If a Command Failure occurs in the first turn, the Defender may use his Wild Dice to issue orders. After the Attacker has used a Dice Chain, the Defender may take the next Command Pulse and use his Wild Dice. The Defender can do so after the Attacker’s first Command Pulse, his second, third, fourth, etc. He is free to choose when he does so, but can only do so once. He must use all of his Wild Dice at this point or store them as Staff Orders.

Attacker Has No Dice Following a Command Failure

In the unlikely event that the Attacker rolls only 1s, he gives all of his Command Dice to the Defender. The Defender has one Command Pulse in which to use them, or he may store them as Staff Orders.

The second turn begins with Command Dice being rolled normally by the Attacker and Defender. If the Attacker doesn’t have a unit or Blind on the table he automatically gets the first Command Pulse. He must enter at least one unit or Blind onto the table. If he has a unit or Blind on the table then the first Command Pulse goes to the player who rolls the most 6s.

Second and Subsequent Turns

After the Attacker’s first turn the game proceeds as normal with the first Command Pulse going to the player who rolled the most 6s or the one who didn’t roll a Command Failure.

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Meeting Engagement

The Mission Briefings state which side has the first Command Pulse.

Meeting Engagement

In a Meeting Engagement both players roll their Command Dice with the player who rolls the most 6s having the first Command Pulse.

The Attacker Has the First Turn

In other missions, the Attacker has the first turn and the Defender doesn’t roll any Command Dice.

To determine how many Command Dice the Attacker has for the first turn, he rolls all of his Command Dice with a 4+ TN. He discards all dice which roll 3 or less. It doesn’t matter at this stage how many 1s or 6s he rolls.

The Attacker then takes the dice that scored 4+ and rolls them as his Command Dice. Any 1s matched by 6s are discarded. If the Attacker rolls a Command Failure, he gives the Defender the rolled 1s as Wild Dice. Unlike in other turns when he would automatically have the second Command Pulse, an Attacker who rolls a Command Failure has the first Command Pulse. If no Command Failure occurred, the Attacker continues to allocate Command Dice until he has none left and the turn ends. Dice must be allocated as Dice Chains – all dice in a Dice Chain must be used before another Chain can be selected.

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First Turn Command Failure

As tables and terrain pieces vary in size and shape, it’s really up to you how you set yours up. This section provides guidelines on one way to set up a table.

Terrain Pieces

As a rule of thumb any terrain piece larger than 12” (15cm if playing in the smaller scale) should be counted as two pieces when using the terrain density table.

Common terrain pieces include:

Hills
Woods
Fields
Walls
Hedges
Towns (1–3 buildings)

Terrain Density

What you’re trying to achieve by placing terrain pieces is create a table with a good mix of movement and cover. Try to avoid too many long lines of sight that allow tanks and guns to fire at long range. Placing hills, woods, towns, hedges, etc towards the centre of the table forces units to manoeuvre in order to fire. Cover also provides protection for infantry and is ideal for deploying Hidden Units.

When setting up the table, it’s useful to think of how dense the terrain would be in the actual war theatre. The steppes of the Ukraine are open, making long range battles highly likely, but shift the battle to the Normandy bocage and you’re looking at a lot of close range action.

If you think in terms of terrain density, you’ll find it easy to set up the table. Three levels of density can be used:

Open Terrain
Mixed Terrain
Dense Terrain

Open Terrain: Russian steppes, the western desert.

Mixed Terrain: Lorraine, Britany, or any terrain that doesn’t fit into open or dense terrain.

Dense Terrain: Normandy bocage, Stalingrad (or any city battle), alpine regions, Caucasus Mountains, Apennine Mountains.

Once you’ve an idea of terrain density, either select the amount of terrain you want or roll 1D on the table below to find out how many pieces to place:

For example, the game is set in Lorraine, which is classed as Mixed Terrain. Max rolls a 4 which results in six terrain pieces.

Placing Terrain Guidelines

Some players like to take it in turns to choose and place a piece of terrain before the game starts. Others like set up the table beforehand – one player sets up the table – the other chooses which side is his Friendly Table Edge. Any objectives can be placed after the players decide on table edges. Defences and bunkers can then be marked on a rough sketch map of the battlefield.

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Starting a Game

When playing in inches a good minimum table size of is 6’ x 4’. This is the size shown in the Mission Briefings. A larger table gives more room for manoeuvre but also increases the game time slightly. An 8’ x5’ table is the largest you’ll need for a two-player game. Unless you have very long arms, try to avoid a table that’s wider than 5’ – you need to be able to reach into the middle of the table.

If you are using 2mm, 6mm or 10mm figures on half-size bases with ranges in centimetres you can reduce the table size to a minimum of 3’ x 2’ (90cm x 60cm). A 4’ x 3’ would allow you to play two player games with plenty of room to manoeuvre.

The table size should be increased by half or doubled when playing with 28mm figures.

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Setting up the table

All of your battle group is available each battle. The mission briefings tell you what percentage of your force is available for initial deployment and what percentage enters later as Reserves.

Some missions state that you must deploy a fixed percentage of your battle group, such as 50%. Other missions give you a range of percentages that must be deployed such as 25–75%. If you deploy 50% of your battle group, then 50% are available as Reserves. If you deploy 25% then 75% are available as Reserves.

To work out how many units to deploy, take your total number of units and subtract your off-table artillery units. Then multiply the remainder by the percentage amount (rounding up).

For example, a battle group deploys 50% of its units. It has 18 units including two off-table artillery batteries. After deducting its two batteries it has 16 units. It must deploy eight units and keep eight units in Reserve.

If the same battle group was allowed to deploy 25–75% of its units, it could deploy from four to 12 units. If it deploys six units, then ten units are available as Reserves.

You are free to choose which units to deploy and which units to keep in Reserve. Generally, it’s best to deploy infantry and anti-tank guns, and use vehicles as Reserves. When using armoured forces you may want to deploy your reconnaissance and lighter vehicles, and keep your heavier vehicles in Reserve.

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The gaming table