With the Desert War pretty much nailed, the next step was Normandy, then onto the open battlefields of Lorraine and the Russian Front. This testing was mainly about refining the rules. Infantry battles in the bocage were tense, bloody affairs, and the hidden movement rules worked as well here as in the desert. Tanks struggled to find long lines of fire and were vulnerable to infantry anti-tank weapons. The benefits of using combined arms was highlighted – if you supported your tanks with infantry and artillery, they became a lot less vulnerable.
Once out into open country, armoured vehicles again came into their own. The Reserve rules morphed into their current form. For one Command Dice or Staff Order, a Command Group can enter the table with a triple move or enter as a Blind (again with a triple move). The main difference is that Blinds can’t fire, but can continue to move rapidly on subsequent turns. With troops arriving from off-table, it became important to cover strategic locations with infantry and anti-tank guns. After capturing a building or other location, infantry reserves could be rapidly moved in from off-table to hold the area.
I started thinking about time in a tabletop game. By using Command Dice to issue orders, I’m effectively saying that each one is equivalent to a slice of time. If I have four Command Dice, I’ve got four time slices. If I have six Command dice, I have six time slices. Or 50% more time than with four. A Command Dice is my opportunity to act – a chance for me to direct my army. The more Command Dice I have, the more time I have to issue orders. Unfortunately, the more I have, the more time my opponent spends waiting for me to finish.
The concept of Dice Chains had been part of the initial design and are used to determine whether you could issue multiple move orders. As Command Dice represented time, could they be used to drive the turn sequence? Could players alternate using Dice Chains?
The first test went really well. The game had the interactivity I was after. Because both players roll their Command Dice at the same time, the first Command Pulse goes to the player who rolls the most 6s, or 5s, etc. He then gets to pick a Dice Chain. How he uses the Chain is up to him: he can issue single orders, multiple orders or restock his Staff Orders. Once he’s used a Dice Chain, it’s his opponent’s Command Pulse. Players continue alternating Command Pulses until all Command Dice have been used. You can coordinate attacks by selecting a large Dice Chain, and you can use Wild Dice to increase it, and you can increase it further by spending Staff Orders. Or you could just pass the initiative to your opponent after playing a single Dice Chain.
The turn sequence now had elements of cat and mouse play. When do you make your big move? Do you go all out and attack at the start of the turn, or do you whittle away at your opponent first? Command Pulses are variable: some are short with only one dice. Occasionally you get to play all of your dice in one go if you roll a lot of 6s or dice of the same number. If you roll a Command Failure, you give all your 1s to your opponent who now uses them as Wild Dice. It’s painful, but it’s not a game winner in itself; the game pulses backwards and forwards.
Opportunity fire dovetailed into the rules perfectly. When a unit fires it is marked with a fire marker that prevents it from firing again until next turn. Do you want to respond and fire now, or wait until your Command Pulse? Spoiler attacks become possible. You can blunt an opponent’s potential attack by targeting it before it begins: if he uses opportunity fire, he can’t fire again until next turn; if he decides to hold his fire, you might be able to suppress his units and force them back. As opportunity fire is effectively “free” any troops holding defensive positions don’t cost you any Command Dice. You can concentrate Command Dice for attacks, or convert them into Staff Orders for later use.
The disruption rules were changed to become suppression. A suppressed unit cannot fire. There is no need to reduce its firing ability. It’s also harder for it to make Reaction Checks. You can target a unit with the aim of suppressing it, then target it with another unit in the hopes of dispersing it.
Using cards threw up a number of problems. If I get a good run of cards – say three red cards in a row – I can pretty much cave in my opponent’s defences. Even with opportunity fire, I can still overwhelm him with sheer numbers. At first it’s exciting, particularly when followed by a joker and a reshuffle! But, when you’re on the losing side, it’s no fun. The easy answer was to restrict each player to one order each. I tried it. It was okay, but it was hard to coordinate an attack. Often you just reacted to your opponent’s last move. Using cards to activate part of your army, sort of worked, but you were still reacting to your card draw. Using dice was similar.
How about rolling dice to activate my Command Groups? It works, but I’m gambling that each time I issue an order, it’ll be successful. Again it’s difficult to coordinate an attack. At the start of your turn, you’d roll your Command Dice and discard any 1s. This worked fairly well, but needed something more. Now, unless you roll an equal number (or more) 6s as you have 1s, your turn ends immediately! Your opponent then has his turn – effectively giving him two turns in a row. Well, it was certainly dramatic!
I wanted to incorporate my video game design experience; interactivity is an essential part of any real-time video game. No one wants to spend half their time doing nothing when playing a video game, but in wargames, sure, why not? I’ve designed and produced real-time games in which the biggest challenge was how to manage the constant chaos created by the game. Once a real-time game kicks off, it develops a life of its own. Units battle it out, they break-off when damaged, rout back to their starting positions, or get destroyed.
Units generally get on with it without you. What you do is direct the action, not control it at a low level. You can jump in at any time to issue orders, rally your troops, send new units to the front lines, or grab whole swathes and send them somewhere else. You act as the army commander – giving orders, selecting priority targets, sending more troops to fight, trying to shape the battle, trying to win. If you want to make a cup of tea, you pause the game and come back as soon as you’ve poured it. You’re in control of the game’s speed.
