, yet there is a good deal of strategy. Because it is so much fun, I bought a number of the expansions for the system. Below is a picture of my Memoir ’44 collection.

My Memoir ’44 collection… It consists of the Base Game, Terrain Pack, Pacific Theatre, Air Pack, Campaign Book 2, Breakthrough and the Winter/Desert Board.

How I Organized my Memoir 44 Core Box

Inside the core box are a bunch of tiles, cards, figures, terrain pieces, dice, a gaming board and a beautiful rule book. Days of Wonder really did a fantastic job on this rule book. I find it well written and easy to use. My background playing BattleLore (1st Edition) helps, but I have even had an 8 year-old playing this game without an issue.

A picture of the inside of the box.

The Plano case in the box did not come in the game. I bought it separately to keep my minis organized. Open the lid, and see that I painted absolutely every single game piece in this set. To do this, I spray painted them White with Krylon Fusion for Plastic, painted my colours onto the pieces, stained them with MinWax to provide shading and finished with a coat of Clear Krylon Varnish. The paint on these figures has held up well for years despite being carried around in a Plano box.

The Painted Memoir ’44 Miniatures

Open the box and see that I have painted every “mini” in the box.

These minis turned out great! All I did to them was a base coat followed by a stain wash. Fantastic!

And their backs.

My Tanks are not as impressive as the Infantry, but still look good.

The Game on the Tabletop

Sword Beach recreated using the Breakthrough Map, Terrain Pack and Base Set.

Another look at the game board for Sword Beach on D-Day. The British are landing with plenty of infantry, tanks and guns. The Germans are well dug in. Who will win? Perhaps that will be the subject of another gaming post.  🙂

How impressive is this? 40 painted infantry figures, 15 painted tanks and 4 painted guns storm the beach. This is one of the reasons that I love getting this game onto the table.

My Thoughts on the Game

The Expansions

Wrapping it up…

Update: December 2020

This post is now up on YouTube too. Check it out!!! In this post I even talk about how I painted my Memoir 44 Miniatures.