How is Battle Command Ancient and Medieval different?

Battle Command (as a series) - as well as Field of Battle, have at their core the focus on key decisions, command and control, and friction on the battlefield.  That is handled by the use of a card sequence deck.  However, those decks, and the use of those decks is very different from Field of Battle compared to Battle Command.

In Field of Battle, each army's CiC rolls their command die (ranging from a D8 to a D12+1, the larger the better).  The difference in those rolls give the number of initiative points for each army.   Side A then turns cards and acts on them one at a time.  When they are done, Side B does the same from their sequence deck.  Sequence decks are 27 cards or so.

In Battle Command, the same CiC roll of determines who has the initiative, but everything else is different.  If you win the roll with an Even die roll, you get 2 initiative points.  If you win with an odd roll, you get 1 initiative points.  Each army's sequence deck is 9 cards.   However, the action cards (fire, move, melee, leadership) have a matrix of possibly different actions that you can select for your army depending on how well your CiC rolls when the action cards are turned.   This makes each card much much more likely to have value.  It forces decisions - what do I really want to do now?  What do I NEED to do now?  Additionally, you have the decision as the army commander of acting first or second with those initiative points.

Battle Command games are very heavy in command choices.  The rules are simple, but complete.  Complete does not equal complex.  There's only 1 page of reference tables that you need to play the games, and that's only on 1 side of a piece of paper.  

How fast is fast?  We played two development/playtest games of a Thirty Years War game yesterday.  Each army had 15 units.  The first game was 1 1/2 hours, the second game was 1 hour.

(This is from an earlier playtest of the Pike and Shot period rules)

Discussion of Battle Command Ancient and Medieval

 First of all - why the title "Battle Command Ancient and Medieval"?   That's not nearly as captivating a "Swooshing Blades of Death" or "Pikes and Javelins" or "King Tut to Edward IV".

Well.   I'm a Mechanical Engineer.  I prefer things to be well designed, clean, and smooth operating.   Flashy titles are....not my cup of tea.   "Battle Command" is the basic procedural skeleton of the series of rules that began a year ago with the publication of "Battle Command Musket to Rifle 1700-1900", continues with "Battle Command Ancient and Medieval", and will there will also be "Battle Command Pike and Shot" and "Battle Command WW2".  I much prefer a title of a set of wargame rules to just tell me what era is covered rather than make me try to guess what is covered.   I guess it is easy to guess that I'm not a fantasy gamer....

The basic impetus of creating the rules began a couple years ago when we had to reschedule our group's game day.  I had the troops set out (for a Peninsular war game) and the terrain set up, so I just went ahead and did a solo development play session - I just used 1/3 of the cards from Field of Battle, made up a matrix of decision combinations, and started to play.  My goal was to eliminate as much of the downtime as possible - those turns of a card where everybody just says "that's no use - can't use it".   Even in the first development game, it was clear that it was going to be a unique system and that it was also going to achieve my goal of reducing downtime and also providing games with a TON of decision points.

I'll add more in subsequent posts.   I'll end this with a few photos from some Battle Command games (both Musket to Rifle and Ancient and Medieval).

More to follow.....

New Game Released!

 I see that it has been almost 2 years since my last blog post!   Trust me, those years have been very busy, and one of the things that kept me busy was the creation, playtesting, and development of the new Ancient and Medieval rules, Battle Command Ancient and Medieval.    

https://www.piquetwargames.com/product-page/battle-command-ancients-to-medieval

Battle Command: Ancient and Medieval introduces a new feature to the ancient and medieval period – the Action Matrix. This is the heart of the game, and it presents the command decisions that players must make to best control and lead their forces. Leadership is at the core of determining the non-linear turn sequence and actions available to armies. Armies with a higher quality commanding general (CiC) will be more flexible and capable than armies with a lower quality commanding general. Decisions on which available action to use on each Action Card will depend on the battle circumstances. There will be times when the commanding leader is faced with evaluating the tactical situation facing his entire army but will be making an action decision that is focused on a single command group or even a single unit rather than the entire army. Utilizing the command options decisively and at the right time will be critical to victory.

Those familiar with the sequence card deck and primary/secondary card action process introduced in Battle Command: Musket to Rifle will note that the choices are more limited in Battle Command: Ancient and Medieval. This reflects the far less articulated command structures in the ancient and medieval period as compared to later periods.
 
Battle Command: Ancient and Medieval introduces the Action Matrix to ancient and medieval wargames. Initiative, sequence cards, and leadership quality are all used to determine the
non-linear turn sequence and actions available to armies.

Biblical era wars through the Wars of the Roses are covered.

You can purchase a coil bound rulebook or PDF of the rulebook via the link above.  There are also professionally printed card decks available via the website.   

The rulebook includes card sheets that can be copied to allow the creation of your card decks if you should so choose.  It's pretty easy - copy onto your choice of paper or cardstock and then slip into card sleeves.  For game development work I use a paper front and back card sheet cut into the individual cards, sandwiched around a standard playing card, all in a card sleeve.  The playing card gives a nice sturdy feel and the cards are pretty rugged if done this way.

There are a ton of battle reports and photos on the Piquet and Field of Battle Facebook page.  I'll also be uploading game images here moving forward.