Battle Command obtained

Battle Command by Brent Oman from the Piquet stable of rules just published and I purchased the Pdf version ($25 so roughly £22), not a big fan of Pdf (fine for reading less so for use during a game without printing out) but with all printed set costs nowadays being high ($45 for ules additional $8 for small card deck and goodness knows what in postage) I decided to go with Pdf.  

Quick read through reveals that the core move/firing/combat systems are essentially that of FOB3 with a few minor tweaks here and there (new optional Pursuit rules, new Evade process and some changes to dice ups and downs - UP 2 for firing/melee reduced).

The big change (and what author touts as making it a new game system) is the Initiative and Card Decks. 

A deck for each side now consists of a mere 8 cards each (optional 9th Event card) and only a maximum of 2 Initiative per player !

This is certainly a change from Initiative ranging from 1 - 11 in FOB and 27 card deck.

However cards now allow (based on Commanders roll) more options for actions/choices with Secondary Actions using an Action Matrix for each card type.

This looks very interesting and in theory more dynamic than FOB (which I already thought was very slick) with lots of decisions to make. It may however be a tad harder to teach than FOB with its more 'hard-wired' options per card.

Hope to get a game up and running with BC soon as.

The Action Matrix (which is included on each period specific QRS)

Peter 'Gonsalvo' Anderson has done a nice AAR using rules and his outlining of new Action Cards is worth repeating (ie blatantly plagiarizing), but see more at his excellent Blog:

https://blundersonthedanube.blogspot.com/2023/01/battle-of-ocana-1809-with-battle.html

Speaking of Decks (and Turns), that's the first major area where Battle Command differs from Field of Battle. The entire deck for each side now consists of only eight (sometimes nine) cards. There are 5 Action cards, namely ARTILLERY FIRE, INFANTRY FIRE, LEADERSHIP, MELEE, and MOVE,, 1 Modifier card, TACTICAL ASVANTAGE, and 2 or 3 Trigger cards, namely LULL, ARMY MORALE, and sometimes, a SPECIAL EV ENT (9th) card. 

The possibilities for the Special Event card are almost unlimited, but the rules lists many possibilities. Special Events defined in the rules include (uncontrolled) Advance, (low on) Ammunition, Cowardly Retreat, Fanatic Action (often used for speedy Native advances in colonial era games),  Frenzied Charge (likewise), Ragged Fire, Rash Advance, Reinforcements Arrive, Resolve (a sort of Morale test within a certain distance of the enemy determined by the enemy Defense Die type - I could see this being really useful for future Ancient, medieval, and/or Renaissance variants, or applied to, say the French Old Guard infantry), Sneaky Heathens (move for Natives, placed in the European's deck!), Sniper (target enemy leaders except the C-in-C; we used this card in a classic Piquet American Revolution game years ago), Timid Advance, and Wild Card. Although not included, weather eventas would be another obvious use - the snow at Friedland, the thunderstorm at Znaim, the ground drying out at Waterloo, etc. 

It is interesting that Jared and I had had a discussion some time along these lines, i.e. breaking up the sequence deck into 3 sub decks to slightly lessen the potential asymmetry, should, say, all of a sides MOVE cards be at the bottom of a 20+ card deck. It certainly makes setting up the deck at the start of a game easy-peasy! Custom cards for Battlefield Command will be available (and you'll see below why you might want them), but really, you can do perfectly fine using the cards from any previous edition of Field of Battle. Color images are provided in the rules for printing your own cards, which would be easy enough as well!

Obviously, with a deck of only 8 cards, rolling the opposing C-in-C Leadership dice and applying the difference would be even more radical, so Battle Command (? BatCom for short) uses a new system. The enemy C-in-C's still roll their opposing Leadership dice and compare the results, but they are interpreted differently:

1) if the rolls are TIED, the decks are immediately shuffled, and any unused TACTICAL ADVANTAGE card is lost back into the deck; this happened twice in our game!

2) If the winning die roll is ODD, then both sides get one card; the winning side choses whether to act first or second.

3) if the winning die roll is EVEN, then both sides get two cards, with the winning side once again choosing whether to act first or second with both cards. 

When an Action card is turned, both sides roll the Leadership Die of their C-in-C, in this case a D12 for Soult vs. a D8 for Aréizaga. The result is compared to a Matrix included on the QRS (and the BatCom specific cards):

A) If the side with the initiative rolls a ONE, then the card is applied to all commands in the Army, with no options, essentially as per standard Field of Battle.

B) If the side with the initiative loses or ties, but does not roll a one, then the entire army may act on the card as usual, OR just ONE command can chose the one listed alternative, which varies by card, and the rest of the army will do nothing. 

C) If the side with the initiative wins the roll by 1 or two, they will again have the primary action shown on the card, plus the same alternate action as the above. Win by 3 to 5, and their will be two available secondary actions. Should the side with the initiative win by 6 or more, then there will be three secondary actions available. 

Finally, in case C) only, if the winning die roll is ODD, the side must chose the primary or one of the available secondary actions, and apply it to ALL of the commands in the Army. If, on the other hand, the winning roll is EVEN, then each command in the army may choose and act upon any of the available actions, and each command can choose their own option. Obviously, if you have ever played Field of Battle,  the option of such a choice can be huge! However, each command can still only perform ONE of the available actions per card regardless.