Command cards over the Battlefield
BattleLore combines various elements and aspects of cards, miniatures and board games, using some simple card-driven mechanics to activate the warring factions.
The Battlefield
A game session is built around a carefully crafted Adventure which depicts a Battlefield, divided in three distinct Sections, respectively forming a Left Wing, Center and Right Wing for each Camp.
At the start of each game session, you use the chosen adventure’s Battle map to deploy your troops and lay out the terrain over which the game will be fought.
A Battle map
Once set-up, the game is played over a number of successive game turns, taken by the players alternately. During each turn, the forces under a player’s control are ordered into Movement and Battle with the play of a Command card.
There are two types of Command cards:
The Section cards…
The Section cards are recognizable by their iconic representation of the battlefield on the lower half of the card.
Examples of a Section card
They are used to order a set number of units from the sections highlighted on the card.
… and the Tactic cards
Two Tactic cards
The Tactic cards usually feature an illustration, and an explicit description of the number and type of units that can be ordered by the play of the card.
Other Languages:
September 21st, 2006 at 3:25 pm
Well, this is obviously the part, that reminds Mem44, althogh there are some new texts on the cards. Question: Does the crown in the upper right corner have any meaning (cards of the main game and the cards of the expansion come with another logo?)
What’s the meaning of the crossed arrowsin the 4th card
But looks interetsing gotta stay cool
September 21st, 2006 at 4:28 pm
The Crown is there to remind you that these cards are your Command cards, ie the cards linked to your Commander in the War Council. The crossed arrows are there to remind you this only applies to Ranged attacks (ie attacks that are not on an adjacent hex, ie the opposite of Melee or Point Blank fire).
These symbols will all become clearer once we start talking about the Lore cards and the War Council.
September 21st, 2006 at 4:30 pm
I believe that the crown means it’s a command card… but I could be mistaken. Also, it seems they meant to show two tactics cards (caption states two) and only one made the cut.
September 21st, 2006 at 4:37 pm
It looks like the center is squeezed a bit more than M’44.
Eric, thatks for the new info. It lloks good.
September 21st, 2006 at 4:44 pm
Ok, so how is thing going to be different from M’44? It looks like the same game with different minis. Let’s here about the war council stuff.
September 21st, 2006 at 5:51 pm
So far I see a mix of M’44 and C&CA. The War Council and the Lore system is really where the differences wil be.
Plus, the Epic scale battles will be fought on a square type board, rather than the M’44 Overloard sceanrios on the really long board.
Eric, any chance M’44 will see a similar type of “Epic” board for sceanrios?
September 21st, 2006 at 7:06 pm
The center has been squeezed by 1 whole hex while the “wings” grew by half a hex. The cards are much more repesentative of Ancients then M44 though, as I somewhat expected. Darken the sky, move all blue units.
Interesting to see that the Crwon represents Command and is tied into the War council. This now matches the crwon symbol on the outpost hex. So now we see that also ties into the game somehow.
Id the outpost with a crown your HQ? Is that were the Council resides? Or does holding the outpost give you one more command card for the turns that you occupy it? Would make sense that seeing farther gives you greater flexibility at command.
September 21st, 2006 at 8:50 pm
I am looking forward to the lore cards to see how they will play.
Will the characters such as the hill giant only be able to move using the section cards?
When will we be able to pre-order on the Day’s of Wonder website? If we pre-order there, will we get the hill giant? Any pictures of the hill giant available?
September 21st, 2006 at 9:15 pm
Seems to me that the Tactic-Cards are made for mass combat - more than the cards in Mem44 (where there’s no card: activate all the tanks etc.)
It’s an option I like - this would give a completely different ‘feeling’ compared to Mem44 - well, I’m looking forward for more infos and get my paint-brushes ready
September 21st, 2006 at 9:21 pm
Creatures (such as the Hill Giant) actually do have some unique movement capabilities (in addition to the Section cards stuff). We”ll get to it.
Pre-orders will go live on our web site sometime in the first half of October, I believe. And yes, there will be pictures posted too.
We will get into a lot of the “newer” stuff soon. But we cannot write this blog just for people already familiar with this type of game mechanics, so we do have to cover some of the basics first, though.
eric
September 21st, 2006 at 9:40 pm
Do I see memoir ‘44 with fantasy setting?
No shit Sherlock, I believe you indeed do!
Lame I say!
September 21st, 2006 at 10:05 pm
I’m very excited about this game and the artwork on the cards is great (but I can’t help noticing that the majority of the soldiers in the artwork are wielding their weapons in their left hands, as are most of the miniatures already shown on this blog). Just an observation…
September 21st, 2006 at 10:08 pm
Eric, I believe you have your first troll, above. It was only a matter of time…
(please feel free to delete this when you delete the above bait.)
Steve
September 21st, 2006 at 10:12 pm
Will Battlelore be playable or even purchasable at the Toy Fair in Essen ?
September 21st, 2006 at 10:15 pm
shadowTerp Says:
September 21st, 2006 at 4:30 pm
I believe that the crown means it’s a command card… but I could be mistaken. Also, it seems they meant to show two tactics cards (caption states two) and only one made the cut.
That’s weird…a second tactic card showed up in my rss reader (and I see is also shown on battleloremaster.com). I wonder why the Blue Banners card got pulled?
September 21st, 2006 at 10:16 pm
SteveB - I hope you’re not referring to my post? I’m just curious why most of the miniatures and artwork are showing left-handed warriors and bowmen? There hasn’t been a response yet from Eric apart from he’s said there are a mix of left and right-handed minis on his desk. If it’s just a case of artisic license I can accept that. A small issue like this is not going to affect the play of the game at all. I’m a big fan of all of the C&C line and I look forward to this version and have already pre-ordered.
September 21st, 2006 at 10:32 pm
Ozvortex, I think that your sculpter had to play a major role in the left-handed thing (obviously). I wonder if they made the decision, or if is one of the easter eggs that Eric mentioned on the Geek podcast. Eric, can you clarify this little issue so we can focus on the other parts of the game?
Also Ozvortex, I think the trolling post Steve B is refering to is from Ehh?.
Tech7, I think that demos of Battle Lore will be available at Essen, but you will not be a ble to purchase the game there. If you (or someone else) goes to Essen and plays the game, you will have to let us know how it plays!
Finally, I see the Blue Banners card on my screen. Still looking forward to more on the lore system.
September 21st, 2006 at 11:04 pm
Ozvortex…sorry ’bout that, I was referring to “Ehh?”, which was the most recent post when I started typing. You leap-frogged ahead while I was typing.
I do agree with you and others that the preponderance of left-handed figures is strange. Not strange enough to detract from my enjoyment of the game, just one of those ‘things that make you go “hmmm”‘
September 21st, 2006 at 11:55 pm
fanaka66 says:
There are 4 cards shown on this post from the beginning (2 of each category)
Maybe your browser didn’t load one of them on your first attempt…
September 22nd, 2006 at 1:57 am
Nope, no easter eggs in the minis. It is purely an artistic license, nothing else…
September 22nd, 2006 at 3:44 am
Eric, thanks for the answer.
Just because I am curious, are the folks who did the minis and the art left handed?
September 22nd, 2006 at 4:51 am
Just a minute, those guys in the Blue Banners card are bow-legged! Is the artist bow-legged?
September 22nd, 2006 at 10:22 am
I really like the overall artwork of the cards. In Memoir ‘44 the cards are black-bordered, and as such, wear from use (like shuffling) is easier to see. Are the cards in BattleLore white-bordered?
September 22nd, 2006 at 11:48 am
Eric, is there any reason that the wings have got half a hex wider, and the center has been narrowed down by a hex? It looks like a less even distribution that the breaks in M44, and that seems a bit strange to me (it would make center section cards less useful, I would have thought.)
September 22nd, 2006 at 12:30 pm
IIRC the same thing is applied to C&C:Ancients, just to show the importance of the flanks on hand to hand battles of ancient times. Propably is the same for Battlelore. After all, you want space for your knights to charge into the fray.
(Please block my IP or something. I am addicted to this blog and i cannot stop….)
September 22nd, 2006 at 12:31 pm
..and sorry to answer a question that it was not directed to me.
I hope nobody was offended.
Cheers.
September 22nd, 2006 at 3:37 pm
This game looks really interesting. I have not played many board strategy games (I used to play Warhammer often). Is this game going to be easy to learn and play or is it complex? What age range is it for? Also, how long does a game take to play?
Thanks.
September 23rd, 2006 at 1:51 am
A typical Lore adventure (ie one fantasy game session) will take about an hour. Learning the basics will be simple, and should be accessible to a 10 year old (that reads well, that is, and is interested in the subject). learning it all and realizing all the implications of some of these things will take a bit longer, as it should ;-).